Category Archives: Uncategorized

Term 4 Achievement Awards

Yesterday we had our Achievement Assembly for Term 4. Each class nominated one pupil to receive the Achievement Award for their class. Parents and carers were invited along to watch the assembly.

We also gave out Star Writer Awards, Top Scorer prizes, sporting trophies and announced the winning house for the term. The school was also awarded a certificate for our continued support for the Smoke Free Home and Zones project.

Well done who everyone who received an award!

P6 Edinburgh Zoo Trip

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P6 went to Edinburgh Zoo for a Cycle of Life Workshop to tie in with our sex education lessons. 

We really enjoyed seeing the pandas and penguins and got to see rhinos sleeping in muddy water. The Gentou penguins were regurgitating their food for their babies and the male Gentous were giving stones for the females’ nests. We even saw Rockhopper penguins  at the top of the hill trying to impress the females. 

We enjoyed a picnic outside and even got a chance to buy cool things from the gift shop.

It was an awesome day out!

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Responsible Roles: Magical Mediator Training Day 2

Today was Day 2 of our Magical Mediators training programme to prepare us for our Responsible Roles when we go into Primary 7. We returned to St. Ninian’s Primary School and we completed lots of different tasks to prepare us for the role. We also made action plans, we will meet with Miss Burton to put these plans into place for the next school year.

A big thank you to St. Ninan’s for hosting the training and we hope to have a Magical Mediator Debrief session in November to check up on how everyone is getting on in their new role. Also thank you to our trainer Carol from the Scottish Mediation Network.

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Kapla Ships Ahoy!

We are learning to create a ship from construction materials by using and following a design plan. 

I can use Kapla to create my pirate ship design. 

P2/1 had lots of fun last week when we had the opportunity to design and construct our own pirate ships.

We have been learning all about the key features of a pirate ship and we were able to apply this knowledge when we made a design plan for our own ship.

Working in small groups, we were sure to include a bow and stern, deck, rigging, sails and a crows nest as well as a captains cabin, store room and a galley.

Our finished creations were very impressive and we enjoyed showing and sharing them with other groups. Many team skills were demonstrated including perseverance, communication, collaboration and contribution.

Finlay Fe said ”I needed to have steady hands to make sure it didn’t fall down.”

Oliver commented ”My team had to stay calm and not get frustrated. If it fell down we understood and built it back up.”

Eilidh made the point –  ”We had to work together to build the ship.”

 

Take a look at our pictures and see our designs for yourself! 

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Celebrating 100 Years of Mid Calder Gala

Nursery to Primary 7 have been working on a mini learning context about Mid Calder, as they are celebrating their 100th year of Gala Days this year. Classes have been taking part in lots of different activities from walks through the village to orienteering, map reading to investigating the history of Mid Calder. Each class produced a photo frame of their learning, photos of the frames will be displayed at the front of the school on Gala Day and the Gala committee will display the frames in the village.

Click here to listen to the Nursery pupils sing a song they made about Lizzie Bryce.

West Lothian Track and Field Competition

Today, 13 Primary 7 pupils represented Mid Calder Primary at West Lothian’s first Primary Track and Field event….and boy did they set a high standard for next year! Alix Fairley won both the long jump AND the shot putt events for the girls, and the girls relay team also came in first place, making Mid Calder the fastest relay team out of all of the 17 schools that took part. All 13 children were a credit to the school and themselves, showing each other fantastic support and good sportsmanship….despite the rain and hail that they had to compete in. Well done to all who were involved. Another fantastic achievement for Primary 7 this week.

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Pirates of the Curry Bean

Visitors travelled from across the UK and even Europe, to  Mid Calder Primary School this week to view the Primary 6 and 7 production of Pirates of the Curry Bean. The Primary 6 and 7 pupils and staff have worked very hard over the past 6 weeks to pull everything together, it was great to see the pupils taking a lead in everything from acting to singing, lights to dancing, props to prompting … a true team effort from the pupils who were facilitated by their teachers and school staff. It definitely was better than ‘alright on the night’ with the pupils being the true stars of the show! We received lots of lovely feedback from our guests who commented on how it was nice to see the pupils being so involved in the production, the jokes were great, a fantastic show and a it was a real feel-good show.

A big well done to all the pupils, staff and parents for their team effort in making the show such a huge success.

Watch this space for some video clips … coming soon!

P2/1’s ‘Healthy Bodies’ Assembly

It was a very special day on Friday when P2/1 had the opportunity to showcase their learning to parents, carers and peers in our ‘Healthy Bodies’ class assembly.

P2/1 have been learning lots about how to keep their bodies healthy and strong. We have learned about food types and diet, as well as our bodies’ organs and skeleton. We know that exercise is an important way to keep our bodies healthy and strong and we enjoyed sharing our hobbies and the sports we play with others.

All of us had a part to play and lines to learn for our performance to an audience. We all did ourselves, our class and visitors very proud by readily learning our parts and performing them with confidence. We can happily say that we are each building on and showing our capacity to be ‘Effective Contributors’ and ‘Confident Individuals’.

Well done everyone! Thank you to our audience for such positive comments, we hope you all enjoyed it.

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P5 Mock Election Campaign

What an exciting couple of weeks in P5…not only has there been a National Election – P5 have been learning through a truely interactive approach about the Why and How elections happen.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Explore the general election process through role-play
  • Understand key terms such as constituencies, candidates, polling stations, political parties, manifestoes, and coalitions
  • Consider different areas of policy and set priorities
  • Discover different methods of campaigning
  • Practice their communication skills by writing and delivering a campaign speech

Success Criteria;

  • I can take part in an election campaign
  • I understand what a candidate is, where polling takes place and how, is part of a ‘political party’.
  • I can help write a manifesto and understand what (priorities) we are including and why.
  • I will help develop different methods to campaign for my party and take part in my parities campaign
  • I can help organise the ballot process

A visual story of our learning

The Election Challenge arrives.
The Election Challenge arrives.
Thinking begins...
Thinking begins…
This is harder than they thought!
This is harder than they thought!

 

 

 

 

 

Manifestos are written
Manifestos are written
Parties are created and roles assigned
Parties are created and roles assigned

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Campaigning begins
Campaigning begins
Votes are made
Votes are made
Votes are counted
Votes are counted
The winners are announced
The winners are announced

 

West Lothian Council, Education Services, Admission Arrangements for Specialist Provision 2014

West Lothian Council, Education Services, Admission Arrangements for Specialist Provision 2014

In accordance with the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010, West Lothian Council consulted (between 14 November 2014 and 16 January 2015) on the proposals outlined below:

SUMMARY OF PROPOSALS – ADMISSION ARRANGEMENTS FOR SPECIALIST PROVISION

The adoption of admission arrangements set out in the consultation document will ensure equity in the admission of children and young people to specialist provision and ensure high quality decision making regarding admission;

 The adoption of a single catchment area for all specialist provision will ensure equity within West Lothian for all children and young people with additional support needs. This will help the council discharge its duty to meet the needs of children and young people, to the benefit of children and young people with additional support needs, and their parents/carers; and

 The proposed admission arrangements and catchment area will apply to all specialist provision.

The consultation response report is available to download at the following weblink:

www.westlothian.gov.uk/admission-arrangements-report

The report will be available on the West Lothian Council website from Thursday 30 April 2015 for a period of 3 weeks.

Hard copies of the report are available from:

The foyer of the Civic Centre, Howden South Road, Livingston, EH54 6FF

and all West Lothian libraries.

At the end of the consultation period, a final decision will be taken on the proposals by West Lothian Council’s Education Executive on Tuesday 26 May 2015.