Category Archives: environment

Lochdonhead Primary School Nature Trail

Lochdonhead Primary School was selected as the Regional Winner 2017 in the Better Energy School Awards. The school have won a cheque for £500.00 “Congratulations to the pupils and staff of Lochdonhead Primary School – what an ambitious project you have embarked upon and you have adopted an extremely professional approach. We were very impressed by the way you have sought detailed information and knowledge from experts and the way that you have involved your community in the development of your nature trail.

Continue reading Lochdonhead Primary School Nature Trail

Isle of Gigha School wins My Favourite Pocket Garden Award at Gardening Scotland 2017!

Isle of Gigha School and Community are very proud to announce that Bailey Bannatyne’s Gigha Garden, inspired by our beautiful island has won the My Favourite Pocket Garden Award at Gardening Scotland 2017!

Visitors who voted convincingly for Bailey’s design were entertained and inspired by her creativity and attention to detail. They especially enjoyed how the garden encapsulated the children’s love for their island and its beautiful natural heritage.
Continue reading Isle of Gigha School wins My Favourite Pocket Garden Award at Gardening Scotland 2017!

Skills Week at Achaleven.

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.

Continue reading Skills Week at Achaleven.

Gardening with Mrs Cairns P3B

The Topic in P3B this year has been to improve and care for our School Environment. We cleared out the raised beds, went to our local supermarket and selected suitable plants to brighten our School playground. We are going to have a lot of building work going on very soon and we thought the gardens would cheer people up in the midst of the major refurbishment. P3B enjoyed every minute of their gardening activities and met some snails, which they then wrote wonderful stories about. They then thought of very interesting ways to discourage them from our beautiful garden!

Continue reading Gardening with Mrs Cairns P3B

Lochgoilhead Primary welcomes a visiting Volcanologist!

The children at Lochgoilhead Primary School were very lucky to be able welcome a visiting volcanologist to the school last week. Steve Wright shared with us his knowledge, passion and incredible first-hand experiences he has gained from visiting active volcanoes around the world. Volcanic rock and samples of meteorites were passed around as Steve answered excellent questions from the children.

Continue reading Lochgoilhead Primary welcomes a visiting Volcanologist!

Minard and Kirn Primary Pupils learning outdoor together

Argyll & Bute may be geographically vast but that doesn’t prevent us from making the most of connections between schools to allow pupils the opportunity to learn co-operatively. On Friday 21st April five P4 pupils from Kirn Primary School in Cowal travelled with their teacher Mr Mair to join the Minard Primary School pupils in some outdoor learning activities in Minard Primary, near Inveraray. The Minard pupils were delighted to welcome pupils from far flung Cowal to share in the outdoor learning opportunities which are on their doorstep.

Continue reading Minard and Kirn Primary Pupils learning outdoor together

St Andrew’s Primary Science Week

During SCIENCE WEEK we organised science workshops for all pupils exploring electricity, gravity, magnets and brain processing of information.

We also had experts in school who worked with our P 5-7s. Scientists from Edinburgh University and Heriot-Watt University worked with us on a Seabeasties project finding out about the beasties that live off our Scottish coasts. Pupils made nets to catch plankton and viewed findings through smartphone microscopes.

Continue reading St Andrew’s Primary Science Week

Crofting Connections at Parklands School

We would like to share with everyone our project in association with Crofting Connections.

This term the Selkie class are looking at the life of a sheep, with the visit of sheep and lambs to school, dying fleece, spinning, weaving and felting. Today we had a visit from Joy Dunlop who taught us some Gaelic, traditional Gaelic waulking songs and step dancing. She was amazing and we really enjoyed her time with us.

Fourth Green Flag for Dalintober Primary

Dalintober Primary School are delighted to have been awarded a fourth Green Flag from Keep Scotland Beautiful as part of the Eco School programme of study.
Our photograph shows the Eco Committee displaying the Green Flag in our school grounds.
Our next steps include creating a new Action Plan, organising a Green Day and investigating new ways to explore the Eco principles within our curriculum.

St Andrew’s Primary Eco Schools Green Flag Award

st-andrews-ps-green-flag-award-feb-2017This week, St Andrew’s Primary School’s pupils and staff were delighted to be awarded their fourth Eco Schools Green Flag. Eco-Schools is the largest sustainable schools programme in the world and is designed to encourage whole-school action on sustainable development education issues. The Green Flag Award is an internationally-recognised symbol of excellence in sustainable development education.

Continue reading St Andrew’s Primary Eco Schools Green Flag Award

Third Green Flag for Dunoon Primary!

dps-third-green-glag-jan-2017Dunoon Primary had been awarded it’s third Green Flag. Below is an extract from the letter Dunoon Primary received by Mrs Senga Wakefield, who is the leader of our Eco Committee from Eco-Schools Scotland/Keeping Scotland Beautiful.

Continue reading Third Green Flag for Dunoon Primary!

Inveraray Eco Success

inveraray-eco-award-jan-2017Inveraray Eco Success

Inveraray Primary School was the first school in Argyll and Bute to gain Green Flag status as an Eco School back in 2003. We are pleased to share the good news that we have once again retained our Green Flag status through our Crofting and Kenyan Connections work which includes the whole school and the nursery.

Continue reading Inveraray Eco Success

‘Lismore goes Alpine!’

lismore-goes-alpine-3To get the New Year off to a flying start Lismore Primary School had a “French Alpine Ski Week” to celebrate all things alpine and wintry! We have taken the overall theme in French of the alpine year and have a large changing display in the classroom. This week, we imagined we were all off skiing to the French Alps!

Continue reading ‘Lismore goes Alpine!’

5th Green Flag!

rhu-5th-green-flagRhu Primary School remain ‘Evergreen’, as we celebrate our 5th Green Flag. Christmas came early as the pupils received the joyous news. We were congratulated on our achievements in the topics of Biodiversity and Food in the Environment. We were also commended on our on-going beach cleans, which we have extended to the play park and Ardenconnel Woods. Eco Scotland were particularly impressed by our work on anti-dog fouling which was greatly appreciated by our local residents. The pupils are busily making plans to celebrate this great achievement in the New Year and we look forward to sharing this soon.

Rothesay Primary Recycling Centre

rothesay-recycling-centre-dec-2016The pupils at Rothesay Primary have been recycling cardboard, plastic bottles and packaging from their snacks, to help gain points for their school Houses. The eco committee monitor the collections and weigh these on a Friday before the points are collated. However, if there is something in a bin that cannot be recycled (the eco committee have a do’s and don’t poster beside the bins) then that House is disqualified!! Recycling has never been such fun!

Furnace and Minard Pupils Go Gruffalo Hunting

furnace-and-minard-gruffalo-2Last Friday, while the ‘bigger’ pupils were off learning how to become Digital Leaders, Furnace and Minard ‘littler’ pupils decided to go off on a Gruffalo Hunt to Ardkinglas Gardens to have some outdoor fun and learn some more Scots words. The crispy cold day added to the sense of adventure, especially as we had recently read The Gurffalo’s Child. We followed the little mouse’s directions past Tod’s ‘deep-dooon hoose’, Hoolet’s “tree-tap hoose” and Snake’s “log-hoose”.

Continue reading Furnace and Minard Pupils Go Gruffalo Hunting

Willow Lantern-making twilight session

The Oban & Lorn satellite group of Argyll OWL (Outdoor & Woodland Learning) Group are hosting a willow lantern making session at Barcaldine Primary School this week.

Anyone interested in the workshop and outdoor & woodland learning is invited to come along at 4.30pm to have a chance not only to make lanterns but discover what the OWL group can do to help promote outdoor learning.

Continue reading Willow Lantern-making twilight session