Category: Primary 7

What an amazing time we had skiing on Thursday. Have a look at some photos below. I was very proud of all of the children. We all had a growth mindset and gave it a go (even if we were scared), which Mrs Gordon was!

This week we also wrote a persuasive letter to the Brazilian ambassador about our concerns over deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

In maths we continued working with large numbers and place value, and in French we focused on time.

Enterprise skills have been developing as our mini teams prepare their products, and complete marketing for the Christmas fair next week. Everyone is very excited and the class will be full of glitter and loombands next week!

P7b have been continuing to work hard to extend their knowledge of place value using 9-digit numbers, and demonstrated their knowledge on Thursday in a topic assessment. Our scores were excellent and are a reflection of how hard we have been working over the past 3 weeks. In Big Maths we have been adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimals and practising both our 11 and 12 times tables. On Friday, we completed Beat That! week 7, with everyone’s scores showing significant improvements since the beginning of term. Next week we will be moving onto addition, using both written methods and calculators to do so.

In writing this week we created first drafts of our curricula vitae (we learnt this is the plural in latin, curriculum vitaes is grammatically incorrect). This formed part of our focus on developing Skills for Learning, Life and Work and is an important step towards gaining employment. We will be self-correcting and redrafting these next week using the Netbooks. After Christmas, we are looking forward to visits from various professionals to give us a taster as to what can be expected in different workplaces.

Another key part of Skills for Learning, Life and Work is the development of enterprising skills. This week we started work on our enterprise which involves us working collaboratively in groups of 5 to come up with a business plan before designing, resourcing, costing, ordering, manufacturing, marketing, advertising and eventually selling our products at this year’s Christmas Fair. We have split into our groups, created team names and logos, decided on a product and compiled a resource list so far. Next week we will be calculating costs and ordering resources.

Finally, we were delighted to find out that Springfield placed first at the cluster Sportshall Athletics Event on Wednesday. All of our practise paid off and we performed brilliantly on the day. We are hoping that our score of 56 points will be enough to progress to the regional final.

Have a fantastic weekend from P7b and Mr. L

This week P7a have continued using “The Great Kapok Tree” as our book focus. The children have been researching deforestation and threats in the Amazon Rainforest in pairs, we will be writing a persuasive letter to the Brazilian Government next week to ask them to continue to reduce deforestation.

We wrote very moving recounts of our trip to the Lady Haig Poppy Factory, and had a fabulous discussion about the emotions we felt during the visit.

On Wednesday Springfield P7’s won the cluster Sportshall Athletics competition. We were extremely proud of the children who despite a long warm up walk to get to the leisure centre scored top marks for the event.

Yesterday we started our enterprise focus. We are helping the children gain skills for life, learning and work. The children have split into groups and have been tasked to come up with a business plan for their “product” which will be sold by them at the Christmas Fair. They have to look at planning, design, resources, costing, marketing and sales. Watch this space for more news…

Hello all,

Over the remainder of this academic year, both P7 classes will be developing their skills for learning, life and work. The aim being to develop their enterprising, pre-vocational, personal and employability skills in a practical context. An important aspect of this, is to make the link between the classroom and the work place in order for the children to see the value of their learning and how they can contribute to their school, community and wider economy.

We would like to invite any parents or carers who would be willing to deliver a short talk about their occupation or line of work. It would be hugely beneficial for the P7 pupils to learn about a diverse range of careers and roles. We hope to build their knowledge and understanding of the workplace, and give them an insight into what employers may expect of them and what they should expect from employment.

If anyone is willing to give up some of their time to do so, could you please email me (ewan.logan@westlothian.org.uk) stating your interest and line of work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Mr. Logan

It was Mr. Logan’s first day back on Wednesday after his paternity leave, but we want to say a huge thank you to Mrs. Begarnie, Mrs. Doran and Mrs. Tulloch for all of their hard work and the continuity that they provided in his absence.

In numeracy we have been extending our knowledge of place value whilst working with 7-digit numbers. By applying our previous learning, we have ordered and sequenced numbers in millions, rounded to the nearest 10,000, 100,000 and 1,000,000 and used our skills in data handling to interpret scales and estimate values beyond 1,000,000.

We are approaching the end of our novels in guided reading and will shortly be moving onto new texts. The quality of group discussions and our ability to tackle higher order questioning has impressed Mr. Logan. As a whole class, we will be reading The Great Kapok Tree. This will provide a stimulus for learning about the global issue of deforestation, tying in with our interdisciplinary studies of Brazil.

Next week we will put the finishing touches to our junk material Brazilian landmarks which we have been constructing in class. There will be some photos of these on Class Dojo next week, including the Iguazu Falls, Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf Mountain, the Amazon Rainforest, a carnival scene and the Olympic Aquatics Centre. Prepare to be impressed with our hard work and creativity!

Ahead of the Sportshall Athletics Event next Wednesday at Linlithgow Leisure Centre, we have been practising for the various events during P.E. These include a 2-lap sprint, speed bounce, chest push, standing long jump and indoor javelin. Our fastest times and personal bests are continuing to improve, and we will give it our very best effort on the day.

Upcoming Information

• 3 weeks of Futsal with specialist coach remaining, every Wednesday (1-2pm)
• St.Michael’s Day Care Centre, 4 pupils to visit on Tuesday (1-3pm)
• Sportshall Athletics on Wednesday (9-12am) at Linlithgow Leisure Centre
• Skiing 4 week block begins Thursday 24th November (9-12am) at Hillend

Have a great weekend.

P7b and Mr. L

What a fabulous visit P7 had to the Lady Haig Poppy Factory in Edinburgh.

We were fortunate to visit on the 11th November and had the honour of taking part in the Armistice Service at 11am.

Sean was confident during his reading and Grace laid the wreath on our behalf. We were all very proud of them. P7 were complimented when leaving for their behaviour and the way in which they conducted themselves today. A credit to their parents and to Springfield Primary School, and a perfect example of the responsible citizens and role models that we strive for in P7.

We learnt lots about World War II and Lily and Calum had an opportunity to dress as they would have at the time. Calum was scaring Mrs Gordon slightly !

After this we went into the factory and after hearing how the 43 individuals that work in the factory handmake all the poppies and wreaths, we had a chance to make our own. The children absolutely loved this and would have kept going all day…

Making these poppies was a fantastic end to a special trip. We made new memories whilst remembering old …

Mrs Gordon, Mr Logan, P7a and P7b.

What a hive of activity in P7a this week as we created Brazilian landmarks out of junk. The children were split into teams of 3 or 4 and had to design and plan their landmark.

The creativity and teamwork was incredible (so was the mess in the classroom !). Have a look at a few of the lovely sights…

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro and the Amazon River and Rainforest.

Copacabana Beach and the Iguazu Falls.

 

This week we continued our Brazil focus by learning about samba music. We began with basic rhythm and polyrhythm. Next week we will continue our learning by adding instruments to create the typical samba reggae.

On Thursday we were very lucky to have a veteran from the British Legion talk to us about his experience in the Royal Navy. The children from P7 and P5 were captivated whilst he shared his experiences, and asked him lots of interesting questions including the obligatory “did you kill anyone?”, to which the answer was no…