Author: B Christie

Schiehallion and Thistle – Ocean Literacy Trip

On Tuesday 26th March 2024 Schiehallion and Thistle Clans had our second visit to Heriot-Watt University – we explored the University as a whole (including lecture theatres!), the National Robotarium and even spent time in the Oriam with an inflatable whale.

 

During the visit we learned all about Ocean Literacy and what happens when litter enters our waterways. We also had time with Whale experts and learned more about how robots can be used to film and interact with animals in their natural habitat.

 

Below are a number of pieces of learning inspired by our trip and photos of our trip:

 

Participatory Budget – Thistle and Schiehallion as Agents of Change

Thistle and Schiehallion have been leading a whole school and wider community project about how to spend the Participatory Budget for our school and the overall cost of the school day.

 

When gathering our data, we needed to ensure that the whole school and our wider community had their say. The children decided they wanted to do this by hosting a whole-school event where pupils gathered in our Discovery Den to learn about the Cost of the School day and Participatory Budget, through fun and engaging activities. This was organised, run, designed and created by members of Thistle and Schiehallion Clans.

 

 

Schiehallion Clan also created, produced and edited their own Clan Calderwood Connects to teach families and our community about Poverty in Scotland, the Cost of the School Day, the History of Schooling and the History of Money. After their Clan Calderwood Connects we asked people who had watched the Clan Connects to have a say in our anonymous Survey. Thistle and Schiehallion Clan supported each other to collect data after the Calderwood Connects from our Community through this Survey. If you want to support us, you can Click here to find out a little more about how you can use your views to help!

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Watercolour Wonder in Thistle and Schiehallion

In Schiehallion and Thistle Clan we have been exploring art techniques associated with watercolour. We explored nine separate techniques which are often used to create paintings when using watercolour; making our own reference sheet to use for future pieces of artwork. Following this, we analysed pieces of artwork created by unknown artists to identify the techniques they had used and the impact this had on the overall piece.

 

We have drafted a final watercolour painting and are looking forward to completing our final piece soon!

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Crime Scene Investigators – Schiehallion and Thistle. What will they solve next?

This term as part of our IDL Topic we have been learning about Forensic Science. We have also been reading the book Holes by Louis Sachar, and have found direct links between the situation Stanley Yelnats find himself in and CSI gone awry.

Below are a selection of records displaying our children’s perspectives on our IDL. Please do ask your child all about the topic and we very much look forward to watching the Holes Movie as a reward for all our hard work! A GroupCall will follow with information about permissions for this film.

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Categorized as Calderwood

Maths Week Scotland – F1 Data for our Clans

The children in Ben Lomond and Ben Lawers, Thistle and Schiehallion and Bluebell and Bramble were given the exciting task of reading, sorting and analysing data with Formula 1 as a focal point. Through a series of rounds the children competed in groups against one another to gain points – these points then propelled them around the racetrack (or sent them off the track!).

Massive thank you to the University of Edinburgh and their F1 Data in Schools team for this support.

Ultimately this led to one team’s vistory for their year group!

See the photos of all their fun below:

Primary Engineering – If You Were an Engineer What Would You Do?

Way back in March Calderwood was abuzz with Engineering…
IDL Topics, Calderwood Connects, Dragon’s Dens and Clan Presentations all led to our children taking part in a National Engineering Competition. The children were posed the question: If You Were an Engineer What Would You Do? My goodness we could’ve powered the inventions they dreamed up with the creativity, thinking and work which went into all the competition entries!
We want to give a special mention to the following people, who were recognised by the competition judges:
Ella – Highly Commended – Top Shelf Grabber
Mason – Highly Commended – See in the Dark Goggles
Lochie – Winner – Flying Shoes
Lucy – Highly Commended – Things to help us
Kiera – Highly Commended – The On Time Roller Skates
Charlotte – Winner – Solar Plane
Mhairi – Highly Commended – The Secret School for Girls
Rachel – Winner – Flying Car
Anveeta – Highly Commended – The Plastic Rocket
Ananya – Highly Commended – The Invisible Cloak
The Champions, children and families attended the Awards Ceremony on Thursday 2nd June, in the Engineering building at the University of Edinburgh, to celebrate Highly Commended and Winning entries to the competition.
We can’t wait to celebrate with everyone at our next Calderwood Connects but for the meantime – keeping STEMing and always look for that engineering opportunity!

Championing Coding: National Robotarium

The Bens had a phenomenal opportunity to take a trip to the newly-opened National Robotarium. Ben Lomond and Ben Lawers had the most amazing day being ambassadors for our school, showing off their robotics and coding knowledge, and exploring new AI technologies.

Please see the Sway created by Ben Lomond all about their trip:

Go to this Sway

The Bens Go Engineering!

At Calderwood we pride ourselves in being at the cutting edge of practice, pedagogy and research. With this in mind, we are currently working with Alana Wilks at Heriot-Watt as part of our Engineering IDL topic.

We are taking part in a number of activities designed by Alana, which will stimulate skills and knowledge around the topic of engineering. In order to further research in this field we hope that parents and guardians would fill out online forms and support our pupils in home learning engineering tasks. Alana’s research topic is ‘The perception of engineering in children and parents from ethnic minority backgrounds‘ and the online forms are around this topic. We would be hugely grateful if as many Bens’ Parents and Guardians could explore the online forms and home learning.

There are two forms to fill out:

Watch this space to see some of the activities and thinking from the Bens displayed shortly!

SUMDOG – Calderwood Counts

Maths Week Scotland is just around the corner which means – Sumdog Competition time!

The contest will begin at 8 am on Friday 23rd September and end on Thursday 29th September. Your child can access the competition by clicking here or logging in via the following link and using their unique username, password, and school code Calderwood2:

https://www.sumdog.com/user/sign_in

This competition is a fantastic way to compete against lots of other Primary students, have fun and develop numeracy/maths skills at the very same time. Your child has received a card which includes their unique username and password to keep safe at home. If you have any issues with accessing Sumdog or using the details on the card please do get in touch with the school office as we’d be more than happy to assist.

Your child may be set some questions which they whizz through at the start. Completing these will support them to answer appropriate questions during the Competition so please do hang in there and complete them!

Creative Calderwood – STEM

Today we were delighted to host the Primary Science Development Officers from authorities across Scotland. They were all given a tour of our school building and heard all about the amazing STEM learning which is going on every day at Calderwood Primary School!

Click here to see the Sway for yourself and catch up on the highlights from a Year of STEM at Calderwood.

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