Classes

P1

Ms Campbell

Term 1

Primary 1 have had a fantastic start to their school journey! The boys and girls have settled into school life beautifully — making new friends, learning new routines, and showing lots of enthusiasm for their learning. It has been lovely to see how confident, curious, and kind they have become already. 

Literacy

In literacy, we have been working hard on our phonics with Miss Campbell through the Read Write Inc programme. The children have been learning lots of new sounds and practising blending them together to read simple words. Everyone has enjoyed joining in with the fun actions, rhymes, and games that help make phonics exciting! 

With Miss Webster, the class have been practising their letter formation, focusing on how to hold their pencils correctly and form each letter carefully. The children are taking great pride in their writing and love showing how neat their letters are becoming.

“I like spotting my new sounds in books.” (AR, P1) 

“I love writing my letters really neatly.” (AR, P1) 

“I like Fred Talk because it helps me read.” (LMcC), P1) 

“I liked writing outside with chalk.” (ES, P1) 

“I can write my name on my own now!” (EC, P1) 

Numeracy 

In maths, the children have been learning about numbers 1–20 with Miss Campbell, using concrete materials such as cubes, counting dinosaurs, and number cards to help with counting, ordering, and understanding value. 

They have enjoyed practising simple addition and subtraction through games, songs, and problem-solving activities, showing fantastic focus and enthusiasm in every lesson. 

With Miss Webster, the class have been exploring time and shape. The children have been learning to recognise and name 2D shapes, talking about their sides, corners, and faces, and finding examples all around the classroom and playground. They have also been learning about days of the week and seasons, and using classroom clocks to begin understanding how time passes throughout the day. 

“I liked building towers to show numbers.” (FD, P1)

“I liked using the number blocks.” (FE, P1) 

“I liked making shapes with sticks.” (HP, P1) 

“I can say all the days of the week!” (HY, P1) 

“I liked using the clocks to show the time.” (OB, P1) 

Topic – Dinosaurs 

Our topic this term has been Dinosaurs, which has been a roaring success! The children have loved learning about different types of dinosaurs, what they ate, and how they lived long ago. We have also been discovering dinosaurs that once lived in Scotland and exploring fossils found on the Isle of Skye — it was so exciting to learn that real dinosaur footprints have been discovered there! 

We’ve been very creative, making our own fossils using salt dough and creating dinosaur eggs to investigate and paint. The children also loved comparing their footprints to the size of dinosaur tracks and imagining how huge the dinosaurs must have been. To finish off our learning, we even learned a Dinosaur Dance, moving and stomping like real dinosaurs — a definite highlight of the term! 

“I liked making my own fossil.” (AR, P1) 

“I liked painting my dinosaur egg.” (AR, P1) 

“My favourite dinosaur is the Stegosaurus.” (LMcC), P1) 

“I liked digging for fossils in the sand.” (ES, P1) 

“I liked doing the dinosaur dance!” (EC, P1) 

PE 

In PE, we have been developing our physical literacy skills and working on balance, coordination, and movement. The children have enjoyed practising throwing and catching, hopping, skipping, and jumping, as well as moving in different directions and speeds. 

We’ve been playing lots of games that help us work as a team, listen carefully to instructions, and use our bodies in a controlled way. We have also been talking about the importance of warming up and cooling down, and how keeping active helps us stay strong and healthy. The children especially enjoyed creating their own movement sequences and completing obstacle courses that challenged their balance and coordination. Everyone has shown brilliant effort and teamwork every week! 

“I liked doing the balancing challenges.” (OW, P1) 

“I liked jumping over the hoops.” (AR, P1) 

“I liked doing my warm-up before PE.” (LMcC, P1)

“I liked the games where we became animals.” (HP, P1) 

It has been a wonderful first term in Primary 1 — full of fun, creativity, and fantastic learning. We are so proud of how much everyone has achieved already. Well done, boys and girls, for working so hard and always trying your best! 

Term 2

Term 2 has been a wonderful and very busy term for Primary 1. The children have worked incredibly hard and have shown great enthusiasm across all areas of learning. It has been lovely to see their confidence grow as they continue to settle into school life. Who can believe it’s already halfway through the school year already?!

Literacy

In Literacy, the children have successfully completed Set 1 of Read Write Inc and are ready to move on to Set 2 in the New Year — a fantastic achievement. They have continued to learn new CVC words and have been developing their blending skills when reading. Alongside this, the children have been advancing their writing skills with Miss Webster, showing increasing confidence and independence.

Maths

Primary 1 have been working really hard in Maths this term. The children have been developing their understanding of addition and subtraction, using concrete materials and games to support their learning, and are becoming increasingly confident applying these skills. They have also continued working on time, developing their understanding of daily routines and o’clock times with Miss Webster. As well as this, they have been learning about money, recognising coins and using them in practical, hands-on activities.

Interdisciplinary Learning (IDL)

Our IDL topic this term has been Space, which the children have thoroughly enjoyed. We have been learning about the planets, the sun and the moon, astronauts, and discussing what life might look like in space. The children have shown lots of curiosity and creativity through discussions, art activities, and imaginative play.

Health and Wellbeing

As part of Health and Wellbeing, the children have taken part in PE sessions where they have been learning several country dances. They have been working alongside Primary 2/3, which has helped to develop their confidence, teamwork, and listening skills. It has been lovely to see them enjoying being active and learning together.

Nativity

The children worked extremely hard on their Nativity performance and did a fantastic job. They learned songs and actions with great confidence and enthusiasm, and we were so proud of how well they performed. I hope you all enjoyed coming along to the performances and were able to see just how much work the pupils put into them — I think you will all agree they looked and acted wonderfully.

P2/3

Mrs Henderson/Mr McDonald

Term 1

Primary 2/3 have had a fabulous first term and have come back to school with a fantastic, hardworking attitude! They have enjoyed catching up with their friends, welcoming new faces to school as well as learning lots of new things. 

Literacy

In literacy all of the boys and girls have been working hard on their reading, enjoying new books each work and reading as part of a group. Most of us have been working on reading with more expression, looking at punctuation clues to help us ‘say it like the character’. 

Primary 2 have continued learning new sounds each week and have almost completed the phonics part of the Read Write Inc programme- great job boys and girls! In writing, both P2 and P3 have been using our class novel- The Twits by Roald Dahl to inspire some cheeky writing! They have been creating new Twit-like characters, plotting their own tricks and writing instructions on how to carry them out. 

“I have enjoyed writing harder sentences during Build a Sentence activities.” (IC, P3) 

“I enjoyed reading about Elvis the elf during reading time.” (AP, P2) 

“I liked doing our literacy starter tasks.” (OH, P3) 

Numeracy

In numeracy, we have covered place value, estimation, rounding and measure. We have enjoyed mental maths sessions with Mr McDonald and discussing our mental maths strategies as part of a group each week. We also enjoyed using our topic as inspiration for measuring. The boys and girls measured shrinking walking sticks for Mrs Twit, built and measured a special dinner table to put her wormy spaghetti on and even measured the worms she ate. We have also completed lots of practical measuring tasks using measuring jugs, balance scales, rulers and metre sticks. 

“I enjoyed measuring ourselves!” (ES, P3) 

“I liked measuring using the cubes.” (CM, P2) 

“I liked using the Numicon to count.” (DS, P2) 

Topic/ Health and Wellbeing 

The Twits has provided us with some great opportunities for some writing, numeracy, technology, discussions about health and wellbeing and some fabulous art. We have enjoyed using Book Creator on the Chromebooks to give Mr Twit some advice on how to stay clean and improve his personal hygiene. This tied in with our Health and Wellbeing objectives for the term. We learned how to care for our bodies and keep them clean. We also completed a fun experiment and learned about how germs travel. 

“I liked using Book Creator because it is fun and helps us to learn about Health and Wellbeing.” (LM, P3) 

“I liked when we made leaflets giving advice to Mr Twit about personal hygiene.” (AD, P3) 

“I liked doing the experiment to show how germs are shared. I liked washing it all off!” (IS, P2) 

P.E. 

We have had lots of fun in P.E this term learning about physical literacy skills. We have improved our throwing, catching, balancing, jumping and hand-eye coordination through lots of fun stations and activities. 

“I like jumping off the high balance beams and balancing on things.” (AR, P3) 

“I liked doing the obstacle course.” (KS, P3) 

“I liked balancing on the beam because it was fun!” (CT, P2) 

“I liked jumping off the gymnastics horses.” (FH, P3) 

Term 2

Another busy term completed! This one was filled with lots of hard work, singing and tinsel!

Maths

In maths with Mr McDonald, we have been learning all about multiplication and division. We have been looking at different strategies to help us solve more complex multiplication and division problems.

With Mrs Henderson, we have been learning about telling the time. We have had lots of practise using analogue and digital clocks. We can now tell the time using o’clock, half past, quarter to and quarter past. Some boys and girls have become really confident telling time by reading five minute intervals too!
We have also learned lots about money this term too. We have looked at lots of different coins and notes and have become more confident at understanding their value. We set up a shop and practised paying for items and giving change too!

“I liked playing different money games on the Chromebook and using the small clocks to make times.” (AR, P3)

“I liked going on the Chromebook to practise multiplication and division games on Sumdog.” (DS, P2)

“I like when we get a number line and we start with a number and add up tens and ones to try get the right answer.” (AD, P3)

Literacy
A major milestone moment for primary 2- they finished learning all of their Read Write Inc (RWI) sounds with Fred the frog! They have worked so hard to learn and remember all of their sounds and each and every one of them have managed to use their decoding strategies to consistently blend and read the words in their weekly reading books.

The primary 3 Grey Group have completed the whole RWI reading programme and have now started on the Project X books, reading all about Tiger and his special adventures.

During writing lessons, the children have been learning about Christmas around the World and writing fact files about how different countries celebrate.

“I liked writing about Christmas in different places. We got to give our writing a different Christmassy background on the Chromebook.” (AP, P2)

“I liked moving up to the Pink Group!” (LM, P2)

“I liked moving on to the Blue reading books. I liked the first book about the dog Barker!” (FH, P3).

HWB

We had great fun learning lots of Scottish country dances this term! We learned the Canadian Barn Dance, The Military Two-Step and the Virginia Reel. We also taught some of our dances to P1. We had lots of fun performing them at our school party too.
During fitness we learned about the importance of keeping our bodies healthy by exercising and leading an active lifestyle. We loved playing all of the games to test our strength, flexibility and agility.

“I liked the Canadian Barn Dance!” (ES, P3)

“I liked learning the Scottish dances.” (CM, P2)

“I liked learning the Virginia Reel.” (MMF, P2)

“I liked playing the fitness games- they were really fun!” (IC, P3)

Nativity

I think we can all agree that this year’s Nativity was epic! The children truly were little angels during the play “The Angel Express”. With lots of practise and hard work from the children of P1/2/3, they successfully learned their lines and sang all of their songs wonderfully. A great way to get us all in the Christmas spirit!

“I liked going up on stage and saying my lines.” (KS, P3).

“I liked feeling confident!” (CT, P2)

“I liked singing the songs. (QM, P2)

“I liked seeing my mum and dad watching me.” (GB, P2)

“Even though I was scared, I got through it and felt confident at the end!” (LM, P3))

Primary 4/5

Mr Webster

Term 1

Numeracy 

This term we have been working on our place value, multiplication and measure skills. We have done lots of practical times table games and have linked our measure activities to our ‘Titanic’ topic and ‘Scottish Maths Week’. 

“I like maths, it’s my favourite subject.” (JP) 

“I think this term maths has challenged me more.” (SC) 

Literacy 

In literacy we have written an imaginative extended writing piece. Through our IDL topic we had to write about our family’s journey on to the Titanic and the disaster that followed! 

“It’s fun to make our own characters and work with others in groups.” (TM) 

“I thought it was fun to make our characters.” (HG) 

“I feel more confident about writing. I think Read, Write, Chrome has helped me a lot.” (CJ) 

“I thought it was quite cool how we created our character personalities we had to use our imagination to make a whole different person.” (DP) 

I.D.L 

Our topic this term has been Titanic. We have enjoyed finding out how people from different classes had such different lives. Did you know first class train carriages had flushable toilets but third class had to use a pot kept under their wooden seat! We designed tinfoil boats in a floating and sinking experiment and with Miss Webster in I.T. We used a programmed called ‘Tinkercad’ to create a 3D Titanic! 

“I really liked Tinkercad because you can create lots of things.” (AS) 

“I really enjoyed making the tinfoil boats. We won because our design had the biggest hull.” (WF) 

H.W.B 

In P.E. our focus has been on developing throwing and catching skills, team communication skills and promoting decision making. We also had ‘Sports Leaders’ from Stirling High taking us for a sequence of athletics lessons. 

“I liked playing Gerald’s game because I like shooting hoops!” (BM) 

“We practised our chest passes, they were fun to do.” (MW) 

“I like shooting, I think I have got better at it.” (FB) 

Term 2

Maths

In maths this term our focus has been addition and subtraction strategies. We used ‘Think Boards’ to work out worded problems. These contained the word problem, bar model, number line and a number sentence. We used partitioning, round and adjust and looking for multiples of ten in a string of numbers. We also used the standard written method. ‘I found the multi-step problems challenging but I eventually figured it out.’ (TM) ‘I became more accurate with subtraction when carrying using the standard written method.’ (FH) ‘I am more confident with addition and subtraction’. (MW).  ‘Number Talks helps me understand strategy more so I can use it in my own work.’ (JB) ‘If I want to multiply 30 by 9 I can times 30 by 10 and take away 30!’ (CJ)

Literacy

In writing we have been revisiting instructional writing. ‘We needed to use bullet points or steps, record what you need and use bossy verbs.’ (WF) For Scottish Book Week storyteller Ally Robertson came in to see us. ‘I really enjoyed it because I enjoy reading books and he retold the stories really well that painted a picture in my mind.’ (SC) We watched ‘Authors Live’ and Jackie Kay read her book ‘Coorie Doon’. She challenged us to write about how we might be when we are sixty. ‘I liked thinking about me at 60 because I could see myself a ginger cat. I didn’t like my photo though!’ (DP) ‘I liked creating what I wanted to be, which was a retired painter. I didn’t like the picture of me at sixty’’ (CM)

H.W.B

Our focus for P.E. this term was fitness. We created a fitness circuit to improve our stamina and strength. Our results were recorded at each station to see if we could improve this over time. With Miss Webster we learned more about healthy eating. We extended our knowledge of the ‘Eat Well’ plate and discussed the safe use of medication. We had lots of fun creating posters and especially healthy kebabs! ‘The fitness was really fun and it really improved my stamina! (FH) ‘It was quite tiring but in the end it felt good to have done it. (SC) ‘The kebabs were tasty!’ (WF)

I.D.L

Our topic ‘Christmas Lights’ was an electricity based topic. The children learned to plan and create simple and parallel electrical circuits. They used this knowledge to work in groups to plan and create a Christmas themed game that had to include at least one electrical circuit. Then we used our instructional writing skills to create a set of instructions to go with our game. We looked at adverts for games from the 1980’s and used our animation skills to create an advert of our own.  ‘I loved making the games and creating the circuits.’ (TM) ‘I liked making the circuits because it was tricky but fun.’ (NH) ‘I liked making the advert animation because it was fun working out what my character had to say. (CM)

Screen Scotland

This term we have had weekly visits with Ian from ‘Screen Scotland’ in our class. He has been showing us various animation techniques. The children have had a lot of fun creating ideas and putting their learning into practice. They have used a stop motion app on the iPad and created and used sound to accompany their work. The children are now applying these new skills to other areas of their learning and have created animated adverts for Christmas games made through the IDL topic ‘Christmas Lights’. ‘I liked creating the animation by taking pictures of tiny movements and watching them back. It looked like they were actually moving.’ (EB) ‘I enjoyed making an animation for our Christmas game ‘Santa Spin’ (CJ)

Primary 6/7

Ms Syme

Term 1

Numeracy 

This term our focus in numeracy has been place value, rounding and estimation but we have also reviewed our skills in multiplication. At the beginning of term we played lots of active games outdoors to review our times table knowledge. 

“I liked this activity because it was challenging and fun and I liked to see the different combinations we could make,” said BB. In this activity, we would see how many different combinations of number we could make out of one number square. 

We have been looking at the reasons why we learn the skills of place value and rounding by transferring our skills in to real life examples such as when we round people’s followers on social media, or how we compare the cost of houses. 

During Maths Week Scotland, we continued this by learning some numeracy skills in different professions such as using tessellation in tiling, making calculations in area and working out percentages as a landscape gardener, and looking at shape and design as a builder. 

Literacy 

We began this term by thinking forward to the future and writing our future selves a letter! These have been hung up around the classroom for us to open at the end of the year. 

In spelling, we have been focussing on learning our rules – not just the words. We have been doing this by playing games such as Scrabble Spelling when we choose a rule and try to make as many words that have that rule as we can out of our tiles.

We have been learning about persuasive writing in connection with our topic. We have looked at lots of persuasive techniques and styles and used this to support us in writing persuasive paragraphs for our Grand Gargunnock Global Goals Gallery.

To help us develop our fact finding skills, in reading we have been learning about summarising information and skimming and scanning texts for details. We have done this is lots of different ways, including class games, partner work, summarising videos and short texts both in writing and verbally.

Topic  

For topic this term we have been learning about the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development. There are 17 goals and we were divided into groups to learn about and teach each other about the goals. We created Teamwork Targets for this to help us work together successfully. We did lots of fun art work, including creating the tiles to display for our gallery. 

We also were lucky enough to have a visit from Forth Valley College who help a STEM day with us. We learned lots about climate action and how STEM skills can be used to help the world around us. We loved becoming scientists for the day! 

Term 2

Literacy

This term in literacy we have been focussing on analysing analysing and creation of text. In reading we have explored why the author uses particular techniques and trying to imitate this in our own writing.

In planning our writing, we used pictures to tie in with what we were learning with Screen Scotland. We drew our setting (establishing shot), our character (long shot) and how our character feels (extreme close up).

We spent lots of time looking at the words and phrases that author’s use, and what this tells us as a reader. After consolidating our skills in grammar and punctuation, we looked at descriptive techniques including metaphors and similes, personification and word choice. “I liked the creative writing. I liked designing my character and planning around a theme. I thought it was a really cool way to make a story!” MC, P6.

 Numeracy 

We have been working on lots of different areas in numeracy with a focus on real world applications.

We started the term with fractions, decimals and percentages before moving on to addition and subtraction strategies where we worked on budgeting and shopping-style tasks.

We extended these same skills by introducing imperial coins, taking numeracy into our topic! Along with getting to see the real coins, we also practiced problem solving skills exploring out how this money system worked. “I really liked getting to do maths with old fashioned money a lot!” Robert, P6.

“I really liked when we had to choose things to buy and working out how to add everything up!” Raana, P7

Topic

Our topic this term, Deeds Not Words, was all about women’s fight for suffrage. Within this topic we learned about life and values during the late 1800s and early 1900s which helped to set the scene. We talked about the meaning of democracy, how a democratic society works and why it is important.

We learned about important figures in the fight for women’s suffrage, both in class and in preparing presentations at home, and the differences between the Suffragists and the Suffragettes.

“I knew some things about this topic already but I really liked learning about specific people and making the WSPU rosettes!” AW, P7

HWB

In PE we were working on fitness with lots of circuit sessions and pushing ourselves to improve our strength and stamina!

Screen Scotland

We were so lucky this term to get to work with Ian from Screen Scotland developing our film and media skills. We started by looking at how directors create atmosphere through sound and got to make our own sound effects to a piece of short film. Then we looked at what techniques directors use to develop characterisation bit by bit – this was really helpful for our creative writing!

“I like Ian – he’s really fun and teaches us a lot about film and screen. I like that we get to get involved in doing stuff and not just sitting listening.” RG, P7

Primary 7s High School Experience

Our Primary 7s were invited along to Stirling High for a week-long high school experience. This was a really exciting opportunity to spend time in the school, getting used to the size and what the school day looks like there. They got the chance to take part in some lessons in modern languages, social subjects, PE and mental health, and join in a lunch club in the computing department. Everyone had a fantastic time!