Category: Learning

Posted on

Saint Phnx

Saint PHNX  is a band made up with two brothers called Stevie and Alan jukes.  There first song is reload and it was released in 2016. They began their music career with this single before releasing their debut album on January 31st 2020.

On the 18th September 2025 primary 6/7  went on a trip to Islay high school to see Saint PHNX. We done a bunch of stuff like getting soft play ball’s and putting our worries into them and doing vocal warmups and singing compositions  and a few minutes before the end we all got these blue feathers and they told us about the story behind the blue feathers

by Holly

Posted on

From Sea to Sustainable Solutions and Products

My Endeavour is sustainable seaweed solutions I chose this because I wanted to raise awareness on how much better seaweed can be for the environment than other products like plastic. Seaweed can be used for many different things such as plastic; seaweed can be made into plastic by turning the plastic into sugars and then fermented into plastic. This is better because if the seaweed plastic gets picked up by the wind and blows into the ocean it will not matter because seaweed grows in the ocean anyway therefore it cannot harm the oceans, and the animals can just eat the seaweed. It can also replace paper and many other things.  

Seaweed is home to many different species because it protects them and provides food for them. Many animals choose seaweed because it has lots of nutrition for them. It also provides shelter from predators for them. 

I have made; one video on why we should save seaweed; some posters; dried seaweed; I made some fertilizer; a letter to the founder of Ishga (a seaweed beauty brand); I done an essay about some things to do with my Endeavour; wrote two pages full of notes about my Endeavour; cooked some seaweed. 

 

 

Posted on

My Endeavour Project

My Endeavour project is soldering i chose this project because i wanted to try something new. I never done this project before so i though i might give it  a go. the first thing i done in my Endeavour was write a letter to colin furze about top tips in soldering i told him what i made  already and the fact i done and what i am trying to achieve and the first thing i should do in soldering.  And after that i done some research and then got in to soldering. the first one i made was tricky and hard because. I burnt myself a couple times and the rainbow LED didn’t work but i try the rainbow LED a couple more times but then i thought of trying the candle light.

And then the candle light work so then i made two. and both of them work so i thought if i can make a candle light i can make make a rainbow LED but i still couldn’t  the rainbow LED. So i done more research and thinking how i should make the rainbow LED and how people in world think of soldering world wide and how i should be a good job.

Posted on

My Endeavour

My endeavour is landscape painting it is coming along very well I have made 5 paintings for the endeavour fair. A few weeks ago I sent Dietmar finger a letter about if he can help me with my endeavour I picked landscape painting because I have Allways loved painting things in primary 3 I painted a picture of a bird and in primary 4 I painted a picture of a cherry blossom tree. 

I will probably sell my paintings for £1.50 each I think that my project is going to be a little bit hard because landscape painting is very hard and challenging for me I think my 5 painting look pretty good. I think my endeavour is going to go really good and I hope I will make at least £35 when the endeavour fair ends. 

I think painting was a very good pick for me I hope that the people like them when the endeavour fair starts so far I have painted pictures of: mounters, and the moon in the clouds, and the woods 

By James baker

Posted on

My Hydrogen Endeavour

My Endeavor is hydrogen. It’s a big topic and the reason I did it is because my dad works for a hydrogen company called Protium I was very interested in hydrogen and all its facts like it’s the most abundant element in the world. Also it can be used for cars and planes we could stop oil and fossil fuels. But its about what I have been doing let’s see.

So far I have made three sheets of information, mascot and a presentation but at my house where me and my dad make hydrogen we have made a model of a car and and we have clear water with no minerals just clear so we pour that into the electrolizer and it separates the o2 ( oxygen) and the h2 (hydrogen) we store the hydrogen and then release the oxygen and we put that hydrogen through a chute and into the model car  to power it . and that’s how I am making hydrogen but there is some obstacles like getting the clear water getting the time to do it but I just push through it I really enjoy doing this Endeavor finding out all the different facts like OVER 70% OF THE UNIVERSE IS MADE UP OF HYDROGEN! and there is even more facts and I just can’t wait  to tell everyone at the Endeavour fair.

Posted on

Robotics Endeavour

My Endeavour is robotics and I wanted to do it because I saw a friend do it and after I really wanted to. I am really excited about this Endeavour. I was really happy when I built the first micro bit. I also was coding a robot. I coded the robot to follow a black track and too not bump into tables or chairs. What is an Endeavor?  Endeavor is a fun project what you can choose like game design. Endeavor is for p5 to p7 endeavor my last endeavor was games creation like on scratch and on Kodu games lab.

Posted on

MY RECYCLED CLOTHES ENDEAVOUR

My Endeavour: Designing Recycled Clothes 

The reason why I chose sewing is because I have always had a passion for it. I think sewing is a really good hobby because of all the interesting techniques you can learn but some of it can be hard. My favourite thing to make is pillows because they aren’t as difficult. There are different stitches that you can learn. My mom taught me how to do most of it. Now I know how to do circles, squares and even know how to make scenes. The hard thing is trying to figure out where everything goes, what happens and what happens if the sewing machine breaks and where everything goes. I really enjoy it, and I think you will too. There’s a lot of things I don’t enjoy like when the wool runs out and I have to reset the whole thing which is really annoying.  

I think you should start to recognise it’s a really good hobby. And you can make your own clothes and not have to chuck things out and you can make your own business and then you won’t have to buy all this material. You can make teddies, you can make stockings and you can even make calendars for Christmas.  

Posted on

Scottish Math Challenge Trip

This is a blog about the Scottish math challenge that me (Hannah) and Brody went on. We achieved a silver award in the  Scottish maths challenge and we went on a trip to the mainland.   We got to go out for a nice meal and we visited Strathclyde University with other schools who have achieved, including Bowmore primary.  There actually was a lot of schools that came across the mainland and even some P5 won silver!

At the start the professor said hello  and gave us some questions, that were actually quite hard. I was impressed because the P5’s answered those questions!

At the end the schools went in groups that were named A B C, Port Ellen was group B though, went we went down we got a mug and a pencil and shook the professors hand and went back up till every school went. It was really fun. I got to go shopping. I am proud of myself because that was the first time I did the Scottish math challenge ever and it was really hard but in the end I got Silver! Anyways that was the school trip and it was really fun.

Posted on

Sea Story P12

This term our topic is the sea!  We went in search of sea creatures at our local beaches and planned in our floorbook.  Breagha had told us she had met a lovely wee fish and some hermit crabs at black rock and would like us to venture down to meet them. We took out friends from ELC with us and found all sorts of exciting things! Unfortunately thought we saw lots of rubbish too and we decided to go back and to clear up what we saw, we know this isn’t good for the marine life so would like to help them out a little.

🌟 WALT find sea creatures and learn about their habitats.

🌟 WALT be concerned about our environment.

Having looked at different varieties of seaweed on another trip we brought some back to school to cook and try! We were all very brave smelling and then tasting sea kelp which we thought was pretty good all things considered…some of us like the crunch and others the salty flavour.

Finally in our Sea Story learning from our Floorbook. You will see on page 16 we have adopted a sea turtle 🐢 as we loved learning about them so much and wanted to do something to support them! We are just waiting our welcome pack arriving!

Posted on

Climate Smarter School

Last term we  have done a school topic on building and creating a climate smarter school. We had to put a renewable source like wind power ,hydropower and solar panels and we tested them outside and seen where the best place was to put them.  The best place to put a wind turbine was on top of a hill because we got the best reading.

Talking about readings we did reading for the wind turbine’s and also solar panels and we tested them with anemometer.  We put the solar panels on the school roof because it got the most sun light because it’s up high. The winning group were the P7 boys called the climate warriors, and the boys in the climate warriors names  were Alfie, Brody, Archie, Stephen, and Freddy. Also the boys that won are going on a amazing trip to Oban to talk about their model school and speak about renewables and also how it helps the environment.

Posted on

After School Walking Club

Every Monday we get to go to walking club and it is a blast, we get to go on 1 mile walk with our friends and its a great exercise for our legs! Ms Brown and Ms Khan take us up the path near the school.  We can’t walk past a bench at a certain time.  After the walk we get hot chocolate!  This club helps our right to be healthy!

 

Posted on

Dinosuars P12

Our topic this term is dinosaurs and we are raising lots of money to have the Natural History museum in Scotland come and visit us!  We have carried out a bingo, a map quest and a sponsored walk.  We have also started a floorbook of learning.  We have been busy creating a dinosaur display for our classroom complete with palaeontologist lab!

Having talked about the extinction of the dinosaurs and the asteroid, we investigated how impact craters were made. We looked at some craters that you can see on the Earth and looked at the moon’s surface. Our idea was that the bigger craters were caused by bigger asteroids so we tested this out with a variety of balls, marbles and rocks. We also changed the angle of impact to see what difference this made.

We loved having the museum visit and learning about dinosaurs!

Posted on

Harvest Topic

P45 have been doing an IDL this term on harvest.  We looked at harvest from the land and the sea.  We made mini carrot cakes using local carrots, we used the graters and peelers safely and responsibly. 🥕 🥕🧅We are learning to use different cooking skills, and we explored two different methods of cutting using a knife. We made soup using a lot of local produce, grown in Port Ellen.

The children met Fiona from Islay Natural Heritage Trust who helped us forage for seaweed in our local environment. We found lots of seaweed and used a key to identify the species. We then learnt that you can cook using lots of different types of seaweed and we made Carrageen pudding, the seaweed made it go really thick, like jelly! lots of use tried our pudding and some fried seaweed, there were mixed reviews!

🤿 Gordon visited us to talk to use about diving around Islay and Jura for scallops. We learnt about what we can harvest from the Sea. Gordon showed us his diving equipment and even allowed us to have a shot of his goggles!🦞We also tasted a range of produce that is harvested from the sea around Islay. We tasted mackerel pate, scallops and lobster. Laurie’s Dad kindly allowed us to see a lobster that he caught in his fishing boat. Laurie showed the class and talked about what his Dad catches and how the boat catches different shellfish. 🦞After tasting we voted on our favourite food and created bar charts to display our findings.

The children worked hard to create lovely invitations inviting parents to our Harvest Lunch on Wednesday 2nd October and we even wrote our own prayer.  Our invited guests, which included the OAP lunch club, came along to eat the lovely soup and crumble we had prepared with local ingredients.  All the classes performed for them and a great time was had by all!

Posted on

Titanic!

P5 have been learning about the Titanic for their topic this term.  We went to the beach to observe boats by the peer. As we study the Titanic, we tried looking at how we might use perspective to help us draw a boat.  Then we went back in time to try and get a better understanding of what it would have been like to be a passenger on the Titanic.  We listened to a survivors story… it is so interesting! Finally the children braved the weather to set their Titanic models free into the sea. Some were slightly more successful at sailing than others… Everyone got soaked but it was so much fun!

Posted on

Trip to Bridgend Woods

P12 from across the island had a literacy filled trip to Bridgend Woods. What an adventure they had! We loved our trip on the big bus, even if it was a little cosy, meeting all our new friends from across the island and having our yummy packed lunches too! Our focus today was ‘Room on the Broom’ and we began by listening to the story in English and Gaelic. We had a witches cauldron to make s’mores, we had to help find all the characters in the story using a map, scavenge for things in a hunt and even made magic wands too!

 

Posted on

Kildalton Trip

Monday the second of September 2024

We visited Kildalton cross with a few more people following which are 2 people from a computer science university named Saint Andrews and a person from Islay museum.

We and the scientists visited the Kildalton cross because of a school trip to investigate the cross because a fungus called lichen was eating away the carvings of the cross, that was made in the 8th century. The cross is about Christianity and had carvings about a lady holding a baby and had more cravings which looked really interesting which people think is Jesus.

We were split up into groups for different things like, making a little clip about Kildalton, taking photos, drawing anything at the place and 360 degree photo which was really fun because we had to hide from the camera when it takes a photo. After everyone finished each group we went back to the school a few kids that was: Hannah, Brody, Ella and Freddy. Went to take more 360 photos around the school, but unfortunately we couldn’t do much pictures outside because it was raining. But we still had fun! And that’s the end of our amazing and interesting trip Kildalton trip! Hope you enjoyed reading this!

 

 

Posted on

The Book Festival

It was a normal day in Port Ellen primary but then Nadine Aisha Jassat came in to speak to us, she was speaking about her stories and how every story had a bit of her in them. 

She also said how her parents met, one lived in Africa and one in the UK and they met because both went on a trip to the same place. 

At some point we got to say story name ideas to go on the board then she asked people to come up and one person would say a part of the story the next person would say the next.  She did a thing where she would pick a random story and that was the one they would make up, the story name chosen was the mystery of the mountain, they made it about a tree house on the mountain. 

Then we did a poem thing where we had to say positive things to put in a poem, it went like this “We are here for you, you are always so good at everything you do, so go out and do your best.” 

At the end she sold some of her books that were signed by her.   She was fantastic!

Posted on

Glasgow Warriors Rugby

On August  the 28th P5,6,7  went to Bowmore football pitch and played rugby with 4 people from Glasgow Warriors. We played a passing game  and after we passed to 4 different people and then make a Pyramid and we had to make it 3 people then 4 and so on and so on  .Then we played a wee game of touch rugby. There were 3 teams blue, orange and non bibs and we had to try and score a tri at the other side of the pitch. We also played a skills game and had to circle the ball around our back as much times as we can, and had to put it through our legs in a figure of eight. At the end we all felt exited because they said they would sign out shirts and it was really good and I would recommend it to people who like different sports and being outside doing sports.

 

Posted on

Saint Phnx

On Friday the 22nd of August we visited Bowmore high school and met Saint Phoenix. Saint Phoenix was a band of two men who sang the song happy place. All of Primary 5 and upwards from Port Ellen, Port Charlotte and Bowmore primary came with us. P56s went on the Mundell bus while P 7s went on the mini bus that we use for the school bus. They showed us how to practice our vocals and it goes like “mmm” they also showed us some exercises they do like wiggles and wobbles! Their icon was a blue feather and they told us a story about why they choose a blue feather as there logo. The story was, he was scrolling through TikTok at night because he couldn’t get to sleep but he found this video about a blue feather and he watched it and it was quite interesting and it made him fall asleep. as he woke up to go to work he told his wife about the video his wife didn’t really believe it but when he went out the front door, she shouted stop to him so looked around and when he looked down he saw a blue feather and that’s how it started! After that they played us their song happy place.  It was really helpful.

Posted on

Port Ellen Primary School’s Endeavour Fair

On the 17th of June Port Ellen held their Endeavour Fair. The Endeavour Fair showcases everyone’s endeavors, from healthy tuck to a guideline on paddle boarding safety. This fair is held every year with primary six and seven in the hall and all of the other classes showing their work in their class rooms.

Endeavor is a personal project that we do every year, where you pick a topic to research and to produce something at the end that’s physical not just a power point, or presentation. Every single class takes part in endeavour, from primary one to seven. At the endeavour fair, you are expected to have a main thing that you have done, like something to sell or to showcase that has been your focus. You should also be able to answer some simple questions and know about the history of what you are studying. Say your endeavour was hatching and raising chickens, you would need to know about different breeds of chicken, the rarest and most popular chickens and maybe even about the native breeds of chicken.

Some examples of Endeavour in P67 were Hydraulics-building of hydraulic bridges and a website, Coopering- making crafts from whisky barrels and learning how to be a cooper, Bird and Bat Boxes- making them to sell and finally creating a school newspaper.

In P12 we had a pancake palace, an ice cream stall, all about the Titanic and Tree frogs.  In P34 we had baking, squirrels and bath bombs.  In P45 we had sewing cushions, digital art and a nail salon.

Lots of enterprising Endeavours throughout the whole school!

Posted on

ENDEAVOUR HEALTHY TUCK

Hi, my Endeavour is healthy tuck which is learning how to make healthy food and what healthy food is. In the end of Endeavour I would like know how to know different recipes off by heart.

Healthy baking is when you do your normal baking but adding some health to it to make it healthy. Maybe put a piece of fruit into it. For example, banana muffins, it’s making normal bread but mushing bananas and adding them in.

I am raising money for breakfast club which is a club that starts at 8:30 every Wednesday, anyone in school can come. We get all different things like toast, cereal, scrambled eggs on toast and sometimes even waffles!

Posted on

Animation

My Endeavour is stop motion animation. Stop motion is just one of the many ways of animation. My favorite part of it is seeing all of the pictures go together to make one animation. I chose stop motion because I saw a lot of stop motions and that made me want to make one. To make a stop motion you would need phone, camera or  iPad and  puppets or Lego.

 

Posted on

COOPERING ENDEAVOUR

On the April 15th we started our Endeavour endeavor is when you get to pick your own mini topic  and It is challenging and it has to be learning you don’t know a lot of and you want to learn. Mine is coopering if you don’t know coopering is making whisky barrels.

I got to go on a trip to Bowmore Distillery and I got to learn about all the different tools the coopers use I also made my own cask. I also sent a letter to my uncle peter who is a cooper and to a coopering place in England. But since coopering Is quite dangerous I had to fill in a risk assessment. I have got a Website and I made stuff from barrels like candle holders which I’m going to sell. I picked this because I was interested in How barrels where made.

Here is a link to the website I made.

Posted on

My Endeavour

On April the fifteenth we started a project called Endeavour. It is a project that we do every year in school you pick it on your own. It needs to be ambitious related to the world of work and and you need to know new learning (something you didn’t know before).

My Endeavour is bird and bat boxes the first thing that you needed to do was if it is something dangerous like drilling and sawing you would need to do a risk assessment. Then you would start off your plans and create a proto type . After that you could actually start to build the bird and bat boxes the best thing about this Endeavour is that you can easily do it from home. I have also created a power point and a poster.

Posted on

Paddle Boarding- Ayla Denby

Hi my name is Ayla and my Endeavor is paddle boarding and so that means that I take photos when I am on the paddle board and make them into a video.  I get taken out of school by my mum to take photos for my video. i also have a sway and a trip to Texa.

I have contacted the life guard and they came on our health day and I will be doing paddle boarding safety with the whole school.

Posted on

Chicken Endeavour

This year we started Endeavour, it is a independent project where you get to choose a subject to focus on and at the end we have to review it.

My Endeavour is all about chickens, I am going to be making a chicken coop, and I have already hatched chickens, polish ones which are so cute, there is also a black one which is growing really fast, it’s the biggest one.

At the end of Endeavour we have a fair, it is where everyone has a table and we get all the parents/family to come into school and we show them all of the work we have done for our Endeavour.

 

Posted on

Zero Waste Fashion Show P34

 

Recycled Couture at Port Ellen

P3/4 in Port Ellen Primary recently put on a fashion show to highlight the issue of clothes waste. They have been learning about where their clothes come from and what happens to them after they are outgrown.  The children were shocked to learn how much clothing goes to landfill each year and how some designer labels end up being burned. They watched an inspiring video about a New York design label called Zero Waste Daniel that reuses left over scraps from the fashion industry to make unique items. The children brought in lots of old clothes and they designed and made new items of clothing that they modelled brilliantly at the Green Ninja Fashion Show, to parents and members of the community who had helped out teaching sewing skills.

Niamh Dunn, P3, writes..

Have you ever thought about the clothes you throw away? Did you know that 300,000 tonnes goes to landfill every year! Some people just bin their clothes when one button falls off and don’t bother to repair them! That is horrible so we need to do something about it!

It is bad for the environment because it releases toxic gas and can get into the water and harm the wildlife and the world. It also uses lots of the world’s resources.

Everyone can try to stop wasting beautiful clothes. Everyone can help. You could recycle your old clothes or repair broken ones, don’t just bin them!

Finn Shakespeare, P3, writes..

Have you ever through about the clothes that go to landfill? The average person in the UK spends £980 every year on clothes but 7kg of clothes waste per year goes to landfill! That is crazy so we need to do something to stop this!

It is bad for the environment because it releases bad gas and uses lots of resources. Some clothes get burned or get buried. Is that all we can do! We can do better.

Don’t just bin your jumper if one button falls off. Repair it! Another thing you can so is recycle at the clothes bank.

Posted on

P12 are Pirates for the Day

Well me hearties, what a day we did have!! Today we learnt to be pirates, we dressed the part, found buried messages in bottles, used maps, followed and created instructions and problems solved to find the hidden treasure! Well done boys and girls, we hope you had a super day! A special thank you to The Copper Still Coffee for being awesome and providing us with our treasure! All part of our explorers topic!

Posted on

Solar Punk Outdoors

P67 have been involved in an Education IDL pilot called Solar Punk this term. THE PROJECT-A challenge to design and brand your unique neighbourhood on an island that is based on the principles of the 15 minute neighbourhood rules and Solarpunk movement.

The children became passengers on a shipwrecked boat and had to work together to create Solar Punk Island, turning a section of the island into their own habitat based on ideas of sustainability.

They created designs for architecture, built renewable devices, learned to filter water, made gardens and spent a day practicing skills in the woods and the beach.  See the video:

 

 

Report a Glow concern
Cookie policy  Privacy policy