Category: Partnerships

Working with others in the wider community

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School Trip to the Isle of Jura!

On the 14th of September we went on a school trip. We went on The Banana Bus and headed to Kennacraig. As we were waiting for the ferry, we all got out of the car and had a bit of HIIT. With a cool breeze on our faces, we done squats and lunges, which was great fun. When we were on the ferry it was so beautiful, there were dark blue wavy waters, with fish all around. With a bump, we arrived at the pier. It was so fun driving with all the big bumps of the road and the massive stag everywhere. 

When we arrived at the town, the sun was shining like a fireball in the sky trying to set us on fire. When we arrived at Small Isles Primary School, they showed us where to put our stuff and where the classroom was. When we got in, we got to choose where to sit, and they were so kind they even gave up their seats for us to sit in. Not a big class, but they were all so kind. We decided to play a game… It was where you had to walk around the class and when the music stopped you had to turn around and the person beside you must tell you their name and then three facts about themselves (and vice versa). After we done that, we got into our groups that were on the board. The people in my group from the different school were: Grace and Shein. They were kind and had a lot in common with me. Shein was the same age as me and Grace was a year younger than me. We made a hilarious team name; can you guess what it was… THE GREESY BESTIES! Thirdly, we done a team quiz all about climate change and children’s rights. After that, we done a thing where we had to produce ideas to become eco-friendly. Each group produced two ideas to write to the government or Jenni Minto. We all had great ideas. Then for the main event… drum roll please! THE BEACH. We all went for a lovely walk to the beautiful beach. We all sat down and then we heard the teacher shout “The Greesy Besties please come and line up for ice cream,” a smile showed up on our whole team’s faces. We all got our ice cream and went to sit on the beach side. 

We arrived at Jura at about 10:30. It was a fun journey, and we enjoyed it. 

The school was in the middle of Jura, which was a beautiful place. 

Overall, we all had a blast and would absolutely love to go back to the Isle of Jura. 

Rachel Heads 

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Lari Don P4 to 7 Google Meet

On the Thursday 7th of September 2023 primary’s 4, 5, 6 and 7 had a google meet in the primary 6,7 class room with Lari Don. In the meet they discussed writing books, her style of writing and much more! She read the children a small section of her book Storm Singing and a bit of her favorite fairy tale about a welsh monster. She did the meet for the Islay book festival.

Lari Don is a wonderful author who has written book for all ages here is the blurb of one of her most popular books First Aid for Fairy’s and Other Fabled Beasts.

Helen has absolutely no interest in becoming a vet like her mother she wants to become a musician. So she isn’t the best pleased when asked to help an injured horse. Only this isn’t a horse rather a centor. Helen is thrust into an extraordinary full of mythical beasts and fabled creatures.

Here is a link to Lari Dons website.

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The One Show In Port Ellen

The One Show came to film our school because we had won the Pearson National Teaching award for Primary School of the Year.  P5/6/7 were filmed at the woods where we got to do  special activities like orienteering.

We arrived at the woods and got sorted into our clans the clans were MacDonald clan, MacLeod clan, MacKinnon clan and Macrae clan.  Each clan had a teacher and when we went to get the orienteering flag and bring back the answer  from the flag and give it to the teacher the answers were all in Gaelic the clans were split into two groups one group would find the colour one group would find the object.  We thought that going to the woods was really fun.

In the woods we were lighting a fire to cook bread on a willow stick. But we needed to whittle the stick to get the bark off the stick. Then we had to sterilize the stick in the fire and then we put bread dough to cook it over the fire. Then we ate the bread and it was really delicious.  After we got to try light the Kelly kettle with Mrs. Hannett. AND WAS REALLY FUN.

While we were in the woods part of the film crew were in the school filming the other classes do their activities like doing the beach clean.

Once the P567s came back from the woods, we had to get changed a quick as possible because there was a big surprise in the hall.

Once we sat down, we all got ready for the big surprise- We had won the Primary School of the year award!!!  Then Joe (the tv presenter) said that he brought the choir back together without us knowing. The P3 and P4 were practicing their song S’ann an Ilè. But when they performed it, they did it with Skipinnish!

It felt amazing that Skipinnish were here! They sang songs like Walking on the waves. It was so cool! We Thought that it was amazing seeing them that some of us got our t-shirt or jumper signed.  We are really proud of winning the award and had great fun with the One Show!

By James Norwood and Brody Shakespeare.

 

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Carpet Bowls

Every Thursday we go the Ramsey hall to do carpet bowls with Ms Brown the people who teach us are Eddie and Terry. There are two carpet and four people per carpet and two people in a team.

Last week we had point sheets to keep track of our score and see who wins we play five rounds per team. there is a white thing in the middle you have to get past and if you hit it your bowl is out. When you get it past you have to make it in a square box on the carpet. There is a big circle and a small one you always need to have the small one in the inside of the ball. When someone is playing and you aren’t playing you can do a job which if it goes out you can get it and put the white thing back in place. Thank you south Islay development for sponsoring us to play carpet bowls.

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Bee Learning in P12

As part of our biodiversity topic we have been learning all about bees in P12.  Bees are very important to keep our world healthy as they pollinate all the plants we eat.  Fiona from the Islay Natural History Trust came in and told us all about bees and how they live and make honey.  We also had a visit from Jacob in primary 5 who is doing Beekeeping for his Endeavour topic and showed us his Bee suit and model hive he made with his Papa.  We now know lots about bees!

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Our Glenastle Distillery

In school we have been making distillery’s.  My distillery group was called Glenastle.  The different jobs are; manager which is William; casks and ageing which is Jack; Jacob is the still man and Teddy is the malting and peat. Our distillery  its sited on Glenastle because there is 2 locks for water and the bottle is like a triangle shape so it can be packaged easy. The disadvantages is the roads  are dirt tracks and the ground is not level so you have to level it or the distillery will be squint.  We designed our own drinks and made the distilleries as models.  We will be presenting to parents so they can see what we have learned.

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Bottle Rockets

Last week students from the University of Exeter Engineering department came to our school and made bottle rockets with us. We had to design and make the fins and decorations on our rockets so they would fly straight. We went outside to launch them. They launched ours and it went flying and almost went in the field.   The one that went the furthest had a lego figure attached called Dave!  Thanks Exeter University for coming and visiting us.

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Trèoir

This year three people called Amy, Gyles and Lynn came in to do Trèoir with us.  This is a project that involves art, music and Gaelic.

To start off we got into a circle in the hall and we all said our names in Gaelic.  My name in Gaelic in Seamus. Then Jyles made a rap song about three deer sitting on a fence trying to make 1 pound out of 85 pence. That was for music.

Then we had to paint pictures of things we see in everyday life like trees, flowers and clouds. We had to draw and paint a tree with a bench and a bush. It also had to be 3D.

Then finally we had to make our own sentence about our picture with a mixture of Gaelic words and English words.  I have enjoyed learning in Gaelic.

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Biodiversity IDL

This morning P12 started our new IDL topic of biodiversity. We joined lots of schools across the UK to meet with Keeping Scotland Beautiful, The National Book Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. We found out about the importance of food chains and how all species rely on each other, we got to meet the endangered Pine Hoverflys and Wolves at The Highland Wildlife Park and meet with author Gill Lewis to talk about some of her books which are about how humans and animals can work together to make a difference.

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Library Van

We visited the library’s van this morning, this will be our last visit this term. We have really enjoyed going and choosing our own books. We know we must look after the books and return them for others to use. We are learning that there are people in our community that can help us and we must take care of the books as they don’t belong to us and will be shared with others.  We will continue to visit the library van and also learn more about our community and who can help us.

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Primary 1 and 2 Trip To Bruichladdich

Well what an amazing day we have had! We left school and took the big new bus to Bruichladdich distillery where we went on a tour with Lesley who taught us all about the whisky process. After that we went back to the shop and met Kate and James who are the foragers for The Botanist. They told us all about their jobs and let us make our own bases for gin. Then we headed to the brand room to meet Adam and Julie. Adam told us about his job making the whiskey for Bruichladdich and answered our tricky questions and Julie helped us realise that the things we enjoy doing provide us with skills which we could apply to jobs when we are older. We then headed down to Port Mor for our lunch where Basia, Eilidh and Ranga had been busy making us cakes for our pudding. Luckily it didn’t rain so we got to have a good run about in the park before heading to the museum of Islay Life. It was tiring so some of us had a wee snooze on the way home! The children were superb today, fantastic behaviour, awesome questions and good listening! Well done P1/2!

 

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Beach Clean 2019

On Thursday 21st March the whole of Port Ellen Primary School went down to the co-op beach for a beach clean.  There was also people from high school to help, they where the John Muir group, and also ReJIG.  Before everyone went we got put into groups of 5. There was 10 groups. I got paired with Chloe, Katy, Christopher and Phoenix.  P67 had created a survey so we could find out what the different types of plastic were that we foundon the beach.  There were lots of small bits of plastic between 2.5 and 50cm long, but the biggest plastic pollutant was ropes and nets from fishing boats.  You can see the results in the graph below.  We collected 2 bags full of rubbish, lots of it was plastic. Altogether the school got 900 bits of plastic rubbish off the shore. When we left all the beach had was sand and seaweed.

 

 

 

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Building Together

  

Thanks to all parents and community members who came along to our Community Open Afternoon to celebrate the end of our year-long Rolls-Royce project and share with the children all the fantastic learning that had taken place.  Comments we received were all very positive about the experience and impact on children’s learning.  It was lovely to see children and parents building together and having just as much fun!  Happy engineering!

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P1/2/3 Renewables Trip

  

On 23rd May P1/2/3 went on a trip to see the different renewables being used in Islay.  First we went to Dunlossit Estate where David Gillies showed us the biomass boiler and we saw that the store where all the wood chips were stored was like a giant slushy machine.  Then we went to Ballygrant to see the hydro power station…it fitted inside a shed!  Finally George Dean took us to the wind turbine and we got to go inside it.  All were very intrigued by the upside down computer.  Thanks to David and George for a great day.

  

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Nicola Davies Visit

Yesterday Nicola Davies came in to talk with us about her books as part of the Scottish Book Trust 20th Anniversary Tour.  She has mostly based her stories with animals in them because before she was an author she was a zoologist and there was a book that she was telling us about and it was about a boy that got his arm pulled of  by a lion, it’s name was The Lion Who Stole My Arm. The  real story that it was based on was about a 5 year old boy who got attacked by a lion and even though his arm didn’t come off he had to get it amputated because the attack was so bad. She was also telling us about animals that she was looking at such as: lionesses, humpback whales etc. When she was talking to us about the humpback whales she noticed when she was studying them that mostly every day and hour of the day the whales would eat then eat then eat again. Also to have a little fun we learned how to sing like a whale.  Nicola Davies also wrote a climate change book called Gaiya and because we are doing climate change as one of out topics that was very interesting. We also wrote climate change poems. We have been researching a lot of different facts and effects that climate change has on the world. We could either write a kenning, a haiku or a free verse poem.  We thought that the visit as very exciting learning about lots of different animals.

By Rebecca and Rowan

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All about life in Tanzania

P1/2/3 really enjoyed Evie’s mum coming to visit the class to tell them all about life in rural Tanzania where she lived.  She explained all about the Masai, showing them some lovely fabrics.  She also told them how resourceful Tanzanian people are reusing and recycling things – making bags out of bottle tops and sandals out of car tyres.  Thanks you Mrs Wood!

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Fairytale Engineering

P1/2/3 joined P1/2/3 from Bowmore Primary and P1-4 from Port Charlotte Primary for some engineering challenges based on the fairytale Rapunzel.  After a quick recap of the story, they used cocktail sticks and mini marshmallows to try and built the tallest tower that they could.  Then they had to design and build ways to help the Rapunzel to escape from the tall tower.  There were lots of ingenious designs – here is one of the ladders.

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Let’s Roll Engineering

 

P6 worked in groups with P5s and P6s from the other primary schools to hone their engineering skills.  We talked about the range of engineers and the engineering process and how engineers continually have to assess their designs and improve on them.  The children were given the challenge of building a roller coaster and then a marble run.

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Disaster Engineering

 

P4/5 got together with P4/5 from Bowmore Primary for some engineering challenges based on disasters.  The children learned about the range of different engineers and how their problem solving abilities really come in to their own is disaster situations.  First the children had to design a collapsible, portable stretcher to transport a patient (potato) to hospital.  They then learned about the hurricane which resulted in the air traffic control tower being destroyed and having to be quickly rebuilt to allow aircraft in with aid and other supplies.  They had to build a tower of at least 30cm which would support a tennis ball in a simulated hurricane.

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Trip to the Museum

P1/2/3 had a wonderful trip to the Museum of Islay Life in Port Charlotte to find out what life was like 100 years ago.  They were fascinated by the chamber pot and the fact that people had to go outside to the toilet! P1/2/3 have been learning about school long ago.  They have discovered that there used to be many more schools in Islay and that teachers were much stricter! We saw the old teachers high desk and the wooden child’s desk at the museum together with the ink pots and slates that children would have used a century ago.  This is part of island-wide history learning associated with the WW1 commemorations.  We also found out about a schoolgirl from Port Ellen that gave an her account of what happened in the village following the sinking of the Tuscania.  Old log books have given a poignant insight into that time. Thanks to Jenny Minto for a great visit.

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RSPB Visitor

During a recent joint session with P1/2 and Pre-5 children we were delighted to welcome David Wood in to talk to the children.  This coincided with Springwatch and we all watched part of the programme showing the golden eagles on Islay.  The children were shown the model of the eagle to demonstrate the wingspan and then  some of the Primary 1 children made their own scaled eagle.

David then helped the children to build a hide in preparation for taking part in the Big School Birdwatch.

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WW100 Visitors

 

On Thursday 25th January Jenni and Stuart from the Islay Museum came to Port Ellen Primary school to talk about WW100 on Islay.  This is so we can get information about WW1 on Islay and what happened here during the war. They told us about the Tuscania, which was torpedoed by a submarine in 1918 and it sank off the coast of Islay, but some the survivors came ashore in lifeboats or were wrecked in the rocks and people on Islay helped to save them and also to bury the dead.  Two brothers came down from their farm house and saved some people and gave them their home, and some poeple baked scones.  It is amazing to think this all happened 100 years ago on February 5th.  I am looking forward to finding out more about Islay at this time.

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10th Anniversary Burn’s Ceilidh

On  Friday 26th of January Port Ellen primary school had our 10th anniversary Burns Celidh.  We had loads of people from the community coming to join us and we all had great fun.  We had all learned different Scots poems for the poetry competition and the judges came in to hear us read them before we all went to lunch.  At lunch the Primary 7s said their poem,  Address to the Haggis over the haggis and Lauren got to cut the haggis open.  After lunch we went to the hall to celebrate with our family and friends.  We did lots of Scottish Country dancing;  my favourite was the Virginia reel.  We also heard people play their musical instruments; Rowan and Rebecca did a duet on the accordian and tin whistle.    All the winners of the poems read them out:  P1 was Rachael, P2 was Chloe, P3 was Mya, P4 was Kayla, P5 was Dearbhla, P6 was Aidan and P7 was Rowan.  We all had a great time and enjoyed tea and shortbread made by Mrs Holyoke afterwards.  Thanks to everyone who came along.

Listen to two of our poems below:

 

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December Diary

Panto fever has hit Port Ellen as we have been preparing for our whole school pantomime which takes place every two years.  We have also been organising the Christmas Fair, our main fundraiser, and P1/2/3 are preparing for their Nativity. Meanwhile, our Rolls-Royce journey continues….

Statoil Young Imagineers Finalist

As a result of our engineering project, we had a finalist in the national Young Imagineers competition run by Statoil.  Sarah, from P6/7, invented a device that would save sheep stuck on their backs by making a scary sound and getting them to turn over.  Her device was made into a prototype and she had to present it at the final in London at the Science Museum.  Everyone is very proud of her achievement. Sarah says she is much more confident now about talking about engineering after presenting in front of a large audience, and she is inspired to take up engineering when she grows up.

YOUNG IMAGINEERING

 

Switch Off Fortnight

Continuing their learning about energy in Term1, Kate Brown’s class (P4/5) decided to try and encourage everyone to use less energy in school and at home. The children were quite shocked at how much electricity an electric shower uses and from looking at energy use they decided to make others understand this and think about saving energy, electricity in particular. So they joined the National “Switch Off Fortnight” and made information posters for the local community and home. This campaign was so successful that this week they are keen to spend part of the Christmas Disco without lights and use alternative sources instead…..glow sticks are at the ready!

 

Introducing Renewables

This month Primary 6/7 have been working hard on researching renewable and non renewable sources of energy with Jo Clark.  They wanted to know what energy sources are used in Scotland and the implications for the environment.  Using One note they researched online and then used the notes to create posters, blogs and Sways.  They debated in class the various types of energy source and chose the ones they thought were best, and wrote a discursive essay on renewable energy.  In maths they looked at data produced by the Scottish Government on Energy use in Scotland and then analysed, interpreted and drew conclusions from it as part of a holistic assessment. Finally, they came up with pledges of what they could do themselves to reduce energy consumption.

Meanwhile, in P4/5 with Kate Brown, the children have been learning about wind power as there is a tall wind turbine outside the village. The children know that wind is sustainable and they made their own pinwheels to record the wind direction/wind strength associated with the speed of the wheel which led to discussions about what happens to wind turbines when there is no wind, and how strong winds here in Islay can be used to generate electricity. They then worked in groups to complete the Wind Turbine Challenge from the STEM website. The aim was to create a fair test to try to make a turbine that could raise a cup from the floor using a hairdryer. Charlet said, “Our group all had roles and Rhuraidh was the engineer. He designed a turbine but the rest of us felt there was not enough detail to make the model and so Caitidh, our artist, added more. Then we used card for the blades and a pencil for the shaft. At first we taped the shaft to the desk but it wouldn’t go round so we fixed that problem by putting card over the pencil loosely so it could turn. Sadly, our Turbine only lifted the cup a little bit but did manage when we gave it a bit of a hand.  Next time we would change the size and shape of the blades and also use stronger wind power”

Next term George Dean will be helping us to organise visits to the Islay wind turbine and other sites that generate or use renewable energy on Islay.

Learning how Energy impacts on the Environment

In P1/2/3 Maggie Harrison has been using a story called Who will Save Us? to introduce the concept of global warming.  All the children have been really engaged with learning all about the Antarctic and the penguins who live there and then how global warming might cause the ice to melt and affect not only penguins but other animals and people in different parts of the world too.  Iona made this fantastic poster and she said that she ‘didn’t like the bad gas getting stuck in the earth’s blanket and that we should save the penguins and polar bears!’

Engineering in Pre-School

Joint sessions of structured play have started with the nursery and P1/2 – these will continue on a weekly basis from now until the end of the session. Maggie Harrison and Alison Logan are working together to plan how to incorporate the development of engineering thinking into these, although with new giant wooden blocks and the KNEX purchased the children are building some amazing structures.

Maureen MacDonald and Maggie Harrison have had meetings with Headteachers from the other primary schools in Islay and Jura to see how they can be involved in our Rolls-Royce project next term.  Following the school being awarded a Digital Schools Award, the first school in Argyll & Bute to do so, Jo Clark was also interviewed with regards to a national website wanting to develop engineering skills across schools in the UK for the 2018 Year of Engineering.

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We Became A Digital School

Our school has just achieved digital school status through the Digital Schools Scotland Awards Scheme.  To achieve this we had to review our approach to technology in school and have our work validated.  We spoke to a lady called Jen Mackay using Glow Meet, and she asked us questions like what technology have you been using in school.  We are the first school in the whole of Argyll to win this award and the first to do it via Glow.  Jen MacKay said that we were very good at telling her what technology we use in school and what we use it for. We use Glow for writing essays and homework and also for writing blogs on our website and our learning blog.  We use Classdojo so that if we needed to bring in something to school like a packed lunch for a school trip Mrs Clark can message our mum or dad, we also use Excel to work out points for our houses.  Sumdog Maths is really helpful for us too and we also use Nessy to help us with our spelling skills.

So that is how we became a digital school.

By Abi Logan

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BLYTHESWOOD SHOE BOXES

Last Thursday the school asked us to take in shoe boxes filled with Christmas goodies to go to people on the other side of the world. They could go for old people , young people and babies and they are for those people who don’t have anything like us. This year our school put in 24 shoe boxes for those people around the world. Why do we put shoe boxes in? So that other people around the world can have new Clothes, Shoes, Toothbrush, Toothpaste, Hats, Scarves, Gloves, Shampoo, Body Wash and sweets. You aren’t allowed to put Chocolate and water into the box.  The project is run by the Blytheswood Trust.

By Charlie

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