On Friday Primary 6&7 pupils at Port Ellen were visited by artist and teacher Phillipa Mitchell for an afternoon of geese and art. Islay is famous for its winter visitors, the barnacle geese, and Phillipa wanted to find out how the children felt about the geese. In the morning children debated in class the pros and cons of the geese visiting Islay: they are beautiful and attract birdwatchers and tourists, but they also destroy the grass and make life very difficult for farmers. Opinion was divided about what should be done about the 50,000 visitors the Island receives each year.
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Category Archives: Communities and Culture
School Grounds Day at St Joseph’s
Friday 22 November 2013 was a fantastic day at St. Joseph’s in Helensburgh as parents, pupils and staff joined forces to clean up and plant new life in the school grounds. Everyone from Pre-5 children to adults was involved in various activities throughout the morning. The Pre-5 and infant children were involved in sweeping leaves, picking up litter, weeding and planting flowers and trees whilst the eldest of these children (P3) cleaned up the outdoor classroom and got involved in raking and creating hanging baskets.
TEAMWORK MAKES A GREAT GROUNDS DAY
Children, parents, friends, relatives all worked together to improve the grounds of Rosneath Primary School. Many projects were undertaken (including giving our willow dome a “haircut”, building a hedgehog motel, insect hotel and beetle B & B, planting up some wellies and generally giving the grounds a “facelift”! and everybody pitched in – the “before” and “after” showed just how much hard work went in to the day.
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Sandbank Primary School – Act of Remembrance
On Monday the 11th of November 2013 Sandbank Primary School’s senior pupils in mainstream and Gaelic held an Armistice Service attended by the junior pupils, pre-five unit and staff. The older children had all walked down to the War Memorial at Lazaretto Point the previous week and researched the history behind it. They discovered plaques from both the 1st and 2nd World Wars detailing the names and roles of local men who lost their lives in conflict.
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Norwegian Study Visit to Colgrain
On 28th October 2013 Colgrain Primary School was selected by Nick Morgan from Education Scotland to host nineteen Norwegian teachers on a study visit to Scotland. The Norwegian visitors had a particular interest in Assessment is for Learning and in the Early level concept of Curriculum for Excellence. Colgrain Primary has a very successful approach to formative assessment and the Norwegian visitors were particularly interested in our communication with home and our celebration of pupil’s wider achievement.
Strone Primary’s Kilmun Pageant
On Thursday the 31st of October, Halloween, Strone Primary’s p5 to 7s took part in a pageant in partnership with Argyll Mausoleum. We were taking part in this Pageant so that people buried in Kilmun graveyard would be remembered.
Leading up to the Pageant, Ann Galliard and Fiona Lochhead came and talked to us about interesting people who are buried in the graveyard. We all had to think of well known people from the past and research their life stories. It was interesting to find out about the famous people in the graveyard.
Oban High Trad School of Music Winners!
Oban High School Traditional School of Music and Amy Boyce (S5) were successful at the Opportunity Knocks Oban Live Auditions on Saturday to win a place on the big stage at the Oban Hogmanay Street Party. There were 10 acts which were then whittled down to four and those four acts performed once more for the judges who chose our two Oban High School acts. Amy is a singing pupil of Jean Gillies, local singing teacher and the Musical Director of the Traditional School of Music is Sileas Sinclair. This marks another great accomplishment for this talented group of young people at Oban High.
Smoke Free Me
On Friday 24th October we went to the Queens Hall to see Smoke Free Me! The actors were fantastic. In the show the characters were called Ziggy with the Ciggy, Willie Tryit and Claire Air. The show was about a time machine and Willie Tryit and Claire Air tried to stop Ziggy from smoking. Ziggy went back in time to meet a tobacco lord and a scientist who talked about the link between lung cancer and cigarettes. We sang songs and a rap! They were called Smoke Free Me, Make Smoking History and Keep it to yourself.
Halloween ‘Havoc’ At St. Mun’s
In a break from the traditional Halloween Disco, the children of St. Mun’s Primary were treated to a whole day of Halloween activities, fun and games.
The morning saw the children take part in a carousel of activities including arts and crafts, biscuit decorating , scary stories, sensory ‘feely’ basins filled with lots of unthinkable things and fancy dress parades, to name just a few. While the afternoon was full of dancing, dooking for apples, stringy donuts and party games.
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First Nation People Visit Rothesay Primary
We were lucky to have a visit from Robert Gladue and Jason Chamakese on 22nd October. They are First Nation People from Saskatchewan in Canada. They shared some of their traditional stories , sang some wonderful Cree songs and played their instruments. They taught us lots about how they live on their Reserve in Canada. They are touring the country sharing their heritage and culture.
Denominational Schools Working In Partnership
This year was the Year of Faith in the Catholic church where many opportunities were created to celebrate our faith worldwide. The four denominational schools in Argyll and Bute of St. Andrew’s Rothesay, St Columba’s, Oban, St. Mun’s Dunoon and St. Joseph’s Helensburgh collaborated on a project to create the Argyll and Bute children’s year of faith prayer as follows:
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Achaleven Adventures
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.
Dalmally Fair Trade Café
Primary 3. 4 and 5 of Dalmally Primary school recently organised and hosted a “Fair Trade Café” for friends and family in the community.
The children had been learning about “Fair Trade” and what it means for farmers and producers. The children then made their own fair trade items for sale, costing out their materials and jointly deciding on a “fair” price.
They also baked their own home made cakes using fair trade ingredients and served fair trade tea and coffee.
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Lochdonhead Community Cafe
On Monday the 7th of October, we held our second Community Café at our school. It was a huge success and many members of our community came to visit us. We sold lots of our handmade crafts including books, bookmarks, calendars and Christmas cards. The parents generously provided an abundance of cakes and biscuits to accompany the tea and coffee and it was lovely to catch up with the people who have supported us on our journey to becoming a successful business. Hopefully it will be just as busy next time when we will be holding our first community bingo game!
Port Ellen Pre Five, Our trip to the finlaggan
This term at Port Ellen Pre Five Unit Christopher, Caillin, William, Connor, Katyn, Robyn, Phoenix and Dylan have been reading the fantastic Katie Morag books by Mairi Hederwick. They say;
We love the books and have decided to learn about floating and sinking, ferry boats and we’ve been comparing our lives on Islay to Katie Morag’s on Struay. We have even made our own ferries with help from Caillin’s dad Donald.
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Dunoon Primary School Visit Castle House Museum
Dunoon Primary School’s P5 class visited the Castle House Museum on Thursday 3rd October as part of their Interdisciplinary Topic about Cowal. The children enjoyed learning about Cowal in the past and comparing the differences between now and then! The exhibits they enjoyed most were the film show, replica of the inside of Highland Mary’s House, Victorian Classroom and looking at all the paddle steamers that used to sail up and Doon the Watter!!
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Global Citizenship and IDL at St. Joseph’s, Helensburgh
Assembly at St. Joseph’s Primary School in Helensburgh this morning was a well attended affair. The children of P2a demonstrated beautifully their learning from their Interdisciplinary Learning Study ‘Handa’s Surprise’ to the whole school (including Pre-5) and to a vast array of proud parents. A plethora of educational experience was in evidence from the creativity of Curriculum for Excellence to the evidenced planned partnership with the local links to the Nora Docherty school in Malawi.
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Rockfield P2 visit Oban Fire Station
As part of our “People Who Help Us” topic, the P2 classes visited Oban Fire Station this week. The children were split into two groups, one had a presentation about the role of the Fire Service and how to keep themselves safe in their homes. The other group got to look around the fire engine, climb inside and play with some of the buttons. The children also tried on the fire officer’s uniforms and each had a turn of using the hose, aiming for a traffic cone.
More news from Barcaldine Primary School
Shinty Medal
Fergus Taylor came in showing off yet another medal!!
Fergus has recently joined the newly formed Shinty Team in Appin and last Sunday 22nd September he joined the rest of his team mates to participate in the Shinty Tournament at Mossfield Park in Oban.
The Appin Shinty team came second and all the children were delighted to receive a medal for all their hard work. Continue reading More news from Barcaldine Primary School
P6/7 AT ROSNEATH PRIMARY – VISIT TO YOUR RADIO STUDIOS
On Friday of last week some very excited children from our school arrived at the Your Radio Studios in Dumbarton. The visit was part of our Interdisciplinary topic on Entertainment.
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