Category Archives: Whole School News

Mr Jeffries’ group update from Oban

This morning after an amazing breakfast we headed out with Mrs Aitken’s group to do canoeing and bushcraft .When we arrived we got in to groups of three for canoeing.

We canoed along a loch to a tiny beach where we landed successfully.There we split in to our two groups and made shelters pretending we had been ship wrecked and our group’s shelter won -yippee.We ate our lunch in our shelters feeling like explorers.Then we got into groups of four to make fires, we made our fires with cotton wool and a flint.That was really fun.

We had a great day.

written by Kiera and Ellie

Education Scotland Visit – ‘The Gingerbreid Mannie’

Education Scotland is the national body in Scotland for supporting quality and improvement in learning and teaching. We were very pleased to welcome them to Balbardie PS recently to share our fabulous work on Scots language and performing arts, led with huge enthusiasm by Mrs Innes who teaches Expressive Arts across many of our classes. Congratulations and thanks go to Mrs Innes (and her supporting team) and of course a massive well done to our star pupils. We are very pleased to share this with you:
At the end of last term we had a visit from one of Education Scotland’s team, as our school has been recognised for its work in relation to the Scots language.  The Scots language being regarded as a minority language, and as such is part of the Scottish curriculum.
The children in Mrs Aitken’s class performed their bite sized musical, ‘The Gingerbreid Mannie’ and also sang their warm up songs, ‘Heid, Shooders, Shanks and Taes’ and ‘The Shoogly Woogly’ as well as singing, ‘Last Night There was a Murder in the Chip Shop’.   To say that they were awesome truly does them justice.   Confident individuals who demonstrated success in their learning about the Scots language and where it fitted into Scotland’s story.
The feedback and report given to the school was superb, and we are justifiably delighted with this.
The full class performance was recorded, and I asked that the DVD be made available to parents, should you want one.  This will cost £2.00 to cover the cost of making the DVD.   Letters with a tear-off slip to order  a DVD will be available shortly. Please return the slip with the money for your copy.
Yours sincerely,
Edi Innes
Expressive Arts Teacher

Day 2: Morning News from MIss Holwill’s Group

So today in Oban we went Gorge walking it got cold (Liam turned into a motor bike as he was chattering so much).  It was fun, it was good.  Gorge walking is walking up a river using the stones to climb over, slide down, jump off.  We slipped so much and David was floating away at one point. Callum turned into several differnt animals and demostrated his wide range of accents to get us through it.  Viggo started steaming when he got back on the bus.  Daniel was the cheif pool finder.  Isla sang songs to entertain everyone and managed to find lots of ways to make Louise laugh.  Lucy loved it…sliding 🙂

Madeleine got cold but kept with us and Casey kept Miss Holwill safe.

 

By David and Liam

 

Day 1: Afternoon Miss Holwill’s group news

This afternoon we went Coasteering.  First of all it was fun and enjoyable.  Basically you walk along the coastline, on the rocks in the sea, to get to a point and then you jump into the sea.  As a warm up we walked to an island.  At one point we were walking really close to the edge and the sea kept splashing up on us as it was bouncing of the rocks.  The jump at the end was very deep….a top tip don’t trust the barnicles.  It was cold but Miss Holwill heard lots of this is the best activity every and its amazing.

After dinner we had the Stramash Great Egg Challenge.  It consisted of lots of fun team races and challenges.  At the end we were all given scores which we exchanged for materials to create a hard protective case for an egg and we named it ‘Timmy the Talking Tube and the Holy Pine Cone’.  We then put them through a series of challenges, Timmy got to the second challenge where unfortunatly he met his fate with a flag pole.  RIP Timmy.

 

By Daniel and Viggo.

Day 2: Morning News from Miss Holwill’s Group

Hello from Oban!!!!!!

In our group today we climbed up a large mountain of rocks and used our fabulous team, The Awkward Fam, spirit!!!

Isla managed to fall and swing like the monkey she is and Louise and Madeleine made it to the top!

Viggo embraced his inner mountain goat while Liam shot to the top and Callum used his Can Do attitude.   

Casey and Lucy climbed and helped each other find hand and foot holes.

Daniel climbed numerous times to the top and David was pushing himself to do his best

The boys found a nice Mountain throne to sit on.

Thank you weather gods for blessing us with sun, we shall write again soon xx

Writen by Isla Ross and Louise Kirk

Tuesday Oban P7s

Morning update:-)

Mrs Aitkan’s group went orienteering  ,great fun went in lots of ditches and laughed lots.

Just had our lunch and heading out shortly to go gorge walking.

Miss Holwill’s group have been climbing and this afternoon they are going costeering.

Miss Elliot’s and Miss Bollen’s group are away canoeing and bush craft for the day.

Mr Jeffries’s group have been gorge walking and look pretty cold and they are orienteering 

A Busy day so far

written by Jessie and Gemma

Day 1 at Oban -P7s

We had a good and safe journey to Oban we had a  stop at the green welly stop.When we arrivied in Oban we had a meeting with the staff they explained what we were going to do.  Once we had settled into our rooms the staff took us for a walk around the area.  As a warm up we took part in team challenges.  We were trying to untangle ourselves after we had all joined hands randomly.  Dinner was brillant!  After we went climbing up hills, dodged cows, saw Mull and then rolled/skidded/fell/laughed and walked down.  Only a few scratches.  Once we arrived back we had a chance to get used to our rooms, had a little supper and then went to bed.  We can’t believe how much we have done already..looking forward to today’s activities – anyone fancy gorge walking?

 

By Christopher and Jamie

Reflecting on our first week back!

We had a fun but busy first week back last week in P3a! These are some of the things we got up to…

Firstly we did some snapshots of our Easter holidays to help us in our writing.

We also learned about exclamation marks and where we use them in our writing.  We are looking forward to putting them in our writing to show where someone may be shouting, to add expression and to show surprise.

We described our favourite character from our class novel ‘Mr Stink’ and used words and pictures to say why we liked them.  We are really enjoying reading Mr Stink!

In maths the pentagons and pyramids were working on their 8 times tables and we were using strategies such as drawing an ‘array’ and using ‘repeated addition’ to work the answer out.

The spheres were working on the 4 times table and testing their problem solving skills with a range of questions.

Nathan got a new reading book and has been practicing reading new words and did very well!

Achievements

Table of the week – Brooke, Ammie-Leigh, Callum and Murray.

Dojo winner- Farrah

Maisie won a first place medal and second place medal in golf!

Charlie and Murray have been learning new moves in Karate.

We are starting our new topic about Farming this week and look forward to sharing our learning with you!

 

 

 

 

5B

Welcome back after the Easter break P5. This week’s blog tells you about our holiday highlights and what was good about coming back to school.

In the holidays we had lots of eggciting adventures:

Mya – I went to Caitlin’s house and we made chocolate cake.

Demi – Leigh – I went to my aunties house, watched a movie and my sister was there too.

Leia – I climbed Ben Ann, it was nice at the top.

James – I went to Edinburgh Dungeons.

Dadirayi – I went with my cousins to Hot Flames and I liked the chocolate fountain.

Isla – I liked seeing my sister in the hotel.

Evan – I liked going to Harry’s house and seeing his puppy.

Ava – I loved going alpaca trekking, I got to walk an alpaca.

Annabelle – I went to Mill farm and I loved going on the Go-Karts.

David – I liked going to the cinema and I saw the Boss Baby.

Aaron – I went to my Dads I woke up at 5.54am and played the Xbox.

 

Our first week back school has been busy too. This is our highlights.

Emma – I liked PE because we are doing teamwork games.

Grace – I enjoyed playing Minecraft and building the Scottish Parliament.

Caitlin – I liked doing measurement in maths.

Evie – I liked learning our celebrating success song.

Erin – I liked writing this week on How to Trap a Dragon?

Sophie – I liked the first day of school because I was bored during the holidays.

Olivia – I enjoyed seeing all my friends and Mr Cunningham again.

Kayleigh – I enjoyed writing about how to trap a dragon.

Logan – I liked writing.

Robyn – I liked learning about the Scottish Parliament.

Welcome back from P2b

Some of the things we enjoyed in school this week are:

Tiana – We were writing about our Easter holidays.

Evie – We have been drawing daffodils with oil pastels.

Rheagan – I enjoyed reading ‘Charlie and Chocolate Factory.’

Grace M – We read the ‘Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’ and this is going to be our new topic.

Orlaith – I enjoyed using the numberlines in maths.

Grace Q – I enjoyed looking at odd/even numbers.

Sara – We have been earning class Dojo points. We have to sit nicely and listen to get points.

Keira – I enjoyed playing dominoes with the tricky words.

Kayden – I enjoyed reading ‘Charlie and Chocolate Factory.’

Alysheeya – We have been writing new targets for our review jotters.

Well done to our top Dojo champions this week – Scott, Orlaith, Grace M and Evie!

P3B

A short but busy week!

When we came back from Easter Break, we finally got to see how our mummification went! We mummified apples and this is what they look like now. You can compare them with the slice that was not

mummified. If it’s not mummified it is pretty disgusting!

I literacy, we wrote a recount about what we did in the holidays. Some of us were very busy and others took the time to relax.

In maths, we have been learning how to tell the time and we had “Tell the Time” clock races outside. We have also been learning about multiplication and played games outside to match the facts to the questions. Here are some pictures.

In other news, Ruby Anne was the P3 Egg Competition winner – well done Ruby!

P7a

We have a busy week back after the holiday.

This week in writing we have been reflecting on our achievements this year and have been writing our own reports. We had to think about or strengths and next steps. We are going to edit these and write them in our transition jotter for high school.

In maths this week we have been learning about measuring length and converting units of measurement. We took part in a ‘measurehunt’ where we had to measure different items around the school and convert the measurements.

We also went outside for maths this week and looked around the playground to see the different opportunities for maths. We had to complete a maths trail asking different maths questions using the environment. For example, we had to estimate the distance from the front gate to the office door in metres and we had to calculate the fraction of red cars in the car park. We are going to create our own maths trails for our P1 buddies.

Most of us are off to Oban next week so we will keep you updated daily about how we are getting on. Have a good weekend!

 

P2A

In maths this week we did tricky maths which involved using our skip counting strategies using 2,3,4,5, and 10.  We really had to challenge ourselves.

For writing this week we wrote our plan using our Easter snapshots of what we did during the Easter holidays, and we used this to create our personal writing stories.

In drama we have been busy practising our song for our Celebrating Success assembly on 16th May at 1.30pm.  We hope to see you then 🙂

This week to finish off our dungeons and dragons topic, we created 3D magical castles with our partners.  We are really looking forward to our class trip to Stirling Castle on the 27th of April.

Achievements

Luke has been challenging himself in maths and skip counting past one hundred

Isla has been practising her swimming skills

Daniel and Kyle have gained new belts in Tae Kwon Do

Elena has moved up a level in swimming, now on level 3

Emily and Akasha have been improving on their swimming skills

Term 4 begins in P6B

The pupils in P6B returned to school this week feeling refreshed and ready to learn. It’s been a quick and enjoyable week with lots of learning packed in. In beginning the new term, we have started to explore some new learning topics and areas.

In maths this term, we will be learning about shape, position and movement. This week, we begun by exploring coordinate grids, identifying the y/x axis, number lines and, finally, marking and naming coordinates on the grid. We worked in pairs and used coordinates to create and solve codes in the context of a ‘Murder Mystery’ which we all enjoyed. Next week, we will draw and create our own grids.

Our topic this term will be ‘The Human Body‘ and we began by exploring what we already know and would like to know about the human body. Lots of facts, knowledge and ideas fr learning were discussed and shared. We are really looking forward to this topic this term.

I know that chromosomes are cells which help to create your features – Fiona 

The tongue is the only muscle in your body which is attached at one end – Luca

Your kidney is the size of a mobile phone – Jamie

I’d like to learn about the names of all different parts of the brain and what they do – Jack 

We were all delighted to be told that Jamie had won the Eggstravaganza competition for P6. Jamie had made a fantastic effort to design an egg which he named ‘Captain Egghead‘. It was a very creative and thoughtful design which we were all impressed with. Well done, Jamie!

Our first’ Star Writer of the Week‘ for this term is Callum who wrote an interesting story, ‘The Cottage‘. Callum used adjectives to add description to his story and took care to spell his words correctly. He had clear organisation with a beginning, middle and end to his story, meeting all his targets. Well done, Callum!

P3B

This week we were learning about speech marks. We learned how to use them by thinking of them as a jam sandwich!The bread is the speech marks and the butter on each slice of bread represents the capital letter and ending punctuation, while the jam was what was actually said. This analogy made it a little easier to understand!
For outdoor P.E we were learning how to leapfrog. Most of us got how to do it after a few tries. We had to be careful that we didn’t hurt the frog whilst leaping.
For literacy, we have been writing a fictional story based on teleporting to Ancient Egypt. It was great fun writing about it and we have now created books. They are absolutely fantastic! We only completed them today so next term we will have a chance to share our books and read each other’s stories.
We learned about the importance of Holy week and also looked at what Easter is. We know that Holy week leads up to Easter starting with Palm Sunday. Then Spy Wednesday followed by the Last Supper, Good Friday and then Easter Sunday.
As most of us are in the Golden Club, we went out for the Easter Egg hunt as our treat. What a great way to finish the week.
We hope you have a great Easter Break!

P2B

We have had a lovely week to end this term off this week. We have been learning about Stirling Castle in preparation for our school trip. We learned some really interesting facts. Did you know that the world’s oldest football was found in the palace of Stirling castle? Or that Scotland’s first fireworks were set off from Stirling Castle? We also found out that it took 4 years to build and that there was no space for it so they had to build it on top of other buildings.

We have also been learning about the Easter story, how Jesus died and rose again. We then sequenced the story in the correct order. We also designed some lovely Easter cards to give to our friends and family.

P2B also loved learning about Autism on Thursday and we dressed in blue to raise awareness. We were given a task to design a big letter A for autism in any way we wanted. We decided to draw around our own hands and decorate them in blue pen and pencil. Once everyone completed theirs we stuck them all together in a huge A shape.

Finally lots of children have been working hard on their behaviour this term and achieved step 5. They all enjoyed a fantastic Easter egg hunt as their Golden Club treat today. Happy Easter everyone!

Happy Easter from P4b!

As we end a busy term we have been thinking about everything we have learnt and the things we have been challenged by in class.
Dani – I enjoyed learning about the Viking Gods
Katie – I enjoyed making the Viking shields
Callum – I liked learning about the Viking longhouses
Louie – I have enjoyed making my Viking shield
Elliot – I enjoyed making and eating the garden of Gethsemane biscuit
Jack – I enjoyed learning about Autism yesterday
Lucy – I enjoyed making a Viking shield
Guy – I liked making the Autism ‘a’
Ela – I enjoyed learning the bus stop way to complete division sums
Charlotte – I was challenged by the quickfire tables competition
Isaac – I was challenged by writing in the Furthark, Viking language
Hayley – I enjoyed doing the times tables
Hope – I enjoyed the challenge of the hard times tables in maths
Emily – I enjoyed making the Viking shields
Jay – I really, really enjoyed making the Viking shields
Luke – I was challenged by the quickfire times table challenge
Emma – I was challenged by the code breaker in the Viking runes
Maisey – I have been challenged by writing about Viking burials
Rayen – I have enjoyed having new friends at the school
Jason – I was challenged by writing in Viking language
Ben – I was challenged when we used the compasses in Maths
Rose – I enjoyed making the Viking runes
Nathan – I was challenged learning my lines for the assembly
Jaime – Lee – I have been challenged by writing Viking reports

On Thursday we celebrated World Autism Day. We thought about what we know about autism. We watched a video clip which helped us to understand autism and how like can be for people who are autistic. We think it helped us to understand a little more about Autism and how it can affect people’s lives. We made ‘A’s for autism which are all different, much like all of us.

Table of the week with 520 points

Pupil of the week – Emma for being a kind and supportive friend
Class achievements
Nathan was awarded a yellow belt at Taekwando
Article 28 – the right to an education

P1b

Matthias- When we got on the bus we first put our seatbelts on and then when we got off we went with a partner
Hamish – We went on our class trip to Dynamic Earth
Noah – When we were on the bus I sat next to Marcus
Josh – Everyone went on a time machine
Caitlin – We stood next to a brachiosaurus’ leg
Emma – We got to see an iceberg
Rose – We saw animals in the rainforest and they moved their heads
Hamish – We were passing fossils around
Caitlin – We watched a 3D movie and it was like we were flying
Maksim – We were digging for fossils

Kaiden – We made dinosaur projects
Jacob – The velociraptors jumped really high in some movies
Josh – Anchyosaurus can break a t-rex’s bone

Emma – We made a giant “A” because it was Autism Awareness Day and we had to wear something blue
Hamish – Autism means that sometimes it is too bright and you can’t listen to anyone
Caitlin – Some people have different relationships
Noah – Everyone is different and people have different voices and favourite colours
Jacob – It means everyone is different and some people don’t talk and some people do
Matthias – Some people’s brains are different and parts are switched off

5B

Our favourite things this term!

Evie: I liked Victorian because I got to see people wearing the Dunces hat.

Erin: I liked assembly it was fun.

Robyn: I liked doing Victorian writing on Victorian day.

David: I liked the trip to New Lanark.

Leia: I liked Victorian Day because on google it says teachers were strict and scary and Mr Cunningham.

Demi – Leigh: I liked getting the punishments on Victorian day like holding the books and the Dunces hat and going to the other class.

Olivia: I liked spending time with the whole class.

Caitlin: I enjoyed New Lanark, it was fun to be a mannequin.

Kayleigh: I enjoyed winning the snuffles competition and eating the Harbios.

Aaron: I liked when Erin got the Dunces hat because she was writing with her left hand.

Emma: I liked doing our assembly.

Dadirayi: I enjoyed every this term.

Have a great holiday P5B! See you in April!