This morning P5/6 had a visit from Mrs Miller, an Education Officer at the Scottish Parliament.
Mrs Miller taught us about how the Scottish Parliament operates and reinforced much of the learning we had already experienced in class.
We were split into groups and had to campaign for votes. The winning party were the Animal Welfare Party.
We then took part in a debate. The issue were were debating was ‘Circuses should not be able to use wild animals.’ This is an actual issue which is going to be debated by MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. After the debate we voted and Mrs Miller is taking our vote back to parliament to share our views with them.
This was a really exciting and fun experience for us, here are some of our reflections on the things we learned and enjoyed:

“I enjoyed learning about what the presiding officer does.” Cameron
“I enjoyed the debate.” Chloe
“I liked using the voting system and seeing how it was like a race.” Merryn
“I enjoyed being the leader of my party and using the clickpad.” Luca and Joe
“I enjoyed using the clickpads and debating about banning animals from the circus.” Nethuki and Daniel
“I learned what a presiding officer does. I enjoyed the election activity.” Oskar
“I enjoyed taking part in the debate.” Ewan and Kathryn
“I answered the most questions correctly and I won a pencil and got a sticker.” Elliot ”
” I learned about Queensberry House which is part of the Scottish Parliament.” Rosie

Tuesday 4th December is our class assembly which is linked to our learning about democracy and the Scottish Parliament. We are looking forward to sharing all of our learning with you.

soft c words

soft c words21.11.18

We have been learning about democracy and the Scottish Parliament. We reflected on what we have learned so far.

“I have really enjoyed learning about how MPs are elected and creating parties in class because we got to design logos,names and colours for our group. Mine was pink fluffy unicorns and we were pink.” Georgia

“Before doing this topic I did not know there was an MP or MSP. I thought before the American President was ours too. We have been learning about the job of a M.P and M.S.P and we learned about the houses of parliament.” Ewan

“We have learned that different countries have different ways of doing things. Not every country in the world is a democracy.” Sophie

“I really enjoyed learning about parliament. I learned the different jobs that MPs and MSPs carry out.” Elliot

“I have enjoyed listening about the story Guy Fawkes trying to blow up the houses of parliament. Also I didn’t know that there was a first minister in Scotland. I learned that MPs and MSPs vote in different ways and I have learned what democracy means.” Merryn

We have learned about the differences between the UK Government and the Scottish Government and we watched videos showing us the kind of things MSPs do as part of their job. To help us to understand about how MPs are elected we are having a mock election in class which links in with our forthcoming assembly.

In other areas of the curriculum:

* P5 have been developing their ability to draw diagrams and make models to help them to solve problems.
* P6 have been learning about doubles and halves with Mrs Johnston.
* We have been learning about product design and marketing through our enterprise topic and have began to create some of our products.
* We are learning about musical vocabulary such as pitch, tempo and rhythm.

This week, the primary 6s have been moving onto money problems in Maths.  They are developing their knowledge of the decimal point when used with money as well as developing their mental calculation strategies in order to quickly calculate.

Within Literacy, they are developing their knowledge about adverbial phrases and how they can use a comma to include this technical skills in their own writing.  Some of them made good attempts to include some adverbial phrases in their character description about ‘the Water Kelpie’.

Finally, through HWB, the pupils have been revisiting the UNCRC articles and exploring examples of where children’s rights are not being upheld.  This week, we will be revisiting our school values and linking these to our new rules: be ready, be respectful, be safe.  From here they will redesign the school charter; look out for it the next time you are in!