AeroSpace Kinross Competition

A lot of our time this past 2 weeks has been used to gather evidence and complete the remaining challenges for the competition. We had a visitor into class to talk about their career in creating an Aviation based business. Thank you so much to all those who have given up their personal time to come in to talk to us. We worked in teams to complete our Obstacle Course challenge where we had to get the drone through various obstacles as quickly as possible. When building the course the following actions were to be considered: through, around, over and under. Points will also be given for sustainability of the resources used to create the course. 

We've since been continuing to write information reports about the careers we learned about and have learned about various inspirational figures within aviation. 

HWB: PE 

P7 were practising their rugby skills over the last couple of weeks. They enjoyed developing their throwing and catching skills using the rugby ball and also identifying spaces to run into when playing a game. 

Highland Maths Challenge Competition

A huge well done are in order for our Nessies who represented the school on Tuesday at the Maths Challenge organised by the UHI and Scottish Mathematical Council. We had a brilliant day filled with lots of mathematical problems and activities. They gave it their all and worked so incredibly hard on their amazing poster - which they completed in only 50 minutes! Two members of staff from other schools came over to share how polite and mannerly the children had been and I've had another message since to share how lovely they were. A huge well done to all three pupils! 

Numeracy

Factors and Multiples

P7 have completed some excellent work on identifying factors. Initially, some of the class used numicon to support their understanding. Seeing this visually really helped to develop their knowledge. 

Simplifying Fractions

Once their knowledge of factors was deepened, they then used this skill to help identify the highest common factor. We then used this to simplify fractions into their simplest form. This has been tricky for us - but P7 have been working hard to practise this skill.

Airspace Kinross Challenge

Earlier this week P7 were given an online presentation by an Air Traffic Controller. They shared what their role involves, the importance of being able to problem solve and also the qualifications that are required in the role. Mr MacIver spoke so passionately about his job and it was so lovely to hear all about it from him. 

The class then split into teams and began to plan and organise their obstacle courses that they will fly their drones around next week as part of their second challenge. There were some VERY creative and interesting ideas!

Health and Wellbeing: PE

Our PE days have now changed. We will now have PE on a Tuesday and Wednesday. It is really important that as P7s, they remember to take PE kit on these days. We had a bit of a "mismatch" in PE this week and played some games, tried a game of rounders, played some curling and then bench ball too! 

Problem Solving

On Thursday afternoon, P7 were given a problem solving task that involved exploring negative numbers. They were brilliant at this and worked so hard and figuring it out! We also discussed the skills required for problem solving: adaptability, communication, analysing and logical thinking. 

World Book Week Activities

Have a look at the pictures below of P7 taking part in paired reading with P3 this week. P7 also made bookmarks for the Reading Schools group on Friday so that they can be kept in the library for any readers. Some of us also went on a book hunt - organised by Miss Walker and Miss Munro - all around the school! We finished our week off following a "Draw with Rob" YouTube video where we all drew our own versions of the 'Reading Monster'.  During assembly, Mr Connon had the whole school participating in a book quiz! P6 & P7 led mini teams and collected house points for their teams according to their scores. It was lovely to spend time altogether!

Literacy: Information Report Writing

Over the past few weeks, P7 have been gathering information on Commercial Aircrafts using the descriptive bubble that we learned about in term 1. This helped the class to make sure that they spoke about various perspectives in their report rather than just writing about one perspective. The structure of the text was easy to follow and all children were able to do this independently. 

Numeracy: Fractions, Decimals and Percentages

P7 have continued to work on their percentages knowledge and being able to find a percentage of an amount. This week the class were converting percentages into fractions and decimals. Everyone did brilliantly during these tasks and have shown a great understanding of percentange. Well done P7! 

Aerospace Kinross Challenge

This week, as part of the Challenge that P7 are participating in, we had 2 more visitors in to speak to us. We learned about careers as a Helicopter Pilot and an Architect involved in the design process of Airports. Both roles were so interesting and we learned lots from our visitors. We have been so lucky to have the opportunity to learn from people within our school community.

We also created "road maps" to share the different routes that individuals can take to get into various aviation careers, whilst others took it in turns to have a shot flying the drones and practise being a pilot!

Newton Room Trip

 Primary 7 had a wonderful time during their trip to the Newton Room at the UHI on Tuesday. Our topic of learning was 'Energy' - Jill and Tim taught the class about energy types, the way energy is used, creating energy and then used energy to build circuits. Primary 7 were engaged and interested in their learning and participated really well during all of the activities. Well done P7!

Maths: Percentages

We've continued to develop our knowledge of percentages this week and now moved on to figuring out a percentage of an amount. P7 have been working on being secure in finding 10% of an amount before then moving on to finding multiples of 10% of an amount. It can be a tricky concept to learn, but P7 have worked hard on this and have shown great perseverence! 

Literacy: Semantic Gradients & Information Report Writing

We returned to working on Semantic Gradients to help and develop our vocabulary. Being exposed to other vocabulary is so important in helping P7 to understand how to use it in their own literacy work. 

P7 Visitor

We were lucky enough to have another visitor to our class sharing about their career in aviation. Primary 7 are going to be very busy with their Aerospace Challenge next week and are looking forward to getting stuck in! A huge thank you to all those who have given up their time to come in to teach P7 about possible careers in Aviation. 

Expressive Arts: KiNDAH KHADINSKY 

P7 looked at some work created by KiNDAH KHADINSKY, an American abstract artist.  For a bit of fun, we created a class piece of art to display similar artistic skills used and will then work towards creating our own pieces. 

HWB: PE Target Games

For this week and next, we are going to learn some new target games during PE. We played Rollerball, Shots on Target and Indoor Curling. P7 really enjoyed Indoor Curling, and I think we will definitely do some more of it next week!

Numeracy: 8x table, division and Percentages 

We briefly spent some time practising our 8x table and using our multiplication facts to help us with division. On Friday, we delved deeper into the topic of what "percent" means, and used 100 squares to support our understanding. P7 had to then write out what was represented on their grid in a percentage, as a fraction and then decimal form as a challenge.

Celebrating Achievements Assembly

Two individuals from P7 went up to share their recent achievements from outside of school at our Community Assembly on Friday. Both individuals spoke with confidence, clarity and presented their achievements so well to the audience. Well done for all your hard work and dedication to your interests outside of school!

Numeracy

We have focused this week on times tables and division. When we had our last visit from the Maths teacher at the Academy, they really pushed the importance of their fluency in using all four operations in maths - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We have spent some time looking at the most effective strategies and learning lots of new processes. 

Social Studies: WW2

As we come to the end of our topic on WW2, we learned about the D-Day Landings at Normandy and VE Day celebrations this week. We used Google Maps to identify the 5 beaches used during D-Day Landings, watched a some footage from the time of troops during their preparations and discussed the huge celebrations that happened in London and across Great Britain on VE Day. The clips we looked at showed thousands of people and we were trying to think of other situations where there would have been so many people out on the streets celebrating!

On Friday, we played a game of "Grudgeball" where we answered some knowledge and understanding questions about WW2 so that Mrs Bell could assess what we have learned and remembered! The game was full of fun and lots of grudges, but there was plenty of smiles all around!

HWB: PE Games

For some fun before the long weekend, we played some team games in PE this week. Mrs Bell was definitely aimed for, during dodgeball, quite a few times! 

Towards the end of our PE session, we were joined by some of the nursery children. They had been so impressed with our paper aeroplanes at assembly last week, that they had asked us to teach them too! We had great fun leading their learning and supporting them before we then flew the aeroplanes altogether at the end!

STEM Topic: Schools Air Race Challenge

As you will know, we have now properly started our air race challenge. This week we created our class charter for when we use the drone. We discussed safety measures, risks and how we can prevent any damages from occurring. On Wednesday, we were very lucky to have Mr Fallen join us to tell us all about his career as a pilot. We learned so much and P7 were so engaged. They asked some excellent questions! On Thursday, some of us had their first shot of flying the drone. It was difficult at first, but we got the hang of it. We will be flying them again next week for some more practise before we start to create our obstacle course. 

Social Studies: Class Trip to Fort George

Despite the miserable weather, P7 had a great time out at Fort George on Monday. It was a lovely start to the week and we learned lots. Robert took us around the Highlander Museum, sharing the history of the Seaforth and Cameron Highlanders, and their link to WW2. We then met Bob, a volunteer at the Fort, who helps with queries from all over the world to do with individuals who previously served. Bob has a special interest in medals and taught the P7s lots when we visited the medal room. During the final part of the trip, we went to the Glass Magazine, the Chapel and then looked into the historic battlement rooms. 

P7 were incredibly polite, well behaved and showed great interest throughout the trip. Well done for representing Ness Castle in such a positive way! 

Literacy

On Tuesday, when we returned to school, we revisited some of our term 1 learning on writing a recount. This was good revision for some of us, and also great for us to see the progression.

We have also been working on revising the use of punctuation marks when writing dialogue. 

HWB: Fitness

We are nearing the end of our Fitness Circuits block in PE. P7 have fluctuated between loving this and hating this block! This week we chose dice as our randomiser for various different exercises. We also revisited some of the exercises from week 1 to compare the improvements in our cardiovascular health and strength. 

P7 Class Assembly

P7 then spent the rest of the week preparing and organising their class assembly. They were very involved, and set to work in smaller groups to prepare the content for their section of the presentation. They devised their script, considered ways to involve their audience, worked on their presenting skills and worked in a group. 

P7 did a wonderful job on Friday. A huge thank you to all the family members that managed to come along and support the class. It is much appreciated! We hope you enjoyed visiting the classroom and seeing a little bit of what your child is a part of in P7. 

We have also been revising our basic understanding of column addition and subtraction, long multiplication and division. The Academy are really keen that the children are very confident in these, so we will now be incorporating short daily practise of all four mathematical operations. 

Schools Air Race Challenge 2024

Primary 7 were successful in getting to the next stage of the Schools Air Race Challenge! We now have lots of challenges to complete and are looking forward to getting properly started next week. We watched over the introduction video, read through the challenges and started to come up with possible risks and safety measures that we might have to put in place before using the drones. If you know of anyone that works within aviation, please get in touch, as we would love to hear from them and learn all about their career!

Final UHI STEM Session with Mr Mac

Mr Mac was able to rejoin us on Monday, after the weather cut last week short. He discussed all the learning that had taken place last week and we then used all of our skills and knowledge to work on our coding skills. Mr Mac took Mini Spheros in for us and we had to try and get them through a maze or obstacle course. Primary 7 have some excellent coding skills after all their work on Scratch and the use of Micro:Bits. We were all delighted with the session from Mr Mac and gave him some excellent feedback. We hope he can come back to do more sessions with us soon!

Maths Visit from Inverness Royal Academy

On Wednesday, we had a visit from Mr Cummins, a maths teacher, from Inverness Royal Academy. Mr Cummins came in to work with the class on their knowledge of decimals and place value. He was greatly impressed with the class, their manners and their great understanding of decimals. I was so proud of them all when they engaged so well in the task and showed off how brilliant they are at their maths! Well done P7!

Social Studies: WW2

During our learning about WW2 we have explored different ways that those not fighting in the war were able to support their country. We looked at posters and saw there was one with the slogan, "Make Do and Mend". P7 then had some time learning how to sew and are beginning to create a pattern on a small grid that they will the be able to keep. Many of the class felt that this exercise was very relaxing and therapeutic for them. It was so lovely to see everyone enjoy learning a new skill!

Mr Mac - UHI STEM

Mr Mac is the UHI Inverness Campus STEAM coordinator and joined Primary 7 this week for 3 different "Lend-a-Lab" sessions that can be led in schools. Primary 7 were very lucky and had experiences with;

• Snap Circuits 

• Building Batteries

• Senses.

Have a look at the pictures below to see P7 engaged in their learning. 

HWB: Fitness Circuits & Substance Use Education

P7 had 1 PE session this week and we created playing card circuits. Lots of work on developing our stamina and improving our cardio health! 

We pulled together all of our learning so far on our substance use learning, discussing the differences between medication , socially acceptable drugs and illegal drugs. P7 were very mature when it came to talking about the impact that choices can have on our lives and the people around us too. Their maturity and thoughtful input when discussing sensitive and difficult topics is something I am very proud of them for. Thank you P7!

Zipline Creativity Task 

P7 were given a short period of time to complete their creativity challenge today, where they had to build a working zipline for a lego figure. We had some great examples and I think they are already looking to try the task again after some careful considerations as to what they would change next time to make their zipline more successful and smooth whilst in flight!

Follow Mrs Bell on 'X' for some other photos and videos of our work when using the Micro:Bits. 

@meganbell_CT

Substance Use Education 

Towards the end of term 2 we began to explore the ways that our body is affected by different choices that we make as we get older. Primary 7 have been very sensible and mature towards our discussions around cigarettes and alcohol. We have been speaking about short-term and long-term effects of the different substances on our bodies. Whilst exploring this topic, we have been reflecting on our previous learning of peer pressure and the importance of being around people that we trust and that care for us. 

Literacy

Our focus for the first two weeks back will be our class novel, Tribes. We have been developing our vocabulary as we come across challenging words and identifying different figures of speech throughout the text. I'm hopeful that we will finish this novel soon as the next class novel we will be exploring is all about transitions and moving on to a new school!

Numeracy

A gentle start back to maths this week. We have looked at drawing out bar graphs and identifying the difference between them or a histogram. We've been practising our 4x table and developing our speed and accuracy in this! Then we recapped some of our learning about decimals and find fractional amounts of numbers when completing our number of the day.