Achaleven’s Got Skills!
12th – 16th June was a very busy time at Achaleven Primary!
We packed in a lot in a short space of time starting with tag rugby with Allan and Ellie who put us through our paces, kept us active and we worked together well to achieve great results. We planned a trip to Glen Nant for the Wednesday so this involved creating a risk assessment.
It was Achaleven Primary’s turn to organised Sports Day this year for their school along with Barcaldine, Kilchrenan, Lismore and Strath of Appin schools. Appin kindly offered their facilities for the day. As we are a collection of schools we decided on a collection of colours for our theme – a rainbow! The pupils from Achaleven designed all the games and an active warm-up to get everyone ready. Although there was a bit of rain it didn’t dampen spirits and lots of fun was had and friendships made. You can’t have a rainbow without a little rain!! Continue reading North Lorn Sports Day Fun – The Rainbow Games
The school and village celebrated 150 years of Achaleven Primary on the 25th and 26th March. A great time was had by all and the sun shone all weekend.
Marion Fisher, former pupil and Clerical Assistant at the school, along with her committee of Dawn McBay, Isla Munro and Ellie Cooper organised the reunion for past pupils.
Lismore’s Fairtrade Bake Off
On Thursday 2nd March 2017, Achaleven Primary School joined Lismore Primary School for a Fairtrade Challenge Day. Both Achaleven and Lismore are already Fairtrade Schools, so this year they decided to get together for a Fairtade Fortnight event.
Achaleven pupils travelled by ferry from Oban to Achnacroish where they were greeted by Lismore P7s who accompanied them to the school.
We had the ultimate #ThrowbackThursday on 17th November as Achaleven Primary held a Victorian day. Our school celebrates its 150th birthday this year so we turned back time, and discovered what a typical day would be like around the time the school opened.
Continue reading Achaleven celebrates school’s birthday in Victorian Style
Gravity-defying structures, precious egg-bundles and musical mayhem were the order of the day on Tuesday when Kilchrenan and Barcaldine Primaries joined Achaleven for a celebration of science and technology as part of British Science Week.
Teamwork was required to figure out how to protect their prized eggs from damage whilst being dropped from great heights, whilst some amazing feats of architecture were created from spaghetti and marshmallows!
Continue reading Science fun resonating round Achaleven!
Everyone tells us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day so we decided to participate in Fairtrade Fortnight’s Big Breakfast this year. We opened the school to everyone in the village and, as well as making the lovely flapjacks, pancakes and muffins for our guests, we greeted them on arrival, helped serve and washed up.
We are very proud to have published authors in their midst.
Over the past year we have had 5 pupils published in 3 different books through the Young Writers creative writing programme. These have ranged from mini sagas to acrostic poems and poems about space.
It’s amazing to see our entries printed in real books!
We were very proud, along with John Finnie MSP, to officially open the new ACHA houses that have been built in Connel. A few months ago we suggested some names for the new street and were so excited when one of the names, St Orans, was selected by ACHA. It was lovely that we were invited back for the official opening ceremony.
Continue reading Achaleven Primary opens new houses in Connel
It’s Fairtrade fortnight and Achaleven Primary are celebrating a very important product this year – cocoa. What better way to research than a trip to The Oban Chocolate Company! There was no shortage of staff volunteers for this trip where the pupils were able to learn where chocolate comes from, see what a cocoa pod looks like, as well as getting to sample the different types of chocolate available. They were also able to see the chocolatiers in action in the factory through the viewing window. The pupils then unleashed their decorating talents with their own chocolate designs of lollipops and truffles. The wonderful Chocolate Company staff then helped them box up their wares to take home. Continue reading Achaleven’s Choc-tastic trip!
The pupils and staff at Achaleven Primary had a wonderful time raising awareness and money for Save the Children on Christmas Jumper Day on 12th December.
Everyone brought in a jumper or t-shirt that could be decorated and after taking some time to perfect our designs, we glued, tinselled, glittered, painted and baubled, whilst singing songs and feeling very festive.
As part of their topic on the sea Achaleven Primary asked Scottish Sea Farms if they could visit. The staff were fantastic organising all the health & safety involved (including buying in special child lifejackets) and arranged for a trip out to one of their farms at Shuna.
They were taken to the workboat, ‘Endeavour’ and headed out to the farm. It amazed them that amount of technology there is in the middle of the sea – all the computers and cameras!
Continue reading Achaleven investigates life on a fish farm.
Achaleven Primary have taken mud to a whole new level with a new addition to their outdoor learning space.
To co-incide with International Mud Day at the end of June, the school had a grand opening of our mud kitchen which Mrs MacPherson designed and Mr MacPherson very kindly built for us. The toddler group came along and shared in the mud-themed ceremony (which also included some very delicious edible goodies). Continue reading Would you like mud with that sir?
As we are learning about the Sea this term, Achaleven Primary took up the kind offer from the volunteers at RNLI Oban Lifeboat to visit and learn all about the work they do. We had great fun trying on all the safety gear and seeing all the equipment that is on board the boat. Following on from this trip we have decided that we want to help raise money for RNLI next year. Thank you to the volunteers who took the time to show us around. Thanks also to Alba Sailing for lending us life jackets for our trip.
Stramash visited us again last week however this time we got to stay in our own playground. We were joined by Achaleven primary School pupils and Rob from Stramash delivered a PE session with all the children. We certainly had a beautiful day for it and we actually had to take shelter because it was so hot.
Achaleven Primary raised a fantastic £198.95 at their recent sponsored walk from Dunbeg to Ganavan and back. Some of the incoming primary one pupils also joined them for the event to help raise funds for the school garden. The sun shone and they had a wonderful picnic with the toddler group at Ganavan beach to rejuvenate them for the journey back.
The North Lorn Primary Schools – Lismore, Strath of Appin, Ardchattan, Barcaldine along with Achaleven and Kilchrenan from further afield, held their own Commonwealth Games on Lismore on Thursday 5th June. Calmac very kindly ran two special ferries to accommodate the 70 visiting children together with staff and parents. The Games began with an Opening Ceremony where each school representing a different Commonwealth country paraded with a flag and a banner before performing a dance or song from their chosen nation.
Achaleven Primary School pupils and staff were very proud to receive their 5th Green Flag from Eco-Schools Scotland last week. This follows an assessment at the end of January where Eco-Schools assessor Paula Love commended them on their collaborative approach by working with local environmental organisations including The Grab Trust and AliEnergy, and for the work done in the community by involvement in recycling, village litter picks, charity fundraising and promotion of Fairtrade.
Achaleven and Ardchattan Primaries joined forces this year for their nativity play – The Very Hopeless Camel on Friday 13th December. It’s been great fun rehearsing for it at our schools over the past few weeks, and we’ve enjoyed getting together as well to practice. With the help of Mrs Barlow there have also been lots of wonderful songs to learn.
Continue reading Achaleven & Ardchattan join forces for Nativity
We had heard that an amazing plane was coming to visit Connel Airport. As it was just along the road, we decided to go for a visit. Not only did we get a visit inside the Catalina, we also learned some fantastic facts from members of the crew. We were also very surprised to see vintage cars parked around the plane. We had so many questions about the plane and the cars that we decided to tackle a topic on Transport – Then and Now.
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