Category Archives: Primary 5

The Lion King Junior

What a week for Primary 4 and Primary 5! On Tuesday evening, Wednesday afternoon and Thursday night, the children put on the show of a lifetime for their parents, carers, friends, family members and invited guests, and each time the audience was blown away by their talent. They showed true determination, dedication and enthusiasm throughout the 8 weeks of rehearsals and pulled everything together for three incredible shows to demonstrate their amazing skills. A huge well done to all of the cast and backstage crew for putting on a phenomenal production.

A big thank you to Linda Matthews who took photographs of our Tuesday night performance, and to Eddie Anderson who filmed our Thursday evening show. You can see the photographs that Eddie took here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/westlothiancouncil/

A DVD copy of the show will be given to each family before the end of term.

June Newsletter

Dear Parents / Carers,

Here we are approaching the end of another school year. We have had many highlights since the beginning of the session and it will conclude with the same excitement. From Nursery to P7 the children will have their own special memory to look back on. It could be their performance in the Nativity, the production of Alice, their Remarkable Reader Award or Stem Award, a Living the Values certificate or an achievement recognised through I – Achieve. It may even be the completion of an amazing piece of work, coming up with a theme for new learning, presenting at a conference or sharing learning at their class assembly. As a school our highlights have been many but a few are, sharing our digital learning with colleagues from across West Lothian, being recognised for our achievement in peer mediation from both out with and within West Lothian, the monies we have raised for various charities and the food the children collected for local food banks. The list could go on, but I think what is most important is that every child has tried their best in everything they have completed and these accolades help us to say that they do.

 

I would like to thank the members of the PSA for all their fund raising events this year; they have worked relentless to raise money for our playground and to improve the space for the children. The grand total is over £10,000, which is a massive achievement. The Pupil Council will take time to get feedback from all children about what they would like for the playground and feed this back to the PSA to move this forward in the new year.     I hope you have a safe and happy holiday.

Mary McKenzie

June newsletter final (1)

The Lion King JR Dress Rehearsal

We are learning to perform on a stage
– I can show awareness of space and audience
– I can listen for musical and vocal cues
– I can project my voice using appriate pace, tone and expression
– I can move on and off the stage appropriately and safely

We are learning about the different backstage roles
Lighting and sound- I am aware of how the equipment works and know my musical and vocal cues
Props and scenery- I am aware of what is needed on stage for each scene and know my musical and vocal cues

This term, Primary 4 and 5 have been working extremely hard to prepare for their upcoming performances of The Lion King Jr. We have been learning all about the different roles that are need to prepare for a production like this, and each member has been contributing enthusiastically to their role. On Friday, we showcased everything we have been working towards to the school in our first dress rehearsal, which was a huge success. We received lots of positive feedback from our peers and staff and know our next steps for our final rehearsals. We Just Can’t Wait to deliver our three shows next week now!

To raise money for our show, we also held an animal dress up day for the whole school and raised £113.18.

A huge thank you to all who donated!

Mid Calder Gala Day

The shone on Mid Calder for their annual Children’s Gala Day. We had a great turn out from our school community to walk with us in the procession.

The Primary 7 pupils had a special treat!

We entered three school teams in the Gala Relay Races. Thank you to the children who represented our school, especially the boys team who won!

You can find more photos on the West Lothian Flickr page.

Thank you to the Gala committee for organising such a fun, community event.

Parent/ Carer Questionnaire

Dear Parents and Carers,

Each year we invite parents to comment on the work of the school.  As we begin to plan our priorities for session 2017-2018, we would very much appreciate you taking the time to give us some feedback.

Every child in school will receive a questionnaire.  If you have more than one child in school and you feel you can represent your views on one questionnaire, please feel free to do so.  If, however you feel your child’s experiences are quite different from each other, we are happy to receive a questionnaire from each of them.

You can also complete the form electronically, you can find it in the school blog, please return to the school or electronically to

wlmidcalder-ps@westlothian.org.uk

Please return completed forms by Friday 2nd June.

MCPS Questions for Parents 2017

Digital Leaders for Digital Learning Week

To celebrate Education Scotland’s National Digital Learning Week, our Technical Troopers have been working extremely hard to make a #digitaldifference in Mid Calder Primary School. They have delivered lessons across all stages of our school, teaching our pupils how to use a range of digital tools to enhance their learning. Primary 4A, 4B and P3 received a lesson on how to use the Glow tool Forms, while P7/6 and P5A learned how to the Glow tool Sway. The Technical Troopers helped our Nursery children to develop their positional language by using the Bee-Bots, as well as supporting P1 with logging onto the netbooks and accessing a pirate themed activity using Purple Mash. Primary 6 were taught about the language of coding using Hour of Code, while P5B continued to develop their programming skills using Scratch to create a simple game. P3/2 were shown how to use the different features of iMovie to create a short film about their IDL context.

The Technical Troopers received lots of positive feedback from both the teachers and the pupils, and they did a fantastic job at sharing their own digital skills confidently to make a #digitaldifference.

Developing Digital Detectives in P5B

We are learning to identify reliable sources online

– I can state what makes a source reliable
– I can spot signs that a source might not be reliable and justify my opinion
– I know the importance of double checking the facts I find online

To celebrate National Digital Learning Week, P5B became Digital Detectives and were learning all about how to spot the truth online. We discussed the different ways we can find out information and, as we live in a digital age, we realised how much we rely on the internet to find out facts and help us with research. However, we are also aware that we can’t believe everything we read online! We learned about lots of different ways that you can check if a source is reliable, for example, by looking at the date it was published or updated, considering the credibility of the author, and double checking the facts using a least one other site. We were given a range of QR codes and URL links and we had to use our detectives skills to work out whether or not we could trust each site.

In addition to this, we have also been receiving coding lessons from Sean and Ben in Primary 7 to celebrate Digital Learning Week. We had been using Hour of Code to learn about the language of programming, and then we heard that P7 were becoming Scratch experts so asked them to share their skills with us.In our first lesson, they helped us to explore the features of Scratch, and in the second lesson they extended our skills and helped us to begin to create a simple game. By the end of our two lessons, we were even able to teach each other following learning conversations with our experts.

We have also been using our own and the school’s devices to take part in the Scottish Sumdog contest this week to develop our mental maths skills.

Primary 5 aiment le francais!

L.I. To read and understand French vocabulary

S.C. I can read and say some simple words and phrases in French

I can follow instructions in French

I can ask and respond to simple questions in the target language

 

In French this week, Primary 5 were consolidating their knowledge of colours, numbers and some food types. The children regularly use digital technology to enhance and extend their learning in French and this week was no exception. Using the Digital Dialects website they matched words to pictures in an interactive game to help consolidate their knowledge of fruit and vegetable names. They also used Google Translate to find the meanings of words and phrases related to our Lion King learning context. P5s are becoming increasingly confident in French and are enjoying using different ways of learning.

Niamh S said, ‘I thought using Google Translate was much more fun than using an ordinary dictionary’

Lucy P said, ‘Using the games on Digital Dialects helps me to remember the words better’