P7 Transition News

Tomorrow (Tuesday 23rd) we have a representative from Bathgate Academy coming into school with some ex-pupils of Murrayfield to share their experiences and answer questions about how they found the transition from P7 to S1.  I have been told that the ex-Murrayfield pupils are all really looking forward to coming back and sharing their experiences with us!  It will be fantastic to see them again too!

A reminder that the transition Science Project is due this Friday (26th).  As this is a task that has been set by the Academy it is really important that this deadline is met.  I spoke my P7s today and if anyone would like me to have a look over what they have been working on I am more than willing to do so.

Miss Preston 🙂

Many thanks to all parents who made it along to class today to see our MSH challenge in practice!

I hope you could see the value of this means of assessing your child’s learning and instilling in them a ‘Growth Mind Set’ to face up to challenge and build their resilience to keep going even when things initially seem tricky.

All of the children faced up to the challenge and should be extremely proud of themselves!

Science

We will be continuing to plan and build our International Space Stations next week.  We would very much appreciate any clean recycle materials (no tins or glass please).

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Miss Preston and Miss Akram x

Are you a hobnob or a Rich Tea?

Thank you to all our parents/carers who were able to attend our class open day event this morning.  We were delighted by the turnout and hope you all enjoyed sharing in your child’s learning and finding out a little bit more about Growth mindsets and our Mild, Spicy, Hot challenges across the stages.  We have decided to send the Mindset Quiz home as a family homework challenge, which will allow you to discuss the statements and become more familiar with the meaning of ‘fixed and growth mindsets.’  This should be with you sometime next week.

I hope everyone enjoyed the extra couple of days off … We were even blessed with some winter sunshine … and snow! 🙂 🙂

We have had an extremely busy couple of days in P7/6!!

CAB/Community Links

During our recent CAB sessions the children highlighted that they would like to meet with representatives of the Emergency Services to get their opinion on the issues and challenges that the children had identified.  We were very lucky to have four fire fighters come into school on Wednesday to meet with our P6, P7/6 and P7 pupils.  They showed us some interesting videos and spent over an hour sharing their experiences and answering our questions.  Myself, Miss Moir and Ms Miller were all extremely impressed with the maturity, listening skills and confidence to ask questions shown by all upper pupils during this session.  Well done everyone!  Hopefully we will also have a representative from the Police in soon too! (pics below)

IDL

Rainforest

Our Rainforest in a Jar experiments are coming along nicely … well most are 🙂  Some are showing signs of new growth, roots are developing, we are even seeing some insects both grow and reproduce!   We will be observing these over the next two weeks in class then the children will be able to bring them home.  I know ALL parents will be excited to hear that news!

We completed our end of topic challenge/assessment on Rain Forests.  I was overwhelmed by the effort, knowledge, creativity, ICT skills and developing presentation skills shown by everyone!  A massive well done to each of you!

Deciding upon the two winners of the challenge was an extremely difficult decision!   The winners were chosen because they had gone over and above what was expected; They had produced PowerPoint presentations, 3D Art, super facts that reflected research outside the classroom and their confidence during their presentation let me know that they had obviously put in time to practice their presentation.

The winners were Ruby E and Shannon G.  Well done girls!

WWII

This week we completed our topic plan for our WWII IDL learning!  We have started our class novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which will tie in with our WWII learning.

Science & Technology

In line with the P7 transition project, we are doing a mini-topic on Science across the whole class.  We are focusing our research and learning on Tim Peak and the ISS.  Today we spent time discussing the ISS  and planning a model.  Any recycling materials you can send into school will be gratefully received.  I have spent time tonight looking over initial sketches and I am so excited to see the end products!

P7 News

As part of the Heart Start initiative all P7s were given the opportunity to experience CPR on dummies.  (Pics below) Our P6 pupils will get this opportunity in their final year of primary.

Today the P7s and I spent some time looking over their transition math assessment.  I was most impressed with the effort and the way each of them faced the challenge!  Although daunting for them initially it was a fantastic way for us to identify the areas that need some additional attention. We will meet again next Thursday morning to continue this exercise.

A reminder that the out-of-school Science projects are due in next Friday (26th).  These are being handed over directly to the Academy, so I cannot stress enough the importance of presentation, presentation, presentation! 🙂  … Ask your child how many times I mention this in an average day 🙂

As you can see, we have had an exceptionally busy two days!!

A reminder that tomorrow morning (19th) is our class open day!  All Parents/Carers are invited into our classes to see why and how we use Mild, Spicy, Hot challenges across the stages.

Dates for your diary

P7 Transition Science Project             Friday 26th February

P1 1980s Disco!                                      Friday 26th February (Dress down in ’80s style – £1 donation)

Masterclass – Book Week                     Thursday 3rd March

Parent/Carer Consultations                Thursday 17th March

Upper school WWII Assembly            Friday 18th March

Hope you all have a fabulous and well earned February break!

Miss Preston x

• We have been using skills taught when playing netball.
• Participated in the Voice Rocks afternoon with Rachel.
• Worked on our Charles Rennie MacIntosh designs. They are fantastic.
• Continued with our line drawings of Scottish Landmarks.
• Used SMARTIES to gather information and display them on graphs as part of data handling.

Have a lovely LONG weekend.

What have we been learning this week?

Odd and even numbers – Brogan

All the even numbers end in 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 – Brogan

All the odd numbers end in 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 – Sean

We have been learning all about toys – Jack

We have been learning about toys from the past too – Sean

Some toys are made of metal and some of plastic – Jack

Old teddies had glass eyes – Alex

New teddies have plastic eyes – Eva

We looked at old toys with Maureen (they were about 60 years old)

We liked various toys:

the yo-yo – Aleisha, the spinning top – Bailey, an old teddy bear – Warren , an old baby doll – Adam, weeble wobble clown – Freya

We have been learning names of toys in French – Sara

Yo- yo is the same le yo-yo.

This week in P7/6 we have been ….

Literacy

• learning about similes and creating our own similes
• writing our own imaginary simile poem about ‘My Monster’!

Numeracy

• consolidating our learning of addition and subtraction
• completed our end of topic assessments

IDL:Rainforests

The children have been presenting their end of topic presentations, and I have to say that from what I have seen so far I am extremely impressed with the knowledge, effort, creativity and overall presenting skills!  Hopefully, the remaining six presentations will be presented tomorrow morning after assembly.  The winner(s) of the challenge will then be announced!

Our Rain Forests in a jar are going well ….Some are already showing signs of new growth, roots forming!

Music

We have completed the sessions with Mrs Stewart.  These will re-commence after the Easter break.  Music will continue between times within our classroom.

CAB

• finalised the lyrics for our verse of the song for the CAB Conference
• had our final session with the CAB peer tutors – they were extremely impressed with how we engaged with the sessions, how open we were with our concerns about the community and the ideas we came up with to improve the community

HWB

• we completed our Heart Start lessons
• I am extremely happy with how much knowledge and practical skills our class have remembered.   I’d feel in safe hands should anything happen to me in class! 🙂

The maturity shown by all in ‘awkward and embarrassing’ contexts was most impressive! A huge well done to everyone!

P7 News!

•  Heart Start: CPR.  Mrs Bowman was overwhelmed by the way you engaged with this session.  This is an important life skill and every one of you did yourselves proud!
• Math/Numeracy Assessment – as part of the transition process Bathgate Academy requested that all P7s within their cluster primaries complete a standard assessment.  Everyone of you gave 100% in this task!  As a teacher, I can not ask for more than that! Well done!

A few dates for your diary:

• Friday 19th February               Open morning: Mild, Spicy, Hot!
• Friday 26th February               P7 Transition Projects Due (Science)
• Thursday 17th March               Parental/Carer Consultations
• Friday 18th March                    WWII Assembly

Looking forward to all the exciting learning opportunities and experiences that next term will bring!

Miss Preston x

P6 have had another busy week in class learning through a variety of areas through the curriculum.

We have been focusing on times tables through Numeracy and will be working on this through the Mild, Spicy and Hot open event next Friday. Children will use their problem solving skills to answer the written questions based around multiplication.

In Literacy the children have been looking at Similes and have been creating poems based around describing an imaginative monster. Using the phrase “like,” or “as,” the children have been comparing parts of their monster to similar things such as “fangs as white as snow,” and so on. Some of the Monsters are very creative and I hope the boys and girls can rewrite the poems for a display.

It is the last week of our Europe topic and the boys and girls have been creating holiday brochures for a chosen European country. These will be put up on the classroom display once they are finished for everyone to look at. Their next topic will be WW2 which will start after the February weekend. The class and I can’t wait 🙂

Have a lovely long weekend!

We were extremely lucky to have Rachel from Voice Rocks in school. She came to work with all the P5’s. We had tremendous fun working with music and especially our voices.

The P5’s discussed what they used to make sound and more importantly sing. We had great answers ranging from our voice boxes, to our stomachs and backs, our lungs and most importantly our diaphragm .

Rachel taught the children three songs and the children then sang them in a canon or also known as a round. Very tricky! The children did a fantastic job and it sounded amazing.

Flyers have been handed out and this wonderful resource is FREE!