In Spring 2012, Small Isles children became involved in the Crofting Connections Project. During the summer term they invited the community to be involved too by hosting four Crofting Community Cafes in school. Each cafe had a crofting theme (Crofting the land, Life as a child, Crofting Culture and Crofting at Home) and a panel of ‘experts’ from the community were invited to come and share their memories and experiences of the theme by answering questions from the children, leading discussions and having drinks and home-cooked treats.

The cafes were run in collaboration with the Jura Oral History project that was happening on Jura at the time, and the events were recorded and added to the Project’s archives (there are links to this on our school website). In September 2013 five P5/7 children flew to Glasgow to attend the opening party of the Jura Lives exhibition at the Kelvingrove Museum. We have just heard that as a result of all this learning, our school has been nominated, along with the Jura Lives Project in the Inspiration category for the Community Archives Award 2014. We have been asked to send representatives to the Community Archives Conference in London (in June 2014) where the winner will be announced. Well done everyone involved!