NEWS

Port Ellen’s Primary 7’s went on an Endeavour trip to Bowmore to share their Endeavour with Bowmore’s Primary P5-7 to inspire them and help new ways to improve their Endeavour. They came around different tables talking about what they wanted to do for their Endeavours and how Port Ellen can help and give them some good tips. They also asked questions about their Endeavours and what good skills and strategies they could use to help them. In the end we ended up playing bonding games and making new friends.

By Nicholas

What does it mean to be a digitally literate child in the internet age?

When young people admit to having mental health problems, parents often blame themselves. There is still stigma and shame attached to this kind of illness, despite the fact that it’s so common. But early diagnosis and treatment have been shown to work so it’s important for parents to be open and supportive. Blaming yourself – or anyone else – doesn’t help.

We asked Bronagh questions about what she did in Westminster in London.  We firstly asked her a question on why she was there.  She went to Parliament because she was an young Scottish winner of an art competition for I love Amazon schools.  In Parliament they were taking photos and talking about the rain forest.  She had to go through lots of security when she was entering Parliament.  She was in there for 2-3 hours just listening about the rain forest and getting photos taken.  They also asked her questions like “How did you think of your slogan?”which was ‘Hands off our trees, Leaf them alone.’  She also learned that every minute a football pitch worth of trees is cut down and the situation is so critical.

But in conclusion she had a lovely time in Westminster and learned a lot about the Amazon rainforest.

By Nicholas and Torin with help from Bronagh

In school p7 we have been reading and writing short stores.  A  short stories that we read called the Examination is a story about a young boy called Richard that lives in an oppressive state. In the oppressive state when you grow to the age of twelve you have to get an I.Q. test to see how intelligent you are.  When Richard takes the test he get killed because he exceeded the test.  After reading the short story,  p7 then wrote a book review on the Examination.  We sructured the book review by answering questions like ‘how was the story structured’ and ‘what do you  think about the opening’ also questions like  ‘what is the theme of the book’ and ‘can you describe the setting of the story’ also ‘what do you think about the ending’.  I found the actual story was great but I most enjoyed  how the story is so unpredictable and twisted at the end.  Writing the book review, I found it most interesting because it makes you read in between the line to find out more about the story.

In class, p7 have been learning to convert fractions, decimals and percentages, we have been focusing mainly on fractions and decimals.         Fun Fact: If in a decimal, a number is repeated lots of times, like 1/3 is 0.33333333 etc. you would write 0.3 with a º above the 3.

We have learned lots more, like :

1/4 is 0.25 so 2/4 would be 0.5 you would keep doubling until you got to 4/4 which is 1.00

1/2 is 0.5 which is equivalent to 2/4

1/5 is 0.2 so 2/5 would be 0.4                     .

1/6  would be 0.166

1/10 would be 0.1 because there is 10 10ths in 1

We have also been learning to convert percentages to decimals for example:

20% as a decimal is 0.2 as a fraction is 1/4

25% as a decimal is 0.25 as a fraction is 1/5

50% as a decimal is 0.5 as a fraction is 1/2

75% as a decimal is 0.75 as a fraction is 3/4

80% as a decimal is 0.8 as a fraction is 4/5

100% as a decimal is 1.0 as a fraction is 1/1

These are just some of the vast array of fractions, decimals and percentages in the known world. Hope you found this intreaging and interesting. hopefully you have learned something new.

By Anwen and Izzy 🙂

 

 

On Thursday 5th March it was world book day, everyone had to bring in their favourite book and dress up as their favourite character. We dressed up as Sarah Midnight from the book Dreams and Tilly from Magic Spirit.  The first thing did was reading one of our favourite sentences from our book.  In the morning some of the p7’s had to go and read to the nursery, we read them their favourite book.  While the rest of us played games answering questions about books.  We then read a short story in our reading groups called Examination Day as part of World Book Day.  It was a really great story.   Overall we had a great day and everyone looked great in their costumes. 

By Emily and Jodie 🙂

You can’t shield your child from every risk in the online world, any more than you can offline. So how do you help them to be digitally literate (what does that even mean?) And what kind of parenting approach is most likely to help them stay safe?

There are considerable benefits to internet use for young people with autism and learning disabilities, with lots of apps and specialist tools – but there are also risks. We look at how best to prepare your child. 

This is our power point on Disability Discrimination. We have been learning in class all about discrimination so we chose to do this one!    By Emily and Jodie P7  🙂

Check out P1/2’s new blog…..Adventures with Dinosaurs to find out what these dinosaurs are up to! Follow the link from the Learning Blog.

Did you know that, on average, three children in every classroom have a diagnosable mental health issue?

Dads matter! And they particularly matter when it comes to reading. Jeremy Davies of The Fatherhood Institute offers his top tips for what dads can do particularly well. 

A lot of sites and apps specify that users must be aged over 13. Why 13? Vicki Shotbolt explains and offers a guide to the age limits for various popular online activities.

P1/2 have just finished building their Space Station and are looking forward to their trip into space.  They have been been busy with their astronaut training – fitness and fine motor skills using different gloves, tweezers and litter pickers so that they can conduct space repairs in the Space Work Module (with tumble drier pipe and gloves!).  The astronaut food is ready and we are just waiting for our spacesuits to arrive…….

What can you do if your child is talking online to someone they don’t know in the real world and you’re suspicious? What if you think they’re being asked to do things, share images, encouraged to meet? CEOP – the Child Exploitation and Online Protection command of the National Crime Agency and one of the partners behind Parent Info – is the answer. This is how and where to report your concerns.

There’s some good news about young people’s health (teen pregnancies down, smoking, drinking and drug taking down) but some not-so-good news (obesity and mental health problems up). A new report from Public Health England says that young people’s mental and physical health are closely connected – and that relationships are the key to their health and wellbeing.

Every year our school has a Burns celebration and all the classes in the school take part to learn a Scottish poem and also some of the main Scottish country dances. We enjoyed learning Strip The Willow it was so much fun. On Wednesday 21st January all the classes got assessed and in all the classes only six people got through to the finals. Then on the Thursday each of the finalists took it in turn to say it on front of  three judges. On Friday 23rd January we had Burns Lunch and then everyone’s friends and family came up for a ceilidh where we also found out the results of the poem!!

Here Are The Results:

P7-Adress To The Haggis  1st Elizabeth Macmillan  2nd Abbie Morris  3rd Annie Farrell

P6- Twa Corbies  1st Bronagh  Newman  2nd Ross Thompson  3rd Mirren Brown

P5- My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose  1st Struan Colthart  2nd Ruaridh Macdonald  3rd Natalie Logan

P4- Oor Dentist  1st Rowan Morris  2nd Matthew Campbell  3rd Rebecca Morris

P3- The Brickies On The Building Site  1st Ellen Brown  2nd Holly Mckechnie  3rd Alexander Mctavish

P2- Sair Finger  1st Katherine Borthwick  2nd Dearbhla Newman  3rd Charlotte Rose and Millie Hollyoake

P1- Owe You Canne Throw A Sanne  1st Ricky  2nd Ciara  3rd Phoenix Davey

Overall we had a great time!!

By Emily and Jodie

Today Thusday 22nd Januray I had a visit from a lady called Maggie who makes bags. As part of my Endeavour i am making a bag from scratch and she was going to come in and talk about different bags. She taught me how to make handles and how to put lining  in the inside of my bag. Also she showed me some of her bags which has giving me some ideas. Thanks very much !!!

By Jodie 🙂

 

On Tuesday 20th January we went to the Woollen Mill.  We had  a look around the Wollen Mill and found out how they make tweed.  This was for our Endeavour projects on wool and making bags.

By Emily, Jodie and Emma 🙂

 

Too many children have memories of dull ICT lessons acquiring skills that will probably be outdated by the time they start work. But the new computing curriculum, introduced this school year, is a really exciting (and world-leading) development. Simon Humphreys of Computing at School explains why.

Are mental health problems rising in children and young people? And is the internet to blame? An influential committee of MPs calls for more support for mental illness among the young.

There is deep concern about the impact the internet is having on families, especially on children and young people. iRights is a coalition calling for five basic rights that children and young people should have online.