Polish-Scottish Calendar Project

Primary 2/3 finished their calendar pages for our International Calendars.  Have look at the Primary 2/3 blog page to see their photo gallery of calendar work and read more about this project.  The finished pages looked fabulous.  Well done Miss Dooris and Primary 2/3!

Spanish Friends Share Festive Work

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Our friends in Murcia, Spain have sent us an e-card with some photos of themselves performing at their Christmas Concert.  They have also uploaded their powerpoints all about Christmas in Spain to our TWINSPACE on the British Council's etwinning website.  We have also uploaded our powerpoints about Scottish customs there too and we will look at each other's work and give feedback to each other.  We are also exchanging  letters to each other in the other's language by "snail mail" and these should arrive at both schools later in January.  We are looking forward to receiving them.  We sang Christmas songs too in each other's language at our respective school shows for our parents and we will be swapping these files when we return to school shortly.  We are enjoying finding out more about Spain.

Recipes Sent to Poland

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Mrs Coyle and Primary 4/5 have finished researching their favourite recipes. They have recorded their top recipes and these will be sent to Poland where they will be collated along with recipes from our link school in Gdansk, and their link school in Vilnius, Lithuania. We hope to receive a copy of our "International Cookbook" in the new year so that we can compare and contrast the type of food we eat during the festive season. Have a look at the most popular recipes.

P6/7 Prepare Texts for their Spanish Friends

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Primary 6/7 have been hard at work in Spanish class, as ever.  They have been set a number of challenges and are on task to achieve every one of them with flying colours.  They are creating powerpoints for their Spanish friends to tell them about Christmas and New Year customs in Scotland.  They are looking forward to receiving similar powerpoints from Spain about the festive season there.  They want to compare and contrast customs in both countries.  They have also been preparing some personal writing in Spanish about themselves to share with their friends in Murcia, Spain.  They are also rehearsing "Silent Night" in Spanish to sing for our link school and they are learning "Silent Night" and the "Little Drummer Boy" in English to sing to us.  Here we are hard at work.

Visitors Come to See Good Practice in Education

The staff and pupils of St. James's Paisley hosted a visit this week from a Senior Delegation from the United States of America.  During their week-long visit the CoSN group chose certain schools to visit in Scotland and the Netherlands.  They were looking to see innovation and new ways of learning which are helping to transform the education of our young people.  They interviewed pupils and staff and were guided through the new way we organise our curriculum and how we have ICT embedded in everday teaching, across each stage of the school.  Their reports about the visit can be read on the CoSN blog where our school is highlighted for the care we show to our pupils.

Learning From Our Travels

One of our upper school pupils visited Spain during the October break.  Whilst exploring the Barcelona region she took some time out to buy her class a book about the area (bilingual) to let them find out more about where she was.  The local maps have also been of great interest to the pupils.  Many thanks!

International Recipe Book Out Soon

Mrs Coyle and the pupils of Primary 4/5 are busy researching traditional Scottish Christmas recipes.  They will be writing and decorating recipe sheets which will be shared with our twin school in Gdansk and their twin school in Vilnius, Lithuania.  These 2 schools have kindly offered to translate their recipes into English for us so that we can try out some of their traditional recipes.  The children have been asking their families, staff and using the internet for research.  We will have a copy of the International Christmas Cookbook in school in the New Year. (image courtesy of LTS)

P6/7 Start New International Project

The pupils of Primary 6/7 are linking with pupils of a similar age in Spanish school, CEIP Antonio de Ulloa.  This school is based in Cartagena in Spain.  We are really looking forward to linking with them.  We will be rehearsing a Christmas carol in Spanish and sending it to them and they will be doing the same with us.  We have already started to research and prepare powerpoint presentations about the Christmas Season in Scotland.  We will be translating some of our powerpoint into Spanish before sending it to our new Spanish friends.

From Beijing to Paisley

Visitors from Beijing recently came to our school to see how we were using GLOW within the classroom. Click on the link to go to the LTS blog to read about it.

Primary 4/5 Send A Piece of Scotland to Poland

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Mrs Coyle and the pupils of P4/5 have been working very hard on making a book all about Paisley and Scotland.  They have researched history and traditions and documented this in a very special book.  They made it for their new Polish friends from I Zespol Szkol in Gdansk.  Mrs Nicholson took the special book and some gifts for the Polish children to Gdansk.  She took some Scottish flags, some Julia Donaldson books to help them with their English and a school tie.  Have a look at our photo album to see our friends in classes 3 and 5.  They sent us some very special gifts back too. Class 5 sent us a book about themselves.  Class 3 made us spicy cookies and had taken photos of themselves making them.  They also sent us a really interesting book they had made all about Gdansk as well as some stickers and badges.  We were really excited about this project.  We plan to work with our friends again in the run up to Christmas time.  We are thinking about writing an International Recipe book with our friends in Poland and also their friends from Vilnius, Lithuania. 

Trip to Gdansk

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Mrs Nicholson was lucky enough to be selected for the British Council's recent e-twinning workshop in Gdansk.  Here are some photos she took and brought back to share with you.  Gdansk as you can see is a very old town which is steeped in history.  Why not click on the Gdansk link to find out more about it?

First E-twinning Label for St. James's Primary

Primary 1 have just been awarded an e-twinning label for their new International project called "Clothes Show Europe". They will be working with young pupils from Bulgaria, Turkey, Wales and Greece. They are excited about their new project which will run until Christmas time. Keep checking our blog next term to follow our progress.

P4/5 link with school in Gdansk, Poland

Mrs Coyle and P4/5 are currently hard at work building a portfolio of "all things Scottish" to send to their link school in Poland, "I Zespol Szkol". Mrs Nicholson will be taking their package with her when she visits Gdansk at the end of September with the British Council and other teachers from the UK. P4/5 will be working with 16 pupils from "klas 3" (aged 9 years) and 16 children from "klas 5" (aged 11 years). They will be practising their English on Mrs Nicholson when she visits. Our polish link-school has just held a family fair at the local zoo and hosted a visit by pupils from a school in Vilnius, Lithuania. Have a look at the map to see where that is - remember you can zoom in and out of the map. We are looking forward to hearing what our new Polish friends think of our Scottish work.

P1 International Clothes Show

Staff in P1 are currently working with teachers in Wales and other countries to plan our exciting new project starting in October. We are currently working with staff in Welsh school "Ysgol Heulfan". Click on their name to visit their website. We'll be getting to know them very soon! Schools from Romania, Greece, Italy and Bulgaria have also shown an interest in joining the project. They will be starting back school shortly so we wait to hear if any of them take the plunge with us.

Our visitors from India

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We played host to a group of visitors from India recently. They wished to see GLOW, the Scottish schools intranet in action. Ten of our pupils from Primary 2 to Primary 7 demonstrated the many functions of GLOW and how they are currently being used in our school. The children freely answered all their questions and our visitors praised the confidence and technical ability of our pupils. The visitors enjoyed their informative visit and our children took advantage of the chance to work with others from outwith our school community. The visiting team comprised of Shripati Acharya (Sales Director, CISCO Global Organisation), Harpreet Geekee (R & D Director, CISCO Customer Advocacy), Toby Burton (Vice-President of CISCO Global Organisation), John Connell and Jim Buchan (CISCO UK), Laurie O'Donnell (Consultant and former Director of Learning and Technology for Learning Teaching Scotland), Andy Pendry (Technical Adviser, LTS), Lesley Dickson (LTS) and Janice Neilson (Renfrewshire Council).