For Challenge Poverty Week, P6/7 explored the ‘Cost of the School Day’. We now have an understanding of how the school day costs money for families. We discussed the things Toronto Primary School does to support families in reducing the cost of the school day.
Mrs Black organised a special ‘Sports Assembly’ last week where we came together as a whole school to celebrate our sporting successes and achievements over the last year. Awards were presented to individuals and we celebrated the sporting successes shared through wider achievements outside school as well as in school. We presented certificates of thanks to a number of our partners who have made it possible to offer some of the sports activities we have done this year!
We also said a sad farewell to our Active Schools Coordinator Mrs Livingston, who is moving on to work with a new cluster of primary schools in West Lothian.
On Tuesday this week a group of Primary 5 and Primary 7 children made their way to the Assembly rooms in Edinburgh to attend the Social Enterprise Academy’s Award ceremony, where they collected an award for their work they have done with the Toronto Boutique so far and their plans to develop it further to include a food pantry.
The Assembly rooms were so beautiful, we were in awe of the grandeur. We also got to listen to the Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes speaking about how we are contributing to changing the future.
Our P6 pupils at Toronto have recently been preparing for one of their important and responsible roles for P7 in August.
P6’s submitted application forms, undertook an interview and completed training sessions to prepare them for being a Buddy to our new P1’s in August. P6 are now well equipped for this responsible role and are looking forward to meeting their buddies very soon!
This week we worked with our P1 buddies, we had great fun playing in the field. We had pots and pans and water and we made potions and grass soup. We played Duck, duck, goose, played with bubbles and had a blether.
In rugby we were learning how to pass the and how to score a try, we had to race against each other.
In Bikeability some of us were learning how to cross the road, do a U-turn and safe start and stop.
When the Bikeability groups were out the rest of P7A learned about the artist Piet Mondrian and we created our own compositions. Piet Mondrian was a famous artist who developed a style of his own, called neoplasticism. His work became minimalistic. He painted using simple lines, right angles and blocks of primary colours. Mondrian wanted to express a harmony and purity in his work.
On Wednesday this week a group of our P5 and P7 children attended West Lothian’s Dragons Den event where they pitched their social enterprise idea to a panel of local businesses in the hope of gaining investment in their business The Toronto Boutique and Pantry.
The children asked for investment in order to expand our already successful boutique, to include other school resources, eg. school bags, lunch bags, pencil cases, etc. and also to add our very own Toronto Pantry. The children’s aim is to support our families with the increasing cost of living by helping to lower the cost of the school day.
All pupils spoke confidently before the panel of dragons and an audience of mainly secondary pupils and adults – Mrs Black and Mrs McDougall are so proud of each and every one!
Although we didn’t win the main investment, we did secure a £50 seed funding to invest in our Toronto Boutique and Pantry.
We plan to share our vision for the expansion of The Toronto Boutique and Pantry at our next Parent Council Meeting on Tuesday 19th March.
We will also share all our plans and how you can access our Boutique and Pantry, here with you when we have ironed out all the logistics.
