Category Archives: Junior Leadership Teams

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=

English & Literacy, Interdisciplinary Learning, Primary 5, STEM 2017

MISSING!

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L.I. We are learning to select key information from a description.

As part of our STEM topic, ‘KIDNAPPED’, Primary 5 have been helping the police in their search for the missing Green children who have been kidnapped from their home. This week we decided to create some Missing Persons posters to help with the investigation. We revised all the information we already had about the children and the circumstances of their disappearance.

In our investigation groups we discussed the information we had and selected the key points to include in our posters. We agreed that they had to:

  • be eyecatching, to hook people in
  • provide as much accurate information about the children as possible
  • give details of the date and time of the disappearance
  • give an accurate representation of how the children look
  • provide details of who to contact with information

Once we had planned our posters, we got to work in our teams and managed to produce some really eye-catching posters. We are hoping to get permission to display some around the school – look out for them!

Pupil Council, School Aims

New School Aims

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As a school we have recently created new school aims from information we gathered from pupils, parents and staff. Our new aims are:

  • We aim to prepare all our young people with the skills, knowledge and attributes for the challenges of the future.
  • We aim to create a learning environment which stimulates, challenges, supports and provides opportunities to develop independent learners.
  • We aim to deliver an innovative and creative curriculum which is relevant to our children’s lives and promotes personalisation and choice.
  • We aim to provide high quality learning and teaching experiences to enable every child to reach their full potential.
  • We aim to foster our core values through creating a positive and welcoming school ethos.
  • We aim to support each child’s skills and talents through recognition and celebration of individual achievements.
  • We aim to promote effective partnerships between home, school and the wider community.

Our new Pupil Council rewrote the aims into child friendly language, these will be displayed in classes.

school-values-child-friendly

 

 

Junior Leadership Teams, Uncategorized

Fairtrade Fortnight

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This year Fairtrade Fortnight takes place from 27th February to 12th March.

Fairtrade Fortnight 2017 is all about Fairtrade Breaks.

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The Junior Leadership Team have been learning about Fairtrade, and would  like to encourage others to participate in this event.

To do this, they have created a competition for all Primary 1-7 classes. This involves collecting as many Fairtrade labels as possible over the two week period. The class with the most labels will win an extra Break time.

They also suggested having Fairtrade Fridays during these two weeks. They would like to encourage as many people as possible to bring a Fairtrade snack for Break time on both these Fridays (but no nuts please).

 

 

Community, Events, Primary 5, Primary 7, Pupil Council

Cluster Pupil Council Learning Walk

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Our Pupil Council decided that they would like to organise a Learning Walk in different schools so they could find out what it is like to be a pupil in a different Primary school. Our cluster schools Addiewell Primary and Woodmuir also agreed that they would like to join us.

Today was the first part of the learning walk, pupils from Addiewell and Woodmuir joining us. The Pupil Council put together a presentation with information that they would like to share about our school.

https://www.slideshare.net/midcps/pupil-council-learning-walk

Then we had a question and answer session, the pupils asked us and Miss Burton questions about our school, some of them really made us think!

  • What is the best thing about our school?
  • How do our assemblies run?
  • Do you feel safe in school and why?
  • How does the Pupil Council run?
  • How does the Pupil Council organise events?
  • What sporting events do we take part in?
  • Why did you want to become a teacher?
  • How do you ensure the teachers plan interesting learning?

Then the Pupil Council took the pupils on a tour around the school, the pupils from the other schools then gave us some feedback about our school. They all commented on how we had a fun and welcoming school which was bright and open.

What Mid Calder Primary looks like?

  • It is very open.
  • I like the library.
  • The displays are colourful.
  • the new Nursery building looks good so far.
  • P.E. looks good.
  • Open space.
  • Very creative.
  • Tidy.
  • Pretty.
  • Very productive.
  • Big.
  • More children than our school.
  • A lot of work happening.
  • People look like they are having fun.

What Mid Calder Primary sounds like?

  • Sounds very welcoming.
  • Loud.

What Mid Calder Primary  feels like?

  • Happy.
  • Hard working.
  • Friendly atmosphere.
  • Warm.
  • Fun.
  • Our school – Addiewell.

Thank you to the pupils from Addiewell and Woodmuir and Mrs  MacMillan and Miss McLaren for visiting us, we look forward to visiting your schools soon.

Learning Letters, Primary 7, STEM 2017

Primary 6, 7/6 and 7 Cool Chemistry

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The Upper block are really looking forward to beginning our STEM topic for Term 3!

Have a look at our key questions which we will be aiming to answer during this five week topic.

  1. How do we ensure a fair and accurate test that has proved or disproved a hypothesis?
  2. What changes occur to different materials when introduced to another substance?
  3. What can affect the rate and how well substances dissolve?
  4. How are soluble and insoluble materials separated in water?
  5. Are there changes to substances which can be reversed?

Keep an eye out for photos and videos of our up and coming experiments on our blog page!

chemistry

Primary 2, Primary 3

Build-a-Bike Art Sculptures P2 and 3

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P2/3 have started their design product challenge as part of STEM term. We will be looking at the stages in the design process – from recognising a need, developing a design brief, creating a design and product and then evaluating it – phew!

To start us off we are looking at bicycle wheel through Art – looking at spokes, tyres and their circular shape. We made 3-D wheel tiles using rolling, cutting, imprinting and next time we will look at decorative techniques in claywork. Not quite the Great Pottery throwdown but nearly – catch it on BBC2.

We will be looking at bike accessories and trying to make some of these following the design process. Take a close look at bikes around you.

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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