Primary School of the Year 2022
We spent the afternoon cleaning the Co-op beach as part of our Eco citizenship groups plan leaning this term. The children worked as a team to gather all the rubbish and make our beach a safer and cleaner environment for all.
🌎 SDG 6- Access to Clean Water 14- Life Below Water
✨ UNCRC 24 Good health and clean water
Thank you to everyone who came along to our big breakfast 
this morning, we hope you all enjoyed it. We raised £300, £100 will be donated to the STV appeal and the additional £200 will keep our school breakfast club going!
Floorbooks are used to record the children’s thoughts and ideas. They can mark make, draw pictures and we scribe their learning. This term we have been learning about ourselves- what age we are and what our favourite thing to do in nursery is.
⭐️ ⭐️I am learning to mark make.
⭐️I can share my thoughts and ideas.
👣 The children wanted to draw and talk about their families. Please can you send us a family photo. This could also be airdropped in the morning if you are unable to post it to seesaw.⭐️
✨I have the right to a name. (Article 7)
✨I have the right to an identity. (Article 8)
✨I have the right to an education. (Article 28)
We are the rights and nurture group and we are working on supporting the children in the school to meet their right to good health (24). We have decided to make a friendship bench and a happy boxes and then put them around the school.
People are voting for different types of bench designs: flower, Dinosaur, fish, boats, rainbow.
People had paper and there where righting out different ideas we were in groups of three. We also had to write ideas for where to put the boxes around the school or the playground.
We are the Bee Readers group. Today we recorded for the Islay podcast to say about what our favourite book is and why. Also we wrote a letter to Laphroaig and Mrs Mcgilvery to ask if it is OK to set reading rocks so when tourist or locals come over there will be a QR code for them to scan. So they can listen to our stories and our amazing podcasts!.
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.
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
On the last day of term Port Ellen primary school did Dance a Thon to raise money for making Blytheswood shoe boxes for children in Romania. Children in the school danced to different songs in the hall and in each class the best dancer got a prizes. Everyone has enjoyed the Danceathon and it has raised a lot of money, helping children meet the right to health care article 24.
On Thursday 14th September we all went on a trip to Jura primary school to share our Rights Respecting Schools work with each other. Small Isles Primary already has their silver award and we wanted to learn more. We went with Mrs. Mackenzie, Mrs. Clark and Miss Clark. When we got there we learned about the Outright campaign on climate change and we worked in groups to come up with a problem we want our local councillors and MSP to solve. We will work together to write to them about it to see if we can make a change. We got to go out and play at break in Small Isles playground and then we went to the beach for lunch and ice cream. We had a great day out and enjoyed making friends with children from Jura.
Rights are very important to children up to 18 all around the world. We have been working on them to help us understand the value of it all. We have learnt that our opinion should be heard, no matter what age you are, All children up to 18 should have their rights and know them but some children in wars don’t get their rights, like education, Safety, health, and to be heard. If you think that you are not getting your rights tell someone you trust. In Port Ellen school we have made a playground charter of rights so children can respect other children no matter what they look like or what country they are from.
