Pumpherston and Uphall Station CPS Blog

May 3, 2017May 3, 2017

SCHOOL SELF EVALUATION.

Every year we produce a ‘School Improvement Plan’ (SIP) with priorities we want to work on that year and we share these with you. At the end of the session we report on progress through our Standards and Quality (S&Q) report and share this with you also. One of our priorities this session was developing how we communicate pupil learning progress with home. We have developed this through three new initiatives:

Nursery-P1 Online Learning Journals,
P2-P7 Thinking Back-Looking Forward Profiles (sent out before parent appointments)
Families Learning Together Sessions throughout the session. (P2-P7 for the first three terms with P1 joining in after Easter.

In order to evaluate this we need your feedback and so have created a short Survey Monkey Questionnaire on these three new initiatives. Every entry with a name will be entered into a prize draw to win a £20 Morrisons Voucher. We really need your input. Click the link below to access the questionnaire.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/home-SIP16-17

May 2, 2017

P6 Computer Coding

This term, P6 are learning about computer coding. This involves putting together pieces of code (instructions for the computer) to create an animation or a game.

Today we learned how to code a simple computer game called Pong (adults at home might have played this when they were younger!). We had to add sprites (characters) and a backdrop then use a variety of code to make a ball bounce off a paddle. We even added a scoring system to make the game competitive.

P6s can log in to their Scratch account at home to share their game with others.

May 2, 2017

Revenge for all the nettle stings!

Have you ever felt the sharp sting and unpleasant tingle of the common nettle Urtica dioca. Have you searched for dock leaves to ease the pain? This week Club Wild took revenge by cooking some nettle leaves in a tasty soup full of vitamins.

Spring brings lots of wild foods as shoots spring from the ground and buds open. We tasted wild garlic leaves and flowers which SJ picked at the country park as they are also abundant at this time of year.

The young leaves of nettles are better for soup than the older ones . They are, however, no less potent so we made sure and took some sturdy gloves and scissors and a trug to carry our pickings.

To make our soup we used half a carrier bag of young fresh nettle leaves, a large finely chopped onion, 1 litre of vegetable or chicken stock, a large potato and 50g of butter. First we melted the butter in a pan and fried the onion on a lowish heat for 5-7 minutes until softened. Next chop the potato into chunks and add to the pan pouring in the stock. Once the root veg is soft (after about 15 minutes) we added our thoroughly washed young nettle leaves and simmered for five minutes. We took the pan off the heat and used a hand blender to puree the soup. You could add wild garlic leaves at the same time as the nettles.

The soup is an amazing green colour and most of us loved it

. We also learned about how good nettles are for butterflies with peacock, small tortoiseshell and red admiral caterpillars liking nettles best.

Club Wild, Miss Young, Mrs Szawlowska and Sarah-Jane

May 1, 2017

Primary 5

This week, Primary 5 got stuck in with papier mache!

We have started a new mini-project with Miss Mulholland – to construct volcano models and then make them explode!

We started by looking at the different parts of a volcano such as the crater and magma reservoir. Then, we used papier mache and plastic bottles to build the main structure of our volcanoes.

Next time, we will look at examples of real-life volcanoes and use these to create landscapes for our models. Finally, we will make them explode. This will tie in well with our Science learning as we will soon be looking at chemical reactions. Photos and videos to come!

Check in with us to see how we are getting on!

Until next time…
Primary 5 & Miss M 🙂

April 28, 2017

Primary 1

Primary 1 have reflected on their learning this week – here is what we have been learning.

Ruby: We have been learning about life cycles. A butterfly starts as an egg.

Sophie Rose: The egg turns into a caterpillar and it eats it’s own shell. It then turns into a Pupa, then it turns in a butterfly.

Jack: In Maths we have been learning about odd and even numbers. The number 3 is odd and 4 is even because it has a friend.

Caitlin: I know about having a growth mindset. If I can’t do something, I say I can’t do it “yet”.

April 28, 2017

P6 Blog

This week’s blog comes to you from Jasmin and Lauren…

This week we were making 3D umbrellas by folding paper like origami. We glued them to an A4 Spring background.

In PE with Mrs Cullum we have been learning how to bowl in cricket. This week we learned how to underarm bowl and played a game where we had to bowl to a partner and get the ball to bounce on a target.

In PE with Ms Pender we have been focusing on running and throwing for athletics. We played Tom and Jerry for running and had a throwing competition.