Tag Archives: Wider Achievement

Our first week in December paraphrased by P6 (this will make sense if you read on!)

In P.E we have been working on basketball skills such as passing, dribbling, shooting and tackling.  We finished off with a big match which was fun!  We were hoping to finish our time at West Lothian College with some athletics on Thursday but we couldn’t because of the bad weather.  We look forward to catching up with that in January.

This week we have been continuing our work using Bloom’s Taxonomy. Dylan explained this as a ladder of skills. The first rung of the ladder is for ‘remembering skills’.  The second rung of the ladder is for ‘understanding skills’.  Abby says these skills are very handy in reading.  We learned that paraphrasing means putting things into your own words, much easier than we thought!

Miss Kennedy’s maths group have been learning how to use compass directions so now, we won’t get lost!

In science, we discovered that igneous rocks come from inside the earth, sedimentary rocks have layers or fossils in them and metamorphic rocks are rocks which have been changed by heat or pressure.  Next week we are going to teach the rest of the class about the kinds of rocks we have been researching…we thought we would give Miss Kennedy a rest!

There was much excitement on Tuesday as it was the Christmas lunch.  Shonee had turkey and ice cream (not at the same time) and said it was yummy.  Rian liked the steak pie with the jelly and ice cream and chocolate.

On Thursday the choir sang at the Lanthorn for the Good Neighbourhood Group.

With only 2 weeks to go until the holidays, we are now looking forward to the P6/7 Christmas party, Christmas art and craft activities, the P1-3 show and the Christmas enterprises from other classes.   Ho, ho ho from P6!

P7a News

Here is a selection of P7a’s highlights this week.

The Christmas postbox has been put out and pupils can post cards to their friends which P7’s will sort and deliver.  Please remember to write on the class which the card is to be delivered too!

We have been using VCOP to help improve our writing.  V is for vocabulary, C is for connectives, O is for openers and P is for punctuation. 

P7 have been busy practising our social dance skills and are looking forward to the party on 17th December. 

We have been using Blooms Taxonomy to help our thinking skills in reading. 

On the 3rd December we had our Christmas lunch and it was delicious! Thank you to all the dinner staff for feeding us well! 

We have started working on our travel leaflets for our Commonwealth transition project.  We began designing front cover ideas and researching facts about our country. 

We have been working on creative dance with Ms Barr in music and are working on a movement dance to Jingle Bells. 

Our topic is based on ‘Our World’ and we are enjoying learning about why we have day and night and the seasons.  We have found out some interesting facts that we didn’t know and have learned about the structure of the earth. 

Last week our 3 star writers were Holly, Bethany and Reece.  Well done!

FACT OF THE WEEK (As suggested by Natalie!)

Did you know that it take 365.24 days for the earth to orbit the sun?

Primary 2’s first week of December!

Well that time of year has come again, the children are all really excited and counting down to Christmas, we’ve been busy making sure our Nativity Show is progressing well and this week we have started to make our Christmas Enterprise, which the parents can find out about next week!

Isabel (dancer) says – “I love swishing about to ‘Left Out in the Cold.'”

Brooke (dancer) says – “I like to dance to the ‘Stars Shine’ song.”

“I love singing along to the nativity songs,” said Zoe.

“I like the end of the show, because we all dance,” said Louise.

Erin likes it when she is singing ‘Left Out in the Cold.’

On Tuesday, we all enjoyed our Christmas lunch,

Coben thought his turkey was good, while Brooke thought it was delicious. Rhys‘ favourite part of the lunch was his turkey.

Later this morning we are going to our Celebration Assembly, the children are excited waiting to hear who is getting an award and what for…I wonder who will be our Maths and Language Champions this term?

Today was the due date for our Stars Homework, the children return wonderful work, showing that they have learned lots about Nocturnal Animals.  We have posters, written pieces and even some models!  Fantastic work! Well done to those who returned their homework.

Matthew said – “I enjoyed making my bat.”

“I liked doing my stars homework because of the writing,” said Keigan.

Alexander liked making his model fox, while Carlos liked showing his project off in class.  Lucca says, “My firework picture is a bit fancy.”

Please look out for your child’s information about logging into Glow.

A week in the life of p6!

P6 have had a very busy week! On Tuesday we went to West Lothian College to work with the students and learn touch rugby.  When we were walking there it was very rainy.  Despite this, (connective courtesy of Katie!) we still had a great time.  Louis loves going to the college because it means extra PE time.  Kylie enjoys going to the college to work with new people.  Rian likes to learn new things and working with Jack.  We learned touch rugby skills like passing back, using two hands to pass the ball and how to intercept the ball. 

We are also still learning about the creation of Earth.  Dylan really liked finding out about the Big Bang.  We have also been busy making models of the structure of our earth.  Did you know, there are 4 different layers of the earth?  We do!  They are the crust, the mantle, the inner core and outer core.

 P6 were also checking up on their spelling this week too. Shaun was very happy because his spelling has really improved since August.  We are all working hard on our spelling.

We were also involved in a cluster event at the Lanthorn this week to celebrate St Andrews Day.  Sean really enjoyed talking about St Andrew.  Chloe liked going to see what the other schools had been finding out about St Andrew and to watch our own school perform.  We are proud to be Scottish and living in Scotland even though our wish for World Cup wins may take a while to come true!  Megan thought it was cool to sit in a section of the saltire on the floor with the saltire cross in-between everyone. 

We were really happy to make cards and celebrate the pupil support workers on Friday this week.  We want to thank Mrs McDevitt for always refereeing the football, Miss Campbell is always there to care for us when we need help, Mrs Reilly always helps us and supervises us in the playground, Mrs Oliver helps us in the lunch hall, Mrs Thomson helps us keep the garden looking great, Mrs Little helps us in the library and Mrs Smail looks after everyone going to Roosters.  Bankton would not be complete without them!

 Next week, we are looking forward to going back to West Lothian College for athletics, the Christmas lunch and presenting some of our structure of the earth work to the rest of the class to teach them about rock groups.  Not musical rock groups! We’re talking about sedimentary rocks, metamorphic rocks and igneous rocks….more information on that next week.

Award Winning Gymnasts

On Thursday afternoon, Mrs. Ferguson took two girls from bankton to Craigswood Sports Centre for a gymnastics competition. Brooke Jack, P.3/4 and Zoe Black, P.2A were proud to represent Bankton Primary school in this competition.

Brooke said:”I tried my very best and I was first. I won a gold medal and a shield for the school. I felt very proud of myself”

Zoe said: “I enjoyed the competition and I was proud of myself for winning a second place medal and a shield for the school. I am really good at my floor routine.”

Mrs. Ferguson was very excited about their win and the girls shared their news at assembly.

Well done girls!

Brooke and Zoe proudly show off their trophy.Medal Winners - Well done Bankton Girls!

Stellar Award Winners

Congratulations to Ms Allison Barr and the choir for winning the Expressive Arts category at the recent West Lothian Stellar Awards. It is through skilled teaching and committed pupils that this award was possible. Well done!

Five members of the choir were selected by Ms Barr to attend the award ceremony which took place in Howden Park Centre. Holly Gilmour, Chloe Campbell, Jack Falconer, Erin Cannon and Anna McDonald were proud to represent the choir at this special ceremony. They looked very smart in their Bankton uniform and enjoyed going up on stage to receive the trophy and certificates.

Unfortunately Ms Barr was unable to attend because of adult choir commitments, but I was glad to have the opportunity to share this evening with pupils and parents. Some of the award winners have now moved on to James Young  so the photograph used showed the choir performing at the Barbican in London.

Ms Barr has a whole programme of Choir activities planned, but we are also looking forward to our whole school carol service in the final week of term.

Five extremely smart choir members with Mrs. Stewart before the ceremony
Choir Members met Mrs. Kendall from James Young High SchoolWaiting for the ceremony to beginOn stage with the other award winners, feeling very proud!