Shared Learning

As part of our final week, Primary 5, 6 and 7 all joined together into 3 mixed age group teams and worked their way round 3 different activities led by Miss Shepherd, Miss Walker and Mrs Bell. Miss Shepherd led a music activity where the pupils developed their music reading skills and played various Christmas tunes on different instruments. Miss Walker did a snowy scene piece of artwork using black paper and chalks. Mrs Bell led a STEM session where they had to work in groups to build a cardboard gingerbread house and then light it up using simple circuits. All children worked so well together and we were very impressed with their hard work and attention to detail during the final week of term!

Enjoy the holidays over the festive period and I look forward to welcoming you back to school in 2024!

Christmas-ifying Primary 7!

After weeks of being asked to make the classroom more festive...it was finally time to give in and add some extra decorations! P7 learned how to make these beautiful snowflakes out of paper. Later on in the week, 2 of the P7s made special yellow and blue snowflakes for Mr Connon's office windows!

Micro:Bits 

Over the week, we had a couple of different challenges using the Micro:Bits. A few weeks previous, we had worked hard to create a code after learning about Alan Turing and his code breaking skills during WW2. The children then had to crack the other groups codes using questions about WW2 that would have answers using digits. 

Then on Wednesday, P7 joined an online Christmas Coding session led by the BBC. We learned how to brighten and dim the LED lights using Make Code programming. 

Health and Wellbeing

Primary 7 have been learning about substance misuse and the impact of peer pressure as we grow up. We have been discussing the impact of our choices on keeping our bodies healthy. The class have been very mature in their discussions. Well done P7! 

Primary 7 Transition Ceilidh

On Thursday, P7 went along to Inverness Royal Academy to begin their transition before starting Secondary school in August 2024! They were an absolute credit to the school and their behaviour was superb. It was a brilliant way to meet the other P7 pupils from various schools, all whilst enjoying a wee ceilidh! A big thank you to the staff at Inverness Royal Academy for organising this and giving our P7s the opportunity to visit the building before the end of term 2. 

Christmas Show Rehearsals

The whole school has been working really hard to rehearse and practise for "Christmas at the Castle" on Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th of December. P1-3 have been working on McTivity, whilst P4-7 have been preparing songs to sing for you. 

Scottish Poetry

On Thursday, we spent time in the morning reading poems written by Scottish Poets in Scots. We identified different Scots words and also attempted to read them aloud to one another in our best Scots accents. 

We also went on a book hunt on Thursday around the school trying to figure out the clues from Miss Walker and Miss Munro. P7 enjoyed the challenge!

Christmas Fair - Saturday 2nd of December 2024

Our week was definitely dominated by preparations for the Christmas Fair at the weekend. A huge thank you to all the helpers that came along on Saturday and gave up your time! It was hugely appreciated and we managed to raise a whopping £323.49! P7 should be VERY proud of themselves. They were a credit to the school with their behaviour and manners on Saturday.

Woods Visit 4

On our visit to the woods this week we learned how to calculate the age of a tree. We discussed the method used if you have a cross section of a tree available to count the rings. Then we learned that the circumference of the tree trunk (from around 1m off the ground) divided by 2.5 will give as accurate an age as possible without being able to count the rings!

Ceilidh dancing has begun in Primary 7! We have a transition ceilidh coming up at the Academy, so this is the start of our preparations! Details to follow about the ceilidh soon. 

Coding

We did some work this week involving coding and creating a quiz based on our knowledge of WW2! This was after learning about the work of Alan Turing and his involvement in cracking the Enigma code. Next week the class will have a go at cracking one anothers codes!

Maths

We are almost finished our topic of time. Some groups started to learn about 24 hour time, others looked at using bus timetables and answering questions from the information they could see. 

P7 are also discussing decimals and fractions on a regular basis to help build their understanding of these tricky areas within maths. This week we looked at improper fractions and converting them to mixed numbers. The concept was slightly more challenging on Tuesday but by Wednesday the class were professionals! Well done P7!

HWB

As part of our Health and Wellbeing lessons this week, we spent an hour outdoors in the woods, played some hoop games and learned the Gay Gordons! Have a look at the pictures below. 

Semantic Gradients

Having now worked with the class for 2 terms, it has become apparent that spending time expanding our vocabulary would be worthwhile to support and extend our literacy work. After being on a literacy course, focused on reading in P6 & P7, we completed a task where the class had to identify a scale of where words would fit depending on their meaning. This week we looked at words associated with speed. 

Maths

Maths

In maths this week we have been developing our number sense and mental agility when learning 2 new maths card games - 'Hero' and 'Click'. The children enjoyed the challenge of these games! We also completed a few countdown challenges too, along with practising skip counting in decimal values. 

More time was spent perfecting our ability to read an analogue clock. Next week will be looking at the length of time between two different clocks. We will do this with both analogue and digital times. 

P6 and P7 joined together to look at renewable energy ahead of an online session led by the Newton Rooms and Glasgow Science Centre next week. We discussed the importance of electricity in modern society and the different renewable energy sources that exist. They worked in pairs to make cardboard gears and will then have opportunities next week to experiment with them and test how they work. 

We watched a short clip about evacuation and then talked over some images from the time. The class tried to understand the various emotions that would be involved when being evacuated. They then recognised that there were connections with other conflicts throughout the world. P7 then noted down what they had learned in their project jotters. These are their most prized jotters in class - they make such an incredible effort with them!

Spitfire Art

On Monday, the class followed a step-by-step tutorial to draw a spitfire similar to those used during WW2 by the Royal Airforce. They then spent time created their background scenery before placing their spitfires on to make it look like they were flying up above. Everyone approached the task with their own creative take on how they wanted it to look. Some could be working on them for a number of weeks, but they will definitely be worth waiting for!