Category Archives: School News

School News

Read, Write, Inc. Curriculum Evening (P1-4)

Leave a comment

Thank you so much to those of you who attended the Read, Write, Inc. Curriculum evening that Mrs McGuire and I delivered last night. We hope that you found it useful and that you are now more aware of how we teach phonics and the skills of reading at St. Nicholas Primary School.

If you were unable to attend the meeting please visit www.ruthmiskenliteracy.com or www.oup.com for information about the programme. Please always remember that you are more than welcome to contact a member of staff with regards to any questions that you may have.

Please find links below for the Parent booklet on RWI, the speed sounds charts and a list of the mnemonics used in the early stages. I hope this will be of help to you in supporting your child to become able readers who have a passion for books.

http://www.speechsoundpics.com/resources/ReadWriteInc_letterformation.pdf  – this link will take you to a list of the mnemonics used at the start of the programme. These help the children to recall the letters and to form them correctly when writing them.

RWI simple speed sounds PDF

RWI complex speed sounds PDF

School News

Lenten Appeal

Leave a comment

Yes, it is that time of year again and we have various fun activities planned for our children to raise lots of money for our Lenten Appeal.

Tomorrow is of course Ash Wednesday and we will be celebrating Mass at 11am in school. Primary 3 and 3/2 are leading the Mass.

We will kick off our Lenten Appeal with the Silver Snail Trail. Children are encouraged to build a large snail on the floor made of silver coins – Let’s see if we can make the biggest snail ever this year!!

Please see the timetable for activities – click the link below..

Lenten timetable PDF

Primary 2, School News

P2/1 and P2 Carryout a Traffic Survey

1 Comment

Today we looked at the traffic that passed at the top of the school road.

Beth – -‘The traffic was busy and when the cars were not coming it was quiet.’

Harry – ‘Huge trucks and little cars went by.’

Ewan – ‘Double decker buses passed by.’

Kieron –  ‘I saw a zebra crossing.’

Stella – ‘I saw some lamp posts – so in the dark people who are driving can see other traffic going by.’

Josephine –  ‘I saw vans,’

Thomas – ‘ I saw cars.’

Aimee –  ‘I saw buses.’

Kenzie – ‘ I saw 96 cars!’

Sophia – I saw vans driving.’

Clara – ‘… and cars were zooming.’

Rhys – ‘Lorries and vans were going by.’

Primary 3, School News

Marvellous Multiplication!

Leave a comment

Primaries 3 and 3/2 are busy learning all about the 2 and 5 times tables.  We have been involved in active games and we have made multiplication posters to help us remember the number facts.  Miss Crease even made up a song to help us remember the multiples! We have also been using ICT to help us develop our knowledge of these tables by playing Number Gym and Table mountain on the Smart board and laptops.  Our teachers have asked us to keep practising the tables using our green jotters each night as part of our homework.  It is important to have a quick and accurate recall of these table facts.

School News, Wider Achievement

Second Gold for Scottish Acrobat!

10 Comments

Taylor proudly showing his Gold medal.

On Saturday 1st March, Ravenscraig Sports Centre in North Lanarkshire hosted the Scottish Gymnastic Championships and our very own Taylor Stirling (P5A) was there to participate in the Acrobatic Section of the competition. 

Acrobatic Gymnastics includes partnership work on the floor. This discipline is both physically and psychologically demanding. It involves gymnasts working closely together, building up trust and responsibility for each other and developing skills in balance and dynamic elements. Acrobatic Gymnastics combines the skill and activity of the gymnast, expressive movement and artistry of a dancer and the courage and excitement of the acrobat.

Although Taylor was extremely nervous about the competition on Friday, he put all his worries to one side to out-perform all the other athletes and along with his partner, topped the table for the second year running and walked away with the Gold Medal!

This is a tremendous achievement and we are all extremely proud of Taylor  – Scottish Acrobatic Champion 2014.

Justice and Peace, Primary 7, School News

Digital Rights and Responsibilities!

Leave a comment

Article 17

You have the right to get information that is important to your well-being, from radio, newspaper, books, computers and other sources.

Last week we had a class discussion about digital rights and responsibilities when using technology. We carried out a matching task linking digital rights and responsibilities. Next we looked at Graphic Manipulation where we learned how to crop, add transparency, export and save the finished graphics.

Today we are looking at Storyboarding – planning storylines and using software to develop skills of combining text and graphics to tell a story.

Our extension task is to create an animated version of the story using text, graphics and control instructions.

Primary 5, School News

FIZZ, BANG… BOOM!

9 Comments

Remember our blog post all about our science topic of ‘Solids, Liquids and Gases’?

We told you all about our cool experiements and our very sucessful  bathbomb business. When Miss King and Mrs Buchanan-Coutts asked us what we would like to spend our profits on we decided we’d like to book a mad scientist to take over our classrooms and turn them into laboratories! Well on Wednesday we got exactly that…

Robin and Lucy from the Edinburgh International Science Festival arrived bright and early and unpacked their van of exciting experiments! We were amazed when we entered our classroom all set up for some super science and eagerly put on our goggles, gloves and aprons before our safety briefing!

We worked in groups to complete experiments on different chemical reactions and test whether different liquid and powders were acids or alkali! We discussed the chemical reaction that happens when a party popper goes off and then Robin and Lucy showed us their gigantic version of a party popper that created a burst of heat, light and sound in our classroom! We were very impressed!

This was a great way to revisit our learning and experience working in a real laboratory! We had a fantastic day!

If you are interested in learning more about science or seeing some really cool experiments the Edinburgh Science Festival 2014 runs during the Easter holidays from the 5th until the 20th of April, you can find out more about the events they will have on at http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/

Justice and Peace, Primary 5, School News

Trading all over the world!

8 Comments
Article 5

Adults have the responsibility to help you learn to exercise your rights, and to ensure that your rights are protected.

World trade rules are unfair and often disadvantage developing countries.  Today, Primary 5 explored international trade issues to try and find out how this has happened.

We were divided into ten groups, each representing a different country:

  • A most developed country (e.g.France, Canada)
  • A less developed country (e.g. India, South Africa)
  • A least developed country (e.g. Honduras, Kenya)

Each country was given an envelope containing raw materials (e.g. paper) and/or technology (e.g. scissors). The materials and technology differed from country to country, according to their level of development. With the contents of their envelopes, the countries were asked to produce shapes; each shape representing a monetary value they could redeem by depositing in either the Bank of Deas or Valentine’s Bank. The goal of the game was to gain as much wealth as possible.

It didn’t take long for us to discover that the contents of our envelopes were not equally distributed; some did not have enough raw materials or technology to produce any of the shapes. In order for us to do so, we had to negotiate and trade with other countries.

Everyone soon become extremely engaged in the game and there was a real buzz about the room. We were eager to produce tip top shapes and were very active in negotiating and trading with each other. However, there was some very underhand dealings going on! Not all countries were cooperative and helpful; selling resources at astronomical costs, counterfeit goods were being cashed in at the bank, there was dodgy trading at one of the banks and even some materials being sold on the black market by Miss King!!

The afternoon was a great success, especially for Canada who earned an impressive £22,000.  Everyone gained a better understanding of the situation Third World countries find themselves in such as Tanzania who only managed to bank £3,150.

Well done to everyone involved.

Eco School, School News

Eco News

Leave a comment

It was a very busy meeting today and we had lots of items on our agenda!

* We are going to write a letter and petition  to West Lothian Council to complain about the state they have left our Eco Garden in.

* The Eco reps are going to visit P1,P2 and P3 weekly to tell them all about ECO.

* COMPETITIONS – We are going to enter two competitions. One is about encouraging bees back into Scotland and the other is about planting food. We are planning to make a MASSIVE bowl of soup in August.

* WW EARTH HOUR 2014 is going to be on 29th March 2014. See poster on Eco board.

* Are you rembering about NO Electricity Fridays? It’s very easy to do during prayers.

Primary 6, School News

Solar System

4 Comments

Primary 6 have been busy transforming themselves into space experts.

We have been using our Space topic to cover lots of areas of the curriculum including; mathematics, science, art and design, technology and language skills.  

Over the past few weeks Primary 6 have been busy researching our Solar System using computers and information books. We used the information we had gathered to create different posters, make 3d models and design our classroom doors.

To make our 3d models of the Solar System we had to use lots of problem solving skills, maths skills and our knowledge of the planets to ensure our model was accurate. Before we could begin making the planets we had to work out the size of each planet. To do this we learned about the diameter and radius of a circle.  We then set a compass to different measurements to draw the circles so that the planets were different sizes, like they are in real life. The next step in making our models of the Solar System was to scrunch up lots of newspaper and stick it onto the circles of cardboard to make it 3d. Then we had to layer our models with mod rock so that they were smooth, but the rocky planets were a bit bumpier than the gas giants. Finally when the mod rock was dry we painted our 3d models which the Janitor helped us to put up on the wall. Once the planets were up we started to make posters to go along with our planets.

When designing our classroom doors we used our math skills to measure the length and the width of our door and then used these measurements to cut our paper. To make our door design we had to draw out our design on a4 paper at home and then we put a bit of different peoples’ ideas together to make our final design. In the end we decided on having an astronaut on the smaller door and on the bigger door we split it into 3 sections. On one section we put the earth and all the phases of the moon around it, on another section we put a comet saying welcome to p6 on it, on the last section of the door we painted the moon then drew famous spacecrafts.

By Mirren and Caitlin

School News

Joyeux Noel

Leave a comment

Today we have been  watching extracts from the film “Joyeux Noel”, a film in three languages, French, German and English, to explore a range of features of text  such as character, relationships and theme.

We have been looking at different techniques just as we do when we read  a piece of writing.

  We have discussed facial expressions, speech, tone of voice, gesture, music, lighting and sound effects.

Primary 6, School News

Impressive Floor Work!

1 Comment

In P.E primary 6b have been learning about Gymnastics. Mrs Smith has been teaching us about different jumps, balances and floor work.

In teams Mrs Smith challenged us to make a routines to show off our learning. These routines had to be original, show creativity and good transition. Over the course of two weeks we used all our knowledge about jumps, balances and transitions to put together our ideas and create our routines.

Now you can view the finished product for yourself!

By Amy and Gregor

Gymnastics P6

School News

It’s coming to eat you!!!

2 Comments

Primary 5A have been doing amazing projects. Mrs Buchanan-Coutts wanted us to show her, by thinking outside the box, a creative way to show that we understand the food chain.  We were allowed to be as creative as we liked.  We were given a whole week to do this task, and we’ve  had some outstanding work from some of  the Primary 5 students this week!  

We came up with some extraodinary ideas like powerpoints, posters, puzzles, mood boards and boxes decorated about the food chain.  Some of the class used lego, Minecraft and even clay models to show their understanding. 

Mrs Buchanan-Coutts was very impressed with some of the unusual ideas we came up with and we all had great fun doing it into the bargain.  Written by P5a. 

School News, Wider Achievement

A Film Critic in the Making

4 Comments

The St Nicholas filmclub is very proud to announce that one of their members, Seren (P5B), recently won Review of the Week.  No tall order I can assure you, as  Seren’s review was chosen from all those written across the entire UK!

The review was written after she watched the film, ‘Arrietty’.  Here’s what Seren had to say about it:

Beneath the floorboards of a kitchen in Tokyo, a 14 year old lives with her parents which are the same size as her.  They may seem tiny but they are much more. Two ladies and a young boy live in the house above.  The story is about the Borrowers and is about how they live in the house with humans.  It is a 10/10 story because it has lots of cliffhangers and excitement in it. 

I give it *****

School News

Responsible Wildlife

Leave a comment

Primary 5 had a special visit from the SSPCA today.  Amy told us all about some of the strange places they have found animals in distress, including an otter in a Post Office and a bat in a sink!    We all sat totally engrossed while she told us about some of the cruel things that people do to animals, but also reassured us that the SSPCA have lots of sanctuaries around Scotland to help these animals out.  Amy was extremely impressed with our knowledge of local wildlife and in particular, ornithology.  We even managed to fit in a game where we asked each other questions and had to say whether we thought they were fact or fictional statements.    If you see an animal in distress, you should be responsible and call:

Animal Helpline 03000 999 999

Primary 3, School News

Chariot Challenge

3 Comments

Miss Crease and Miss Woods were extremely impressed by the hard work and effort that went into our homework challenge.  We used lots of household recycled materials to create Roman chariots as part of our class topic.  We enjoyed explaining to our classmates how we made them.  Finlay even made a Circus Maximus! 

Owen’s grandad kindly provided a Roman soldier’s outfit to show the class.  Owen felt like a real gladiator!

Thank you to all family members for helping your children to create such amazing masterpieces!  We will be showcasing these to P4 on Friday morning.

Primary 3, School News

P3 & P3/2 Class Mass – Ash Wednesday

Leave a comment

Just a little reminder that P3 & P3/2 will be leading our Ash Wednesday Mass on 5th March at 11 am in our school hall.  If your child has been given a reading/prayer, please ensure they are practising this every night to ensure they are reading it fluently.  These are stapled into their homework diaries.

Children must come to school wearing full school uniform – white school shirt and tie – on this day.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Miss Crease and Miss Woods

Justice and Peace, School News

What is a Rights Respecting School?

Leave a comment

School Charters

Learners have been in full swing contributing to the creation of classroom charters which will be put together with the staff charters to create a whole class charter.  The process has involved the learners choosing the rights from the Convention on the Rights of the Child that they feel are most important to the school. Once these have been collated they then think about how they can show respect towards these rights. This involves thinking about what day to day actions learners can take to protect their rights and take the most of the opportunities given by these rights.

Assemblies

Learners regularly attend and lead assemblies that promote the Rights Respecting ethos.  They have had the process of gaining the award explained to them and were asked to reflect on the following themes:

  • How easy is it to get your rights in Scotland?
  • Why are our rights important?
  • What can you do as learners to make the most of your rights?
  • How can everyone involved in St Nicholas Primary School look after children’s rights?

The global dimension and RRSA

The global dimension of RRSA is a central part of the award. Children learn that rights are universal and that all children do not have equal access to these rights across the world. As an international children’s rights organisation, UNICEF is committed to developing a global perspective in schools, so global citizenship in rights-respecting schools promotes the idea of taking action with and building cohesion rather than doing things to or for people.

A global citizen in a rights-respecting school is someone who knows their rights, believes everybody has rights and is committed to working towards a world where everyone can access their rights. At the heart of the CRC is the fundamental moral principle that all human beings are of equal worth who share an equal entitlement to enjoy the rights set out in the Convention.

School News

Primary 7a’s visit to Primary 1

Leave a comment

Our class have been working on presentations of OLD TESTAMENT stories.We performed them to the primary 1 classes yesterday afternoon.The primary one children enjoyed the stories and they joined in with songs which primary 7 had written.We also enjoyed performing, and hope to repeat the whole experience  next WEDNESDAY in Mrs. Hopkinson’s class.Video link to follow!

Primary 4, School News

Our Viking Trip!

5 Comments

Today we went for a visit to the National Museum of Scotland. We all had a fantastic time. We saw lots of Viking artefacts including pots, jewellery, weapons and utensils. We even saw a Viking man’s grave! We know that Vikings were buried with objects that were special to them. We saw one poor horse who was buried with his master. We got to handle a lot of Viking artefacts too. We found out that the Vikings used ice skates and that they played games that were similar to chess. Following lunch, we had a quick visit to the fantastic animal kingdom, and then we were homeward bound for St Nicholas and Broxburn.

Thanks to all our helpers today: Miss King, Mrs Fitzpatrick, Mrs Chaudhry and Mrs Chatterjee.

School News

An author in the making!

2 Comments

I sat on the edge of the solid, freezing pavement.   With a depressed look on my filthy face.  All around me was rubble. What had been my home was now demolished into thousands of individual pieces. I couldn’t recognise anything now. All around me were smouldering fires that were instantaneously spreading.   Destroying even more.  The dancing fires were hissing and spitting. With every short, sharp breath that I took, I inhaled smoke. I was frozen to the bone but unfortunately we didn’t have any shelter. My shoulders were hunched and my hands were pulled tight into my chest to try to generate heat. I rubbed my hands together so furiously that I expected sparks. Suddenly, all was silent. Unhurriedly, I looked up into the bleak sky. A cumbersome bomb was descending from the dull, grey sky. BANG! Then everything went pitch black…

By Meg P7B

Primary 6, School News

Puzzling Mental Maths

1 Comment

Primary 6b have been very busy this week working on their mental maths skills. 

Lots of us find mental maths tricky so we wanted to find a fun way to develop our mental strategies.  To help with this we worked in groups to practice our fraction, multiplication and division skills.  To make this more fun, we worked in small groups to try out some new mental maths puzzles.  These included loop cards, tarsia puzzles and jigsaws.  We found this fun because we are working together and discussing different ways of solving problems.

Over the next few weeks we will continue practicing these skills and have some fun along the way!

School News

Rainforest Explorers!

3 Comments

Primary 5A have become explorers of the deep, dark rainforest.  Now that we know where to find rainforests, what the climate is like and what it might look like from within, we have started converting our classroom.  It is beginning to take shape, but in order to help us learn about this vast area of amazing land, we have arrived as teams of experts – Ornithologists, Botanists, Mammologists, Herpetologists and Entemologists.  Last week we had to research and share information on our specific groups with the rest of the class.  Next we will be looking at some of the products that are found in the rainforest, in particular from the plants and we hope the Botanists will help us a bit! 

Primary 5, School News

Let’s Dance

4 Comments

Mrs Downham, a PE teacher at St Margarets Academy, brought some of her sixth year Dance Leadership girls to do a workshop with us today.  Before they taught us some really cool moves, we had to warm up and stretch; this is an extremely important part of any sport or excercise regime.  Once completely warmed up, we got down to the business of learning a dance to a song from The Little Mermaid – Under the Sea.  The concentration on our faces in the photos shows just how much we tried to follow the routine.  Towards the end of the session, just to make sure we were completely exhausted, we joined in with a couple of zumba songs.  It was really good fun and we would like to say a huge thank you to the girls and their teacher for taking the time to teach us and we can’t wait to see them again when they put on a performance for us next month.

School News

Look who came to visit!!

2 Comments

Primary 5A had a fantastic surprise today, when an old classmate made a special visit.  Katie left St Nicholas back in October to move to Tranent.  She has settled well into her new school, but thought that since she was on half term holidays this week, she would pop in and see what we were up to.  Everyone was delighted to catch up with her.

Primary 3, School News

A piece of history in our very own classroom!

Leave a comment

This week in class we have been learning about the Roman army, so Miss Woods brought in a replica of a real Roman soldier’s helmet.  Some of us were lucky enough to try it on.  Brandon and Sarah said that it was very heavy.  We understand now how strong the Roman soldiers had to be, as not only did they wear a helmet, they also wore a suit of armour and had to carry weapons, a shield and personal belongings.

Primary 3, School News

Homework Challenge- build a Roman chariot.

2 Comments

As part of our homework, Miss Woods and Miss Crease have set us a challenge!  We have been asked to design and build a Roman chariot using everyday materials from home.

We looked at photos and video clips of Roman chariots and learned how and why they were used by the Romans.

We have to bring our chariots into school by next Friday 14th February.  Photographs will follow…

If we find this challenge a little bit too difficult, our teachers said that we could draw a labelled diagram of a Roman chariot instead.

Roman chariot

Primary 5, School News

Let it Shine, Let it Shine, Let it Shine!

1 Comment

Miss King and Mrs Buchanan-Coutts felt like two very proud mums on Friday when, along with Monsignor Patrick Burke, Primary 5 led the school in a lovely Mass in preparation for Catholic Education Week.  The theme of the Mass was ‘Shining the Light of Faith’ and the children had prepared well by learning how the Gospel according to Matthew 5-15  helps us understand what our faith is and how we can let it “shine out” so that we can show other people what we believe.  We also made lanterns from recycled tin cans to decorate the alter.  Everyone read clearly and sang beautifully, including their own rendition of He Never Sleeps.  

Well done Primary 5.

Click on the link below to watch us singing…

https://vimeo.com/85664699

Eco School, Pupil Voice, School News

St Nicholas Eco Club

Leave a comment

Today was the first meeting of the Eco Club in 2014.

7 members attended and 3 sent apologies.

Our Chairperson Wiktoria opened our meeting offering a warm welcome to old and new members.

Agenda  

* Cutting back hedge in Eco Garden – should we write a letter?

* Discuss Healthy Tuck Shop – appears to be very busy

* No electricity Friday – 10 mins  – extend time?

* Possible visit to Willow Den

* Next week wear old clothes as we are going into the garden.

Next meeting Thursday 6th February 3-4pm

Primary 3, School News

It’s all go in St Nicholas playground!

6 Comments

Last Tuesday Primaries 3 and 3/2 went out to the playground to find out more about what is happening with all of the building work.  A very helpful workman, named Grant, came over to tell us all about the construction work.  He also explained about how the workmen keep safe and the different materials, equipment and machinery that they use.  We learned that they need to wear a hard hat, steel toe-cap boots and a fluorescent jacket.  When we got back into class we worked with a partner to design posters to inform passers by and the rest of the children what is happening in our playground.  We attached the posters to the fence so please have a look!

School News

Film, Camera, Action

6 Comments

There’s a new club at St Nicholas – The Filmclub!  We meet every 2nd Wednesday to watch films, write reviews and look at what goes on behind the scenes.

Last week we all relaxed, got comfy on our cushions and under blankets to watch Robin Williams in ‘Flubber’.

One of our up and coming projects will be to organise a school community film night – so keep your ears peeled for more information.

Primary 5, School News

Our Voices Rock!

6 Comments

Jennifer Baird from Voice Rocks joined Primary 5 last Wednesday for a taster session of their project.  She taught us how to warm our voices up properly before we got to show of our singing skills with our own rendition of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep.

Voice Rocks is  free weekly Pop/Rock choir experience for young people in West Lothian.

Classes will be taught an easy-to-learn style – no formal training, sight singing or reading of music or theory is required.  Participants will listen to and discuss songs in the rock/pop genre and decide as a group which ones to rehearse.   Call Howden Park Centre for more information.

Primary 5, School News

Fantastic Fractions in Primary 5!

4 Comments

This week primary 5 have started to look at fractions as our maths topic!

To help us really understand what a fraction is we began our topic by cutting up a huge chocolate cake into halves, then quarters, then eighths, then sixteenths!

Some of us have been creating our own ‘Fraction Paths’ by cutting up 1 whole piece of paper into fractions, we were then comparing and coming up with statements about what the paths show us! Have a look at the fantastic effort by Kieran and Hannah in the photo gallery.

Some of us have started looking at comparing equlivent fractions as well! This is when 2 fractions mean the same amount, like 1/2 is the same as 2/4!

Primary 3, School News

Learning is fun at the local library!

6 Comments

Primaries 3 and 3/2 visited Broxburn library to find out about our new topic The Romans.  The friendly librarian, Diane, prepared posters which included lots of interesting information about life in Roman times.  Diane was dressed up as a Roman and she invited Ehlana and Sean to dress up too.  They wore a toga and a head piece made from a plant.  Traditionally, Romans wore sandals with laces tied around their legs.  We enjoyed our visit to the library and Diane made the learning fun!  We brought books and posters back to school to continue our learning.  This is going to be a great topic!