Life in a school that Rocks
THINGS have been very busy at Rockfield over the past couple of months.
We have had a lot of community involvement with parents participating with the pupils in Heartstart training, paired reading training and making pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, which were delicious.
Pupils from primary four and five participated in and won the local athletics competition, having been coached by Jean MacPherson.
We had the winning team of primary seven pupils who competed in the Oban High School maths festival last month.
Rockfield pupils won both sections, one on practical problem-solving and one on written problem-solving. Well done and congratulations to all who took part.
Pupils from primary six and seven participated in a gymnastics competition at Oban High, a great effort from all involved. Pupils from primary six are undergoing their bicycle training which equips them with the skills to be safe on the roads.
Primary five and six pupils are participating in swimming lessons at Atlantis Leisure, which is essential for a community by the sea.
The wonderful Hopscotch Theatre Company visited Rockfield Primary and put on a production of Scotland – A Nation of Innovation for second level pupils. This drama demonstrated how Scottish inventors have influenced our world and showed how the skills they are learning in school could turn them into future inventors.
Primary one pupils had a whole day of celebration for Chinese new year. This wonderful event included tasting Chinese food, making Chinese lanterns and dragon dancing to Chinese music.
On Saturday March 18 we held our annual daffodil tea which was extremely successful and the pupils from the lower school made beautiful gifts to sell as part of their enterprise initiative.
The money raised from this venture will be used to help pay for many varied and interesting school trips.
Rockfield pupils have been involved in the First Minister’s reading challenge. This, combined with our new library facility, has been extremely successful, resulting in the pupils accessing a whole range of new and favourite books.
One pupil in primary six, Olivia Pearson, read more than 2,000 pages as part of her class reading challenge. Another pupil in primary six, Lauren Gibson, won the local Rotary writing competition, using the title of Reflections as a stimulus for her writing. Well done to both.
Rockfield’s PTA held a very successful spring garden day this month, starting the transformation of an area of the playground’s garden into a restful hideaway for all the children. We started by planting a buddleia hedge to attract butterflies and filled our beautiful bespoke bug hotel which will help us learn about our insect life, as well as creating a bird feeding area. We remembered to leave space for the winners of our daffodil tea’s ‘design a birdfeeder’ competition.
Measan (fruit) was the theme of our second area and we all look forward to enjoying the ‘fruits’ of our labours later in the year. Among other things, the pupils suggested getting more colour into the garden and labelling the plants so they could learn more about them which has resulted in English and Gàidhlig signs and plans for a ‘retired welly’ painting session to act as more planters.
We would like to thank Greenshoots, Homebase and the Sea Cadets for their continuing support, as well as several rather muddy children and parents – ta-padh leibh h-uile duine.
The Gaelic unit hosted a ‘sharing of learning’ event on Wednesday March 15. More than 70 parents and family members attended and had the opportunity to pop into the Gaelic classes as well as the nursery.
The nursery has been busy learning about transport, investigating ways to get around the community, including back and forth to school linked to technology.
The children have visited the CalMac ferry terminal, and the train and bus stations. They have been out and about observing the cars people have and identifying colours and shapes. The children were very busy creating a range of models and displays for their families to come and look at during our exhibition day, which went very well.
Stay-and-play sessions within the nursery allowed family members to come and join the children in creating their models.
The nursery invested in real tools for the children to use and they have been learning about safety and risk assessment, while using the tools to hammer nails, and explore chisels, pliers, screwdrivers and saws.
For more photographs: go to www. obantimes.co.uk.