Primary School of the Year 2022
On the 9th of November we found out we had won the Emerald Award which is the next eco award after you get eight green flags. The reason we have won the Emerald award is because of lots of different things we’ve done to help the environment. Like our beach cleans and various litter picks we’ve also made things out of recycled materials like denim bags and waterproof toys. We really think it is important to look after the environment and are really pleased we have achieved this award.
We had a very exciting afternoon, the fire brigade came to see us! We got to use the BIG hose and make our own rainbows with the reflected water. Some of us were brave enough to try on the fire helmet and turn on the sirens!
We have had a fantastic day in the woods as part of our Maths Week Scotland learning. We walked the whole way to the woods, set up our base camp, had some healthy snack and a good explore before getting into our groups. We then had to follow our map to find all the teachers hiding at different points. After collecting all four signatures it was time to head back to base for some lunch and then a trip to the distillery to use the toilets! It was back to base camp for our final mapping activity – a scavenger hunt to collect items to work out our treat…. Thank you to all our grown ups for our yummy lunches and giving us cosy clothes to wear!
This week is Maths week scotland where every kid in Port Ellen primary school will be doing extra maths themed things. Maths Week Scotland lasts from 26.09.22 to 03.10.22. “Maths week scotland is brilliant and interesting!” says Ellie P5. Maths week scotland is a week where you celebrate the importance of maths. Lots of schools do extra fun maths activities like board games, drawing Infinity tiles and doing sumdog challenges.
In P567 they have been learning about lots of different things like competitions such as the Scottish Maths Challenge and Maths inside. They have done a zoom meeting on Infinity Tiles.
Infinity Tiles are squares where the lines end at the same point every time making a continuous design. They are used in many different types of art, especially Islamic art. They also learnt about fractals. Fractals are never ending patterns like a Sierpinski triangle which is a triangle inside a triangle, inside a triangle, inside a triangle, inside a triangle, etc, etc, etc.
Maths week scotland is lots of fun and lots of kids enjoy it and participate in the competitions. Even though lots of the challenges are very hard, lots keep on trying and get amazing scores!
By Evie
We were in a zoom call with Maths is Toast and we were learning about infinity tiles. Infinity tiles are things that can go on forever whatever way you put them they will always connect. They got us to learn about angles and different patterns.
We have finished the Scottish Maths Challenge which is what people do every year. We have three question everyone has to the same question and the Scottish Maths Challenge gives out awards like bronze, silver and gold. The questions are quite hard and you have to show your working out of the question but when you actually read the question it’s actually really easy.
This year we are doing the Maths Inside competition. It’s when you take a picture of something to do with maths and you put it on the website and they look at all the maths and the picture. This year there are options like shapes, in the wild and complete the pattern.
There is also a challenge on Sumdog with 1000 questions and all the schools in scotland are competing; it’s just questions like subtraction.
We have also got funding for maths homelink bags from Maths Week Scotland, and we now have lots of fun games we can take home and play to develop our maths skills.
A couple days ago we had a google meet with people that do vertical farming. Vertical farming is when there is a tower with loads of trays in it and a jet of water shoots in the top and there are holes in the trays and the water drips through the holes and there are L.E.D at the top which help with to process of growing the plants and they also grow trees. Instead of green houses.
William says ”I really like maths week scotland and it is very interesting”
By Dylan
Last week in the playground Mr Heads fixed our basketball hoops! It went from rusty poles to our new and improved basketball hoops. Loads of us enjoy them. So we are writing him a thank you card. Thanks Mr Heads!
Highland Dancing is a Scottish type of dancing. Quite a few people on Islay and in other places in the world it is quite common to do it. It can be quite hard to do Highland Dancing if you don’t know how to do it. There are so many different types of dances to learn.
Highland Dancing was founded in the 11th or 12th century and carried on for many years. Believe it or not it is still around today!!
All of Ella Edgar’s dancers ( of which there are many) all did Highland Dancing exams. We all performed a selection of dances which were all in the original order. Sadly the Highland Dancing examiner couldn’t come to Islay because of the weather, so instead we took a video of all of our dances and sent them to her.
There were many different dances we had to learn and perform at the exams, but it is sometimes very nerve racking and scary. You got to dance with 1 or 2 other people on the stage. We did our exams at Gaelic College.
There are a few different types of dancing like Highland, National and a few more. For Highland you have a kilt with a jacket and a white top underneath. For National you wear a white dress with a white skirt underneath and a shash.
‘’ It’s fun and and very enjoyable, and also tiring.’’~ Ayla~ P5.
Rachel
Jimmy’s mum gave us a worm world so we filled it up today with soil and put 5 worms inside from our garden wormery 🪱🪱 We talked about what the worms would do in our worm home and what they could eat 🍃 We will keep an eye on them and keep them in nursery this week then let them go back in to our womery 😄 ⭐️ We are learning about worms and the important job that they do. 👣 Continue to watch our worms and feed them.
Carpet Bowl
On every Wednesday we walk with Miss Brown to the Ramsey Hall to play Carpet Bowls. Carpet Bowls is like Ten Pin Bowling but you play on a really long carpet. Also, the bowling balls are not round, they are big on one side and small on the other. In the middle of the carpet there is a block of wood. When you throw the ball you need to put the smaller side on the inside and swerve it round the piece of wood. There is then a white ball called the jack. In front of the jack is a line. You have to get the ball as close to the jack as you can, but the ball has to be over the line to count.
Daily Mile
Every morning or afternoon, our class goes on daily miles. On the daily miles some of us run, some walk, and some jog. Sometimes on the daily mile we find different types of flowers, plants and insects. When we find them we then try to identify them.
Bench Ball
Every time we do P.E and it is raining, we would go into the hall and do bench ball. Bench Ball is like basketball but you have someone in your team standing on a bench at the other side of the hall. The aim of the game is to pass the ball, but you are not allowed to move when you have the, to the person on the bench.
By James Norwood
What Is Citizenship?
Citizenship is something that Port Ellen Primary have been doing for many years, in recent years of covid the whole school has not been able to do it together. However, in covid times primary 5/6/7 have been doing it in their class by themselves. Just this year, Port Ellen Primary has been able to start doing together again. The school has been split into Citizenship groups, Bee Eco, Bee Respectful, Bee Readers and Bee Healthy. All of these groups are led by teachers of different years in our school, all of the teachers have different groups and are the leaders of the groups.
What Do We Do?
In our Citizenship group, we did a questionnaire and the older students had to help the younger students write down and read out the questions to them. As this was only recently, we went round in a circle and we introduced ourselves to everyone and told them a thing that we like or dislike. We talked about children’s rights and how we should respect them, we went through a slideshow and we had a look at different children’s rights.
Why Is Respect Important?
Respect is important because it is a happy motion also known as esteem. Respect is something that you show to someone or something a feel of happiness, gratefulness, kindness or politeness.
Iona
We started our citizenship groups today. We met in Mrs Hannett’s class to discuss how we could create a reading culture in our school and wider community. We decided we could start a floor book to keep all of our ideas in one place and use it to take ownership of this area within our school. Today we signed our book to symbolise this as well as working together and being supportive of one another. We worked together to come up with all sorts of amazing ideas to develop this reading culture. Please add comments to this post of anything you at home feel we could do as well as anything you might be happy to help with. 
On Monday the 26th of September the whole school had the first citizenship meeting of the year. In citizenship there are 4 groups: the Eco group, the Healthy group, Rights respecting schools group and the reading group. In the meeting we thought of ideas for what we could do for our group.
Some of our ideas were to cook healthy food so that people would be encouraged to eat healthy. We might sell the tuck for money so that we can buy more playground equipment.
We are going to make things like smoothies and fruit salads. We will make the in the morning at the first break so you can get some food for your break as well as fruit.
We are going to run sports clubs so that people will be able to have fun while getting exercise from running and it will show people that exercise can be fun. To encourage people to be healthy we are going to make videos on why being healthy is good. To see what game to play we are going to do a survey on what game to play we are going to put games like football, dodgeball and basketball.
By Hugh
THE DIFFERENT CITIZENSHIP GROUPS ARE
In school we have been doing citizenship. There are different citizenship groups in school like the eco. I am in the eco group. We make the school more eco-friendly for our environment.
THE THINGS WE ARE GOING TO DO
We do citizenship every Monday afternoon. Mrs Harrison is in charge of the eco group. The things we are going to do for the school is beach cleans, school bee hive, bird houses.
FOCUSES
There are multiple focuses we have to work on in the eco group these are: food and environment ,litter ,climate action and school grounds. Our Eco rules are walk or cycle to school if you can , reduce, reuse, recycle, switch off the light when it’s bright, eat more fruit and vegetables. And there is one more but I forgot what it is. The people who are in the Eco group in p5/6/7 are Jacob, Alfie, James and Ayla.
James likes being in the eco group because he likes helping the planet.
Jacob
Classification is a method that scientists use to see what a creature is so different types of flowers and animals. There are also different groups. Carl Linnaeus is a famous person who started classifying. When did Carl Linnaeus start classifying? 1758. We started classification on the 8th of september and we went on walks. What did we do? We went rock pooling and found crabs, small fish and more. We found out if they were vertebrates or invertebrates. The topic was so fun and interesting most people liked the topic.
We had to draw pictures to put on our tree or life. I drew a plant thistle, other people drew animals, arachnids, mammals and birds. It was super fun for everyone. There are different categories of animal and they include mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, archnids, annelids, cnidaria, echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans and myriapods.
Invertebrate and vertebrates.
Vertebrates have a backbone and Invertebrates do not have a backbone. For example slugs are Invertebrates because they don’t have a backbone and the cheetah is a vertebrate because it has a backbone. The biggest living organism is a fungi called a honey mushroom.
Thomas Edwards
On Saturday the 24th of September Port Ellen football club went to Campbeltown for a game of football and we went with Islay boys as well. Each team got to play two games of football. The scores were 2- 3 to Campbelltown the other scores were 2- 0 to Campbelltown. They won all the games.
We didn’t have enough players so we needed to get some players from Islay boys and people from 2014 and 2012 played with us. I really hurt my knee so Grant needed to carry me off the pitch because I couldn’t walk.
We left Islay at 9:15 in the morning and we got a beacon roll for breakfast on the boat. After playing we also had dinner on the boat.
By Freddy
P12 are learning all about Katie Morag in their new topic. Here is our floor book so far. After looking at the maps we saw all sorts of squiggles that we interested in. We found out that these were different mapping symbols and so wanted to know what they were and decided we might like to make some of our own symbols for maps…
After looking at the start of our big book we wanted to investigate what a map was. We came up with all sorts of ideas, pirate maps for treasure, maps for new lands, maps to help us not get lost…. We then looked at a series of different maps and discussed what we could see about them. We looked at a map of Scotland, a map of the South of Islay and a map of Struay.
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.
On Friday 16th the whole school went outside and planted a tree in memory of the Queen. The oldest and youngest pupils in the school planted the tree and we also planted tulips around the base. We held a minutes silence as well.
The Queen used to be a mechanic in the war. She has visited Islay before. She became queen at 25 years old and she was the longest serving queen, reigning for 70 years. She was still working two days before she died, and was very dedicated to the country.
On Wednesday 7th of September p5/6/7 went rock pooling over the Ard to the Swan’s pool for our classification topic.
We caught sea creatures; so we caught multiple crabs, a jelly fish, some shrimp, fish, and a huge fish skeleton.
After that we got seaweeds and the animals we found and identified them using classification keys because we kept them in trays with water in them. The multiple seaweeds were all different colours, shapes and sizes.
After we let them go and walked back over the Ard and went back to school.
By William and Jacob
As part of their transition activities, P7 went on the bus to Bowmore to do orienteering with other P7s.
The course was in the high school playground and the football pitch. You would get a map and a compass to find a thing that snips your map and it makes a shape.
At the end we were talking and playing on the grass and then went on the bus and went back to the school.
Welcome to the start of a new school year at Port Ellen Primary!
We have some changes this year- we now have 4 classes and a new teacher Miss Tait has joined. She is teaching P4. P12 is taught by Mrs Hannett and Ms Brown, P3 by Mrs Harrison and Ms Brown, P4 by Ms Tait, Ms Brown and Ms Northcote and P567 by Mrs Clark, Ms Brown and Ms Northcote.
We look forward to a great years learning!
Miss Tait Outdoor Learning
For my architecture Endeavour I made a model house I had to learn how to draw to scale. I made a Lego house and drew the elevations and a plan view I drew the elevations to a one to one scale and drew the plan at one to two scale and 1 to one scale. I also got the elevations of my house I cut them out and stuck them onto card to make the model with. I also mad a sway a website and a Kahoot for people to play.
To make my model house I got he house plans I cut them out and stuck them on card then cut the card and stuck it to together in the shape of my house. I made the sway and website on glow with google sites and Microsoft sway.
An endeavor is a project that you choose every year. Everyone does it and picks a subject to do with the world of work. You have to pick something new to learn. You have six months to finish it. Then there is an endeavor fair on 26th of June.
My endeavor is a beautician. A beautician is were you do facials, hair, makeup and nails. I mostly did facials and makeup. This is one of the ways to relax and be calm. My project was hard because there is so much more to a beautician than you think. It’s not just to make you all pretty it’s a way of mindfulness and can really relax you.
I learnt so much from this project. Before I had no clue how to do a facial. Now I know all the steps to facial. I also thought that facial and massages were just for fun but it’s actually so good for your mental health
Over all this was a really fun experience I have leant so much. It will really help me if I want to become a beautician. There is so much cool facts I learnt at Megan’s as well. Like when you are doing a facial you have to always keep your hands on the persons face.
This is my website that I made:
P5,6,7 went on a swimming trip because we did good at the rugby festival. We went over in the school bus or in Miss Brown. We parked at the high school and walked down to the swimming pool. We had to wait because the changing rooms where full. After we got changed everyone raced for the floats. Everyone was jumping of the floats and sitting on them. We were also playing catch with the balls and dives of the steps and racing. At the end we all jumped of at the deep end in to the water.
By William and Jacob 102 Words
Every year we do sports day. Sports day is where you do races every year like running, sack race and etc. Sports day happens on 21st of June. Mrs. Macdonald presents the winners. It happens in Port Ellen Primary School in our play ground.
We first did basket ball. We had 20 shots each. Secondly we had long distance throw. That’s wear we throw a beanbag as far as possible. Thirdly was cross contrary. You run round the school 4 times which is like a mile. Fourthly was obstacle course. Where you balance a circle on your head then go through a hoop then balance a tennis ball on a racket lastly skip your way to the finish line. Next we did high jump. That’s were you jump over a beam and it gets higher each time. Next we done hurdles, That’s were you jump over the hurdles and and you get timed. Lastly we done long jump, That’s were you get a run up and jump the get measured wherever you land.
On the day of sports day this is what we done. First for the champion ships for the boys we done the 100 meter dash then we done the girls 100 meter dash. Then 5/6/7 did a running race all together. Then the p5 did the sac race then p6 and p7 done it. Then we done a relay first was nave second was Texa third was Orsay. Last was the trophy giving. The girl champion was Katie Harrison And the boys was Dylan Atkinson Macdonald.
On Thursday the 23rd of June, we went to a Dig at Port Charlotte. We went to the dig on the banana bus and when we got there we had to walk down a long path to the ruins where we were to be learning about. First we were welcomed into their headquarters and were introduced to the team members, and we were split into our year groups. P5 went to dig first as P6 were looking at a ruined house that was being dug up, the P7 went to go find a white button in a tray of soil and pottery.
When the P6 went to our first station we learnt about on of the ruined houses and we got told about what they had found out already because they had already been doing it for 2 weeks. They found the the house was split into two parts, one part was for animals and the other part was for people.
P6 then went to go dig, we got told about a house that has a pipe. Then we went to dig and we dug at the ground and we also found some pottery.
We then had lunch while sitting on deck chairs. We had to bring packed lunches because we would not bring school lunches with us.
After lunch P6 went to go look for the white button in the trays, we went to the trays with our partners and looked for the button and cleaned the pottery that was hidden in the muck. We finished off digging and they showed us some pottery and metal that they found.
We finished off and said goodbye to the people that were there. We walked back done the path and we went back onto the bus and we went back to school, on the way back home people were dropped off and some people were dropped off at the school.
On Monday the Glasgow science centre came into our school to do science with us. Their names were Ross and Sebastian. There were lots of fun things when the science centre came in like games, and other information games and stuff like that. They were in our school for about half an hour. They gave us lots of facts about your body and how it works. There was a really cool machine that tested the temperature of your body when you stood in the camera. The hottest it went was black and the coldest it went was white. One of the men drank something really hot then stuck his tongue next to the camera and his tongue was really white. They were asking us lots of questions about quite a few things when they were in out school with us. There was a hospital game where you have to put all the patients in different beds and treat them with different lungs to keep them alive but if you gave them the wrong lung they would die or if you left them for to long the would die. It was very fun having the Glasgow science centre in school. It was also very interesting. We had a great time with them.
This years panto was The Pirates of the Curry Bean, with many characters with different personality traits. This was on the 9th of June 2022, it was exiting and very funny. The characters were:
We really enjoyed performing the play twice for an audience.
This year Hugh and Jack received a bronze medal in the Scottish Maths Challenge competition. The challenge is where you have a week to solve a bunch of problems and they get sent to some people to mark it and then the results come back to tell you what place you came. The Scottish math challenge is a challenge with three parts and it is designed for p7 but you can do it in p5 or 6 as well. All schools in Scotland get to compete if their students want to. We got a certificate for being 3rd but the people in 1st get to go to Glasgow for a trip.
In the math challenge you get points from how well you explained how you solved the problem. at the end of the challenge you get the results on how well you did. The Scottish math challenge is sorted into 3 part each part has 3 questions. This year was harder for it because covid so some people couldn’t do it. We had practice for it the week before so that we were confident. Some people that were doing it quit because they couldn’t get it done in time because they had covid.
Today was the endeavour fair and we got all our stuff and showed it to parents/ carers and some people sold stuff. They came in at 10:30 and they left at 11:30. There was two rooms you could be in, You could either be in the steam room or the p5/6/7 classroom. You were also aloud to go downstairs to the p1/2 and the p2/3/4 class to see what they made. We needed to make a website, a kahoot and a poster to show people.
This year I did a music writing Endeavor I wrote two sheets of music. I also did a website .
This is my song:
Verse 1
The Beast of the Oa
Is bounding through the snow
Running like a lizard,
Faster than a blizzard,
A heart made of solid ice.
Running like she wants to
Running like she’s supposed to
Running like a rocket
Faster than a hurricane
Chorus
It’s proud to prowl
but it’ll wait until the night to howl
It’s the beast of the Oa
And every night it will prowl across the Oa
It’s black and it’s hairy
And it’s also kinda scary
It barks and it growls and it also sometimes howls
And it knows, to never go slow
That’s cause it is, the BEAST OF THE OA
Verse 2
The Beast of the Oa
She knows not to oo go slow
Running across be ee chs
And over the seas
She knows every nook and cranny of the isles coast
Eating every thing
Crashing through the waves
Speeding past the bays
Never to betray
Chorus
It’s proud to prowl
but it’ll wait until the night to howl
It’s the beast of the Oa
And every night it will prowl across the Oa
It’s black and it’s hairy
And it’s also kinda scary
It barks and it growls and it also sometimes howls
And it knows, to never go slow
That’s cause it is, the BEAST OF THE OA
