Term 2

The Primary 7s have all really enjoyed the first term and are now looking forward to the exciting projects and trips arranged for Term 2. The pupils are going to be visiting and working with Reid Kerr college, Paisley and the Metropolitan College, Glasgow as part of their Enterprise and Eco-schools projects. The pupils will visit both colleges and get an insight into life in the Construction Industry where they will have the opportunity to develop their skills by making exciting items in the workshops. More information to follow soon!

DRAMA
The pupils enjoyed a session this week with a Drama specialist from a local drama school. The pupils worked well in groups to act out scenarios and developed their improvisation skills through a range of activities. The drama teacher praised the children for their excellent control and behaviour. Well done P7!





HARVEST GIFTS
Last Friday the Primary 7 pupils enjoyed their task of delivering Harvest gifts to elderly members of the local community. Many people who received the gifts were very grateful to all the children in the school for their gift. The pupils enjoyed the experience.

ROTARY CLUB QUIZ NIGHT
A team of P7 pupils took part in a light-hearted quiz this week organised by the Renfrew Rotary club. The event took place in Newmains Primary school. Each of the 5local primary schools entered a team and a mascot for support. Our Kirky Croc was there to cheer on our time who did very well. The quiz involved a range of general knowledge questions. We are very proud of our pupils for taking part and each child received a certificate and book token.






ECO-SCHOOLS
As part of our Eco-schools task in caring for the Environment, we are taking part in a couple of litter picks in the school grounds with the Primary 1s and Primary 2/3. This will be useful in ensuring our playground is well maintained; it will support us in working towards our next Green Flag and will encourage the infants to get involved in our mission.

Operation Smile

This week Primary 7 will embark on Operation Smile. The campaign being supported by Blue Peter will help to fund vital operations in India and around the world.

It involves the design and manufacture of surgical gowns from second hand t-shirts. Could Primary 7 children please bring an old, clean t-shirt - the bigger the better so we will take mums' and dads' t-shirts as well.

Look out for the Blue Peter show featuring the Operation Smile campaign on Wednesday 21st October. Take a look at the website for more details.

Thanks for your support.

OUR FIRST TERM IN P7

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
We have settled well into Primary 7 and are enjoying being the top of the school. We are setting a great example to the rest of the school with our behaviour and have taken on all our new responsibilities. We are monitors at break and lunch, wet weather monitors and infant buddies to support the infants in playing games. We also have taken on the role of Buddies for the new Primary 1s. We have helped them settle into the school by giving them a tour; reading stories to them and taking them to the lunch hall to have lunch with them.

As we are in a new class with a new teacher, we have been building our learning community to learn to work together effectively and be a quality team. We have been completing critical skills challenges as a way to learn together and we created our dodecahedrons to represent our home teams. We presented these to the class.







TOPIC
We are studying the life and work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh as part of our social subjects and are very much enjoying this. His work and designs have inspired many pieces of our art work for this term.

ACTIVE LEARNING
In line with a Curriculum for Excellence we are enjoying lots of active learning across many areas of the curriculum. We have completed Critical skills challenges, used ICT to support our learning, had a guest speaker in to support our RME topic. Below are some photos of us hard at work!










ECO-SCHOOLS
As part of our Eco-schools project Primary 7 are responsible for developing our local environment. As a class we have entered a Community Regeneration Project on the Scotland in Focus Website. We planned a project to help improve our school playground and its facilities. We had to apply by writing about why the playground is important to us, what we would like to acheive in our project and provide photos to support our entry. We applied for money to support our ideas and are waiting to hear if we are successful. Here are some pictures of the pupils preparing for this task.





ASSEMBLY
On Friday 18th September we performed the first school assembly - Back to School With God. We all learned our lines well and our singing was beautiful. The assembly was about the new responsibilities we face in P7 and about the people that are there to support us including God. We asked the parents to give us feedback in the form of Two Stars and a Wish and we were delighted by the fantastic comments. Thank you!

Final Weeks in P7

On Tuesday 16th June the Primary 6 and Primary 7 pupils took part in Senior Sports. The children competed against each other to find our Sports Champion boy and girl of 2009. They took part in flat races, long jump, shot putt and basketball shooting. The winners will receive their prizes at the Leavers' Assembly.



In the afternoon the whole school went outside to enjoy an afternoon of sports. The P4-7 classes took part in potted sports and each time the pupils completed a task they won points for their house. At the end of the day the points were totalled and although it was close, the winners were Waverley. Well done to all the pupils who participated. Everyone had a great day!



On Wednesday 17th June the Primary 7s were invited by their Primary 1 buddies to a preview of Fairyland. The buddies collected the P7s and took them to their wonderful classroom to show off all their fabulous work and show them round their room. The room was buzzing with excitement. The primary 7s were very impressed at the high standard of work and really enjoyed their tour from their buddy.

TERM 4

The Primary 7s have almost come to the end of their time in Kirklandneuk but what an exciting and enjoyable term they have had. The children have focussed on many health issues, learning about drugs, Heartstart and first aid. Mrs Thom taught us how to bandage someone if they are bleeding and we were able to practise our skills on each other. The pupils were learning about the dangers of alcohol and the problem of peer pressure. The pupils carried out role plays to look at this issue.





As part of their drugs education they attended a trip to the SECC called “Choices for Life”. The pupils were taught about the dangers of illegal drugs and alcohol through real life experiences of teenagers and through a play performed by PACE. The children thoroughly enjoyed the trip as they were entertained by various singers and bands including the McDonald Brothers! However, as well as enjoying themselves, the pupils left with an important message about making the right choices in their lives.







Many of the pupils attended the residential trip to Ardgour. The children experienced some fantastic activities such as archery, abseiling, orienteering, canoeing and many more. The pupils were very well behaved and took part in the activities with enthusiasm. The other pupils who remained at school had an activities week organised, where they went on trips to the Science Centre, Robertson Park and Xscape. The children thoroughly enjoyed their week.






The pupils are now preparing for their Leavers' Dance which will be held in the last week. They have been practising their dancing skills, learning Scottish dances ready for their ceilidh.

WWII Joyning the Learning

The pupils have now come to the end of their surprise topic! What a busy 8 weeks the class have had! Room 16 has been transformed into a wonderful display of aspects of WWII. The pupils have learned an amazing amount of information about the Home Front and developed their skills in several currciular areas.


The pupils began their topic with a carousel to plan their topic and take responsibility for their own learning. They planned some exciting writing activities they could do related to the topic, considered ways to transform their classrooom, decided on the Big Questions they wanted to research and began thinking ahead to the Open Evening.

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The pupils were very motivated from the very start and chose to begin working on a Blitz scene. The excitement took over and they were so keen to put some of their work up on the walls. However, they struggled at the start with the quality of their work and had to work on improving their cutting and painting skills to ensure they would be proud of the final result. As you can see from the pictures, it was worth all the effort. They wrote imaginative stories called the Air Raid which developed their ability to write a cliffhanger. These were written as zig-zag books and displayed on the blitz scene.

The class then chose to create a station scene of pupils being evacuated. They drew and painted a steam train with carriages and added their photos printed off in sepia tones - it looks very effective.





The pupils then transformed the back of their room into a 194os room and kitchen using their art and technology skills to create a number of realistic 3D objects. The living room is very cosy with their wallpaper, fire place and family portraits.In the kitchen they made a stove, cupboard, shelf and mangle as well as the tiled flooring which looks great!




As well as transforming the classroom, the pupils have developed their writing tasks through a variety of core tasks. They imagined what it would like to be an evacuee and wrote letters home to their family and also wrote an evacuation sense poem. These were displayed on the train carriages. The pupils also wrote newspaper articles about the declaration of war. The pupils studied Anderson shelters and completed annotated diagrams giving information about the structure and contents of a shelter. The pupils also focussed on the Blackout and created information leaflets in pairs. Another core task was an invitation written in the style of an old telegram which was tea-stained to look old. These were sent to the parents to invite them to our Open Evening.

The pupils then spent time preparing a play, assembly, learning WWII songs and creating activities for their Open Evening. The children worked so hard and were so enthusiastic right to the very end. They decorated the gym hall and held a VE Day party with entertainment and a selection of rationed foods for the guests. They entered into the spirit of it all by dressing up in 1940s clothing. Here is a selection of photos showing the pupils and parents having a wonderful night.












As part of the Open Evening the parents are asked to write in the comment book and we were delighted to read such positive comments. So many were amazed by the standard of work and couldn't believe how well the pupils had transformed the room. I am so proud of my class, they have worked so hard and we have had such fun in the process. Well done Primary 7, I'm sure you'll remember this for a long long time.

As part of Environment month, the Primary 7 pupils were involved in planting some trees in the infant playground. They were supported by Starling Learning who taught the pupils how to plant trees correctly and how to encourage them to grow. The pupils really enjoyed the experience and were fortunate enough to have a dry day!