School Trips

London - 2007

Hillhall pupils from P4-P7 have had the chance to go to London for four days.

On the first night they went to the Tower of London. They saw spears, guns and swords. Probably the boys liked it better than the girls because there were executions.

That night the teachers were kept awake all night by these two! This was their punishment!

The next afternoon they got to meet Henry VIII in a different form wax! After that, they went to see loads of animals from tiny ants to huge whales! The whale was one hundred feet long - which was the length of all the kids end to end.

On the second night they went to the London eye. They took some spectacular photographs and saw some brilliant sights.

Going into Legoland was great for all the kids to enjoy! The robots that they programmed were good to learn angles andapproximate lengths.

To finish a great day they went to Prince Albert's Theatre to see Mary Poppins it was a spectacular sight for each and every one of them to enjoy!

On their last day they went to Harrods for a bun and a drink after that they went to Hamleys.

Every one thoroughly enjoyed the trip!

By Andrew McAuley and Rory Hulatt P7 - 2007

Big Play is Launched at the Palladium

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has been launched at the London palladium. All who have seen it thought it was really good. The main characters in the play are Mr Potts, Jeremy and Jemima Potts, Truly Scrumptious and Grandpa Potts. The play lasted 2 � hours but in the middle of it there was an interval, near the end the car known as Chitty flew over the people in the front row. Through out the show they all started to sing different songs for different scenes. The highlight of the play for me was Chitty the car, Chitty can float on water and fly across the sky.

My favourite character is Mr Potts and my least favourite character is the Child Catcher because he captures all the children. I think that the Baron and the Baroness were the ones who wanted all the children in Belgium out. I thought the child catcher was creepy. The palladium is big and you can get a really good view if you are up near the back.

Taylor McAllister P7 - 2005

Paris

My most memorable experience of school would have to be my school trip to Paris in 2006. I was in P6 and we went for two nights and three days. From our hotel we could see the Eiffel Tower. During our trip we also visited the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, Sacre Coeur, and we had a boat trip on the Seine. At the Louvre we got to see the Mona Lisa and because we hadn't a group ticket we had to go in as three big families.

The city seemed very big and there were lots of interesting things to do. As well as seeing Paris, we got to go to Disneyland where we spent a full day of screams. We watched the Disneyland Parade. As it went by, to my surprise, I got a kiss from one of the Parade dancers!

When we went on the final ride, it was very scary. The ride was called Space Mountain. First, you were shot up to space and then you fell straight down and looped the loop past planets and meteors. It was even more scary if you happened to be sitting at the front like me!

And the only thing anyone said at the end was, `Can we do it again?'

When I leave Hillhall, I will always remember that school trip to Paris and the kiss!

Ewan McClearn P7 - 2007

Louvre Museum

We went to the Louvre Museum to see the Mona Lisa.

Clare, our guide, said that we couldn't go in a group of seventeen. So we had to split into families, I was in Mrs Moore's family. Oh - by the way we went on Friday, the day we were going home. So we went into the museum and wandered round the Egyptians for a few minutes and got lost altogether.

After a few minutes we found the Greeks although we were not supposed to be there. That's how lost we were.

Now, after seeing naked Gods and baby Eros we decided to try and find the Mona Lisa. In the process we saw the Venus De Milo the most famous statue in the world, it has no arms. We walked through gallery after gallery in the end we asked for help. So we found a French person who told us the directions in French and Mrs Moore understood him � `brilliant' we all thought `we'll finally get to the Mona Lisa'. It still took us a little while to find it but in the end we did. She smiled kind of, well I think she's smiling nobody knows who she is, and some say she's a female version of the artist. The eyes follow you from each side of the room. It was s00000 creepy, it took us ages to get out of the museum past the Greeks and the Egyptians finally out the door and into the courtyard. Royals lived there ages ago. They have a glass Pyramid with 666 panes of glass that's a lot of glass!

Ryan Sterritt P7 - 2006

My Day at Balmoral.

Today Hillhall Primary went to the Balmoral Show. My two favourite parts of the visit were the children's farm and the cow walk through.

If you like farm animals then the children's farm was the place to be. My favourite animals were the two Border Collie pups, called Maggie and Lisa. Other animals at the farm were goats, Shetland ponies, chicks, ducklings, donkeys, rabbits and lambs.

The cow walk through was my other favourite bit, I really like the cream and brown cows, they are gorgeous! There was a little calf that was only three weeks old and he was so cute. Some of the cows were very, very wide around the middle. I enjoyed seeing all the cows and bulls at the Balmoral show.

What I Thought About Stormont

I was really pleased and excited about going to Stormont to dance for the Ulster Scots Society. At first we all thought we were going to Stormont Castle, but when we got there we found out we were actually going to the main parliament building.

It was even nicer for me because, my mum and dad as well as my little sister were allowed to come so it was like a family outing as well as a school trip.

Inside the building is beautiful. The entrance hall is huge and right in the centre is a large marble staircase that leads you to all the different parts of the building. It felt really special to be there and also lots of people were looking at us and smiling because we were dressed in our dancing outfits, and I think we looked very smart.

Lucy brought the `Laird Cup' that we had won at the Portadown Festival earlier in the week. It is a really nice trophy and we are all very pleased for having won it. I think Mrs Moore and Lucy are very pleased with us as well.

We were all shown to a changing room, which was really a beautiful big room that had a very large table in it with lots of lovely chairs as well, and on the table were lots and lots of sandwiches, fizzy drinks pure juice and tea for us to help ourselves to. The adults advised us not to drink any fizzy drinks before we performed in case it made us need to go to the toilet when we were dancing. We were the last performers and Lord Laired introduced us to the guests Winners of the Laird's Cup 2004 and told them how we had only been doing Scottish Dancing for nine weeks and had already won an award for it. We danced three dances and everyone was very nice and clapped loudly. We were all a bit nervous but really enjoyed ourselves.

Mr Donaldson who is the MP for Lisburn came over to us and congratulated us for doing so well and said he was delighted for us.

Afterwards we were invited to go to the front steps of Stormont to have our photograph taken with the Lord Laird presenting the Laird Cup to us.

Everyone was really happy and enjoyed themselves, and we got to finish off the fizzy drinks in the changing room before we left for home. Mrs Moore kindly bought everyone a pen that has the General Assembly emblem on it, as a memento.

I will never forget my experience of dancing at Stormont and although I was a bit nervous I really, really enjoyed the whole thing.

Lauren McAteer P7
2007