Category Archives: Health & Wellbeing

Achievements, Events, Health & Wellbeing, Primary 7, Responsible Roles, Uncategorized

Magical Mediators receive WL Stellar Award!

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On Friday afternoon the Magical Mediators and their parents/ carers were invited along to the West Lothian Stellar Awards at Howden Park Centre where they received the winning award for Responsible Citizens.

The information below details why these group of pupils were nominated for the award and the impact they have had on the school and themselves. A big Congratulations to all the Magical Mediators for this huge achievement, we are very proud of them.

https://www.westlothian.gov.uk/article/13221/Spotlight-on-pupils-at-Stellar-Awards

  • How the outcome was achieved, were there barriers, new ideas, teamwork etc.

Over two years as a Senior Management Team we recognised that we were having ongoing issues in the playground. As part of a way to address the issues we introduced Responsible Roles for Primary 7 pupils which included:

  • Playful Pals: They have the responsibility of teaching younger pupils playground games, looking after the playground equipment and ensuring children are not on their own at break and lunch times.
  • Safe Security: They have the responsibility of ensuring the playground area and toilets areas safe and pupils are using the facilities responsibility.
  • Magical Mediators: They operate a peer mediation programme which helps pupils solve disputes in the playground through a coaching programme.

The Primary 7 pupils filled out an application form and were allocated a role depending on their knowledge, skills and qualities, they then underwent training for their specific role.

  • Who was involved/ affected – those involved, those supporting, those who benefitted.

Initially the Magical Mediators were trained along with St. Ninian’s Primary by the Scottish Mediation Network, the pupils now run their own training programme. They work in partnership with the pupil support workers and are supported by the depute head teacher. The Magical Mediator service is offered to P1-7 pupils. Our Magical Mediators are still in regular contact with the Scottish Mediation Network, who have written case studies about our programme to share our learning with others.

  • What was learned.

The Magical Mediators help our pupils become independent by helping them develop conflict resolution skills there preparing them with skills for learning, life and work. Pupils in the school have become more solution orientated by trying to solve their own problems first before asking an adult for help.

The Magical Mediators programme has impacted hugely on their Primary 7 leadership skills as they have responsibility for leading and developing the programme. They have developed their communication skills in a number of ways from promoting and advertising the service through Assemblies, promotion videos and our school blog to how they communicate with the pupils who use their service. They have developed resilience and problem solving skills in order to independently  overcome difficult situations. They have also developed their organisation skills by

  • What makes the achievement/project/group/individual special.

Our Magical Mediators have represented our school and West Lothian at the Scottish Medication Conference and more recently they were asked to share our journey to schools across Scotland at the Scottish Young Talks Conference.  At this conference they received an award from the Scottish Mediation in recognition for our Outstanding Contribution to Peer Mediation in Scotland by a School.

  • What are the lasting impacts of the achievement/project etc.

Our Magical Mediators continue to have a lasting impact on the health and wellbeing of the pupils in our school. It is a sustainable programme, as the Primary 7 pupils have developed training workshops to  train the new magical mediators each year. We regularly support the Scottish Mediation Network with their research and have appeared in their Young Talks Magazine several times.

You can find out more about our Magical Mediators on our blog:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/wl/mcps/?s=magical+mediators&searchsubmit=

Health & Wellbeing

P4b are Masterchefs!

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LI: We are learning to cook a healthy meal.
SC: I can stay safe when preparing food.
I can prepare a healthy meal using different ingredients.
I am developing my cooking skills.

In P4B yesterday, we worked together to safely prepare a healthy meal of lentil soup using the school’s mobile kitchen unit, it was lots of fun and tasted DELICIOUS!

Ingredients:
– 230g of red lentils
– 4 large onions
– 500g of carrots
– 6 pints of ham stock
– salt and pepper

Health & Wellbeing, Interdisciplinary Learning, Technologies, Uncategorized

P4A visit to East Bangour Dairy Farm

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This week as part of our IDL topic, we visited East Bangour Farm in Broxburn. We had previously researched facts about cows including what they eat, where they sleep and what they produce. The visit to the farm was a fantastic opportunity to learn more about cows in a real life context. We were able to see that the cows how the cows are organised into groups. fed, sleep and milked on a daily basis. This included a chance to feel what being milked was like, using the suction machines. Additionally, we looked and smelled what the cows were fed, where they sleep and general living habits.

Fortunately, at the end of the visit we were able to hold baby lambs as their mother had given birth before our visit. We had fun guessing all their names which was revealed at the end of the trip.

A huge thank you to Jim and all his farm at East Bangour Farm for letting us come and learn more about cows and all the hard work that is involved in looking after them. Additionally, we would like to say thank you to The Royal Highland Education Trust for organising our visit and ensuring we had lots of fun!

 

 

Fundraising, Global Citizens, Health & Wellbeing, Uncategorized

Burns Supper Boxes

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The Global Machars Foodbank Appeal January/February 2017
The Global Citizenship JLT would appealled for food items for a Burns Supper meal for poor children in Dumfries and Galloway where Rabbie Burns grew up as a child. In his day boys would go poaching for fish or catching rabbits and taking gulls eggs to help families eat but nowadays lots of boys and girls don’t have enough to eat. Naomi came up with the idea to make them a Burns Supper meal through a foodbank donation.
We made up an action plan to ask for donations, box up the foodstuffs and distribute the made-up boxes. The contained:

UHT milk 1 litre
*Tins of Scotch Broth or Leek and Potato soup
Tins of Cullen Skink
*Tins of haggis
Tins of Mince
Tins of Stewing Steak
*Tins of boiled potatoes
*Tins of carrots
Tins of peas
Packets of Smash potato
*Packets of shortbread
*Tins of fruit cocktail
Tins of custard

We found out by researching foodbanks that poor folk often don’t have enough personal care items so they asked for donations of soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste too!
Many many thanks,
Yours aye,
the Global Citizenship JLT.

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Health & Wellbeing

P4B’s Date at a Dairy Farm

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Today, P4b had a fantastic day at East Bangour Dairy Farm and we learned so much! The trip began with a tour around the calf sheds, where we were taught about how calves are brought up and fed. We were then taken into the milk shed, the farmer showed us where the milk is stored, how the cows stand in the milk pit and we were also able to try out the machine that milks the cows with our fingers.
At the end of the trip we were able to sit in a huge tractor and the farmers then introduced us to one day old baby lambs and we were even allowed to hold them!
We had a brilliant time and it was a fantastic experience! Thank you so much to the staff of East Bangour Farm and Karen from RHET.

Health & Wellbeing, Internet Safety, Internet Safety, Nursery, Technologies, Uncategorized

Safer Internet Day

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On Safer Internet Day 2017, P1 were developing their understanding of what is meant by personal information. They were also learning that this information is private and should be kept safe.

SC  I can give examples of what personal information is
I can make choices about the information I share with others

We began by looking at some photographs, and we were amazed at how many clues we could get about something or someone just by looking at a photograph. We started thinking about the kind of information we could see, and realised that we have similar information about ourselves – name, age, address, school etc. In small groups we discussed whether other people, especially people we don’t know, should know this kind of information about us. We decided they should not. This personal information should be private. To consolidate our thinking, we then worked together to sort some photographs into two hoops – personal information that should be kept private, or information that could be shared. Lots of good discussion could be heard as we worked on this task.

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Later, we made an ‘All About Me’ poster showing information about ourselves that we were happy to share with others eg my favourite colour, my favourite book etc. We all remembered not to put any private information on our poster, and we were all happy to show our posters to each other.