What a great effort for the October Home Learning for P7. Across the whole class every item on the sheet was covered. One of the most popular activities was to learn a new skill – I’m so impressed that P7 were boiling eggs, pasta, trying fancy new hairstyles and even ironing! Well done! We have shared our learning and peer assessed it, with some pupils being so impressed with what their peers had done that they asked to use the WOW! stamper.

November Home Learning is already issued and a copy can be found here: November activities

We completed the SNSA this week.

We had great fun with art this week where we learned to make a picture using the wax resist technique – who knew it’s all really about science! Lots of great thinking about what was happening and why, also about why the candles worked better than the crayons. Great work P7.

Next week we are having Outdoor Learning Week and we will be outside for at least 2 sessions NO MATTER WHAT THE WEATHER IS LIKE, so please ensure pupils are dressed appropriately.

October activities

Pupils were given October home learning sheet on 1st October, here it is again in case it goes missing.

We’ve had a great week again.

Lewis – I liked the football on Tuesday. The fitness work was good. I feel I lost 10 stone

Tyler – I liked the maths when we were doing the long multiplication because it was hard but fun and worth it.

Liam – I liked drawing the manga pictures. It was quite hard but fun.

Holly – I liked the new game we played in PE with Miss Donald. It was called Duck tig.

Ben – I liked the netball tournament.

I hope everyone has a great holiday.

P7 have been busy this week, as always. We started Monday by completing our Christmas Card designs. We managed a sneaky extra PE session too, so that we could learn more netball – we are really getting there with all the rules and positions. As always on a Monday afternoon, we have our Reading Circles. Please try to ensure your child has read the required pages and completed the activity, otherwise the benefits of the group discussion are missed.

The highlight of our week was definitely a visit from the WL Museum Service to teach us about local geology as part of the work the pupils are doing with Mrs Fraser about rocks and soils. Pupils were able to handle all sorts of interesting rocks and fossils. Some photos are already on Twitter and I will get some posted on here soon.

Jack – This week I have enjoyed PE because last week I missed it so I’ve caught up on the netball rules quite quickly.

Ben M – one of the things that stood out for me at the geology lesson was about the sea flooding Scotland and then everything turning into fossils after dying, when the water dried out too.

Erin – When I was doing Japan school facts I couldn’t get the right fact but I kept trying. That was me using perseverance. In maths I have an aspiration to try and get all my number talks questions right. So I will keep trying and I think I’ve improved on it this week.

Liam – This week I tried to persevere in the netball trials and to try to improve my vocabulary in my writing.

Bobby – I found the manga a bit hard because I couldn’t draw a perfect circle and when I tried drawing the chin, both sides were unequal. I did enjoy it though. I really liked maths because we were teaching each other stuff instead of the teacher just telling us.

October Home Learning – October activities

As always this has been a very busy week for P7. In writing we have been trying to use high level connectives for our comparison of Japan and Scotland. We have begun to learn the many rules of netball in PE. It is quite different from other sports we love. We had a great time on Wednesday which was European Day of Languages when we had a treat tasting all sorts of European food. The sweet things, meat, currywurst and cheese all went down well, but the poor olives were neglected!

Aside from all the formal learning, I wanted to highlight the many responsibilities that P7 pupils take on. Most of the roles have to be applied for with a written application followed up with an interview or presentation. The skills involved in this are all part of Developing the Young Workforce. For every single position, the staff have been overwhelmed by the professionalism and skill of our young people. Our Junior Road Safety Officers, Reading Champions, House Captains, Sports Captains, Pupil council, Sports Committee have all been successfully through this process.

In addition, P7 have roles as rainy day monitors, corridor monitors, reading buddies, P1 buddies, recycling monitors, lunch trolley movers. All of the jobs have to be done as well as their in-class learning, so they really are developing their time-management skills as well.

However, today a huge amount of praise should go to the many P7 pupils who helped out at our Macmillan Coffee Morning. They all worked tirelessly and politely for the whole morning, mucking in doing whatever needed done. Many staff and visitors have complimented them on their great work. We are all very proud of them. FANTASTIC WORK P7!

Hi everyone,

This week we had our first session of reading circles. There is a lot to remember and to discuss but for a first session most people rose to the challenge. Already many pupils have reflected on how to make things work better the next time. The most important thing though is that everyone has done the expected reading and activity. We will usually do our reading on a Monday but we did it on Wednesday this week because we were so keen to get started.

Word of the Week – this is proving a popular, if challenging way to learn new words. House points are available to anyone trying out the word in a conversation or in their writing. This week the word is ZEALOUS. Previous words are ARCHIPELAGO and QUANDARY.

We have learned some useful phrases in French – j’ai faim, j’ai soif, je suis fatigue, bonsoir, j’ai chaud, j’ai froid

Comments from pupils:

Harry – this week I found updating Didbook really fun because I go to write about what I am good at. What I found hard was the Lepra dance: it was confusing for me.

Matthew – the Lepra dancing/boxing on Thursday morning was fun. Maths yesterday was fun and a challenge. Also I enjoyed handball.

Claudia – I thought the problem solving maths was really fun on Thursday. I didn’t get them all right but it was still fun.

Erin – ERIC time went really well because I am ZEALOUS about reading and when it is quiet it’s best because I can really get into the story.

Brooke – The dancing on Thursday was pretty funny. Also the interview for the house captains was good. Nothing much difficult happened this week because it was a half week. My target is to win the winning house again.

Remember home learning is due in on Thursday 26th September.

Another busy week for P7. Maths Week Scotland and a visit to the Risk Factory were clear highlights for us all.

The class have been solving problems by finding patterns that help to predict further answers. Sumdog as always is a firm favourite and P7 have completed hundreds of questions each this week. An extra well done to those who managed to finish all 1000 questions.

The Risk Factory is always a hit with P7. It allows pupils to find ways to deal with risky situations like building sites or railway lines. There are 10 different scenarios to visit and it is great fun. Ask your child if they were one of several who ‘died’ by making poor decisions – some ‘died’ more than once! £20 on a railway line was apparently worth taking a risk for!

Jack – it teaches you a lot of scenarios that you could use when you are older. The volunteers teach you a lot of things as well.

Ben – It was really fun in the fire scenario. I died 3 times in the bus scenario.

Tyler – I died 3 times!

Kaitlyn – The fire scenario was really scary but fun.

Agota – The fire one was my favourite. I liked the railway one too.

Thank you to those who came to the Meet The Teacher on Wednesday. If you were unable to attend, here is a link to the presentation.

Meet the Teacher Parent Presentation

P7 really is like no other year in Primary School – so many new responsibilities and opportunities. This week we announced our new House Captains:

Calderwood – Ben M and Emmie

Almondell – Eleni and Liam

Eliburn – Harry and Tyler

Beecraigs – Erin and Brooke

Congratulations to them and to everyone who went for these posts – you were all very professional and your speeches were heartfelt. You made the decisions very difficult.

We also have 4 Reading Ambassadors to congratulate:

Sophie C, Sophie M, Kaitlyn and Agota

They have a very busy year ahead helping us to encourage more reading throughout the school. Well done girls!

We also have our new Sports Captains:

Holly and Samuel

They will be organising all sorts of sporty things this year, as well as making sure the teachers are keeping the PE cupboard tidy – good luck with that!

We have several pupils applying to be Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSOs) next week, so good luck to those pupils.

Looking back on what we have done in class this week, our Class Charter is now complete and has been signed by everyone to ensure we make this last year at primary school the best ever.

We started a year long programme with the Inveralmond CHS School of Football coach. We are so fortunate to be able to participate in this programme which focusses on developing the whole person, using football as a context. The key thing is that everyone is only competing against themselves to get better at everything, not just sport. There will be a mix of classroom sessions and physical sessions.

Pupil reflections:

Matthew – We did football and it was good but not tiring. We got our charter done eventually. Handball in PE was fun but a bit rough.

Sophie C – Number Talks was quite good. I think I can try some different ways to work out multiplication.

Charlie – I liked using the magnifier to look at rocks but you had to use the wee do part to get the best look. I learned about igneous rocks and metamorphic rocks.

Kieran – Number Talks was hard at the start but today we were much quicker.

Jack – It was good to pick our own story to write a report on, but it was difficult because the starting paragraph had to be a specific way.

This week we have been thinking about our mindset for learning. We have been working on some positive thinking and how to change what we say to be more open to new things. For example “I can’t do it.” becomes “I can’t do it yet.” or “I’m not as good as she is.” becomes “She is good at this, maybe she can help me.”

We have also been looking at our rights and have learned many more that we didn’t know about before.

We have elected our Pupil Council representatives for the year and they are Ben and Elise. The great thing was that 8 people went for it and some had to overcome lots of nerves to stand up and say their bit. I am very proud of them.

During our reflection time this week there was a common theme around applications for House Captains and Sports Captains.

Holly – Writing my Sports Captain speech was so hard. I couldn’t decide what to say.

Emmie – I had so many things to say in my House Captain speech and it was hard to decide which ones to keep so it didn’t go on too long.

Kaitlyn – The House Captain speech was hard to write because I’ve never done anything like that before.

Katie – I feel like in my writing I don’t use big words but I did in my speech for Sports Captain and in my poem too. I am getting better at writing.

Harry – I did better than I thought I would in the basketball trials. I enjoyed writing my House Captain speech even though it took me about 4 times to get it right.

Well done P7. Your willingness to give things a go is most impressive, and also I love the way you don’t just accept ‘good enough’ and always try to improve. That’s growth mindset in action.