04 | February | 2015 | GPS Sensational Sevens!

On Saturday the 31st January our school competed in the Cross Country Competition at Tower Hill. The first thing everyone did was declaring for the race. The declaration point was in the St. Columbas gym hall. Once everyone got their numbers they went and warmed up their muscles in preparation for the run.

Some of us walked the course so we knew where we were running and others did some dynamic stretches. The conditions were anything but great! For example, there was snow which hid the mud which made it was slippery underfoot, but that didn’t stop us from running the race. We all showed great determination and everyone completed the course.

The first to race were the P5-6 girls. Everyone said good luck to each other and they set off to the start line. The course was 1 small lap and a big lap which was nearly a mile long. It was a hard way to start as you had to start on a hill. They did very well and won a team bronze so everyone is really pleased for them!

The next race was the P5-6 boys. They had the same course as the girls. It was a very close race between the leaders and we were all shouting and encouraging the runners on. We managed to come 4th place – well done everyone.

The last to run were the P7 boys and girls running together. We had a mile to run and our course was slightly different from the younger pupils. We had to make sure we paced ourselves and keep some energy for sprinting to the finish line at the end. It was great to have the rest of the team, Mrs Hunter and Miss Meechan cheering us on, it helped us keep going. We were really proud of ourselves when we completed the course, it was really challenging! P7 boys won a team gold with myself earning an individual gold, Lewis in 4th place, Ryan in 11th place and Anton in 15th place. To earn a team medal, you must have 3 or more runners in a top position. The girls ran really well too and Abbi came 15th. It makes all the hard work and practice worth it. We are looking forward to the next competition next month! By Andrew P7

In preparation for our Burns Supper this year we have created Tartan Art to be displayed in the gym hall. We started this by looking up our family or clan tartan or making up our own if we don’t have one. It was important to look at the pattern involved in the tartan and how it all fitted together. We had to either use the colours of our chosen tartan or create our own complimentary coloured tartan design.

First of all, everybody had to draw straight lines in their chosen colour on to special cartridge paper. We did this using Oil Pastel so that we could get the Wax Resist effect. Next, we had to paint over the lines in a wash of the background colour of our tartan. This had to be a thin mixture of pallet paint or our paint would be too thick and the oil pastel wouldn’t show through. It was great when we saw our pattern all come together! We had to do this 3 times so that we had some spare pieces to make tartan place cards for the Burns Supper.

After our paint had dried, we got a piece of small, black paper and another piece of our tartan. We looked at a silhouette of Rabbie Burns, then drew our own onto one of our tartan papers. Then we carefully cut it out and glued it on the black piece of paper. After that we decided to cut the black bit of paper into an oval as we thought it looked better than a rectangle.

Last of all we had to carefully glue the black paper with the tartan Robert Burns silhouette onto a full page of tartan that was the same as the one on Burns. We had to be patient when copying our tartan as some of the designs were really tricky. Everybody in the class really enjoyed it! By Martin P7