NEWS

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Bee Eco Citizenship Group Meeting

Today we had a eco group meeting to start working on our action plan.  Our plan today was to save water because one of our rights(24) is the right to clean water.   Water uses a lot of energy to be made safe to drink so we should not waste it.  I learned that hoses use lots of water so when washing a car we should use a bucket of water and a sponge.  We learned to reuse the  water in our school water bottles rather than throwing it away.

Next time we will be planting fruit and vegetables so we can grow them in school instead of buying them.  Here are some potatoes we grew in our garden this year and we had them for lunch!

By Finlay.

 

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Endeavour Competition with Kew Gardens

During the holidays we received great news, that Port Ellen were a commended school in the Kew Gardens Endeavour competition!  The competition was to find out about the secret life of trees in your local area and write about them.  P67 had learned about how Islay has actual rainforests! They are some of the last temperate Rainforests in the UK. They visited one of the places at Olistaidh, where they did observational drawings of the trees.  They then researched them and created presentation fact files about the rainforests and where they are.  One of these files are featured on the winners page on the Kew Gardens website.

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Scottish Water

On 2nd of September 2024 the Scottish water came to our school and two of them were dressed as a tap and a toilet! They were talking about how they were doing a bunch of roadworks in Port Ellen because the pipes were getting old and rusty which would have meant we would have gotten rusty and dirty water. 

 Some pipes were bursting around Islay and Jura. They showed us the new plastic pipes that they were putting in. They told us the 3 Ps to put in the toilet; pee, poop, paper!  

They came in to show us what they have been doing around our village. They set us a mission called H2O and it basically is we got a card, so we must fill it in and at the end of the week we show our class what we have done to save our water. 

They told us about the water cycle and in the summer whem its really hot we start running out of water so that’s why we need to save as much water as we can. 

At the end we got to stay and try on the uniform, tap and toilet outfit so we could take pictures. Altogether, it was really fun and the whole school had a blast! So, save your water everyone because it is not unlimited. 

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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!

 

 

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Stem Day At High School

On Thursday 29th August we went to Islay High School for a STEM day. There  was workshops about different stuff. The opening speech was a lady from a stem company encouraging STEM for young people. The next speech was a worker from the SSE that was talking about the SSE. Then there was an SSE graduate that moved from the Philippines talk about his time in the SSE.  The first workshop we went to was a coding workshop. The little bright lights on the bots were glistening like a stars in the middle of space. The main thing about this workshop: Coding spheros. We got to make spheros weave in and out of cones and do challenges with it. The next station was outside in a polytunnel.  It was about bees and other animals. We got to make paper Mache balls. During lunch we asked to get raffle tickets. and the final workshop was about birds. We went to see birds outside with binoculars. We didn’t see much birds. nor variety. But we had a great time!

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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!

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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.

 

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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.

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Leavers Assembly

We said an emotional farewell to our P7 pupils on Wednesday with our leavers and achievement assembly.  After a great musical introduction from Mr McDermid’s musicians, Rachel, Evie, Freddy, Brody, Ayla and Ella, we watched the P7 memory videos.  We had a lip dub in the middle and then the final song.

After it was the achievements:

  • Ayla and Thomas were sport champions
  • Evie won the Drew Brown Memorial trophy for maths
  • Hugh won the Endeavour Shield for his Hydraulics project
  • Rachel won the citizenship trophy

Good luck P7!

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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!

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Sports Day

On Friday the 14th of June Port Ellen Primary school hosted our sports day where there were races for nursery all the way to primary 7. The winner of the inter house relay was Texa, second place Orsay and third was Nave. The winner of the sports champion boys was Thomas Edwards in 1st Freddy Munro in second and third was Hugh Mackinnon. For girls it was Ayla Denby in first Evie Wood in second and third was Ella Barford. The winner out of all houses was Texa.

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Trip to Olistadh Archaeological Dig

On Wednesday the 19th of June, we went on a school trip! When we parked the bus we walked about 15 mins up to a beautiful landscape full of old ruins of buildings. The first thing we did was get introduced to our tour guides, and then sorted into groups. They took us around the whole area and showed us everything they had been doing. We got to clean things we found in the dirt, guessing what the old things used to do, digging in the ground, it was so much fun. Hannah found a big piece from an old pot and Jacob found some clay pipe.  We learnt lots of things and it was really interesting. Then we headed down to Port Mor and got to eat our packed lunch, and then we got delicious ice cream. A really fun day!

 

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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!

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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.

 

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Herbal Tea Endeavour

This year we are doing Endeavour!  Endeavour is about something you want to do about, like I’m doing herbal teas. I want to do herbal teas because I am very fond of them and I  think its interesting, and think I’m doing pretty well on my Endeavour so far, I’ve made tea, and did tea testing, researching, and collecting! I also sold tea bags for free and some more tea testing in health afternoon which was really fun, the only thing I need to do now is a power point which I have started and a interesting poster that includes the benefits of tea.

When I started my Endeavor I wrote a letter to James Donaldson who collects herbs to make gin. He responded with lot of helpful tips and answered my questions which I was very happy for!

The Endeavor fair is very soon which I’m looking forward to!  And that’s the end of my blog!

 

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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.

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My Endeavour: Gardening

This year we started our Endeavors. My Endeavour is gardening, Like growing food like Pumpkin, Broccoli, Tomato  etc. I have been busy planting loads of plants to sell. I have already sold some at the  health day in May.  Some of my plants are in the school, or not some have done good, some have done not as good.

All of my plants have been grown from seed, and have all been in a propagator Which is a see-through container to store plants when they have sprouted. Animals  are a nuisance when growing plants outside because they might eat them. So I recommend using a propagator until they have reached a certain height.

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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.

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Lobster Fishing Endeaver

This year my Endeavor is lobster fishing and when I go out fishing I take lots of photos,  so when I am in school I can edit the videos.

Well anyways I chose this Endeavor because my uncle is a fishermen and I go landing some  weekends, and also because I have got a creel. And last year I loved going out and lifting it so I thought it would be a good Endeavor.

Also I went and visited my uncles yard and I also got a reply from Conner, he told me lots of thing like different knots and that he likes that their are still young fishermen.

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WEAVING

I chose weaving because it was fun to do. And it was a fascinating thing the class done a thing about weaving. That why I picked it the weaving is a long prosses to make a mini rug its about 2 to 3 days to make a mini rug.

We started about on March or the end of February. I wrote to Marcus at the Islay Woollen Mill  so he could tell me about what he dose in the Islay Woollen Mill.   I went to the Islay Woollen Mill  to see what Marcus does there.   They gave me some woven mini rugs. 

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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.

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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.

 

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ENDEAVOUR DOG CARE

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My Endeavour is dog care which is basically like finding out about how to look after dogs and researching how to train your dogs different tricks like sit, paw and lie down. I found out that you can make dog treats with just peanut butter, water, flour and eggs. I researched different dog behavior because it is important to know how your dog is feeling because they can sometimes be nervous or scared. Here are some dog behaviors.

  • Putting there ears back: When dogs put there ears back it often means they are guilty and know they are getting in trouble or it can mean they are happy and excited.
  • When they pee on the floor: When dogs pee on the floor it either will be an excited pee or a nervous pee or it could just be that they aren’t house trained.
  • Tail wagging: A loose, floppy tail means they are excited but a tense, slow one means they are angry and in attacking mode.
  • Barking: When a dog barks it can mean fear and pain but it can also mean they want more attention.
  • Putting there paw on your leg: If you sit down and your dog come up to you, sits down and put its paw on you leg then that means it wants your attention so you give it attention.

At the end of my Endeavour I hope to have made a dog training video and have remembered how to train a dog off by heart and know how to look after a dog correctly.

 

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SILVER AWARD WINNERS

On May 21st we had a virtual online visit from a UNICEF education advisor, Jenny Price and another teacher from the Borders. They had a busy morning, meeting lots of children, staff and parents online and talking about our Rights journey. She spent lots of time looking at our evidence and discussing with the rights steering group how Port Ellen Primary were rights aware. She said children were able to talk about their rights and were able to expand on their knowledge and understanding, talking about how they were safe in school and how they learned to be healthy.

We are proud to announce that we have been successful in achieving our Silver Award and are now Rights Aware. The award is granted by UNICEF UK to schools that show good progress towards embedding children’s rights in the school’s policy, practice and ethos. Our children and staff feel rightly proud.

Thanks to all who have supported this journey so far – we are now going to take the next steps towards being a Gold Rights Respecting School.

 

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Islay’s Chough; An endangered species

Mrs Clark’s P6/7 Class have been learning about Chough. The Topic, suggested and designed by Evie Wood with help from her Dad David Wood from the RSPB has seen the class learning all about one of Islay’s most endangered species – The Chough.

Chough are members of the Corvid family, along with Crows, Ravens and Jackdaws. There are less than 50 pairs in the whole of Scotland, occurring in only two places in the country, Islay and Colonsay. They are predicted to become extinct in less than 50 years.

An iconic species with their curved red beak and matching red legs – they are a culturally significant species on our rugged west coast landscape.

The children learnt that the Chough are at risk because of habitat change, lack of food, inbreeding, destocking and possibly climate change.

The class visited the RSPB Oa Reserve one afternoon in early June. There they met the Site Manager David Wood. The children were shocked to find out what the main features of a Chough diet are.

One of the main food stuffs they were surprised by, were dung beetles, which can be found in cow pats and other nutritious poo!

All the children were given gloves and a tray, they proceeded to go to David to get their trays filled with cow poo! They had to search through the poo to find as many dung beetles as they could. In one cow pat, there was over 20 beetles!

The children found 4 species of Dung Beetle: Geotrupes stercorosus, Aphodius rufipes, Aphodius pedellus, Teuchestes fosser. As well as Clown Beetles, Rove Beetles and all sorts of beetle larvae.

The children learnt that to help the Chough we should support nature friendly farming, provide them with nest sites, in old barns and caves, reduce the use of veterinary medicines in livestock, grace the right habitats and closely monitor the population.

The children were lucky enough to see Chough flying to and from their nest site through telescopes and binoculars during their visit.

David Wood travelled to Somerset to the Yeo Valley Farm to speak at a conference with leading experts from the Dung Beetle World – he will be sharing details of his work with Port Ellen Primary School for all to hear.

By Evie Wood

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Generation Science

On May the 9th we had Generation Science visit the school for a Chemistry Workshop called Fizz Buzz Bang.  We had to mix liquids and powder and we also had to mix liquids and tablets. If the color was red it was and acid and if it was green it was a neutrals. Then we had to tell the people if it was an acid or a natural. At the end they showed us a experiment what was elephant toothpaste and they had to put a board around it and it was so cool and then they showed us a normal party popper and then there was a big party popper.  We had a great time, thanks Generation Science!

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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.

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Signs of Spring in ELC

ELC have been looking for signs of spring.  They visited the Cherry blossom trees and they met a baby lamb.

🌸 Cherry Blossom Tree day today and what a day for it ☀️ the children had great fun explored the secret garden. We had snack under the blossoms, swung in the hammock and did some beautiful blossom tree art. Amazing Spring day 🌸

We had a lovely wee visitor in our garden today, Willows mummy and daddy brought a little lamb 🐑 in to see us, she was very cute and a big hit with all the boys and girls 🐑☺️ ⭐️I am learning about sheep and how to care for them 👣👣we would love to have a trip to a farm to see lots more animals

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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!

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