Tag Archives: Teamwork

Health Week

May 16, 2016 Gayle Santi

This week has been slightly different at Calderwood Lodge, as it has been Health Week!

As part of Health Week, everyone has to come dressed in their P.E. kit to school, which we all loved.

On the first day of Health Week for Primary 7, we were initially meant to have volleyball. However, the volleyball people had to cancel, so we were set a challenge that involved maths and health. We had to run around the perimeter of our back pitch – which Archie measured for us and told us that it was 25m – as many times as possible and then work out the overall distance we would have ran. Our next task was to work out where that distance would take us to if we left from Calderwood Lodge. Luckily, Primary 6 joined us in the challenge and we all completed many laps, scoring high numbers in the end.

On Tuesday, Steven Morris, who is a British Karate Champion in 1985, came into our school to teach Primary 6 and Primary 7 the rules and moves in Karate. We were taught many positions and what to say in a Karate match. As soon as we felt confident enough, Steven paired us up and put us to the test. We attempted to catch our opponents’ hair and push pressure points to stop them holding onto you.

On Wednesday, our campus police officer, PC David Cunningham came to talk to us about internet safety and cyber bullying. We discussed realistic scenarios which could occur just through social media. After that, a professional fitness trainer who works at Nuffield Health, greeted us in the gym hall with some circuits. When lunch was over, a man from Scottish SPCA (Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) came into Primary 7 to talk to us about the SSPCA and what they do. He showed us animals which they had saved and wild animals and pets.
Health Week has been very interesting and fun. Hopefully we get to all do this next year in High School.

By Freddie Hyman

Health and Wellbeing, Literacy and English, Sciences

Science Experiments in Primary 7

April 6, 2016 Gayle Santi

A few weeks ago, we started our new Science topic, all about Microorganisms. We have been learning that microorganisms can only be seen with a microscope and that they are absolutely everywhere! Some of these, like yeast, are useful to us and many are not. Some are harmful and disease causing, like bacteria. So in Primary 7, we have been learning about the bad ones and how to avoid spreading them.

Microorganisms that cause diseases are often called germs. Some diseases, like chickenpox, are caused by viruses. Diseases caused by viruses usually spread easily from one person to another. We learned about uncooked foods (especially meat) and how they can contain bacteria. We kill the bacteria when we cook the food properly. But if you eat food that has not been cooked properly, the bacteria may survive and make you quite unwell. Bacteria left in your mouth by not brushing your teeth properly can cause a tooth infection which we learned about when we had our dental checks.

We decided we would carry out our own experiment all about mould and different foods. We split into 4 science teams and created our experiment to test milk, cheese, bread and banana. We chose our own packaging and containers. We chose our own location and we were in charge of all of our own monitoring and recording.

We are half way through our experiment and we have been really interested to see the changes that are occurring and why. We have been making graphs about the mould development and we have been comparing and discussing with the other groups.

We’ll let you know our results when it’s all over. We certainly won’t be eating the samples come the end of the experiment.

Fiaqa and Mrs Santi
Along with the rest of the Primary 7 pupils.

-My Achievements, Health and Wellbeing

Tennis in Primary 7

March 30, 2016 Gayle Santi

New topic in P.E

Tennis

In P.E we have started our new topic, Tennis. In tennis, for the last couple of weeks, we have been practicing forehand, backhand and serving. Luckily for our class, tennis coaches came in and gave us lots of tips at the start of our session. They taught us how to hold the racket and how to swing the properly. Everyone enjoyed the coaches coming in because it then helped them in our P.E lessons afterwards.

At the start, we were practicing running and walking around the hall balancing the ball on your racket while Mrs Santi gave different instructions we had to follow at the same time. This was definitely harder than it sounds. We learned about the stance we would need, where you stand on the balls of your feet and take tiny steps up and down.

We have been working with partners and having to hit the ball to them and they have to catch it. From the beginning of the block we have improved a lot in hitting the ball, catching the ball and throwing the ball. This has all hopefully helped with our hand/eye coordination. A lot of people now practice at home throwing a ball at a wall and then catching it with one or two hands.

In serving, we have gone with a partner and served the ball to them and they have to catch it. We have also been practicing the way we hit the ball and working on our precision and aim.

We have also learnt about rally’s, a rally is when you go with someone and hit the ball back and forth for as long as you can. Lilah Cowen was a big fan, “I believe that the tennis lessons have improved our skills”.

Look out for us at Wimbledon one day!

Rachel Jacobs

Calderwood Book Fair

March 30, 2016 Gayle Santi

Last week, Primary 7 helped to host Calderwood’s annual Book Fair.

Every day, some Primary 7 pupils would help to sell books to each of the younger stages.

On the first day, the book fair was packed! We were very happy to see lots of children thrilled about getting and reading new books.

Personally, I found it quite enjoyable to sell the books while my other friends were helping out as well.

On Parent’s Evening, a few primary 7’s volunteered to help out at the book fair so that any pupils that were there with their parents, still had the chance to buy some books.

As time went by, we realised that we had sold lots of books and plenty of stationary. Mr Robson was extremely happy that the younger pupils were enthusiastic about the Fair again.

Mr Robson and all of Primary 7 were incredibly amazed that we were able to raise over £500! We were delighted.

Vaneeza Ali

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy and English, Numeracy and Mathematics, Technologies

Upper School Master Classes

March 22, 2016 Gayle Santi

The Primary Four, Five, Six and Seven classes have recently started Master Classes every Friday. Each one of the master classes will run for 4 weeks.

The classes consist of:

Film making
Sewing
Woodwork
Baking/cooking

Each class is led by one of the class teachers.

In Primary Seven, we have recently started Film Making with Mrs Santi. We have been given the challenge of creating a short film that will send a message to the viewers. This will then be shown to the rest of the school at one of our weekly assemblies.

We have completed projects like this in the past. Mrs Santi was able to show us some of the work from the project we did a few years ago, when we were all in Primary 3. One of the most helpful tips we picked up on was the importance of impact. We realised that sometimes the use of dialogue in a short film can take away from the message that the group are trying to share.

We chose groups to create our films with and with those groups we had to come up with a team name and a message for our film.

We then had to plan out where the scenes would be shot and what props would be needed. We carried this out in a similar way as we had [previously done in our writing lessons for Script-Writing.

Now we have completed practice scenes and watched them back to see would we could add in or take out, to help make our short film even better. The groups have also discussed if their short film will look realistic and if the characters are easy to play.

Overall the film making work shop will not only help with filming and editing skills, it will also help improve our dramatic acting skills too!

We have loved the Master Classes so far and look forward to trying the other ones. We have heard that the Primary Six class have been learning to sew and have been using their new skills to help them make things like puppets.

In Primary Five, they are learning about woodwork and have been using their new skills to make bird houses. This sounded really interesting. First of all they planned out the design and structure of their bird house and then cut their wood to be a fitting size, they are soon to move on to actually building their bird houses.

Finally, in Primary Four, they have been learning about cooking and baking skills. So far they have made savoury things like cheese scones and pizzas. Then they have also made sweet things, like flapjacks. I am extremely excited to learn all these new skills that I have never tried before.

By Madeline Friel

-My Achievements, Literacy and English, Numeracy and Mathematics

Problem Solving in Primary 7

March 22, 2016 Gayle Santi

Primary Seven’s Problem Solving

In Primary Seven we decided that we would like to update our Numeracy and Mathematics wall with a brand new Problem Solving display.

We didn’t take this challenge on lightly. We each came up with some challenging problems for our classmates to solve. Some questions involved acting out the situation and others involved some difficult calculations. They all involved a lot of brainpower. We made sure that we were using our problem solving skills to complete these questions.

We split into our maths groups: Red, Blue and Green, and answered the question that someone in our group had come up with. We also made some very eye-catching posters and symbols of our learning.

This activity helped us show our understanding of all the problem solving skills that we had learned throughout our time in Primary 7. Now all of our posters, questions and answers are up on the primary seven wall, we even colour coded them to make it easy to match them up! We are all proud of what we have done and we can’t wait to continue to improve our knowledge of problem solving. We think it might get even more challenging in High School.

I asked Iman what she thought about the Problem Solving activity:

“I think that it was a fun activity and I enjoyed completing other people’s questions to see what they came up with.”

By Lilah Cowen.

-My Achievements, Health and Wellbeing

Football Tournament…the sequel

March 22, 2016 Gayle Santi

East Renfrewshire Football Festival

Coming up shortly, is the East Renfrewshire Football Festival. Sadly, last time, Calderwood were not very successful. However, we are adamant to try our hardest and prove ourselves at the tournament as worthy opponents.

Personally, I am extremely excited, as I love playing football whenever and wherever possible and I am definitely sure my teammates are equally as eager to play and perform to their best level.

At the tournament, we will have some Primary Fives, Primary Sixes and Primary Sevens playing in our team.

In Calderwood, we are counting on our best players to help others to become better at football. It is a great opportunity for people, as some schools may have pupils who aren’t the most avid players. This means that these pupils can experience something new and it may turn out they enjoy it more than they thought they would.

There may be some tough competition, but I feel that Calderwood are ready for the games. Especially for a school that doesn’t have a proper team and does not participate in training. I believe that Calderwood can improve and develop our skills and efforts from last time.

Calderwood Lodge definitely have the ability to win, which is very important. Football comes with a great deal of sportsmanship and teamwork which are two aspects of our team which we possess.

Wish us luck!

By Freddie Hyman

-My Achievements, Health and Wellbeing

The Muddy Mile

March 22, 2016 Gayle Santi

The Muddy Mile

On Sunday the 20^th of March, I travelled with my family to Craufurdland Castle, to take part in the Muddy Mile.

Although I was 15 minutes late, I was still able to run. My little sister Albie, who is in Primary 2, ran with me. The others were already ahead of us because they had started earlier than we had.

At the start of the mile, my sister and I kept saying that we didn’t think it was really that muddy. However, we then came to a big patch of mud and it was really quite deep! Not as deep as some of the ones we were about to come up against. My little sister’s shoe even came off in one of the puddles, so I ended up holding her shoes the whole way around.

We came to a swamp where they had to have somebody there to help you across because it was so deep. It wentall the way up to my neck.

When we crossed the swamp we went through very thick mud and I got stuck in the middle of it, but thankfully Albie helped me out.

I was very proud of myself and also I had carried my sister most of the way so I was extremely tired. I ran to the finish line and was given a treat bag and met up with the rest of the Calderwood Lodge Team. We got a picture taken with Mrs Carlton, which I will put up here once we get a copy of it.

Well done to all the Calderwood Lodge Muddy Mile runner. We will all be wearing our t-shirts proudly!

By Lyla Gaizely-Gardiner

-My Achievements, Latest News, Literacy and English

Class Debate

February 15, 2016 Gayle Santi

In Primary Seven, we have been working on our debating skills. We were challenged by Mrs Santi to think of a debate spontaneously. We were given ten seconds to think of a topic. We voted on which topic we should then debate on and the final decision lay between:

This house believes that there should be more toys for the Calderwood Lodge playground

and

This house believes that animals kept in captivities such as zoos, should be encouraged.

The final verdict was to debate on animals being kept in captivity. We were divided into two sides where we were given fifteen minutes to come up with points and information without any prior research.

It was a challenging activity to think of information and points to persuade people to agree with our thoughts. We felt pressurised but we were developing our confidence levels at the same time. We had to work well together and make sure we were communicating properly to avoid people saying the same things.

In the end, the opposing team won.

It was very fun but quite a challenging activity. It helped us to understand the format of debates and what skills we still need to develop. We would like to do it again so we can continue to improve. Mrs Santi was able to give us constructive criticism and pointers, so next time we will be even more prepared.

By Freddie and Lilah

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English

Book Buddies

October 7, 2015 Gayle Santi

Near the beginning of term, the Primary Seven class went downstairs to the Primary One class to come up with a story with them and create our very own book.

Each Primary 7 pupil worked with one or two of the Primary 1 boys and girls. We then sat together and gathered ideas from them about the books that they enjoy reading and what they wanted their story to be about.
We made some sketches that we would include in our book and the Primary 1’s helped with these drawings. This helped them to improve their art skills. Their talents were exceptional!
We then typed up our stories and we will soon be turning these into the finished products.

Some of the Primary One class might grow up to become authors one day since some of their ideas were incredible.
Miss Jagger and Mrs Santi helped us a lot as well. We all worked together to do our very best work. It was a really fantastic activity that taught us about responsibility and learning and I hope we get to do something like this again soon.

Vaneeza Ali