This year Endeavour has a world of work focus and I chose house building. I chose House Building because I wanted to find out how to build a house. I planned my Endeavour using a long term planner. I have achieved building a model house, sent a letter to an architect, made a powerpoint and some more. I have had a few problems with the cement and making the roof. I have had help from my dad with cutting the wood and Mr Pollock gave me some tips in my letter. I will sow my house and powerpoint at the end.
Explaining Everything
P3/4 have been learning about parts of a plant and what each part does. They have also learned about photosynthesis – the process where plants make energy for carbon dioxide and water using energy from the sun and chlorophyll in leaves. They used a new app on the ipads called Explain Everything to show what they had learned.
Seeds from Space
P3/4 are now officially plant scientists. Along with lots of other schools from across the country we are taking part in a scientific experiment to find out about the effect of space on plant growth. We were given two packets of seeds from the Royal Horticultural Society – one normal rocket seeds and the other a packet that have been to the International Space Station with Tim Peake. We have learned all about fair testing and randomisation and the seeds are now sitting waiting to grow. We will keep you posted of progress and our results!
First Rocket Seed Germinates
Our first rocket seed has germinated!! It was only planted 2 days ago!!
Architecture Endeavour
This year my Endeavour is Architecture. I got the idea of doing Architecture because I don’t know anything about Architecture and I wanted to learn more about it. I have achieved a model house, a plan for my model and lots of research to help do my Endeavour. I planned my Endeavour by doing my long term planner. Long term planner is a planner that has writing on it which what I wanted to do in my endeavour. A problem I have overcome is when I was making my house it broke and I had to start again. My mum has helped me with my Endeavour at home and my teacher Mrs Clark has helped me in school and a teacher from the high school Mr Pollack sent me an email. At the end of my Endeavour I will have to show my model house my plan for it research and a big board of what I have have done in my Endeavour.
Wooden Toys Endeavour
My Endeavour is on making wooden toys. I choose this Endeavour because I wanted to try something new and this year your Endeavour had to relate to the world of work. This project I can sell the products I make to people at the Endeavour fair.
I got my idea one night when I was watching my dad make a gate for where he was working this inspired me to chose this project.
I got my plan from looking on the internet where I saw loads of cute and really good ideas so I took some put them together and made my plan.
I have achieved lots of things like a pram, 2 jigsaws, lots of plans and wooden box with alphabet letter.
Trip to the Pontoons
On Monday 25th April P3/4 went to see the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust boat. It is called the Silurian.
The Silurian was fancy. It had ten beds, a toilet, a shower and a galley. On deck there was a huge steering wheel and dials. A digital map was on top of the steering wheel. There was a thing that tells you how much knots the wind is going. The boat is 20m long, double the size of my dad’s boat because my dad’s is only 10m.
I learned about whales and dolphins. The biggest whale in Scotland is the minke whale and the smallest is the porpoise.
By Drew, P3
Whale and Dolphin Boat
On Monday we went to visit the Silurian. It was awesome. There were ten beds. We had to search for things up on top of the deck and down below the deck. They had toilets and showers on the boat.
Then we did learning about whales and dolphins where we listened to the sounds they made under the water. I learned that sperm whales have 40 teeth in their mouth and they go deep down into the sea and use clicks to see their prey.
By Donald, P4
Silurian Visit
On Monday 25th April we went down to the pontoons at the pier to see the Silurian which is the boat of the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust. We had to put on life jackets.
The Silurian was a yacht. It was very nice and fancy. First we investigated the boat. We found out that the boat had ten beds, a galley, a bathroom, a dining room, a crows nest, a steering wheel, two masts and sails. The front of the boat is the bow and the back is the stern.
I learned about basking sharks. I also learned about the sounds of dolphins and whales and that people listen for the sounds underwater using a hydrophone.
By Ciaran, P4
SHARING THE LEARNING
The culmination of the Endeavour project for the students is the Endeavour fair. For primary 7 pupils they join other primary 7s from around the island in High School for an afternoon alongside S1 and S2 pupils to showcase their learning. There is also an Endeavour fair in school for P5-7.
The High School Endeavour fair is an opportunity for students to see what others have managed to achieve in their projects and chat with them about their journey. Teachers from High School also have a chance to meet with students and discuss their learning alongside members of the public. It is a great opportunity for children to
demonstrate their communication and presentation skills.
Our school fair is always widely supported by parents and we have had food, cake, plants for sale, live lobsters and chicks and exploding volcanoes to entertain the visitors, as well as music and videos and games. Sharing the learning is the final an most crucial part of the Endeavour project and it is an opportunity and motivation for children to make the effort to complete their projects.
Wild Weather
P3/4 investigated extreme weather events as part of their weather topic. Charlet Rose found out about the flash flooding in Boscastle in 2004. She discovered the cause of the flooding and used weather data to show the rainfall pattern over this event. She found out how the flash flooding affected the people and the disruption it caused. This was a great piece of work that pulled together learning in literacy, numeracy and social studies. Well done Charlet Rose.
Investigating Microclimate
P3/4 have been investigating the microclimate in the school grounds. They used digital thermometers on loan from the Royal Meteorological Society to record the temperatures at different places in the school grounds. It was a great way to consolidate all they had learned about maps as part of their orienteering. They then worked in the group to produce a scientific report complete with prediction, method, results, bar chart and explanation. A great piece of work!
TOP SEVEN TIPS FOR ENDEAVOUR
Here are some of our top tips for carrying out Endeavour:
- INVOLVE PARENTS AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY
- THOROUGH INITIAL PLANNING ESSENTIAL
- REGULAR REVIEWS OF PROGRESS
- KEEP A FINAL GOAL IN MIND
- ENSURE THERE IS CHALLENGE AND NEW LEARNING
- REMEMBER SET BACKS HELP US LEARN
- PLAN, DO, REVIEW OFTEN
Waste Week
Last week the Eco group decided to do a waste week and try to find out how much packaging gets wasted at lunchtime in school.
We collected it for only three days. There was quite a lot and I don’t think that it was very good. I think we should do the waste week again because on Tuesday 15th we collected 650 grams and to me that is very wasteful. On Wednesday it got a little better and then on Thursday it was the same as Monday, terrible. Hopefully we might be able to do it again and try to improve and have less packaging that gets wasted.
by Rowan
The Great Day of Sport Relief
On Friday the 19 of March all of Port Ellen primary walked down the streets collecting money for Sport Relief, even the nursery. The places they went to ask for money was the park, the Cyber, the Islay Hotel, Lennox Street, the Columba Hall, the whole village streets and the doctors. But before that long walk we sold lots of cake to everyone in the school. The amount of money we raised was £405.17. Well done and thanks.
Science Club
Mrs Clark has started a club called science club on Wednesdays from 3:30am to 4:30pm. We have done it for 2 weeks; the 1st week we did it we were doing looking for worms for citizen science. The next week we did balloon rockets and the boys won by 2 meters with 1 balloon because we put more air in it for the pressure.
Scottish Country Dancing
For the Day of Dance, which is when children from other schools come to Bowmore hall and we all do different dances, we have been practicing different dances in partners. We have learned the Dashing White Sergeant and much more. It has improved our level of fitness and we have learned to work together in groups and partners better. We have also improved our listening skills because we have to listen to the teachers so we know how to do the dances.
It is energetic and you can meet your friends and maybe new friends when we practice the dances and go to the day of dance and we will learn and get better at Scottish country dancing.
Fitness Club
Struan and Ronan are starting up a new club on a Wednesday and will be taking p 3,4,5. It will be running in the hall and out side when it is nice. Thy are going to be taking them for runs around the school and doing circuit courses in the hall. They are doing it as part of Struan’s Endevour which is fitness. It will be running at lunch time.
Orienteering Club
On Monday afternoons after school ends Mrs Harrison takes orienteering club from 3:30pm to 4:30pm. It is for classes 4-7 it is a great way for the children to get fit and more healthy. We either do 3 courses or 1 course. At the last club we did 3 courses, 2 timed ones and one just for fun.
The timed course had 3 different levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold. There were 10 numbers in all the courses you had to get as many numbers done in the fastest time you could. There was a tie for 1st place between Ruaraidh Macdonald and Bronagh Newman. In orienteering club we start 20 seconds after the person in front so when you finish you take off your starting time. Today is the last orienteering class before the holiday.
We have all enjoyed it!
The Euroquiz With Port Ellen Primary
The Euroquiz is a quiz about Europe. There are four rounds, Geography, Languages, History and sports. The group of four became a pair because two people were absent on the day which didn’t help our chances. We had one back-up who had been practicing hard with the others but they still needed another person so Kaitlyn volunteered to do it.
The first round was Geography of Europe. Some questions were about flags, landmarks and capital cities. To do this round they had to watch a powerpoint on the big board then they had to write the answer on an answer sheet.
The second round was languages. In the languages round they listened to Spanish, Italian and French. To do this round the teacher would ask a question then they would listen to it in Spanish, then Italian and finally French after that they would translate what the people said in the languages, then they would listen to it again to make sure they got the right answer, finally they would write their answer down on the answer sheet and hand it in to the teacher.
The third round was history. For the history round it asked questions about the History of Europe and some questions were about dates some countries joined the EU and what countries were the first to join the EU.
The last round was about sports. It had questions about sport and where some sports clubs are. To do the round it was the same as the first and the third round just with sports questions instead of geography and history.
The four pupils from Port Ellen Primary School who competed in the Argyll And Bute Euroquiz came 5th out of 5 schools-last! But everyone enjoyed themselves and had good fun.
Science week at the High School
On Wednesday 16th March all of the p7 in Argyll and Bute went over to the Islay High School to learn about science, because it was science week.
At the High School we made our own crystals and we also had to try and make a light go on by connecting wires. We all really enjoyed the science and we learnt a lot of new things to do with science. The next day in Port Ellen Primary School p3/4 and p5/6/7 invited our parents in to come and see some of the science we had done working with partners.
We set up lots of tables with lots of different activities such as a Islay map where you had to label lots of different rocks, cakes, the rock cycle, volcano, and much more.
It was great fun.
The Beach Clean
On Friday 4th March our school had a beach clean. The beach clean was for a very special reason, it was because it was the Queen’s 90th Birthday.
The Queen asked everyone to help clean Scotland instead of sending her birthday cards because that would have meant a lot of stamps! So our school went down to the Co-op beach. The Primary 1s were very excited was because it was their first beach clean.
I think we made a big difference.
The Fantastic, Fabulous Fair-trade Coffee Morning!
A couple of weeks ago, Global citizens group at Port Ellen Primary had a fair-trade coffee morning. We baked tiffin, scones, tray bake and banana muffins using fair-trade products only.
The Port Ellen co-op gave us a kind donation of £30 to put towards fair-trade products. We bought fair-trade sugar, bananas, chocolate, coffee, tea etc.
At the coffee morning, we also had a donation box and the money collected was donated to Save the Children. When the coffee morning was over, we counted the money and found out we raised £86.54! We think it was a really successful morning.
We thank everyone at Port Ellen co-op and the Mums, Dads, grandparents and babies for making this possible.
A Little Update On My Endeavour
The past few weeks I have been visiting quite a lot of places. So far I have been up to Ardtalla, Claggan Bay, Ardnave Point and many more, I have also been a couple of places on horse back. Me and my mum have taken the camera every place we go, which means I have been sticking and writing, sticking and writing in my Explorers Log!
I am also planning on making a little collage of photos on the laptop and will add some information of the places I have been.
So far my favourite place has been Ardnave because there is a beautiful lake, lots of sheep and when I was there what two beautiful swans were gliding across the lake.
We had to obey the countryside code and close all gates which you MUST keep shut unless you want chasing after you!!
British Science Week Parent Afternoon
After a week of science learning at Port Ellen we invited parents in to find out more about Rocks, Floods and Boats.
In P567 we have been doing geology this term, finding out about Islay’s interesting rocks and how they are formed. Parents got to make rocks out of food, saw a cake model of the earths crust, our map of Islay’s geology and identified different types of rock by testing them.  They asked lots of interesting questions!
In P34 parents were presented with flood proof housing and has to test the houses to see if they worked!
In P123 they had to build waterproof boats that didn’t sink out of different materials and they also made paper.
TOOTH SCIENCE
Today we were finding out about the science behind teeth with Mrs Birmingham. We found out that a low ph means acid and can encourage bacteria to attack your teeth. We also found out about how bad sugar is and how much can be found in some foods.
2014 PROJECT LIST
Here are the outlines for some of the projects carried out in 2014:
ALICIA
CHICKEN FARMING
I will research the care of chickens, chicken housing and breeds of chicken. I will build a model chicken coop, then use this as a model to build my own house. Having persuaded Mrs Macdonald to have chickens in school I will then incubate and hatch the chickens.
ROBBIE
CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL DISASTERS
I am interested in learning about natural disasters, what causes them and how climate change may have an effect. This will involve a lot of research, and I also hope to make experiments that look at the effects of climate.
CAMERON
CROFTING
I am interested in setting up my own garden at home with raised beds, and planting and managing the school croft. I will write to the Beechgrove garden for advice, will need to research vegetables and growing conditions, build and maintain my garden. We could use vegetables grown in the school croft for a café.
ELEANOR
OFFICE SKILLS
I would like to work in an office when I grow up and so I have decided to learn about the skills needed to work in an office. I will create spread sheets, learn about keeping books and get experience working in an office for my dad and in school. At the end I will be able to make a working model of an office.
CIARA
FITNESS
In school we have learned about health and I wanted to try and become more healthy by learning about keeping fit. I will walk and do fitness at home, research fitness techniques and run a fitness afternoon at school.
ASHER
SURVIVAL SKILLS
I will research tribes around the world and the different survival skills they have learned. Looking at survival skills, I will try different activities such as foraging, lighting fires and building shelters and then use these to organise a trip into the wilderness where I will need to apply my skills.
JODIE
HORSE RIDING INSTRUCTOR
I would like to be a horse riding instructor so I plan to learn all aspects of horse riding, including making a labelled model and writing a blog. I hope to teach someone from my class to ride a horse and make a video of how to tack a horse.
EMILY
WRITE MY OWN BOOK
I enjoy reading and writing so I have decided to write my own book for my Endeavour project. I will research top tips, plan my plot and then write and edit the story, getting people to read and suggest improvements as I go.
ANWEN
SEWING CLOTHES
For my Endeavour I want to learn how to sew and make my own clothes and other items. I plan to make a skirt and top, as well as a bag which means I need to learn how to use a pattern, sew by hand, use a sewing machine and design clothes.
GREAT PORT ELLEN BAKE OFF…
A popular area for Endeavour projects has been cooking. We are very lucky at Port Ellen to have our own teaching kitchen area and take advantage of it for children wishing to cook or bake for their Endeavour.
Maisie used the kitchen extensively to create beauty products like smoothies and face masks for her 2014 Endeavour, and even persuaded some of the boys to try it! She also researched the impact of the beauty industry on the environment and animal welfare, and enjoyed creating her own eco-friendly beauty products.
Abbie was a joint winner of the first Endeavour award for her cookery book on international cooking. She would bring in 
ingredients every week for recipes around the world and would then feed the class, who would give her feedback on the project. I really enjoyed her Indian onion chutney.
We have had two trainee bakers, Annie and Natalie. Both baked the guess the weight of the Christmas cake for the school fair and sold their cakes as businesses, developing skills for the world of work at the same time. Both made birthday and Christmas cakes, and their baking was amazing as you can see from the photo. You can read Natalie’s cake blog in the link on the right.
Emma also enjoyed developing her skills in the kitchen. She was learning to cook and develop independence in the kitchen, shopping for food, finding all the equipment, following a recipe and cleaning up afterwards. Despite her communication difficulties she enjoyed working with other children and learned skills for life.
PAPERWORK…
Over time we have developed a lot of different resources to help provide structure to Endeavour through a process continuous improvement and tweaking. The planners and assessment rubriks used are not essential to the project, but do help guide the process.
Initial planning for Endeavour is key and children fill out this planner at the start of the project to guide them to the finish line. This long term planner is then broken down over time into medium and short term plans, the short term planner being based on a simple plan, do, review format (see below). We also carry out a SWOT analysis so children can assess the likely success of their project.
Children also regularly carry out peer and self assessment tasks over the course of the project to check they are making progress. There are task management, collating information and presenting rubriks.
Endeavour task management rubrik
At the end of the project children complete an assessment sheet with teacher and parents input, and there is also a review presentation.
All these documents are useful tools in the management of Endeavour, and are applied rationally over time to ensure high quality self evaluation of progress and of their own project, and should always be accompanied by lots of class, peer and teacher discussion.
ASSESSING THE IMPACT
In the first year of Endeavour all the schools involved worked closely and held several discussions to assess the impact of the project, as well as surveying the views of parents and children. Some of the key issues we had included finding space in the curriculum, resources and ensuring all children could achieve at the correct level.
Space in the curriculum is limited and we were allocating an afternoon a week for at least two terms in the year, so we had to justify this use of time. The depth of learning achieved and the skills of planning, time management, researching and presentation developed meant we were confident children were achieving skills that would be invaluable in their future learning and careers. The results the children produced at the end confirmed this, but the projects required careful management and direction at the outset if they were to work.
Resources were another key issue. Some projects required the purchase of equipment and it should not be expected that parents will provide all the resources. In the first year the authority provided some funding, but since then we have managed any extra costs through the school budget. These have included the purchase of a sewing machine, soldering equipment and electronics, and model airplane kits. Human resources are also key; as the teacher the project can be difficult to manage if the expectation of the child being responsible for their own learning is not clear at the start. This can be challenging for some and they may require more structure and support to succeed. The use of classroom assistants and local community members can be invaluable here; this year I have a classroom assistant supervising baking, a former headteacher supporting learners and a member of the community teaching sewing skills. However in my first year I managed with no extra adult support.
Ensuring all children achieve and that they are focused on their work can be tricky. Most are motivated to work hard because they chose the topic, but ensuring planning at the start is detailed really helps keep them on track. Endeavour works well for all children as what they do and how they show their learning is chosen by the child; children who are reluctant writers can achieve a lot through practical work or film or presentations. A child with autism and communication difficulties was able to complete successfully two years of Endeavour on cooking and trips around the island.
We gave out questionnaires in the first year to parents and children and the response was very positive. Everyone felt they enjoyed the project and that it was worthwhile. Some parents felt children needed more help and some children would have liked more time in class to complete their project. More regular peer and self assessments were introduced to ensure children were on track and challenging themselves to the same level as their peers.
Since the implementation of Endeavour children are always excited to know when their project will start, and we have now rolled it out throughout the school at early and first level in the form of mini endeavours, where children apply similar skills at an appropriate level and with more support over just a term. Children have a better set of key skills for life, learning and work and are able to apply them across the curriculum; children are more independent in their learning and able to make decisions about how and what to learn. They are also more prepared for High School and future careers. You can access the questionnaire we used below.
