Author: Miss McGuire

This term, our clan has been transported back in time! Primary 5 have been delving into the days of the Scottish Wars of Independence, while Primary 4 have been uncovering the rich local history of our area with Miss Small and Mrs Scobie.

As part of our exploration of the Scottish Wars of Independence, Primary 5 have been learning about the lives of knights. We were captivated by the significance of heraldry, learning how the colours and symbols on a shield could tell a story about a knight’s family, values, and achievements. Inspired by their discoveries, the clan worked together in groups to design and create their own shields. Each team carefully selected colours and symbols to reflect their unique qualities.

Yesterday, we turned our attention to the beauty of Scots language as the pupils took part in our Scots poetry recital. We were absolutely blown away by everyone’s efforts! Each performer memorised their chosen poem with incredible skill, demonstrating clear pronunciation, expressive actions, and a deep understanding of Scots words.

After the recital, the class held a secret ballot to choose their stage winners. The room buzzed with excitement as votes were counted, and cheers erupted as the winners were announced. We are now eagerly looking forward to seeing how our stage winners get on at the Calderwood Scots Poetry Recital next week. We know they’ll do themselves and our clan proud!

This week, Tummel clan finished reading The Last Bear by Hannah Gold. The Last Bear follows 11-year-old April Wood on a journey to Bear Island, where she discovers a stranded polar bear affected by climate change. Despite being told no bears remain, April befriends and helps him, embarking on a courageous mission to return him home. The story taught us the importance of protecting our planet, showing kindness, and remembering that young people can make a difference!

As we approached the novel’s conclusion, we planned and performed a short drama to depict April and Bear’s final journey to Svalbard. Our performance focused on key narrative elements—orientation, complication, and resolution—which later guided us in writing our own narrative scripts based on the drama.

Our Tummel Primary 5s had an amazing time at the pantomime watching Cinderella! The excitement reached new heights when one of our lucky clan mates was invited on stage with the mischievous Fairy May. After weeks of hard work crafting our own narrative scripts, it was truly inspiring to experience a live performance. We all agreed—it was a fantastic show!

In Tummel Clan, we have been learning how to write a quality description. From our prior learning, we were able to discuss elements of the describing bubble which is used as a prompt to help us add interesting detail to our writing.

As Calderwood Clan Explorers investigating the meaning behind our clan name, we are beginning to learn about Loch Tummel. We listened to the story of “Gloomy the Misty Loch Monster”, making sure to listen to all of the words so that we could draw a detailed picture of Gloomy from the description. We decided we wanted to imagine our own sea creatures which we did, then described them to our partner to see how accurate their drawing would be!

Afterwards, we described our sea creature as a cold piece writing assessment. We were then able to reflect on what went well and think about what personal targets we could set to make our writing even better next time.