Lamlash Primary

School and Early

Years Class

14th May 2021

NOTE FROM MRS FOSTER, MRS DICK & MRS BUNTING Dear all, A joint message from all three of us today. Following on from the news that Arran High School, Lamlash Primary and our cluster primaries were selected as finalists in The National Teaching Awards in the Impact through Partnership Category we want to share with you why we were selected. Often we see the different things the school is doing as separate, which they are, but collectively it demonstrates the areas in which our schools are excelling. Just sometimes, it takes those slightly removed from that immediate situation to highlight that out to us all. The grounds for our being finalists are: The work Mrs MacDonald has been doing in partnership with a range of organisations to enhance Lamlash Primary grounds including utilising spaces for outdoor classrooms The work Lauren in Active Schools has been doing across the island to keep our young people fit and healthy The work Mrs Urquhart Dixon has done over the years with Eco Savvy, the food share and RHET The work Mr McNeice, Kim, Stevie and the mountain bike club have been doing in promoting and supporting biking The work Mrs Logan (Arran High) and Mrs Henderson have done in promoting STEM, in particular for girls The work Mrs Gaw (Nurture) and Skills for Success have been doing with the sheltered housing and fundraising The work Heidi and the early years team have been doing with the sheltered housing and forest schools The work Mr Reid and his team have done with the book festival The work Mrs Gosman and Mr Reid with the YPI initiative The work of the School of Sport and the School of Music The work Mr Wedge did with art work for the Arran Mountain Festival The work Ann Reid and Beth Moon have been doing in supporting mental and physical health of our students and their families The work Colin McDermott has done in school inclusion and running the Healthy Start walking group each Wednesday with Jane's support during lockdown. The partnership working between the wellbeing centre and the HSCP/NHS to provide services on island The partnership working with Coast Our Peer Mentor team leading the way on our LGBT Charter Award The wider achievement programme for S1/2 The linking in between ourselves and the cluster primaries

News from the Early Years Class

A Word from The Team

As usual the EYC continues to be a busy place with our learners and staff adapting the resources and environment to meet their desired learning needs. The children have been developing their construction skills where staff have observed children using Lego to make measuring sticks, letters, and numbers. Mobilio has been used alongside instruction cards to build specific objects, cars, aeroplanes and diggers. To do this the children had to use their numeracy skills, problem solving, fine motor, literacy, and negotiation. Following on from our tea party last Friday the children have been deconstructing flowers in the water tray to make their own style petal tea, they have enjoyed the experience commenting on how the flowers come apart, how they look smaller and tighter and the parts of the flower. This week we welcomed back our Wednesday woods and wellies day, where we explored bugs and their habitats by lifting logs and stones, enjoyed the aroma of the wild garlic and of course took part in our favourite wood activity, balancing on the big fallen log. On Tuesday we experienced a windy day and went on a stick hunt to create some wind sticks - we added string, ribbon, feathers, and wool and watched the lengths of these blowing in the wind so that we could see the wind speed and direction. We used a variety of different textures whilst adding on our chosen ribbons etc and enjoyed sharing how these felt with each other. We will be finishing off this week with a sandwich making activity - thank you to all those who took part in the parent task. “The Tiger who came to Tea” will be sampling our sandwiches in our sandwich restaurant tomorrow. I do hope he leaves some for the children!

None of the above could have been achieved without the willing and active involvement of all our pupils in taking on the activities above. If you want to find out more about the awards, information can be found at: https://www.teachingawards.com/. Normally the judges would come and visit each finalist school and make a decision on who wins overall. Naturally, this year is different and judging is being done virtually on Monday 17th May 11-1pm via Teams. As you can imagine, it has been a huge challenge for us to try and showcase all of the wonderful work that has been done. This week has seen a flurry of activity: filming and presentation materials have been collated this week and a huge thanks to Mrs MacDonald, Mrs Marriott, Miss Smith (Lamlash Primary), Mrs McGrath (AHS) and Mrs Inglis (EYC) in helping to pull all of this together. Fingers crossed for Monday! Mrs Foster, Mrs Dick and Mrs Bunting

So, another week has flown by in the wonderful world of Early Years. Next week we will be taking part in Book Bug week which will give the children the opportunity to take part in a week of literacy rich activities and experiences.

P1/2 NEWS

As always, we have had a really busy couple of weeks here in P1/2. We’ve worked on our fine motor skills, numbers, planted beans, observed flowers and had our first experience of ‘Helicopter Stories’ to name a few of our activities.

As part of our literacy work this term we have begun exploring how to write a recount. Last Thursday we went out into the playground for a mini adventure. This has now become the basis of our writing and we created a great shared piece of writing on Wednesday in preparation of writing our own recounts later in the week.

In maths children have been exploring numbers with Mrs Marriott, looking at how to make numbers using a variety of resources including rekenreks, numicon and base 10, with a focus on what is the number worth!

They have also started an exciting new topic learning about position and direction with Miss Shaw. They had a great time earlier this week playing with the BeeBots and seeing what they could do!

Miss Shaw’s magical mystery tour topic has continued this week and just look at the fantastic Stone Age village that the children have created! Wow!

P3 NEWS

Primary 3 have been growing beans under different conditions with one as fair test to compare results against. They have been looking at the effects that light, air, water, temperature and ground conditions have on the growing. So far the monitor one is doing best although the one in soil has grown too. The outside one, no air and light ones all have sprouted varying amounts of roots so far. We will be watching progress in the next few weeks.

The pupils have been

developing their

computing skills and last week were working on excel spreadsheets and tried some money calculations on the spreadsheet. Primary 3 are looking at forces in science and were testing out balanced and unbalanced forces and discovered that two equal forces in an opposite direction effectively cancel each other out. They tried an unbalanced tug of war and balanced against each other.

P4/5 NEWS

We’ve had another busy couple of weeks in P4/5. Mr Inglis helped us to plant our sunflower seeds. We are responsible for looking after our own plant, in the classroom. We completed learning about the Solar System aspect of our topic 'Our Planet', with a planet fact hunt around the school grounds. We then moved on to learning about the Earth's surface, which has included an investigation into the properties and uses of rocks and different soil types. Mrs Henderson shared some of her learning about taking maths outdoors, with a session on 2D and 3D shapes, using various pieces of equipment. In P.E., we have been continuing to improve our basketball skills. This week we tried to spin the ball on our fingers then worked on our team skills while playing a game.

P6/7 NEWS

P6 and 7 have had a busy few weeks again, I can't believe how fast the weeks are flying by. We have been planting the seeds ready to go into the garden when the frost is finished. We have pea pods, carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn, spinach, cucumbers, and lettuce sprouting away on our windowsill. We are waiting for clothes to come in to make our class scarecrow as it is just a wooden frame at the minute.

In Literacy we have been writing about journeys. At the minute we are writing about an alien's journey to Earth, which we are going to illustrate and make into a class book of short stories. In Numeracy we have been looking at money and budgets; pupils were shocked at how much things cost when you are an adult. Hopefully now they will be able to spot the best deal when out shopping. This week we have moved onto expressions and equations, where x does not mark the spot just the missing number. In topic we have been looking at global warming and how this created the Earth's surface. We are starting to build our map of Scotland making the mountain first to create the landscape. We are also looking at world religions and so far, we have looked at Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Linked to our comprehension work we are looking at Scottish Myths and Legends, producing artwork using pen and wash techniques. I have re-introduced the ‘snuggle corners’ into the classroom for a little bit of down time when needed. The weather is starting to get warmer, so we plan to spend more time outside for PE and working in the outdoor space.

Lastly a BIG thankyou to all P6 and 7 for their help with the recording this week, hopefully it impress enough to make an impact.