The children at Levenhall Nursery School are taking part in the
RSPB Big Schools Birdwatch this week. Children from both
playrooms are working in pairs to record the birds coming to feed in the garden during a 10 minute time slot. Over 3 days, every child will have had the chance to take part. The results are recorded on sheets provided by the RSPB
and each child’s copy will be filed in his/her nursery book. Once collated the results for each playroom will be sent to the RSPB, on line, and in
due course the school will receive a certificate for taking part. In
preparation the children made bird cakes last week which have helped to attract the birds to feed in the garden. As well as helping us identify the birds visiting our garden, the Birdwatch helps the RSPB to monitor bird populations.
Category Archives: News
The latest news from around East Lothian
P6 Learning Festival at Cockenzie Primary
9th November 2007
This morning P6N and P6D held a learning festival in the school assembly hall. The children decided that this was the way they wanted to show what they had learned. They prepared displays and activities and organised a Remembrance ceremony too. The children opened their festival to all the classes in the school who thoroughly enjoyed looking at their displays and trying out their activities which ranged from dancing to the music of Glen Miller, bombing a power station, a display about rationing, getting dressed in the dark in a blackout, how to set a table and go inside an Anderson shelter, to name but a few. They also invited their families to come and look at what they had learned. They were also treated to wartime sandwiches, cakes and biscuits and a nice cup of tea. The children held a minute’s silence during their Remembrance ceremony and Rev Glover led the children and parents in prayer. The children also collected donations for the Poppy Appeal. Congratulations and well done P6N and P6D.
NASA Astronaut Visit – Ross High School
Ross High School, along with Musselburgh Grammar School, was lucky enough to be nominated as a participating school in a series of Astronaut visits which took place across Scotland on Wednesday 19th September.
This was part of the 20th Association of Space Explorers (ASE) Planetary Congress which was held in Scotland and involved over 90 astronauts visiting Scottish secondary schools. Ross High was visited by Jeff Hoffman and David Leestma, both having been in space on a number of occasions.
The visit involved all S3, S5 and S6 pupils. The astronauts took two sessions in the Assembly Hall – one for S3 and the other for S5/6. These sessions involved a presentation by both gentlemen on their backgrounds and how they became NASA astronauts. Both sessions ended with a question and answer session. Pupils asked some very interesting questions including the much anticipated “How do you go to the toilet?” and “Have you ever seen an alien?”.
In addition the Higher Physics class attended a session with Jeff and David. With 20 pupils, this was much more informal and enabled the pupils to ask some very personal questions with regard to the experiences of our two visitors when they landed on the space station and also what happened to them when they landed back on Earth.
The pupils involved really enjoyed the visit and many members of staff spoke about it for days afterwards. It was almost overwhelming to actually speak to two men who had been in space!
Mrs R Shuttleworth
PT Curriculum (Work & Enterprise)
Ross High School
East Lothian Forest School Pilot
Over the past few months, we have been developing a pilot project in conjunction with East Lothian Healthy Living service and Saltoun Primary School. The idea is to set up a forest school area near the school where the young people can be given lessons in a real life context.
Forest School is a concept developed from ideas about working with children and young people in the outdoors. The participants are encouraged and inspired to grow in confidence, independence and self-esteem, through the mastery of small achievable tasks. Hands-on activities with natural materials develop practical and intellectual skills, which can all be linked to the curriculum.
This type of learning is very much geared towards enteprise in that it gives young people the opportunity to use concepts they may already have learned in the classroom in a real setting.
More information will be posted as the pilot progresses.
St. Mary’s 40th Celebration
Pupils at St. Mary’s are looking forward to celebrating the 40th Anniversary of their school on it’s present site.
On Thursday 14th June they will host an Open Morning for parents and friends of the school -past and present. During the morning each class will sing songs from the decades(which they recorded onto cd last week with the help of ‘Recording Stars’). The children have been researching news items from Haddington re their decade and finding out memories of past pupils and staff to share with the audience.
Last month each class was given a 40th Anniversary Challenge to organise a celebration night.
P2/3 to book a band P4 book a venue P5 advertising to parents
P6/7 advertise in local paper and P1/2 illustrate the tickets
Everyone worked really well together and the result is a Family Ceilidh/Boogie Night on Friday 15th June in Haddington’s Town House so if anyone associated with St. Mary’s reads this and would like to join us please contact the school for tickets!
Life in granny and grandpa’s time…
P1 at Gullane Primary organised a special afternoon for their grandparents recently. The class had been studying life in granny and grandpa’s time as part of their environmental studies work and invited their grandparents in to class to find out about the differences between life now and then. The pupils acted as tour guides around the classroom and shared their experiences before offering granparents tea and scones which had been freshly baked by the children that morning. Grandparents then took their turn to share experiences and show off the artefacts that they had brought along, amongst them the favourites were the boxing gloves and the tin can! A great afternoon was had by all.
Athelstaneford Primary School
Primary 3/4 have been very busy lately preparing an assembly for the rest of the school. First they brainstormed ideas then they voted to choose one. Next they brainstormed ways of showing information. They used to ideas trail to separate red hot ideas from warm or lukewarm ones. In groups they are now planning and creating posters, games and slideshows as well as a short play. We will let you know how it all goes.
Enterprising and Healthy Pupils Mak’ Merry
Today, our P7 Games Captains saw their Football and Netball Teams play their rivals. The Captains choose the teams and the referees. While each game has an adult in the background, the pupils are left to remember (or forget) to organise netball posts, balls and whistles.
Winning Netball House:Penston
Wining Football House: Penston
Enterprise Awards 2007 – Draft Proposal
I have attached the draft document for the enterprise awards this year and would appreciate any comments on this before the plan is finalised.
Musselburgh Cluster working together
Pupils and staff in all the Musselburgh schools have been very busy this session so far, being involved in a wide range of enterprise activities and experiences. We hope that you enjoy reading about what has been going on and sharing in the ideas coming from the schools.
On 22 February all the P7 pupils in the Cluster took part in an enterprise transition event at Musselburgh Grammar School, organised by the school co-ordinators and a group of P7 pupils representing each school. This was a most enjoyable event which was evaluated very positively by the pupils, who enjoyed the experience of making new friends and being in the “big” school – not to mention the activities they worked on at the event.
The School Co-ordinators in the Musselburgh Cluster have been meeting regularly this session and have held their meetings in a different school each time. Part of the meeting time has been given over to the adults being given a tour of the school by some pupils. This has been very useful in sharing ideas and practice and has been most enjoyable. We would recommend this to other Clusters as a good way of working together.