At our Harvest Assembly three of our pupils received certificates for success in recent music exams. Andrew and Grace both receive piano tuition in school from Mrs McAleese, and they completed their Grade 1 examination in June. Sam received violin tuition in school from Miss Nicholl and he also passed his Grade 1 Violin Examination. Well done to all three children.
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Congratulations to Robyn P7, who was the winner of the Accelerated Reading Cup for this first half term. We are delighted with the enthusiasm shown by our pupils as they strive to reach their individual targets.
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Today we had our Harvest Assembly where we were delighted to welcome many parents and friends to school. Our special guest speaker was Mr Peter Rollins who spoke to us about Ballymoney Food Bank. Thank you to everyone who brought food items to school to put into the food bank. We know that many families in the Ballymoney area will be grateful for the items that have been kindly donated. P1 - P3 sang 'The Scarecrow' and P4 - P7 sang 'Harvest Samba' which reminded us of all the lovely food that we can thank God for at this time of year. Click here to listen to our Harvest songs.
On Friday 20th October P6 and P7 travelled with Ballykelly Primary School to RADAR in Belfast. RADAR stands for Risk Avoidance Danger Awareness Resource. RADAR is a purpose built interactive education centre which aims to increase children's awareness and knowledge of the dangers that they can encounter at home, on the roads and in society. RADAR also educates children of the importance of being good citizens especially as they move to bigger schools and have to deal with peer pressure. The children all really enjoyed and benefitted from their visit to RADAR. Here are some of the things they learnt
Today we were delighted to welcome the Scripture Union team into school. Rebekah, Laura, Hazel and Lorna held the P1 - P3 S.U. meeting outside, at lunchtime. Those children attending, enjoyed the games and also the Bible story that the leaders had prepared. Our P4 - P7 will be given the opportunity to attend the weekly lunchtime S.U. meeting for four weeks commencing next week. Thank you to the team for their commitment to Scripture Union and to our school.
On Wednesday we had a very exciting morning as the photographer was in school for his annual photo-shoot. Everyone was looking great. He took some super individual and family photographs which will be available to purchase in good time for Christmas.
Today was Miss Nicholl, our violin teacher's last day at Rasharkin Primary School. We want to thank her for the great start she has given to many violin and viola players in our school over the past number of years. We have five new violin players starting this year and they are looking forward to working with their new teacher, Miss Bell.
We are very grateful to the team of parents who come in to school each Friday to prepare fruit for our children at break time. We still need a few parent volunteers to help out. If you are available for an hour or so, up until 10.30am on a Friday morning, and would like to help out, please contact Karen in the office on 028295 71383 or speak to Laura Calderwood who coordinates the rota. You would only be on the rota about one Friday per month. Helping with Friday fruit is also a great opportunity to get to know other parents.
P1 and P2 have been learning about Autumn time. This week they were eagerly awaiting their outdoor play time which focused on Autumn. Despite the rain, the children had a great Outdoor Play session. They made shelters for hibernating animals using leaves, twigs and pine cones. They explored our garden area which has now been extended. They made shelters, did outdoor art, used the mud kitchens and made forest phones.
This year we are getting the fantastic opportunity of working with local poet, Maura Johnston, as part of the Poetry in Motion project. Maura will be coming into school to teach us about poetry and how to write our own poems. We had a great first session writing poems about Autumn Leaves, and we are all looking forward to the next session.
For the next few weeks, P4 and P5 will be taking part in some technology and construction challenges on Thursday afternoons. So far, they have been working in small groups at different activities. One group had the task of planning and creating a bridge that had to stand at least 10cm tall. The only resources they had were marshmallows and spaghetti pasta.
Another group also had the same challenge, using K'nex and Meccano. The last activity challenged the children to create a Lego marble run for their friends and teachers to try out.
The children thoroughly enjoyed their first session. They have showcased their skills in creative thinking, problem-solving and good teamwork. The children will continue to build these skills as they rotate around the various tasks. Have a look at the photos and also at the video of their first session. Click here to view video
P6 and P7 were doing Maths outside on Tuesday. They were working out how much space there is in the Solar System.
There are millions of kilometres between each planet so they made up their own scale by using toilet paper. One sheet of toilet paper represented 50 million kilometres! The furthest planet from the sun, Neptune, was 90 sheets of toilet paper away. They were surprised how far apart some of the planets are, especially the planets furthest away from the sun. They came to the conclusion that SPACE IS HUGE!
We are indebted to all of our governors who freely give of their time to help run our school efficiently. The Annual Report of the Board of Governors, gives more detail of the work that was carried out during 2016/17, and is now available on our website. Please follow For Parents – Links- Other – Annual Report of the Board of Governors 2016/17 to view this report. This document also gives details of the areas we as a school staff decide to develop each year. For this current school year, we will be working on Spelling, Using ICT, Poetry and Mental Maths. If you would like more information about any of these, please speak to a member of staff.
We are delighted that the ‘Tour of our School’ video, which our children made last year, is now available for you to view. We are indebted to staff from Nerve Centre who shared their expertise to make this possible. We hope you enjoy it! You can find it on the 'Our School' page of the website. You can also view the video here. Click here to view 'Tour of our school' video.
The results of the Accelerated Reading Survey, September 2017 are now available to view on our website. Please use the following link to view this document –For Parents –Links – Accelerated Reading – Accelerated Reading Survey Results. OR click here to view document
Today there was great excitement in school as the annual RAF Wings Appeal got under way. Each year the children get the opportunity to support this charity by buying, badges, teddy bears and ducks. Some of the P6 and P7 children will be in charge of selling these items at lunchtime. The Wings Appeal badges etc. will be available to buy for the next two weeks.
As a whole school we have decided to look at how we can help children improve their spelling in writing. These are words which children ‘should’ know, but often misspell when writing a sentence. These words will be taught in school and are not part of nightly spelling homework.
A list of the spelling for each class can be viewed by clicking on - For Parents - News- Spelling in Rasharkin Primary School. You can also view the list by clicking - Click here to view list
Today some of the P5 - P7 pupils attended the first session of Netball and Basketball training after school. Connor Kelly from the Joey Dunlop Centre was their coach and he will be there for the next four Tuesdays. They all had great fun learning about, coordination, watching, listening, moving and working together as a team.
Each year in September, the children have a competition to write a prayer which will be said throughout the year by everyone in the dining hall. We had some really great prayers this year. The winning prayer was written by Harley in P7. Other winners were, Flora P3, Lucy P4, Ella P5, Cameron P5, Stephen P6 and Andrew P6.
During the first few days of our new term, all the children in school were asked to think about how the choices they make in school can affect themselves and others. They were encouraged to think about 'good choices - green choices' and 'bad choices - red choices'. They had lots of super ideas for good choices eg. be a good friend, tidy up, share with others and wait patiently. The red choices that they should not make included - leaving the table without asking, running inside school, taking other people's things and leaving people out. They drew pictures and wrote about their choices. In assembly they all agreed to always try to make GREEN CHOICES, so that our school can be a happy environment for learning in.
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