Consolidating our use of written methods for all four functions
Carrying out WWII written addition problems involving money
Ensuring we always show our working in response to questions
Tackling multi-step problems and sharing our strategies
Literacy and English
Writing our STEM letters to be sent off alongside our annotated inventions
Researching for our personal projects and beginning to collate these
Continuing with our group novel studies and tackling inferential and evaluative questions
Health and WellbeingÂ
Further developing our skills in football with additional BMT skills introduced
Celebrating achievements of CMcK and our gymnasts
Attending our S1 information evening at Linlithgow Academy ahead of our transition
Reflecting on our learning and progress during term 3 ahead of parents evening
Skills for Learning Life and Work
Visits from S6 World of Work ambassadors electrical engineer, Procurator Fiscal, Merchant Navy and project manager
Thank you to everyone who attended parents evening. I’m delighted with each and every member of P7b and the progress they are all making. Let’s make it a final term to remember!
This week in Numeracy and Mathematics, we have been continuing with our work finding area and perimeter. Our work this week involved us applying our skills in real life contexts using floor plans for different properties. We successfully measured the perimeter of individual rooms, found the length of missing sizes and dimensions using the information provided, calculated the area for flooring needed with costs and examined proposed extensions to existing buildings. Next week we will further extend our learning and the use of appropriate formulae in order to calculate the volume and capacity of varied 3D objects.
Literacy and English
Having previously taken notes with Mrs. Doran, we used these to begin creating a different text in the form of a written report. This was based on the Winter Olympics which have been taking place over the past couple of weeks. These will be completed next week before carrying out a self-assessment of our work against our writing targets and success criteria. In grammar, we enjoyed learning more about prefixes and suffixes. These are used to extend root words and alter their meaning. A prefix is a letter(s) placed before a root word, for example, play >Â replay. A suffix is a group of letters placed at the end of a root word, for example, playing. Have a look at examples we came up with below.
Health and Wellbeing
In football for P.E this week, both our feet and brains were put to the test. After getting some great ideas from the teachers’ Better Movers and Thinkers session last Friday, Mr. Logan used these to get us moving and thinking in a more cohesive manner. Now that we have developed the ability to dribble confidently with good close control, we were given the additional challenge of rotating a tennis ball around our waist in a clockwise and anti-clockwise direction. Whilst doing so, we had to take 5 touches forward, sideways, backwards then repeat. We also tried dribbling whilst tossing the tennis ball in the air in one hand and swapping both balls with a partner. Finally, when the whistle was blown we stopped our football, threw our tennis ball up and had to complete different clapping sequences before catching it. We needed a good rest afterwards! Here are our schools footballers in action on Monday.
The Lion King
Mr. Logan’s programme team polished off their final draft this week and it is looking superb! Well done to the pupils involved for creating such an impressive piece of work, it looks very professional. With just 2 weeks to go, our rehearsals continued this week. Mr. Logan was blown away by our rehearsal on Friday, everyone has done so well to remember their lines and deliver these in such a confident manner. It’s lovely to see every child beginning to enter their character and contribute to what is going to be a fabulous peformance in their own individual way. Keep up the hard work and stay calm P6 and P7, you’re going to be fantastic! Here are some of the talented pupils we have playing main parts in P7b!
We have been continuing our work on data handling this week. In doing so, we have both asked and answered questions to extract key information from varied data and displayed this by drawing pie charts and creating them using Microsoft Word. Next, we will be looking at measure through learning about area and volume. Making estimations, calculating the perimeter, calculating area using cm/m² and volume using cm/m³, using scales accurately, converting measurements and demonstrating an understanding of imperial units and how they are still used in everyday life. We have set some maths word problem challenges for the upper school and shall wait to see if anyone manages to solve them for a reward!
Literacy and English
Sam was chosen as this week’s Star Writer in P7b after he produced a superb creative piece of writing about the African savanna. Everyone worked incredibly hard on their pieces of writing and we will be peer assessing these next week using our Second Level writing criteria. This will allow us to form our own next steps and targets in writing over the coming weeks. You can now see this on our Star Writer wall, it’s well worth a read. We have been brushing up on our uses of apostrophes for both contraction and possession, and trying to implement this in our own writing. On Yammer, we thought of higher order questions which we would like to pose to members of staff from the Academy and will hopefully have these answered when they visit us ahead of transition.
Health and Wellbeing
In P.E this week, we designed our own football games that incorporated the skills we have developed so far; passing, dribbling and shooting. The children came up with some fantastic ideas and provided a clear explanation and demonstration as to how their game was played. Our focus on internet safety was geared towards online content this week. We had to assess some of the content which you may encounter online, decide on it’s appropriateness and then discuss the effect this could have on people. As a result, we are now aware of how to best respond when we come across something online which upsets us or makes us feel uncomfortable. On Thursday, we had a tour of Linlithgow Academy as part of our transition to S1. It was great to have a look around, meet some of the staff and have some burning questions answered. We look forward to our 3 transition days in June now. Finally, Lion King rehearsals have carried on this week where we have been designing and creating scenery, making costumes and having our first full run through in the hall. The main cast managed this off-script, our lionesses were fierce and our ensemble were singing beautifully throughout. Well done to all involved, and thank you to Mrs. Gordon, Mrs. Matos and Miss Prince for their continued efforts in getting us prepared!
Have a relaxing and restful long weekend everyone, it’s well deserved.
Our Primary 6 and 7 school footballers are continuing to train hard ahead of their upcoming league meetings and cluster tournaments. We are currently still training indoors on Mondays from 3.15-4.15pm but will be returning outside on Monday 5th March, at which point both P6 and P7 will train together again. Any P6 and P7 boys and girls are more than welcome to attend, just let Mr. Logan know if you would like to join.
Here are some important dates for the footballing family calendars:
Monday 12th February – HOLIDAY
Monday 19th February – Football league meeting (2), letters to follow
Monday 26th February – P6 training (indoors)
Monday 5th March – P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 12th March – Football league meeting (3), letters to follow
Monday 19th March – P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 26th March – HOLIDAY
Monday 2nd April – HOLIDAY
Monday 9th April – Football league meeting (4), letters to follow
Monday 16th April – NO TRAINING
Monday 23rd April – P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 30th April –Â P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 7th May – HOLIDAY
Monday 14th May –Â P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 21st May –Â P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 28th May –Â P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 4th June – NO TRAINING (P7 Camp)
Monday 11th June –Â P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 18th June –Â P6 and P7 training (outdoors)
Monday 25th June – End of year awards ceremony in P7b’s classroom
It’s been another busy week in P7b, here’s what we’ve been up to…
Numeracy and Mathematics
This week we began a unit of work on data and analysis. We have been selecting appropriate ways to gather and sort data for given purposes and justifying our choice of method, for example, a survey, questionnaire or group tallies. Having gathered this data, we used a variety of methods to display it, including frequency tables, vertical bar charts and line graphs. These displays of data included suitable titles, labels on both axes (which are the fixed vertical and horizontal reference lines) and an appropriate scale. Next week, we will continue to explore different ways in which to gather, organise, analyse and display data including through the use of digital technologies.
Literacy and English
Having reached the floor with their compliment chain, P7b were lucky enough to escape homework this week and consolidated their learning of previous spelling patterns and rules. In writing, we wrote thank you letters to the STEM engineers who visited us and were interviewed ahead of our work to build movable buggies. We adhered to a set structure for our letters before redrafting and printing these using Microsoft Word. On Thursday, we started on an assessed piece of writing with only a picture stimulus to get our creative juices flowing (see below).
A dark picture of a savanna plain.
Having completed our initial planning, we will    continue with the writing of our stories next week. As we write, we will be self-assessing our work alongside the criteria for a Second Level piece of work. Mr. Logan is looking forward to reading these once they are completed.
In reading this week, we continued our group novel studies and developed our reading skills using the comprehension box. We chose from a variety of texts before answering different types of questions. When faced with literal questions we looked carefully to find and lift the answer directly from the text. When answering inferential questions we tried to read between the lines using context clues and asking questions to help us make sense of the text. And finally, when posed with evaluative questions we offered our own ideas and opinions, or related our answer to our own personal experiences.
Health and Wellbeing
P7b visited Bonnytoun Nursery this week and enjoyed interacting with our youngest learners. We enjoyed drawing, paired reading, using ICT, building towers, playing with the slime and making sand castles. It was lovely to spend some time with them and we’ll be sure to visit again soon.
As we approach the end of our block of football for P.E, we have been further developing our ability  to pass the ball accurately and introduced to shooting. We explored different ways to pass the football before establishing that the inside of our foot is most accurate. However, when shooting, the inside of our foot can be used to improve accuracy but we attempted to use the ‘laces’ to increase the power of our shot. Next week we will be applying these skills in small sided games, analysing our performance and officiating matches.
This week we started our focus on internet safety in the lead up to Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 6th February. We took part in a speed friending game which explored the nature of ‘friendship’ on social media, allowed us to identify risks and danger and taught us how to interact safely with others online. When we do encounter something online which upsets or offends us, we now know what to do in order to get help.
Coming Up
Monday 5th February: P7 after school football
Tuesday 6th February: Parent Council meeting, 6.00-7.00pm in library
Tuesday 6th February – Thursday 8th February : Lion King tickets on sale to all parents, carers and families from 3.15-3.30pm
Thursday 8th February: S1 transition tour for all P7s, 9.30-11.00am, please return EE2 forms by Tuesday
Friday 9th February: Pupil Voice Committees
Monday 12th February & Tuesday 13th February: HOLIDAY, return Wednesday 14th February
It has been another exciting week in P7b. On Monday we started off by creating a Christmas haiku poem. We have now come to the end of our poetry block of writing. This was followed by guided reading and continuing with our group novel studies. After break we got into our enterprise groups and figured out the gross and net profit that we had achieved from the Christmas Fayre. In total we made £1,186 and £851 of this goes towards our end of year Leavers 2018 trip. Our P.E session of Monday was basketball in the Community Wing and it was really fun. We were playing small sided games to demonstrate the skills we have been developing since October.
On Tuesday we started off our brilliant day by reading in our groups while the rest of us started our reading tasks and completed our grammar and punctuation. We have been using connectives, they are used to join up sentences and extend/vary the length of them. We were asked to up-level our connectives, for example; meanwhile, additionally and furthermore. Near the end of the day we started on algebra in maths, we were talking about number machines. The very last thing we did on Tuesday was practising Last Christmas by Wham! and Feliz Navidad, a Spanish Christmas song, for Carols Around the Tree next week. Please come along and watch us perform at 10.25am on Friday!
Then on Wednesday we had more algebra. We tackled some problem solving questions with a partner and these were from the GCSE tests from England, some of the questions were really tricky but we enjoyed the challenge and were pleased when we got to the correct answer. Later on in the day, we had science with Mrs Tulloch, some of our parents came in to see us learning about chemical and physical changes.
On Thursday morning we went to Midlothian Snowsports Centre in Edinburgh for our second skiing session. We’re all getting better each week and can’t wait for the next one. It was snowing all morning and made us feel Christmassy! After skiing we had our Christmas lunch in Mrs Gordon’s classroom. Both classes were here so it was packed, but the food was great. Thank you Jessie and the kitchen ladies.
Then on Friday, we had singing practise in assembly and after break we had committees . The Sports Committee were tidying and reorganising the P.E cupboard as it was a bit of a mess!
Today P7 enjoyed their first of four sessions of skiing at Midlothian Snowsports Centre. Once we arrived, we were kitted up and out onto the slopes in our groups. These depended on whether we had skied lots before, a little bit or never at all.
Group 1 were on the nursery slope today getting used to the putting on and taking off of skis, beginning to balance on both one and two skis and moving down a slight decline before stopping. Groups 2 and 3 moved slightly further up the main slope to the blue line and were attempting to gain some speed before coming to a stop. Group 4 were on the main slope and developing their ability to use snow plough turns whilst group 5 made their way to the very top where they focused on their pole planting and parallel turns.
Already after one week we are seeing huge progress with each child and look forward to seeing them further develop their skills and confidence in skiing over the next three sessions. The instructors were incredibly complimentary of the behaviour and positive attitude demonstrated by all of the children. Well done P7, we’re so proud of you all! Have a look at this week’s pictures below…
It’s been another busy week in P7b, so here’s a brief summary of the goings-on…
Numeracy
P7b have been working hard when applying their decimals knowledge when using money. This week we have been focusing on bills and calculating total costs through various word and multi-step problems. Our enterprise projects have allowed us to use these skills in a practical context when resourcing items required and providing Mr. Logan with a total cost for our order. In doing so, we were asked to make price comparisons and attempt to gather quality resources at a reasonable price. On Tuesday we were lucky enough to have Mr. Fryer (Lois’s Dad) in to visit both P7 classes. Mr. Fryer works as a Senior Mortgage Manager for TSB was was able to share his wealth of knowledge around budgeting. He worked closely with each enterprise group, discussing their projects and offering some support to the calculation of their costs and potential gross/net profits.
Literacy
We are continuing to enjoy our group novels in guided reading; from Adolphus Tips to Alex Rider, and Gangsta Granny to The Hunger Games. Now that some groups have finished their first novel, they have been given the choice as to what text they read next. In P7b we promote an enjoyment of reading through the opportunity for personalisation and choice. Mr. Logan has been impressed with the level of expression we are beginning to use to engage our audience when reading. On Wednesday, we looked at our first ‘shared reading’ text as a whole class. We were studying a poem called ‘Wind’ by Dionne Brand. The poem was written in the first person and brought human-like qualities to the wind through repeated uses of personification. The higher order discussion was great to hear and we were amazed by how many features of the text came to our attention the more we read. On Thursday, we began using our new Big Writing Adventures resource with Mrs. Doran and look forward to more of these lessons in the coming weeks!
Health and Wellbeing
This week was our anti-bullying and racism focus in school. With kindness being one of our school’s values, we must always ensure we treat each other with the utmost respect and in a way which we would like to be treated ourselves. Mrs. Matos delivered our first two Respect lessons where we discussed gender equality and what respect means to us. We compared our definitions with the dictionary definition and rewrote what this looks like in our classroom. This will be used throughout the year to refer back to and promote positive behaviour and relationships in the classroom. We demonstrated kindness by dressing down and donating money to Chlldren in Need on Friday. Thank you to Mrs. Gordon and the Pupil Council Committee for organising such a successful event, and of course to those who baked. The cakes and sweets were delicious! We will let you know in due course how much we have raised.
Coming Up This Term
Road Safety Week next week
Enterprise project orders to be placed next Monday
Pupil Voice Committees next Friday
Big Write event in class on Tuesday at 9.30 – 10.30am
Last session of futsal on 27.11.17
Skills for Learning, Life and Work focus group on 29.11.17 at 7pm
Skiing block begins on 30.11.17 at 8.30am – 1.15pm (4 weeks)
PTA Glitter Ball and Christmas Dress Down Day on 1.12.17
Nativity performances on 6.12.17 and 7.12.17
Christmas Fayre on 8.12.17 at 9.30am – 12 noon
Learning Showcase in classes on 13.12.17 at 1pm
Christmas Service at St. Michael’s on 19.12.17 at 6.30 – 7.30pm
Carols Round the Tree and Christmas jumpers on 22.12.17
Christmas holidays from 22.12.17 – 9.1.18
To all our parents, carers and families, have a fantastic weekend!
Last week in Numeracy and Mathematics we came to a conclusion with our work using decimal numbers. Whilst establishing the link to both fractions and percentages, we have been adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimal numbers through the use of written methods. We understand that ahead of our transition to S1 it is of great importance to show our working and verbalise the strategies we are using when completing written calculations or developing our mental arithmetic. Even if we don’t find the correct answer, we will gain credit for the steps we have taken in getting there. As it was Halloween on Tuesday, our problem solving this week was titled ‘Murder at the Movies’. We had to apply our knowledge of decimals in order to cross off names from the suspects list before eventually finding the culprit. Next week we will be further developing our knowledge of decimal numbers as we move on to look at money. This will be good practise ahead of our Christmas Fayre enterprise work where we will need to use money to purchase resources, work to a budget and hopefully calculate eventual gross and net profits.
Literacy
In spelling we are continuing to challenge ourselves with tricky spelling rules and patterns. Mr. Logan has been thoroughly impressed with the scores in our spelling test each Friday and the ability to demonstrate our understanding of these words’ definitions in our ambitious, up-leveled sentences. On Thursday we used mind maps as a tool for planning our Poppy Factory visit recount writing. This allowed us to note down key points and phrases that would aid the flow and structure of our work. These pieces of writing will be continued next week where we also have our Big Write event to look forward to. In this time we will be writing some rainforest tanka poems. Our guided reading timetables have been altered as we move onto new group novels, and we ended this week by entering discussion groups on Yammer. This online space within Glow was used to answer a range comprehension type questions posed by Mr. Logan and discuss our novels in greater detail with our peers.
Health and Wellbeing
In P.E, we have been practising ahead of our Linlithgow cluster Sportshall Athletics festival next Wednesday. The events we have been working on are speed bounce, chest push, standing long jump, vertical jump, javelin and relay races. If we are successful at the cluster event, we will move forward to West Lothian finals and Mr. Logan believes we have every chance of doing so judging by the level of performance he has seen. The Sports Committee had their second meeting of the session on Friday and pupils worked hard to design a new logo that will be displayed on any Sports Committee work around school. We will be voting for our winning design at our next meeting in December. Finally, Sam had some fantastic news to share this week as he has been selected to ball boy in Andy Murray’s Live Event next Tuesday. Murray will be facing Roger Federer amongst other matches at the SSE Hydro and you can tune in on Eurosport from 7pm for a chance to see Sam in action!
Coming Up This Term
The Great Kapok Tree book study next week
Enterprise project for Christmas Fayre begins on Monday
Big Write event in class on Tuesday at 9.30 – 10.30am
4 x P7b pupils to attend St. Michael’s Day Care Centre on Tuesday at 1.15 – 3.15pm
P7 Sportshall Athletics festival at Linlithgow Leisure Centre on Wednesday at 1.10 – 2.50pm
Anti-bullying and racism focus starts in class week beginning 13.11.17
Liaise with Leadership on 15.11.17 at 5-6pm
Children in Need on 17.11.17
Last session of futsal on 27.11.17
Skills for Learning, Life and Work focus group on 29.11.17 at 7pm
Skiing block begins on 30.11.17 at 8.30am – 1.15pm (4 weeks)
PTA Glitter Ball and Christmas Dress Down Day on 1.12.17
Nativity performances on 6.12.17 and 7.12.17
Christmas Fayre on 8.12.17 at 9.30am – 12 noon
Learning Showcase in classes on 13.12.17 at 1pm
Christmas Service at St. Michael’s on 19.12.17 at 6.30 – 7.30pm
Carols Round the Tree and Christmas jumpers on 22.12.17
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