Primary School of the Year 2022
P12 news
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.
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.
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.
Renewables Engineering Islay – November Diary
Mentor Visit
We were all delighted to welcome Neil Chattle from Rolls-Royce to the school at the end of October. He spent time getting to know the team and having a tour of the school. He gave a presentation to the children in the afternoon and they had an opportunity to see some of the materials and parts that make up a Rolls-Royce jet engine. We were all amazed that the cooling mechanism allows the engine to operate above it’s melting point and that it would be capable of preventing an ice cube melting in a hot oven! Clever engineering indeed! Neil introduced the children to the Bloodhound SSC. Working in teams, the children then built model Bloodhounds powered by balloons and had a great afternoon trying to refine them to make them go faster. Coincidentally, Neil’s visit was the day before the first public test run of the Bloodhound in Newquay, Cornwall…..so the whole school watched as the car made 210mph. We will follow Bloodhound’s progress with interest.
Children as Leaders
Following leadership training, P6/7 children have been encouraged to set up clubs for younger pupils so we now have a KNEX Club and a Lego Club, in addition to the usual football, table tennis and dance clubs. Maureen MacDonald, Headteacher, encourages us to promote leadership at all levels within the school. The clubs have been really well attended and we used some of the funding to purchase new KNEX and Lego material for them. Dearbhla says that ‘KNEX club is really fun because you make something new every time and I am learning new skills to make cubes that are really tricky.’ Donald, who runs the Lego Club said that “We are encouraging children to use their imagination and be creative with the Lego.” Charlie is promoting teamwork by asking children to build small components of bigger models.
After-School Clubs
We have started an after-school club for children from P4-7, supervised by Jo Clark. Again there has been lots of interest in this and we are lucky to have the support of two senior pupils from Islay High School – Young STEM Ambassadors – to help us. It’s great to have these young women to be positive role models for girls in the primary school. They have been giving children open-ended problem solving tasks where children have had to work together to solve a problem. Last week they were engineering a carrier to transport a ping pong ball down a zip-wire.
Tomorrow’s Engineers Week
Throughout the school we are continuing to promote engineering and develop engineering habits of mind. As a school we engaged with Tomorrow’s Engineers Week. Jo Clark and P6/7 found out about sustainable engineering and the 6Rs – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refuse, Rethink and Repair – to appreciate that the environment needs to be considered alongside any engineering solution and that any design needs to be both efficient and sustainable in terms of the environment. Matthew Campbell says ‘We had to rank the 6Rs in order – I thought that reuse was the best one because things can be used many times are best for the environment.” They were tasked with building a “Helping Hand Grabber’ which had to have a reach of 1m. In Kate Brown’s P4/5 class the children looked at different types of bridge design. They then worked in groups to build some fantastic bridges. Already Kate could see progress in her children from the initial bridges that were built on the baseline build. In P1/2/3 Maggie Harrison invited parents in to join their children doing an engineering challenge – design and build a chair for baby bear, who had cruelly had his chair ruined when Goldilocks visited. Alison Logan and all the children in the Nursery have been making the most of the new resources we have bought for them – Kids KNEX and stories like Rosie Revere, Engineer. This week we are starting our joint sessions – structured play for pre-5 children and P1 and P2 together. Maggie and Alison will be working together on this; once the children are settled into this new routine this will be an ideal opportunity to share practice in developing engineering skills.
Thinking about Energy
Meanwhile the whole school are continuing to think about how we use energy in our school and in our lives. Our new Eco-monitors are being vigilant about switching off lights and George Dean from the Islay Energy Trust is going to get the school some energy meters. The Islay Energy Trust is a community-owned charity. Its aims are to develop and operate renewable energy projects for the benefit of the community, and to reduce the island’s carbon footprint. George will be supporting us with this project, organizing site visits for children and putting us in contact with different renewables companies that are looking to operate locally. P4/5 are busy organizing activities for Switch Off fortnight – more news to follow. In all the classes we have started looking at the effect that our energy use has on the planet and this will be our focus for the rest of this term. Maureen MacDonald and Maggie Harrison have met the Parent Council and are promoting the project more widely in the community.
As part of Tomorrow’s Engineers week mums, dads and grans came in to help P1/2/3 with an engineering challenge. The problem was that Goldilocks had broken Baby Bear’s chair and so when Mummy Bear made him some more porridge there was nowhere for him to sit. A great afternoon was had by all and we had some interesting designs. At the end of the afternoon Baby Bear tested out all the chairs; they had to stay standing for 10 seconds. Thanks to everyone who came along to help us.
In school this week the whole of the school is doing a topic called Tomorrows Engineers. In p1/2/3 they have been getting their parents in to help them make their models which were chairs. In p4/5 they have been making fabulous bridges some are small and some big. In p6/7 we have been making grabbers to pick up something.
Here is one of p6/7’s grabbers:
Here is one of p4/5’s bridges:
Here is one of p1/2/3’s chairs:
By Abi Logan
A big part of our Rolls-Royce Science Prize project this year is developing engineering skills and encouraging children to think like engineers. Our first challenge was to build a bridge with a span of 30cm that could support a plastic cup which would then have weights added. To make it even more tricky there was a strict time limit! In P1/2/3 the winning bridge held 20 marbles!!
New P1’s invited mums, dads and grans to come in and join them for lunch. An enjoyable lunch was had by all!
P1/2/3 have been learning all about energy. They have explored lots of different toys, old and new, to see what they do and thought about what makes them go. They have discovered that toys can move, make sounds and light and that all of this is produced by putting energy into the toys – from electricity, by pushing, pulling and twisting. The children were amazed to see the liquid move when it was heated with your hand. Learning about energy is part of our Rolls-Royce Science Prize project for this year.
As part of our Transport topic, P1/2/3 wanted to find out all about cars, how they worked and what made cars go faster. So they wrote to Dugald McKerral and went on a trip to the garage. They saw a car up on the hydraulic ramp and could see the wheel axels and the chassis that they had learned about in class. Lots of interesting questions were asked and we are going back to class to find out more about pistons. This learning ties in really well with the Rolls-Royce Science Prize.
As part of our Transport topic, P1/2/3 have been learning about boats, what makes them float and then designing and building their own. We have also learned that engineers design boats and more about the design process – tying in well with our Rolls-Royce Science Prize project for the year.
As part of our transport topic, P1/2/3 wanted to find out about wheels. They found lots of tyres out in the garden and checked out wheels on cars in the car park and bikes in school. They found out that wheels are attached to axels and have written to Mr MacKerrell at the garage to see if they can find out more about how cars work.
P1/2/3 have been wondering about engineering and what engineers do? Evie (P1) thinks that engineers ‘fix cars’ and are ‘always men but sometimes ladies’ while Iona in P2 thinks engineers can be ‘boys and girls’ and that engineers make boats.
We asked these questions as part of a baseline assessment for the Rolls-Royce Science Prize. We will be asking children to revisit these ideas at the end of the project and see how their views have changed.
Welcome to our new Primary 1 children.
Our Burns celebrations were a fantastic affair filled with dancing, music and poems. There was a great turn out from the local community – many thanks to our judges and Nigel Morris. Well done to the children for dancing so enthusiastically and performing so well!
On Saturday 4th June Port Ellen Primary School choir went to the Local mod on Islay. The mod was held in the high school in Bowmore. The choir won the unison and came 2nd in the peaurt a bheil. Also ten people from the choir won the psalm. For the unison you have two songs and in our first song Mrs Macdonald made a mistake so we thought there was no chance of us winning but with our second song, Latha Math, we did really well and we got high marks for Gaelic and music from the Judges which meant we won. Lots of individuals did well also- Rowan was covered in gold medals! The Primary 1-3 class also did a fab action song. We really enjoyed taking part and improving our Gaelic.
We had a fantastic afternoon on Wednesday 11th May, World Orienteering Day. There were courses available at all levels, from picture courses for nursery children, adding up sums courses for infants right up to tricky courses for our P5-7 orienteering experts. It was great to have such a good turn out of parents, who were very game taking part. Parents also had an opportunity to try out our i-orienteering course using our new ipads and it gave them a taster of what we hope to develop further around the village.
P1-3 have been very busy learning about different islands from around the world. Each co-operative group studied their chosen island then presented their learnings during an open afternoon with family and friends. There were powerpoints, information posters, maps and 3D models on display as well as plenty of food tasting.
We all enjoyed our visit to the yacht “The Silurian”. We put on our life jackets and were whale and dolphin watchers. We even learned how to hoist a sail.
P1-2 have been learning about birds with David Woods from the RSPB during some of our “Buddy Sessions”. This culminated in a joint visit to the RSPB Center and Gruinart Farm. The children were keen birdspotters in the hide, fed a baby lamb and even witnessed the live birth of a calf! Fabulous learning.
This week P1/2 walked a whole mile! When they got back they drew a map from memory of where they walked. All of their maps were stunning.
Also this week P1/2 and Pre 5 spent the whole morning listening to The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark. After they listened to it they researched the owl cycle and looked at clips on the BBC website. They also went into groups and drew the characters and settings from the book then they made chocolate nests with mini eggs and then ate them! Yum! They all had a fab morning!
Mirren and Ciaran
P1-3 enjoyed performing their nativity in St John’s Church, Port Ellen in front of a packed audience. They sang all their 8 songs and were also joined on stage by the Pre -5 and Nursery Unit.
Our new P1s are liking the school. There are 6 of them that have just started at Port Ellen. Everybody likes the school lunches, the uniform and the teachers. They have even started learning their letter sounds. Their favourite part of the school day is break!
