It has been a really busy term in Primary 7!  It’s hard to believe your young people are now at the end of their learning journey with us here at Pilmuir and are getting ready to continue this journey after the holidays at the academy.

The children have done an amazing job organising and running our potted sports day and coffee morning, and worked really hard to prepare for our performance at the Pilmuir Picnic.  We have also had lots of transition events to prepare for the move to secondary school.

Literacy

We have worked on two Talk for Writing units this term, one on adventure stories and one on instructions.  We have continued to follow the Wraparound Spelling programme in our spelling groups.  In reading, our focus this term has been on making predictions.  There have been lots of opportunities for talking and listening across the curriculum, from formal presentations to a big audience at assemblies and the welcome and closing speeches at sports day, to relaxed class discussions about transition to the academy.

Numeracy and maths

This term we’ve looked at 2D and 3D shape, angles, and data handling.  We also spent some time working on fractions and percentages.  We’ve enjoyed lots of active maths learning activities, like making nets of 3D shapes using different resources and collecting and sharing data from our own surveys and questionnaires.  After staff were retrained in using Numicon resources, the children have had time to explore all the new maths resources we now have in school linked to this.

Health and Wellbeing

We have had lots of visitors from the Academy to talk to us about various aspects of the transition to the academy.  The children have also had the chance to talk about their hopes, worries, and expectations about what being a high school pupil will be like in class.  The transition days went really well.

For PE we have been enjoying the better weather this term and getting outside for weekly rounders and football lessons.  A team of children represented Pilmuir at the Forres Academy ASG football competition.  We also had so much fun designing our activities for potted sports day and then encouraging the other classes to participate on the day.

Expressive Arts

Primary 7 have really enjoyed their Wednesday morning arts and crafts lessons with Mrs Hogg.  They made lots of lovely things to sell at our fundraising coffee morning.

We have also had a big focus on music and dance this term as we have been preparing our class and whole school performances for the Pilmuir Picnic.

Coffee Morning

The Primary 7’s spent a lot of time planning and preparing for our fundraising coffee morning.  Mrs Lyon and Mrs Liney helped the children to make lots of delicious home baking, and the class made posters to advertise the event.  We had a wide selection of crafts made by the class to sell, including tea lights, woven decorations, cards, bookmarks, and bracelets.  The children had a range of different roles on the day of the coffee morning, from greeting visitors at the gate, to serving home baking and juice, collecting entry money, collecting and clearing dirty dishes, and organising games for the young children who came along.  We raised just over £200 which paid for Moray Flying Circus to deliver a workshop for us as an end of term treat.  Special thanks goes to Tesco for donating some baking ingredients, biscuits, refreshments and prizes for this event through their Community Champion scheme. The Forres Store team were very helpful. Thank you to all the family, friends and members of the community who came to show support, including the residents and staff at a local care home.  It was lovely to have you all join us.

Library Digital Literacy Workshop

Diane and Mags from Elgin Library came to deliver a digital technology/STEM workshop.  The children really enjoyed exploring augmented reality books, tattoos, stickers, playing with the Sphero robots which are controlled by apps, and trying the Lego Spike coding resources. Thanks to Diane and Mags for leading this workshop and providing lots of fun opportunities for us to learn using all these exciting gadgets.  We hope they will visit the school again next year.

Pilmuir Picnic

The children worked hard to learn the songs and dances for the Pilmuir Picnic which we think you will agree was a big success.  Three members of the class worked hard to learn separate lines for a solo/ group part for their class song.  The class really gave their very best effort for the performance, even when they were feeling nervous and uncomfortable.  It shows that sometimes this is needed to make us even better and to challenge ourselves to learn even more.  They made beautiful props as well for our performance.

Primary 7 treats

The children had a fantastic circus skills workshop on the penultimate week of term.  They got to play lots of fun games and have a go at learning how to use lots of different circus equipment, including juggling scarves, hoops, poi, spinning plates, and pedalos (a training tool for learning how to cycle a unicycle!). Thank you to Emma from Moray Flying Circus for all her encouragement and support leading this session.

Outfit Moray spent the morning with us on Friday.  The children had a fantastic time completing the obstacle course and braving the ramps.  They did exceptionally well challenging themselves to develop and perfect their cycling skills and manage their own risk taking.  Some of the ramps looked pretty scary and challenging as a bystander but all pupils tried them all at least once. Thank you to Michelle from Outfit Moray for all her help, support and words of encouragement for the children.

We then enjoyed some pizza in the afternoon to finish off another leavers treat day. Thank you to Pizza Pan Forres for opening early to fulfil our order and deliver it to us.

We wish all of our P7s a restful summer holiday and lots of good luck wishes for their future schooling at Forres Academy.  We hope you’ll come back to let us know how you are getting on once you settle into the new term.

Good luck to Mrs Young who is leaving us to go off on maternity leave this week.  We look forward to hearing the exciting news very soon about the latest addition to her family and hope to see them next term for a visit (and some baby cuddles!).

Good luck P7,

Mrs Young and Mrs Lyon.

 P7 Termly update

Welcome to our first blog post of the current school year.

Literacy

Instructional Writing – In Term 1 we introduced Talk4Writing. Over a number of weeks we have taken different approaches to planning our writing, created initial drafts, edited our writing and up-levelled it to create a final piece. Our focus has been instructional writing, with a twist! Ask us how to trap a mythical creature, you won’t be disappointed!  We enjoyed sharing our work with P5 and P6, celebrating our success.

In term 2 we will be looking at persuasive language and writing persuasive letters for a specific purpose.  We will also be focusing on writing settings and character descriptions as beginnings for stories.

Spelling – We are currently following the Wraparound Spelling progression which has involved revisiting the fundamentals of phonics, decomposing words, identifying root words and growing them with prefixes and suffixes. In addition to this, we are also concentrating on sentence work and grammar. Term 1 revision can be found on Google Classroom.

Reading Comprehension Skills – During Term 1 we focused on reading comprehension skills through group reading and individual accelerated readers. We will continue this in term 2. To date, we have been developing our understanding of tricky vocabulary, visualisation and illustration skills, asking and developing effective questions and making predictions. A guide to reading skills strategies can be found on Google Classroom.  We would encourage the children to continue reading at home.  They can access the Accelerated Reading site from home to complete online quizzes and there is a link in the Google Classroom for Bookflix – an online library document with a variety of titles featuring a mix of full texts and extracts from books.

Numeracy

Our Term one focus was to revise and extend our knowledge of place value. This has included identifying the value of whole digits and decimals, ordering and sequencing of numbers and rounding. We have explored the properties of 2D and 3D shapes, identified them in our environment and created our own tessellations. We made 3D shapes and nets.

Using natural resources outdoors, we have been learning to play games that enhance our strategy and problem solving skills. Ask your child to teach you how to play ‘Game of NIM’ – it can get quite intense!

We have been sharpening our mental agility and quick recall with mixed daily 20 mental maths questions. You will find links to supporting resources and games on Google Classroom.

In Term 2, we will be focusing on the properties of special triangles and circles. We will continue to deepen our understanding of fractions, decimals and percentages.

H&WB

Throughout this year our social, emotional and mental health remains a priority. Through the Zones of Regulation and circle time we continue to explore our emotions, including the triggers and behaviours associated with different feelings. We have identified and devised our own regulation strategies that help to support us during challenging times.

During Term 1 in PE, we successfully developed our throwing, catching, shooting, dribbling, hand-eye coordination, communication and team work skills through basketball. Through the game of field hockey we have focused on stick control, ball control techniques and match play. Ask us to name all of the new moves we have learned!

Outdoor Learning

We love outdoor learning and enjoyed playing team building games on the field in Term 1 – we are especially competitive when playing rounders! We had an opportunity to learn skateboarding skills. Doing so allowed us to manage our own speed and risk whilst manoeuvring, as well as challenging our balance and coordination.

Our Outdoor Classroom at Pilmuir has given us an opportunity to engage with loose parts play. We have built dens and assault courses that encourage clear communication, problem solving and team work. Ask us about the Mountain Rescue Challenge!

Modern languages

This year we will be learning conversational French with Mrs Lyon and German with Mrs Horne.

IDL

Our IDL context for this term will be Christmas Around the World, developing our knowledge and understanding of how other countries, cultures and faiths celebrate Christmas.