Springfield Primary School and Bonnytoun Nursery School
Spring Forward in Learning and Life – Becoming. Belonging. Believing.
We are so proud of E in P7 who recently grew and cut her hair for the Little Princess Trust, raising a massive £467 in the process! The Little Princess Trust provide wigs to girls who have lost their hair through illness.
What a kind thing to do E and what a massive achievement!
Miss Baillie x
A short week in P7a this week, but still lots of learning to report on…
Numeracy and Mathematics
As we progress towards the end of term 3 and our transition to S1, we have been introduced to some areas and concepts that will be covered within Third Level Numeracy and Mathematics. This week we have continued learning about algebra and solving equations. We began by discussing what algebra we had already been exposed to (without even realising), such as ‘number machines’ and ‘missing value’ type questions. Having consolidated our knowledge of these it allowed us to further extend our learning to replacing values with symbols, finding the value of ‘x’ (or an unknown quantity), simplifying expressions by collecting like-terms and evaluating expressions by substituting known values such as a, b or c. We discovered that one theory behind the use of ‘x’ to represent an unknown quantity came from a 17th century French philosopher, scientist and mathematician called René Descartes. Can you find the values below?
Literacy and English
In Boy in the Striped Pajamas this week, Bruno encountered Shmuel, a prisoner at Out-With, whilst exploring and we have been drawing a comparison between them. Although the boys share the same birthday, we discovered that the similarities stop there. We examined extracts of their conversations and journeys made from the text, highlighting evidence and annotating points of interest.
Another journey we have found out about this week, is that of child evacuees during World War II. Whilst being introduced to Operation Pied Piper we used bullet points to take notes relating to key information shared. These notes will be used to inform our writing planning next week when we write letters from an evacuee’s perspective. To begin entering this mindset, we prepared and delivered a short drama in groups that portrayed the experiences and emotions of these children.
Learning Across the Curriculum
As part of our Skills for Learning, Life and Work programme, we had Pamela Barnes and Teresa Waddington in class to speak to us this week. Pamela works with a local community development trust and Teresa is a Plant Manager with Shell.
We have been continuing to rehearse our songs for our Scottish Opera performance, 1719, which commemorates the Jacobites’ risings where they fought alongside the Spaniards against the Hanoverians. The singing sounds fantastic as we look forward to our workshops and final performance in March.
In Science with Mrs. Tulloch, we completed our STEM invention drawings and continued to construct our moveable buggies. In the coming weeks, these will be finished and our buggies judged on whether they can make it up a series of ramps with varying gradients. A huge thank you to Mrs. Tulloch who works tirelessly to spark our interest and curiosity in engineering.
Finally, it was sad to say goodbye to M last week who moved to her new school. We wish her all the very best and thank her for being such a kind, lovely and warm-hearted member of P7a. We will all miss her!
To all of P7a’s parents, carers and families, have a lovely weekend!
P7a and Mr. Logan
We were looking forward to our holiday weekend today, as P3 led a superb assembly about ‘forces.’ Thank you Mrs Kennedy for putting on such an informative assembly which was a lovely way to end a busy week.
We are very proud of our children’s knowledge and abilities in Science at Springfield, thanks to the expertise of Mrs Tulloch and Mrs Begarnie. Mrs Tulloch is busy working with P7 on their STEM project this term, which is to build a moveable buggy. Our STEM family learning event will take place in Term 4 where you will be able to take part in a STEM challenge with your child.
Achievements this week:
-Well done to D in P3 for his success with Linlithgow Rose Football Team.
-Congratulations to F in P4/5 for his efforts at Cubs and to A in P1 for the same in Beavers! Well done boys!
-Finally, we are extremely proud of a group of our P7 children who came second (by one point!) in the Linlithgow cluster schools, Inter-house Quiz!
Have a lovely long weekend everyone!
Miss Baillie xx💖💫
RG in P7 recently climbed a small hill in South Ayrshire called Knockdolian. He had challenged himself to climb the equivalent height of Mount Everest over the past 12 months and has finally surpassed the 29,029 feet mark! R has scaled a variety of mountains across Scotland from the Isle of Skye to the Cairngorms in the process. We think this is a superb achievement and would like to congratulate R for his efforts! What an accomplishment! Have a look at his picture below upon completing his challenge…
Numeracy and Mathematics
This week we have been extending our knowledge of capacity and volume. We started by establishing the difference between the two concepts and found that capacity is the maximum something can hold where as the volume is the amount of space that a substance or object occupies. We can now confidently compare and order different volumes of liquid using millilitres (ml), centilitres (cl and litres (l) and can successfully convert between these units of measure. We found that there are 10ml per 1cl, 1,000ml per 1l and 100cl per 1l. Having developed this knowledge we then applied our skills to play some estimate, check and record games against a partner. We chose measuring cylinders depending on the volume of liquid required and noticed that our estimates became increasingly accurate we the game progressed. Finally, to round-off our learning for the week we made ‘mocktails’ using recipes and instructions provided. In order to do so successfully, we used measuring cylinders with 1ml scales, ensured they were flat to the table and recorded the liquid line, rather than the bubbles or froth. Have a look at us in action…
Literacy and English
Now that we have began learning about World War II, all of our Literacy and English work in class is based around our shared text, ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’ by John Boyne. Last week we made predictions and assumptions about the plot and storyline, and continued this week with a focus on characterisation and profiling. We discussed each character in detail, including their relationships with others, behaviours, personality traits and developing roles within the story. During our discussions, we used inference to analyse each character at a deeper level and provided evidence or quotes from the text to support any statements we made about them. By skimming and scanning the text, we were able to find some context clues that clarified our thinking and highlighted some key themes. These included; persecution of others, discrimination, racism, naivety, innocence of youth, conflict, relationships and moral justice.
In writing this week, we analysed the story from Bruno’s perspective and considered the impact that moving to Out-With has had on his happiness. We wrote informal letters using the features of an email to one of his three best friends (Karl, Daniel or Martin) or his Grandmother in Berlin. Within these pieces of writing we were able to structure our work appropriately using an email format, build detail through the description of Bruno’s surroundings, apply our skills developed last week to write in the ‘first person’ and share his feelings and emotions to create reader empathy.
With Mrs. Gordon, we continued our learning in French this week by presenting our own ‘la météo’ forecasts to discuss the weather.
Health and Wellbeing
It was Safer Internet Day 2019 this week, and we have been continuing to learn about the ways in which we can stay safe online and use the internet responsibly. Our focus this week was on passwords and security to protect online accounts and data. We understand what a strong password is having looked at examples of weak ones and predicted the passwords people may choose based on some basic details about them. A strong password must contain symbols, upper case letters, lower case letters and numbers. A lot of us admitted that we may have to go home and increase the security of our social media accounts.
In P.E, we have continued with our block of dodgeball. Now that we understand the rules and roles of players within a team, we have been improving our throwing technique and playing variations of the end game to apply the skills we have developed. P7 have really enjoyed this so far, and we may well need to extend the initial 6 week block!
Social Studies
This week we have been creating a World War II timeline and learning about the uses of propaganda. For our timeline, we researched key events that took place during the 6 years and a day of World War II with the aim of placing them in a chronological sequence on our wall. We heard Neville Chamberlain’s radio broadcast declaring war on Germany after Hitler refused to withdraw troops from Poland and the events which took place as a result of this. After being introduced to the definition of propaganda and discussing the themes and messages behind some examples of it, we started creating our own examples. These are looking fantastic and we will share them with you once completed. You can see our blacked-out World War II living room below with some interesting objects and artifacts from this era.
Coming Up…
Have a lovely weekend!
P7a and Mr. Logan
All children had the chance to visit Dovecot Park this week, with their class, for our House award. Teachers reported how much fun the children had and how nicely they played together. We are going to try to get children out to the Park more often as we further develop Outdoor Learning. Watch this space for further news!
Today in assembly, we looked at the Wellbeing Indicator ‘being nurtured.’ We talked about how we care for pets, plants and babies as we learned about what ‘nuture’ means. Children were reminded who they should approach for support should they have any worries or concerns.
We found out the exciting news last night that again, we have the main retinue in this year’s Gala Day! Well done to A, L and J in P7 who have been chosen to undertake the roles of Queen, Chief Lady and Champion. We can’t wait until the Gala Day and we are so proud of our children.
Pupil achievements:
-A in P1 was delighted to show me her Enjoy-a-Ball trophy today! Well done A!
Today our basketball team are playing in the West Lothian league, Pool A. I am standing watching them now and they have just won their first game, 12 nil! Go Team Springfield! 💚 Thank you to Mrs Kerr and Mr Logan for their hard work with this group of children.
A few parents have spoken recently about our playground and how busy it is/playground supervision. Although we always have the correct staff-child ratio, we will increase staff numbers in future weeks and continue to ensure that all children play happily. Please continue to approach us if you have any concerns at all. If we don’t know then we can’t fix it!
Have a great weekend,
Miss Baillie x💖
Our annual Scots focus ended today with children from each class presenting their learning at assembly. We listened to information about lots of famous Scots who have changed life for us today because of their inventions or actions.
Primary 7 helped us to celebrate Burns Night earlier on this week by organising a fantastic Burns Supper for their friends and families. Well done to all children who recited poems, danced or presented information to the audience.
Next week, all classes will be moving on in their learning to investigate an aspect of history that is of interest to them and that meets our curricular objectives.
On a Tuesday and Wednesday each class will get the chance to visit Dovecot Park for a short play session, for reaching the ‘1000 springs’ House target.
In the coming weeks, we are going to be looking at the quality of our children’s writing across school and working as a staff team to ensure that all children are being given the best support to fulfil their potential in this area.
We hope that you have enjoyed reading our school and nursery newsletters which were emailed to you all this week.
As always, if you have any comments, suggestions or feedback on the work that we do then please drop in to see us or send us an email via the school mailbox.
Your support is very much appreciated. We always try to listen to and act on your views to make Springfield and Bonnytoun the very best that they can be for our children and families.
Have a great weekend!
Miss Baillie x💖💫
We have been busy continuing our Scots focus in school this week. Today, P4/5 held a great assembly about ‘New Year’ which ended with all children singing a Scots song about a centipede. Thank you to Mr Ritchie for his efforts which saw all children speaking out and performing well.
Next week, P7 will be holding a Burns’ Supper on Tuesday afternoon and P2 will also be having an afternoon of Scots poetry and activities.
Our Nursery children have been developing their ‘forest skills’ this week by roasting marshmallows on our brand new fire pit.
Tomorrow, a group of staff and P6 and P7 pupils are off to Newcastle to spend the day undertaking football related activities.
Each of our school Houses; Champleurie, Binns, Hopetoun and Ochiltree have now earned over 1000 ‘springs’ and have chosen to cash these in on a trip to Dovecot Park! This means that each class will be allowed to visit the park for a play session over the next week or so. Keep posted for more news.
Have a super weekend everyone!
Miss Baillie xx💖
Happy New Year to you all!
We have had a lovely, calm and settled start to Term 3 and to the month of January in school and nursery.
This week all classes have been reinforcing our school values and this culminated in a ‘values assembly’ today in school. We talked about the ongoing need to be kind and respectful to each other. Staff are going to be looking out for positive behaviour in our dinner hall this term with the chance for one pupil to be crowned the ‘dinner hall champion’, before Easter, for showcasing good manners and behaviour.
Nursery children are going to be learning about the school value of ‘being included’ as they play games and learn to share and take turns.
Here are the achievements for this week:
-A huge congratulations to Zara in P7 for gaining Grade 1 in piano! What a brilliant achievement!
-Well dons to C in P3 who continues to perform well in Gymnastics.
Next week, our pupils are going on to begin a block of work learning about famous Scottish inventors and the contributions they have made to our lives today. This will form part of our work in Social Studies for this term.
You will receive your child’s home learning grid and Sharing the Learning sheet for the term, when they are sent home in school bags next week. We hope that you enjoy taking part in your child’s learning and helping them to practise skills learned in school.
Have a great weekend,
Miss Baillie xx💖
We are feeling the festive spirit at Springfield and Bonnytoun this week with the kick-off of our annual Christmas events.
On Tuesday and Thursday our nursery children performed brilliantly at their Xmas sing-along and enjoyed a special visit from Santa.
Thank you to all children and families who made decorations for our Christmas trees at St Michael’s. The trees have been decorated with the help of two lovely Primary 7 girls and they will appear at the ‘Festival of Christmas trees’ from today until Sunday. Please head along to the church and view our trees if you have time. They look lovely!
We held an extremely successful Christmas Fayre today with the help of the PTA. Thank you to everyone who helped to make this event happen and to all who supported it. We are extremely grateful for your contributions and all money raised will be spend in school and nursery for the benefit of our pupils.
Here is our pupil achievement for this week…
Well done to D for his karate medal!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Miss Baillie xx💖💫
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