Whitecraig Primary has a number of exciting enterprise activities underway. A food co-operative has been set up which involves the whole community and, with the help of professional banking staff, a weekly savings scheme has been started. Following on from a successful Christmas enterprise day, a similar event is planned for Easter, when parents will come in to school to work on activities with their children such as designing and making an Easter card, as well as an egg cup for the all important Easter eggs. A new business partnership with Dominos Pizzas in Musselburgh will result in a visit from some of the classes to the Dominos premises in Musselburgh, where the children will be shown how to make healthy pizza, using fresh ingredients. They will then bake this and, of course, …eat the pizza!
Category Archives: Nursery/Primary
Enterprising work going on in our nursery and primary schools across East Lothian.
Levenhall Nursery’s Enterprise Update
Levenhall Nursery pupils went to the Lickety Spit production of the Green Whale at the Brunton Theatre and prepared for this with lots of play about sea creatures and pirates. The pre school pupils have recently visited Pinkie school for a singalong with Miss Ireland the music teacher. They have met with the community policeman who tells them about his job and to promote safe places to play outdoors. Parents and carers will be joining the children for an Easter Fun Day. The adults will take part in activities with their children and will be great fun for all. There will be a Daffodil Tea for Marie Curie Cancer Care before Easter, when the Mini Pots of Care, which were planted by the children with daffodils, will be on sale.
Enterprising Pinkie St Peters
Pinkie St Peter’s Primary has been busy too.The P1 pupils held a Burns afternoon for parents, performing songs and poems. Each parent was given a goody bag with a tartan bookmark and shortbread at the end. P2 has developed a bookshop within the class to encourage reading for enjoyment and to link to World Book day. As part of this work the class also visited Borders Bookshop to get ideas and put on an assembly for the rest of the school, which included a best dressed competition, centred on characters from books.As part of their rainforest topic, the P6s held a Fair Trade cafe during Fair Trade fortnight. Presentations about Fair Trade, including a puppet show, were made to visitors to the cafe to raise awareness of the importance of Fair Trade.P2 held a Chinese New Year celebration for parents in which they explained about the celebration and its customs and performed for their audience.
Enterprise at the Burgh
Musselburgh Burgh Primary has also been involved in a range of exciting enterprise activities. P7 reading Buddies are organising an easter egg hunt for their wee buddies in P2. On Red Nose day the whole school took part in fundraising devised and organised by the P6 pupils. P5 pupils are taking part in a range of John Muir activities, while the nursery and P4 pupils are leading the way on recycling, following a visit from a representative from Changeworks who came to talk about composting. The compost will be used in the nursery garden and school grounds. P4 pupils are also busy producing a book of facts about minibeasts and a puppet show to share with P2 pupils. P3 pupils have been conducting surveys and interviews in Musselburgh High street to find out about the shops and those who live there and the traffic. P2 children have recently run a Toast Taster cafe. Everyone had a job to do, including writing the invitations to come and taste the toast! P1 children have arranged a visit to the Doll Museum to find out more about it and why it is good to keep toys in good condition.
Loretto’s Enterprise Update
Loretto Primary have had many exciting enterprise activities going on across the whole school. P4 and P6 children have been working closely together on promoting recycling in the school. They have worked with the Changeworks people, organised and presented an assembly and do weekly collections and disposal of recyclable materials. P3 pupils worked hard to organise an Art exhibition which was set up in the gym. Family and friends were invited along to purchase the pictures and the money was donated to charity. P6/7 and P7 pupils made and sold Christmas cards and organised the Shoe Box appeal for the New Hope Trust. P4 and P5 organised a Burns supper for the more elderly residents of the parish church and this was a very popular event. At present P1 pupils are preparing an enterprise assembly for their parents, which will show how they have progressed in all areas of the curriculum since they started school.P7 pupils are currently organising and promoting the whole school charity event for the season of Lent which is for SCIAF.There will also be a Fair Trade coffee morning for parents. p6 pupils have been recycling old mobile phones and ink cartridges. All proceeds to SCIAF. P5 pupils are participating in the John Muir Award for the first time and will be finding enterprising ways to achieve their goals.
Campie’s Enterprise Update
Campie Primary pupils are very busy too with lots of enterprising work going on. P1 pupils paid a visit to Newhailes Nursery to buy seeds, which they planted up in pots. These are now growing well and will be sold at the P1 parents’ open day which the children and their teachers are busy organising.The P2 pupils recently welcomed their parents in to school to work with them on fun maths games. This was much enjoyed by everyone. They have also been visiting Newhailes woods where they worked in groups to produce some art work, made with natural resources form the woods. One of the P2 classes has been working on a topic based on orienteering skills, as part of their work towards the four capacities of a Curriculum for Excellence. They have learned a great deal from this. P3 classes held an open day for parents based on their viking project,. They displayed work, sold various items they had made and served food on the day. In the P4 classes children have been discussing healthy snack and taking responsibility for their choices.They have also been working in pairs to produce Roman fact sheets which are on display for others to see. One of the P5 classes have begun to work on their John Muir project. They are going to be developing an area of ground at the back of the school and have made a business link with the Musselburgh Allotment Association to help with the work. They are also going to be taking part in a potato growing competition. The other P5 class has been doing very good work in using surveys as a means of gathering information and have chosen the subject of healthy snack which involves the whole school. P5 and P6 pupils have been piloting the APODO enterprise tool this term and have found this to be very enjoyable and beneficial. P6 pupils are heavily into recycling of various types and are making a very positive eco contribution. They also have links with various businesses and agencies through this work. P6s have also been working with partners to research Scotland’s carbon footprint and have devised excellent posters to encourage people to save energy and reduce waste. They have also produced a separate poster of their Top Ten Tips for saving energy. P7 pupils have been enterprising in a wide range of ways, including work they have done to raise funds for their charity. They recently ran healthy baking cafes for the other pupils in the school, organised a dress up day for Comic Relief and have just had their parents’ open day for which they organised and ran a community Fair Trade coffee morning, which was well attended by parents relatives and senior citizens. One of our business partners, who runs a Fair Trade shop, also took part and set up a video presentation and a stall selling fair trade goods. A whole school enterprise has begun at Campie this session. Everyone will play a part in helping to upgrade the school’s central courtyard into an eco friendly outdoor classroom space. Work has already begun and will continue into next session.
A busy time at Stoneyhill
Stoneyhill Primary has established a new business link with Wilson’s Fresh Farm Produce, in Musselburgh, which has provided fresh fruit and veg for the school’s recent Health Promotion Week. Infant children at the school have been learning about maths concepts through the natural environment and have recently enjoyed using individual and whole class learning logs. P3/4 have created a display of knowledge about the rainforest, while P4 have been learning about their local community, with the help of members of the community. Primary ans P5/6 have been working for the environment, via John Muir Award activities and by recycling and composting throughout the school. In the upper school P6 pupils have been evaluating their Christmas enterprise which involved them in producing a Christmas CD. Proceeds have been donated to charity. In addition, the senior pupils have been supporting younger children through a peer mentoring programme called Community Circles.
Involving Parents at Ormiston Primary School
As part of our Enterprising approach we were keen to have further involvement of parents throughout the year. We have decided to hold different events each term with parents coming in to share their skills and to work alongside the children. We have so far run successful events in Maths Games, Card Making, Jewellery Making, A Fun Maths Roadshow and have just this week held Box Making workshops.
The Box Making workshops link to the work of our Eco Group as the older children recycled old cards to make boxes. The younger children are then reusing paper by filling the boxes with shredded paper and small easter eggs. These will then be sold at our Spring Fair on Saturday 24th March.
Enterprising Ormiston – Primary 7 Film Making
There are many enterprising approaches to teaching and learning taking place at Ormiston Primary School. Our Primary 7 class are currently involved in a Film Making Project with Marjorie Sweeney, a Drama Specialist based at the Brunton Theatre, Brian English, a Film Director and their teacher Jenny Walker.
They began by looking at films on the big screen and viewed the film made by Pencaitland Primary two years ago. They then worked in groups learning how to use the cameras before designing posters to decide on a name and tag line for the film. Their film, “Stage Fright” has the Tag Line, “Help Does Not Always Come From The Living”. Much discussion took place before votes were made and the plot for the film was developed. The film is based around the main character Ashleigh (played by Darren Murphy). Ashleigh is being bullied because he enjoys singing and in fact is very good at it. All the ideas have come from the children and they wrote the film themselves.
The children had to apply for different roles within the film making. These roles were divided into Pre-Production (Director, Assistant Director, Script Writers, Story Board Artists, Costume, Make Up and Set Designers, Accountants and Sponsorship, Publicity and Marketing), Production (Actors, Actresses, Lighting, Camera Crew, Runners, Sound Directors and Shot Loggers) and Post Production (Community Link Director, Premier Organiser, Music Director, Editing and Photographer). All children are currently busy filming both in the school grounds and within the community of Ormiston.
In order to raise money for the Film Premier the Accountants have come up with many innovative fund raising events. The children are taking part in a sponsored walk, making crafts to sell at the school Spring Fair and are organising a French Café.
The children are hoping to raise enough money to travel in style to their Film Premier at the Film House in Edinburgh on the 6th May
Yester Jewellery Ltd
The children in P4 formed a new jewellery company. Jo Lochhead, our business partner from the Bead Shop in Haddington, came in to school and showed the children all kinds of exciting beads and things they could make. She helped the pupils to design some pieces of jewellery and then organised the materials the children chose. Then the class went to her shop in groups and busied themselves in the Jo’s workshop. Rings, necklaces and bracelets rolled off the production line.
Back in school the children calculated the mark-up they wanted for each piece of jewellery, working out the cost of material and their own time. They then priced the products and sent out letters to parents and put up advertising materials round the school. They planned two sales, one for pupils and one for parents; however the first sale was so successful, the children’s shop completely sold out at the first opening. The company made £146 profit. The class decided to give £100 of this to Save the Children, with the remaining £46 being spent on new games and activities for ‘Golden Time’.