Lockerbie Manor

In February we went on a school residential trip to Lockerbie Manor.  After we put our suitcases on the bus then we got on.  We were super excited to be on the bus and even more excited when we got there.  As soon as we got there, we had to do a health and safety briefing then we saw our pods.   Everyone had a pod number, starting from pod 6 up to 23. There wasn’t a lot of space and there were only 4 beds, but it was amazing.  After our first activity, we had dinner. The food was brilliant!  Some of our favourite activities were high ropes, tug of war, axe throwing, abseiling and rock climbing. Everybody loved going to Lockerbie Manor and we wish we could go again.

Please click on the link below to see some photos of Lockerbie Manor! 

LM PHOTOS P7 2025

Jake, Sophie and Lewis

Literacy

Reading

Last term we studied Why the Whales Came by Michael Morpurgo. It is about two children called Gracie and Daniel who are best friends. They carve wooden boats to sail in water, but Daniel’s brother Big Tim and his friends keep on annoying them which made them have to move to a place where the Birdman lives.  Everyone tells people to stay away from the Birdman because he’s cursed.  However, they find out that the Birdman is nice and kind and he has a really good way with animals. Some adventurous things happen in the story and there is more bullying. At the end of the book, there is a really good surprise!

Iona

We also studied some poetry last term, such as Spring Awakening, Winters Whisper and Grey Geese. We explored many language features like personification.  Some of us read an extract from the book, ‘Maurice and Maralyn’.  It was very descriptive, and here is my favourite bit as it has good examples of metaphorical language:   “Up on deck, they discovered the cause. A whale was next to them in the ocean, massive and alive. Water was streaming down the dark cliffs of its body as it twisted and writhed. It looked like it was trying to climb out of the waves, hauling its dark bulk up then smashing back down, a meteor landing in the ocean, showering spray. It’s tail, ten feet across the flukes, was beating at the surface in a kind of fury. Blood poured from its body into the ocean.”

We made a collage of this image and put it outside our classroom. Here is is:

Callum

Listening and talking

Last term we did our solo talks. It was really entertaining because you could pick your own topic and most people did something different to everyone else. Mrs Kennedy gave us a sheet telling us everything we needed to know for the solo talks and what the success criteria was. Arfa did her solo talk about art, there was a quiz and a challenge during her solo talk, and the winner got group points or a prize! Her solo talk was arty and fun!  (Alex) Alex did her solo talk on Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid virtual singer, it was a fascinating topic and she did the griddy (a little dance) at the end. (Arfa). Elise did her solo talk on gymnastics because she is a very talented gymnast. Charley, Sophie A and Haylie did their solo talks on dance because they have been doing dancing for years. Impressive, right? Amber did hers on her dogs, and it was super! Cairo did his solo talk on Freaky Folklore which was spooky but absorbing too! A lot of boys did their solo talks on football players which was engrossing and never failed to impress us. Ross did his solo talk on dreams and their meanings, which was comical because of all the funny jokes he made. Ben did his solo talk on paranormal stuff which was scary but fun the same time! Everyone did exceptionally well and chose the topics they could ace at. We had such a good time during our solo talks, and we really loved listening to each other.

Alex and Arfa

Writing

Last term we focused on functional writing.  We finished our discursive writing block then we went on to exposition writing then procedural writing.

Exposition writing is writing that exposes facts about a topic. You do not try to persuade the reader to try to do anything, you are just stating the good things about the topic. For example, we wrote about the topic, Every Child should have a Residential Trip whilst at School. Some of the points we wrote about were:

• you develop new life skills
• it can get you away from technology
• you develop social skills

For our procedural writing, we got to make homemade pasta sauce and pasta then write down the recipe and method for our assessment.

Elijah

Sky Academy

On March 28^th, we went our trip to Sky Academy. When we got there, we had our lunch then we split into three groups. We watched a clip about the film Wicked, and how it was made. Then we went into our studios and we gave ourselves different roles such as, director, actor and editor. We then had two hours to make our film trailers and if you come to our Leavers Assembly, you might get to see them!

Ellie-Mae and Haylie

 

Transition

We are doing a lot to prepare us for high school. In January, Anne McMullen came in and spoke to us about the Scottish Parliament. She said that if we take modern studies as a subject, we will probably find out more about parliaments in different countries.

In February, we did a book study at the same time as Townhill and David Livingston primaries. The book was called ‘To the Other Side’ and was about refugees.  We all did the same work then we met on a Google Meet to show and tell each other what we did.

Mrs Scott from Calderside’s English department came in to work with us one morning.  She did some non-fiction with us, and she said she was impressed by our skills in metalinguistics.

In March, Hazel Kelly from UC worked with us for two sessions.  She told us that high school isn’t that scary. We shared our worries and the things we were looking forward to.

On 7^th March, we had a Google Meet with the two P7 classes at Woodhead. We discussed the books we were studying in class and gave each other book recommendations.

On Monday 24^thof March, we all went to Calderside and took part in a Rights Transition Day. There were other primary schools there too, such as Townhill and David Livingstone. We rotated round different activities like cooking, sports and yoga.

We have our two-day visits to high school on 20^th and 21^st of May, followed by a STEM event on 22^nd.

Elise

House Captain and Vice-Captain Update

Last terms we had great fun organising our September and Christmas fun days. It was a blast doing beat the goalie, obstacle course and basketball shoot for the September Fun Day, and everyone enjoyed Christmas colouring, Just Dance, Simon Says and Categories for the Christmas fun day. Being a House/Vice Captain means you can arrange so many things. This term we will be organising Neilsland’s Got Talent and a Dance-a-thon. Personally, we love being part of the team.

Kali and Ayla

HWB

Last term we had a rugby coach (Cameron) from Hamilton Rugby Club that taught us rugby skills.

One of the warm-up games we played was German Tig, which was so much fun that we asked to play every week after we got taught! To explain the game… the tiggers carried a bib around and when they tagged someone, they had the bib. The players had to run around and when they saw a rugby ball, they were safe and could not get tagged. They could only hold the ball for 2 or 5 seconds before they passed it to someone else to make them safe.

The skills that we have learned from Cameron were how to pass a rugby ball properly, working as a team in a game and the rules of rugby.  The rules are to pass the ball from the waist, only pass backwards, spread out, don’t crowd the ball, and more.

In December we learned two dances called The Neilsland Circle and The Military Two-step. We taught both dances to P6 and the Neilsland Circle to P5. This term, our focus will be gymnastics.

Not too long ago we learned how to stay safe in a kitchen. We looked at all the hazards in a kitchen. For example, knifes, tripping hazards, boiling water, hot pans and slippery floors. We learned about the importance of hygiene in a kitchen including how to wash your hands properly, how to store raw meat and how to prevent cross contamination.  At the end of the topic, we made coleslaw!  We made sure our hands were washed before and after, and we made sure everything was cleaned away and the dishes were washed. (Thank you Mrs Kennedy 😊)

Coleslaw is easy to make and here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• ½ cabbage, outer leaves removed and finely sliced
• 2 carrots, peeled and grated
• ½ onion, peeled and finely sliced
• ¼ clove of garlic, crushed
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• Three pinches of salt
• Three pinches of sugar

Equipment needed

• Chopping board
• Knife
• Bowl
• Grater
• Tablespoon
• Garlic crusher
• Wooden spoon

Method

1. Gather everything you need.
2. Wash your hands.
3. Prepare the vegetables and put in a bowl.
4. Add in the garlic, vinegar, mayonnaise, sugar and salt and mix thoroughly.

Amber and Leland

Literacy

Last term we finished reading Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. We loved the story and our predictions about plot and characters were quite accurate. We also enjoyed the book because it had a plot twist at the end and the theme was that friendship is everything. It taught us about patience and being grateful for the things you have.

This term we are studying, ‘Why the Whales Came’, also by Michael Morpurgo. We have so far read the first two chapters, and we really enjoy it.  Our topic is current affairs so we will be studying lots of news articles too.

 Writing

Last term we focused a lot on writing poetry.  We wrote poems about being an evacuee, autumn poems, WW2 Haikus and Christmas poems for our wee buddies.

We also learned about discursive writing. Our discursive topics were: ‘should children be made to wear school uniform?’, ‘should children be required to do chores around the house?’, and ‘are zoos right for animals?’.  In discursive writing, some of the things you need to include are:

• a concise title
• clear opening statement
• for and against arguments with evidence
• a conclusion that backs up your opinion

Charley and Callum

Transition

This term we will start to look at our transition to high school. We have been chatting about what we are worried about and what we are excited about moving up to high school. We have already had visits from teachers at Calderside  and the Calderside STEM ambassadors came in and did a lesson on dissolving and concentration of solids in liquids.

 

Lockerbie Manor

It’s not long now and we are all so excited!

 

Writing

We have just finished diary writing as an evacuee in 1939 at the start of WW2.  We imagined that we had been sent away to the countryside to live with a host family. The diary had to show our emotions and thoughts, so we had to really think about what it must have been like to have been sent away from your family.

We have recently been learning to use more interesting language features to make our pieces of work more entertaining. We have been creating poems (some of which are displayed outside our classroom so check them out!) and we are trying to include some different language features in a variety of our writing.

Reading

Our novel in P7 is Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. We are using Kensuke’s Kingdom to improve our comprehension strategies like metalinguistics, and we are getting good at working out the meaning of new words! We use different clarification codes e.g.: RB-Read back, FW- Familiar word, RW-Replace word, TD-Teacher discussion, PD – partner discussion , D – Dictionary * so Mrs Kennedy knows how we have worked out their meaning. * Using a dictionary is a last resort only.

We are also learning about the different language features used in our book. For example: similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, alliteration and assonance. We are getting good at identifying them and here are some examples from our novel:

• ‘cackled and croaked’ ‘scraping scratching’ -alliteration
• ‘The whole orchestra of the jungle’-metaphor’
• ‘There was hollow tapping like a frantic wood pecker’-simile.

We have been focusing on visualisation too. One of the tasks was to draw what Kensuke looked like from the description in the book and one of them was to draw Kensuke’s cave from the inside view including everything we have read from the book.

Arfa and Amber

In numeracy we have learned about rounding, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percentages, time and symmetry.

In mental maths, we often play games like ‘Double Up and Divide Down…’. They are games that REALLY help with your skills in multiplying and dividing by ten and we are confident in multiplying up to numbers such as sixty quintillion. This is what sixty quintillion looks like: 60,000,000,000,000,000,000 !

We also have been doing some work on prime numbers up to one hundred. A prime number is a number which only has only two factors. A factor is a number that divides exactly into another number. If a number is not prime, then it is composite.

We also use fractions sticks to help us understand the link between fractions, decimal and percentages.  Here are the common equivalent f/d/p that we need to know:

This week, we have been learning about integers. First, we identified integers, then compared them, then ordered them and now we are adding and subtracting with them. By the way, in case you don’t know, an integer is a positive or negative whole number.

Ben and Akillez

WW2

Our topic is WW2. We have studied the evacuation process, learned about propaganda in WW2, rationing, allied, axis and neutral countries and The Holocaust.   We are currently completing a personal project on topics such as: weaponry, the attack on Pearl Harbour, ships, tanks, aircraft and coding. After we present this to the class, we will learn about the atomic bombs.  Cairo: I enjoyed learning about the evacuation process and looking into all the different ways the children got evacuated from the cities. We have been learning about The Holocaust and a little bit about Anne Frank’s life.

Cairo and Ethan

Music

We are learning to read music! We know: a treble clef, bass clef, stave, beats to the bar, bars and bar lines. We have learned the names of the notes and how many counts they get. For example, a crotchet gets one count, a quaver gets half a count, a minim gets two counts, and a semibreve gets four counts. We are learning to read these notes on cards and clap the beat.  We have been learning to play the recorder too, and we know the notes middle C to the C above.  Each note has different fingering, and you must be very careful to cover the holes in the recorder completely, otherwise it squeaks!  So far, Charley is getting really good at playing the recorder!

       

On a Wednesday morning, we have a visiting music specialist who comes in to teach us how to play the ukulele.

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