On Wednesday 23rd March the sun shone brightly over our little school while the boys and girls sat patiently awaiting the arrival of our special visitors. The Board of Governors and Mrs Harper first welcomed Lord Lieutenant Robert Scott to Artigarvan Primary School. The Lord Lieutenant visited as part of The Queen’s Green Canopy Initiative.
The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) is a unique tree planting initiative created to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022 which invites people from across the United Kingdom to “Plant a Tree for the Jubilee”.
A short while later we welcomed Minister of Education Michelle McIlveen to our school and we were delighted that she was able to attend our school as it is our 50th birthday next week.
When everyone had taken their seats the Minister and Lord Lieutenant were treated to some highland dancing by eight of our pupils who attend Sollus Highland Dance. Darren who comes to our school each week to teach chanter kindly led the girls on the bagpipes and we would like to thank Georgina (Sollus Highland Dancers) and Darren for this special touch to our day.
The boys and girls sang our Happy Birthday song to the Minister and Lord Lieutenant before P7 girls Savannah and Emma presented a letter to the Minister from our P7s explaining how the plans for our new school in 2008 never happened. They listed some of the things that they would like changed at our school especially our toilets and are hoping the Minister will have a think about our new school that we were promised back in 2008.
Jodie-Lynn and Layla our youngest pupils in P1 presented a beautiful basket of flowers to the Minister and Cassie presented a gift to Lord Lieutenant Robert Scott to thank them for visiting our school on its 50th birthday. 🎂
We had some birthday bags to give out to our guests which contained some little keepsakes to remember our 50th birthday as well as a copy of one of the winning birthday cards from our birthday card competition. Thank you to Alex, Cassie, Emily, Danny and Olly for distributing these.
Next Roy met with the Minister and Lord Lieutenant to tell them about the items we had chosen for our time capsule. We had items to remind us of 2022 such as face mask, a pencil for our 50th birthday, a special 50p which was released for the Jubilee and an AQE test. The Minister and Roy placed the items in the time capsule before screwing on the lid and putting up our plaque “Here lies our Time Capsule, Artigarvan Primary School 50th Anniversary”.
It was then time for the planting of our beautiful birch tree. Lord Lieutenant Robert Scott with the help of James in P6 planted the tree. We had lots of photographs and clapping before the Minister went on a tour of our school with Mrs Harper and the staff.
We would like to thank the boys and girls for being wonderful representatives of our school-you all were amazing and the Minister especially loved meeting the boys and girls in our Afterschool Club while she was having a tour of the school.
Thank you Minister and Lord Lieutenant for a lovely relaxed afternoon that we won’t forget on our 50th year and please everyone check out the Queen’s Green Canopy Initiative website. We are very proud of our little school and all the teamwork from staff and pupils to have it looking beautiful for our guests.
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