This afternoon P6 and P7 held a Tea Party for their parents, grandparents and members of the community from Meadowlark and Cameron Court in order to find out more about school life in the past.

The Tea Party was an opportunity to put their interviewing techniques to good practice, having been given tuition from the Scotland’s Urban Past team earlier this term. Rebecca Murray rang her great great grandmother’s school bell to signal the welcome given by Maija Jones. The pupils partnered up and armed with their clipboards and questions set about chatting to their guests over tea and biscuits.

There was soon a buzz in the hall as the generations mixed and it was lovely to see so many happy faces as memories and experiences of school life were shared.

The pupils had also created a ‘pop up’ museum with the artefacts they had gathered. Many guests enjoyed seeing these and used them as prompts to reminisce.

Rebecca again rang her bell and David Creaney thanked everyone for coming.  As they left many guests commented on the exceptional manners of the pupils as well as showing real interest in what they were being told.

P1M had a lovely afternoon of shared learning with their parents and grandparents.  It was a chance for us to share our learning about play in the past and our experiences with Scotland’s Urban Past at Grant Park.  We gave a small presentation in the class, shared some photos and showed our families some of our work before heading to the hall to share some playground games.  We had great fun playing hopscotch, What’s the time Mr Wolf?, Chinese ropes and skipping games with our parents and grandparents.  Thank you again for coming along to join us!

Today P5 spent time out in the sunshine,  on the field, chipping and putting. We’re getting quite good now!

News report written by Bruce Evans 7H.

North of Scotland Cross Country

Saturday 11^th March 2017 at Alness

Applegrove Athletes Bring Home Two Silvers.

Not many adults would be willing and able to run a very competitive xc race after spending a week skiing at Abernethy (for some). But some of the Applegrove XC team did and all of the team showed extraordinary enthusiasm, resilience (one of Applegrove’s three Rs) and determination.

Saturday the 11^th of March dawned surprisingly warm – not typical xc weather. However, armed with clothing to cover all eventualities, parents, ski-wounded supporter(Cameron Fraser) and athletes arrived at Alness Academy all set to walk the course and to run what was to be a well fought battle.

Having walked the course and had something to eat, the girls race was under way with a range of seasoned runners to first timers. Leading Applegrove in was Roslyn McRitchie in 13^th place followed by a spectacular run from P6 Olivia Dawson who came in 18^th. Olivia was closely followed by Abbie McKail in 20^th and Kelsey Martin, three places behind in 23^rd.  Faith Kenyon and Faye Nicols tackled the course in true Applegrove style and came in 27^th and 35th  respectfully.  The youngest member of the Applegrove squad, Kaisey Lee Owens did not finish but in the eyes of her team mates, achieved part of the goal by trying and has still plenty of time to tackle the course with more experience under her ‘trainers’  – so well done to her.

For the boys, Applegrove had three runners come home in the top ten; Bruce Evans (P7) in 6^th, Aidan Matthews (P7) in 8^th and Luca Abbate (P7) in 10^th.  Then, bouncing in, was the youngest runner in the boys team, Ben Ross (P5) who was 27^th. Hot on his heels, in 33rd was P6 pupil Lewis Mackenzie.  Bringing Applegrove pupils home were P7’s Lewis Dey and Aidan Phimister, 43^rd and 59^th respectively.

Once all the results were in the runners could relax and finish the remainder of their lunch. However results were collated speedily so all the runners, parents and supporters gathered in the gym hall where the atmosphere became excited and tense!

Prizes were awarded to the top ten in both the boys and the girl’s race. This meant Applegrove came home with three individual placings – Bruce, Aidan and Luca. Well done to the three of them.

For the team prizes scores are calculated by adding up the top four placings – so the lower the total the better. With a 13^th, 18^th 20^th and 23^rd Applegroves girls’ team had a cumulative score of seventy four points.  Third team was Avoch with 95, Applegrove with 74 came in silver and Milton of Leys with 52 was first.

The boys team placing was incredibly close.  Inches with a total of 56 came in third position.  Applegrove, having come in 6^th, 8^th 10^th and 27^th had a total of 51 which put them into second place and Milton of Leys, with 41, were first. Both our teams were delighted with their well-earned result.

Footnote from a parent: As parents it was a privilege to be with the Applegrove pupils. They showed fantastic team spirit and camaraderie, were dignified in their success and made a point of thanking the organisers. They were a credit to their parents, teachers and the school as a whole. Well done to all.

Applegrove cross country team camaraderie on show here at Alness.

Skiing in the Ptarmigan Bowl

This week has been so fun. I enjoyed everything we did, except one thing- sleeping. I did not like sleeping because I wanted to do more of the fun things like skiing. I loved breakfast and dinner. My favourite meal was chicken with pasta- that was yummy. Even though I didn’t share a room with Gracie I still loved the people in my room. Thankyou to all the helpers and Mrs Maclennan for organising this trip. From Sophie Greig.
This was written and handed to us on Thursday evening – how lovely to receive such a letter!
We have had a fantastic week of fun at Abernethy. The snow on Cairngorm mountain was perfect and so much progress was made at ski ing. We guess there will be some early bedtimes tonight!

Caitlin, Michael and Finlay,after a day of skiing, about to board the Funicular down the mountain.

Today the marble runs were completed and tested. Unfortunately, none of the groups managed to create a run that would last for 1 minute so we agreed that the slowest marble would be the winner. Each run was also assessed on it’s structure and design.

There was a tense but exciting few minutes as each marble run was put to the test.
The winners were…..
In Mrs McRitchie’s group – Emily, Caitlyn, Maddie, Dylan, Lauren and Grace’s design with a time of 3.36 seconds.
In Mrs Hunter’s group – Olivia, Lauren, Erin, Faye, Ben and Logan’s design with a time of 4.44 seconds.

All groups enjoyed the task and have ideas on how they would improve their designs.

We were very lucky to have a visitor today to talk about engineering,  Mrs McKenzie.  She was an Applegrove and Forres Academy pupil.  Mrs McKenzie studied engineering at Aberdeen University and went on to become a subsea engineer, working onshore and on ships.  Mrs McKenzie told us all about the career path and skills needed to become an engineer.  Many of these we already study at Applegrove such as problem solving, presenting, working collaboratively and being creative.

We went into the playground to look for signs of Spring and found a lot. It was good fun taking the photographs.