As part of our Social Studies context P6 have been investigating the features of an election and the work of our representatives at both a local and national level. They are developing their understanding of how a democracy works and are discussing what the rights and responsibilities of citizens in Scotland are. To assist us with our learning we have been fortunate enough to have visits from both the UK and Scottish Parliament this week. We had our own manifestos, elections and even a monarch! Of course we had a speaker and Presiding Officer too so everyone came to order!

Congratulations P6 for a great day out at cross country today. All the staff who attended with you were so proud of the positivity and you all cheered your friends on. Everyone worked really hard on this tough race and I am very proud of each and every one of you. Well done to Paul who came 3rd place in the boys race and to Freya who scored within the top 10 for the girls race. Paul will have the opportunity to attend the championships when he is in P7 – great work!!

Congratulations P6 for a fantastic effort at the Cross Country event today in Polbeth. You all did yourselves proud with everyone completing the course. It was great to see you all cheering each other on. Great sportsmanship! Special mention to this superstar who managed to finish 3rd. Considering there were 5 other schools competing that was some achievement!

Primary 5A and 5B went to visit Surgeons’ Hall Museum in Edinburgh on Wednesday.

We took part in a workshop to learn about how surgery was performed in the past and how this has helped to shape the procedures we are lucky enough to have today.

We handled some old instruments and had to guess what they were used for, then some lucky volunteers demonstrated what it would have been like to undergo certain procedures back in the bad old days – we all agreed we’d much rather have to go to hospital in this century than back then!

We then looked at some of the exhibits, including some hands-on robotics which allowed us to see what it is like when robots perform surgery.

Afterwards we enjoyed lunch outside in the sunshine before returning to school.

Everyone feels ready now to begin our new IDL context on Human Body Systems.

This week we have been working on our East Calder project. We listened while Alan Hamilton talked about his time in East Calder in the 60’s. It was very interesting learning about the history of our community. Then the P6’s joined us to build the community in 1935 or 2024. We used maps to help us. We also thought about what is in the community of East Calder now and created leaflets to tell tourists about it. Pop along to our celebration on 31st May to see all our work on the community then and now.

Primary 5A were very excited to welcome parents and carers into class on Thursday afternoon. Pupils had chosen to share some of our maths and literacy games we use in class to support our learning in these areas, as many parents had asked about ways to support at home at our last Parent Consultations.
P5 had great fun showing parents a variety of games and challenges which can be used at home, and lots of parents showed their competitive side when playing against their kids!
We ended with a Kahoot! quiz to showcase our learning across the whole of this session – in the end it was a very close finish but Alex and his mum were the victors, well done to them!

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend, we all thoroughly enjoyed it.