Primary 1 and Primary 2/1 have been authors this week. Our books are ready and waiting for us to share with you at A Tea, A Tale and A Treat! We hope you can make it along.

Sammy from Beechbrae came to talk to us about recycling today. She was very impressed with everything we know.  Look out for the recycling task in our school bags.

The competitive spirit is alive and kicking in Blackridge Primary School.  P7 Heads of House organised a House Quiz morning and P1-3 thoroughly enjoyed it. A wealth of knowledge was on display in the categories of music, nursery rhymes and general knowledge to name a few! Some of the teachers got in on the act too!

Primary 6 went around Blackridge to investigate the physical landscape of the area.  We used maps to find out where we were, to read grid references and to look at the contour lines.  Contour lines show you how steep a hill is and we compared the maps with the landscape.  We saw the quarry and Westrigg park. We went to Westcraigs hill and looked at it from different angles.  We saw the old water filter station on the hill.  We went to the burn and talked about how erosion and deposition change the shape of rivers.  We found a strange We tried to go to the museum but it was closed, we’ll have to go another day.  We took photos and drew sketches of the landscape.  Miss Reid let the class lead the way even though she didn’t always trust where we were going!  Miss Reid was very proud of the behaviour of the class when they were representing the school in the community.

Please see attached for a list of the Clubs available for the Armadale Cluster Schools this term.

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Primary 5 to 7 have been attending a range of Masterclasses to develop their skills for learning , life and work. They chose from some very exciting subjects-

First Aid, Movie Making, Street Dance, Photography, Cake Decorating and Fitness.

The children gained a great deal of expertise from the group leaders who included teachers, pupil support workers and Armadale Academy pupils. The First Aid group used some very realistic stage make up to help them to identify which type of injury they were dealing with ! The Street Dance team might be giving Diversity a run for their money and Mary Berry would have been delighted to see the cake decorating skills that were on show. The photographers now know a great deal about setting up an effective shot and the movie makers can describe ‘stop start’ technology. The fitness class are able to share rules of various games.

The children were all asked to complete an evaluation using the principles of Bloom’s taxonomy . They allocated skills learned to each area, which are remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating.

Here are some of their comments-

Remembering-  ‘We had to remember the moves and the dance.’ ‘ We needed to remember the instructions to decorate the cake’  We had to remember the parts of the camera’ We needed to know the order that the recovery position goes in’

Understanding- ‘We show we have understood by demonstrating our first aid skills’ ‘ We have learned how to take a picture including how to zoom in and not make it blurry’ ‘ We had to understand how to use the software’

Applying- ‘We had to measure and cut out the shapes correctly on our own after observing the leader’ ‘ We applied our knowledge of different games and used our fitness skills’ ‘We had to apply our skills when putting photos into a story’

Analysing- ‘We had to look at shapes and positions, making sure everything was in the right place in our photographs’ ‘ We analysed wounds and situations’ ‘We broke down what we did to see if we could do it better or not’

Evaluating- ‘ We evaluated each other’s work’  ‘ We were assessing’ ‘ We looked at things like lighting and focus to see if we could make things better’  ‘We looked at our cakes and saw if they were good or bad’

Creating- ‘ We modified our designs’ ‘We were creating loads – story lines,effects, noises, backgrounds, conversations and special stuff”  ‘ We created our own wounds!’  ‘We created images of our surroundings’ ‘ We put games together’

The children also had a think about some of the jobs we could do using our new skills. Here are a few

PE Teacher, Referee, Tennis Player, Coach, Footballer, Fashion/ Wedding Photographer,  Photography Assistant, Advertising Photographer, Dancer, Choreographer , Actress, Doctor, Nurser, Paramedic, Baker, Chef, Set Decorator, Cartoonist, Producer, Work for Apple and advertising . Phew!

How to Guide for parents

If you have missed the information about how to access your child’s journal check out the information below. If you have not yet given Miss Mitchell an e-mail address, please do so at your earliest convenience.

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Wednesday 18 January 2017

Blackridge Primary School Art Gallery Event

Parents, carers, family, friends and community members are welcome to come and view our Art Gallery between 9.30am and 5.30pm.

Theme:  Blackridge Primary School

• Nursery – Self Portraits of themselves at school
• Primary 1 and 1/2 – The playground in the future
• Primary 2: The school in the future
• Primary 3 and Primary 5 – Views from Blackridge Primary School
• Primary 4 – The school now
• Primary 6-Primary 7 – curated photographs and images of the school from the past

All gallery visitors may bid for a piece of art in a silent auction however all bids can be outbid by an immediate family member.

Primary 7 collected and bought some toys to be donated to children who may not receive as much as them this Christmas. They contacted Riverkids who were happy to take all of the much needed toys from them! Well done P7 you are all very responsible citizens and should be proud of the effort you have made. Many children will now wake up on Christmas morning and have a big smile on their faces!