Category Archives: Events

World Porridge Day 10 October 2012

Events, Primary schools

The Pre-school children, pupils and staff at Strath of Appin Primary School celebrated World Porridge Day a week early on the 2nd of October.  The children sang the Gaelic song ‘Brochan Lom’  (Thin Porridge), before sitting down to a bowl of porridge that had been prepared by Debbie, the school cook.   Not everyone enjoyed their porridge, but some children had 2 helpings!

Donations received at the Porridge morning were sent to support the work of Mary’s Meals in feeding hungry children in some of the poorest countries in the world.  The children were delighted to hear that their efforts had raised enough money to feed three children for an entire school year. Continue reading World Porridge Day 10 October 2012 →

Port Ellen Primary Gaelic Choir Success at National Mod

Events, Expressive arts, Gaelic, Primary schools

On Sunday 14th October Port Ellen Primary Gaelic Choir excitedly began their journey to Dunoon to compete in this years National Mod. The children had an early start on Monday morning with many competing as individuals before the choir competitions in the afternoon. All of the children had worked extremely hard to prepare for their competitions and we were delighted to learn that so many of our individual competitors had been successful in their categories. Continue reading Port Ellen Primary Gaelic Choir Success at National Mod →

Help for Higher Students at Oban High

Events, Literacy, Secondary schools,

Oban High School’s Maths and English Departments recently held a joint information evening entitled, ‘How to Help Your Child Pass Higher Maths and English.’  The focus of the evening was to give parents helpful strategies and advice to enable them to support their children through the challenges of these very demanding courses.  Information on course outlines, deadlines and content was also discussed and parents were issued with helpful booklets and shown useful websites.  In addition, current S6 students spoke about the importance of good study skills and being organised from the beginning of the year.

Making story CDs was today’s mission at Lochnell

Events, Primary schools,

Reading for RNIB Day is 19th October but as that falls during the holidays we decided to have our RNIB day today. Children from nursery to Primary 7 in Lochnell and visitors from Achaleven Primary were involved in creating a huge range of story recordings which will be made into CDs and form a story bank for sighted children and those with visual impairments.  Stories for Early Years children will also have brailed books made to match the CDs and be kept in a story bag with items from the story for children to handle so they can understand more about each story. Continue reading Making story CDs was today’s mission at Lochnell →

Pupils Learn About the World of Work

Events, Secondary schools, Work Experience

On, Wednesday, 26 September 2012, half of Dunoon Grammar School’s S4 pupils attended Industrial Awareness Day, held at the local hostel – with the other half going on, Tuesday, 2 October 2012.  The day is held in order to raise awareness of what goes on in business and to educate pupils of the day to day occurrences in some businesses.  It is also to show S4 pupils what the business world is like and allows them to work with people from outwith the school.  The day is always a success because of the fact pupils are put into groups and therefore working together and meeting new people.  The tasks that they have to complete are all business related, this making them use other skills that are not normally used in a classroom environment. Continue reading Pupils Learn About the World of Work →

Parents go back to School

Events, Secondary schools

On, Thursday, 4 October 2012, Dunoon Grammar School held an information evening for parents of S1 pupils.  The evening was opened by a talk from Mr Shaw (Head Teacher) and Mr McLean (S1 Year Head).  The parents of some S1 pupils were able to visit the many different departments in the school, where each department had a display of the work they had already done with the new S1.  The evening was not a usual parents evening – where the parent and teacher sit down to discuss the pupil’s progress and behaviour  – but instead to allow the parents to see, as a whole, what S1 have been doing in their classes.  There were a number of senior students and prefects who helped out on the evening to guide the parents around the school.  The evening was very informative and showed how well the new S1 have settled in to Dunoon Grammar School. Continue reading Parents go back to School →

Garelochhead Pentathlon

Events, Health and Wellbeing, Primary schools

Parents for Pupils organised a whole day of Health and wellbeing activities for pupils.  The sponsored Pentathlon was enjoyed by every child in the school.  All Garelochhead Primary pupils and staff would like to say a MASSIVE thank you to mums Mrs Fiona MacLennan and helper Mrs Heather Smith for making the whole event possible.   After all their exertions each class had time to enjoy healthy fruit snacks and a bottle of water. To date the amazing amount of over £170 has been collected in sponsorship.  Well done and thank you parents and pupils.

Pre Five Mini Olympics

Early Years, Events, Health and Wellbeing

Active Schools Co-ordinator Jillian Gibson and Lorna Cameron, Early Years & Family Support Worker for MAKI, worked together to provide a recent Mini, Mini Olympics project for all pre five children in the Mid Argyll area.  Thanks to funding from the local Public Health Network, each pre five unit was offered three free swimming lessons for their four year old children.  The lessons were delivered by staff at Mid Argyll Community Pool and were kindly supported by many parents who came along to help.  Continuing on from swimming, it was also possible to offer each unit two PE sessions delivered by the local primary PE teachers and Catriona Gunn from Mid Argyll Sports Centre. Continue reading Pre Five Mini Olympics →

The Flower Garden at Rothesay Primary Pre-5

Early Years, Events, Outdoor Learning

Rothesay Primary and Pre-5, along with parents, carers and friends, celebrated the ‘Grand Opening’ of our new outdoor area on Wednesday 3rd October. The area was planned, almost 2 years ago, by our present P2 when they were in the nursery and it has taken a lot of hard work and determination for it to develop into the challenging, exciting and beautiful space it is today.  The children decided they wanted a workers area, a secret hide-out, a quiet place, a place to plant flowers and vegetables, a slide and a tunnel, a huge sandpit and lots of music… and a place to find creepy crawlies and to fly with butterflies. Continue reading The Flower Garden at Rothesay Primary Pre-5 →

Dare to Dance DVD in Demand!

Events, Primary schools

Oban Primary Campus hosted their show ‘Dare to Dance’ in The Corran Halls, Oban on Thursday 14th June.  Approximately 130 children and 25 members of staff across the campus participated in the sold out show.  Everyone enthusiastically performed in front of an audience of 600 people.  Children and staff worked hard for 8 weeks to learn and perfect their routines, the show offered everyone participating the opportunity to develop their confidence and team work skills through dance.  This was a massive event for our school community and raised a lot of money for our school funds.  The show was recorded and DVDs have just been released to the public, the running total of DVDs sold is currently at 180, which is phenomenal.

Pirate Day at Dunoon Primary

Events, Interdisciplinary, Primary schools

On Wednesday the 3rd of October Primary 2/3’s took part in a Pirate Day in their class and around the school.   They enjoyed a wonderful Pirate feast laid on by the kitchen staff as did the entire school.  Mrs Campbell’s walls are decked with pirate memorabillia as the children have carried out a variety of pirate activities throughout the day.  They created their own pirate names, played pirate games, made pirate hats and have been working on pirate puzzles, all as part of their class interdisiplinary topic this session.   Much fun was had by all!  aaarg me hearties!! Continue reading Pirate Day at Dunoon Primary →

Taynuilt Nursery MacMillan Fundraising Coffee Day

Early Years, Events

Our Myself & My Family end of topic celebration coincided with this years MacMillan Coffee Morning.  There was a great variety of cakes, scones and biscuits baked by the children and their parents. Tea, coffee and juice were on offer and everyone enjoyed a fun morning and afternoon.   It was well attended and we raised the fantastic sum of £107. 

A big thank you to everyone who supported this great cause.

The Cottage Kindergarten wins UK Nursery of the Year award

Early Years, Events

The Cottage Kindergarten in Helensburgh has been named “Nursery of the Year” in a competition against other nursery schools from across the UK.  The prestigious award is sponsored by Nursery World, a respected publication in the nursery and early years sector which is read by over 100,000 education and childcare professionals.  The results were announced at a glittering black tie dinner in London on Friday night.

The Kindergarten, based in East Montrose Street, had previously been told it had been shortlisted for the award during the summer and that it was the only Scottish nursery school to make the final shortlist. Continue reading The Cottage Kindergarten wins UK Nursery of the Year award →

Dahlicious Roald Dahl Dress Up Day

Events, Literacy, Primary schools

Last Friday, the usual pupils of Lismore Primary School did not arrive at school, but a strangely dressed selection of characters did! Oompa Loompas, Mike TeeVee and Veruca Salt from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Mr Rabbit, Mr Fox and Ash all turned up ready for a Roald Dahl themed day as part of the countrywide Roald Dahl Dress Up Day.

Activities for the children included making consequence stories using Roald Dahl characters, inventing their own interesting characters and a variety of general knowledge and logic puzzles about Roald Dahl’s stories.  The children are now keen to read more of the author’s stories. They also had a lot of fun as well as raising money for Roald Dahl’s Charity.

Macmillan Coffee Morning

Events, Primary schools

On the 28th September pupils and staff from Innellan Primary welcomed everyone to their Coffee Morning in aid of Macmillan Nurses.  We were very happy to welcome so many people! 

Staff and parents had been busy making lots of lovely cakes to sell along with tea and coffee.  We also had a toys and book stall selling items donated by the children that they no longer wanted.  Everyone enjoyed the morning and many visitors brought cakes to take home with them.  All in all we raised an amazing £302.70 for the Macmillan Nurses!!  Thanks to everyone who supported our Coffee Morning.

Dunoon Grammar School pupil achieves Gold success at swimming contest

Events, Secondary schools

S3 pupil, Nathan Robinson recently won 5 Gold medals, and broke 3 Argyll and Bute records at a swimming competition held at Dunoon Riverside Swimming Pool. The events which he competed in were the 200 Individual Medley, the 200 Front Crawl, the 100 Butterfly (which he broke Argyll and Bute records for these events), the 100 Front and the 100 Back. He won all of these events.

Mr Reid, from the schools PE department commented:
“Nathan performed incredibly well. He won 5 medals and broke 3 Argyll and Bute records. He is a credit to Dunoon Grammar School. Well done Nathan.”

Macmillan Tea

Events, Primary schools

A marvellous turnout of parents and friends for the Macmillan Tea afternoon at St Joseph’s resulted in the school raising a whopping £540 for the charity. This was particularly poignant for us all as we had recently lost a very close member of the school family to cancer.  However, in true ‘St Joseph’s style’ the afternoon was so well supported by parents, staff and friends either by their attendance or by their very generous donations. Father Lennon, out local parish priest, gave us his usual excellent support by attending and it was a lovely time for parents and staff to catch up. The biggest frenzy was at the ‘children’s stall’ where excitement and joy were in abundance.  A lovely day with a fantastic result for Macmillan Cancer Support! Continue reading Macmillan Tea →