My Endeavour is about French baking and I was able to make pate sablee, profiteroles, Praline Lyon de Tart and strawberry and apple shortcrust pie to sell at the Endeavour fair. I made a poster to put up on my board, I did a Endeavour report and I made a recipe book with everything I made in it. My favourite recipe was probably Praline Lyon de Tart, it was very good for desert and I loved to make it because of how fun the process was. I also wrote some letters to some French bakeries and a famous French baker. I loved my Endeavour and I mainly wanted to do French baking because I love baking and France as I go to France every year.
SUNFLOWERS AND CATERPILLARS IN P12
We were very excited to receive some classroom pets this term! We have ten tiny wriggly caterpillars we are watching metamorphosis into beautiful butterflies. We’re very much looking forward to watching this process.
We were very excited to see how much our caterpillars had grown after a few days, they’re huge! We’re wondering how long it will be until they go into cocoons? Some of us were also delighted to see that our sunflowers have started to grow! We’ve added another page into our diaries to track their progress. Laurie’s is 4 cm tall already!
Jubilee Lunch
On Wednesday we held a street party style lunch for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. She has been on the throne for 70 years! Mrs Holyoake and Ms Brown provided us with a fantastic lunch which we enjoyed in the bright sunshine despite the midges. Thanks to Mrs Leask, Ms Mackie, Mrs Mcfarlane and Ms Murney for setting up.
Selling at Laphroaig Open Day
Primary 7s helped to sell lots of goods for the parent council at Laphroaig today. They sold tea towels and water bottles and bags. They even sold cakes and sandwiches on the path on the way up! We even had little helpers from ELCC helping up at Laphroaig after nursery today to raise money for the School.
PARENT’S OPEN AFTERNOON AND CELEBRATION
Farming Endeavour by Ben
On Friday it was the Endeavour fair. We got all our stuff and showed it and we needed to make a poster and a web site and kahoot and if wanted you could do a sway. For my endeavour I done farming so I made a website and a kahoot and model farm with a barely field and hay field then a old ruin shed and a cow pasture sheep and horse field then a chicken coop and a forestry bit.
Teaching Award Winners!
Port Ellen Primary on Islay has received a silver award in the Pearson National Teaching Awards for ‘Making a Difference – Primary School of the Year’.
The awards celebrate excellence in education and recognise the life-changing impact that an inspirational teacher can have on the lives of the young people they work with.
Port Ellen received recognition for its commitment to achieving excellence for all, enabling pupils to flourish in an environment that values every child, promotes high expectations and provides opportunities for achievement. The school has now been shortlisted to win one of just 16 Gold Awards later in the year.
Maureen Macdonald, Head Teacher at Port Ellen Primary School, said: “At Port Ellen Primary we endeavour to provide an education that enables all our children, from early years right through to primary seven, to acquire and develop the skills, knowledge and attributes needed to thrive in and to shape our ever changing world.
“We aim to give our learners the confidence to develop and celebrate their individuality and creativity and to help them see their worth and value in society.
“I feel so privileged to work alongside passionate, conscientious staff and so proud of everyone within the school community who collectively support our children to be the best they can be and to realise their potential. That’s what makes the difference!”
Argyll and Bute Council’s Policy Lead for Education, Councillor Yvonne McNeilly, said: “The Pearson National Awards are widely recognised for celebrating the best educators in the country, so it is wonderful news that Port Ellen Primary has been selected for a prestigious silver award.
“Teachers play a vital role in our young peoples’ lives. From their earliest school days right through to their senior years, a good teacher can have a massive impact. They can help young people grow in confidence and, with the right encouragement and teaching methods, they can inspire our young people to achieve their goals.
“I am extremely proud of everyone at Port Ellen for the commitment they continue to provide pupils on a daily basis and I wish them all the very best as they progress through to the gold awards.”
Flying Kites in ELCC
We had a lovely morning in the sunshine this morning. We had our snack at the park then headed down the front beach to measure the wind speed with our new anemometer to see how windy it was to fly our kite.🪁 ⭐️. We really enjoyed using the anemometer and flying the kite, it was a bit trickier than up on our school hill. We will be looking at getting a weather station and learning more about the weather.
Bee Learning in P12
As part of our biodiversity topic we have been learning all about bees in P12. Bees are very important to keep our world healthy as they pollinate all the plants we eat. Fiona from the Islay Natural History Trust came in and told us all about bees and how they live and make honey. We also had a visit from Jacob in primary 5 who is doing Beekeeping for his Endeavour topic and showed us his Bee suit and model hive he made with his Papa. We now know lots about bees!
Plastic Count
In school we are all using a plastic count sheet to tally mark all of the plastic items we throw out or recycle from tonight until Thursday night. On Friday we are will use these sheets to create a class graph of all of the plastic rubbish we have thrown away. This is part of our Eco Schools work to reduce plastics use.
Music With Keira
This term Port Ellen Primary have been getting visits from the local musician Keira who has been teaching them how to play some Scottish instruments like the Tin Whistle, Harp and Fiddle. The aim is that at the end Kira will pick the people who are best at playing each instrument and we will all learn a song all together.
We learnt how to play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the Tin Whistle, and everyone got a go on the Harp and Fiddle. Everyone learnt what the different colored strings mean on a Harp and that the thing you play a Fiddle with is called a Bow. It is very interesting learning new instruments.
The Panto
We are doing a panto this year. A panto is where we do a show for our family and school. The panto that we are doing is Pirates of the Curry Bean! We have all got our parts. I am Dead Eye which is the narrator. The panto is on the ninth of June in the primary school hall.
The Curry Bean is hilarious. Its where a fearless pirate called Captain Swaggersword buried all his booty in a far distant land. But then the captain vanished! All his treasure lost forever never to be seen again well that is until now…
This is going to be funny, dangerous and a big adventure! We are learning lines and what to do on stage just now, and making props. We hope everyone will enjoy the play!
Port An Eas Distillery
In school we made a distillery and a company for whisky. Our group was called Port An Eas. We made the distilleries in groups of five people and our group had Evie, Hugh, Connor, Iona and Calin . Everyone in the group had a different role in our Distillery: Evie is milling and mashing, Hugh is casks and ageing Connor is distillation, Iona is malting and peat and Callin is fermentation.
To make our whisky drinks we had lots of whisky smells and we had to pick the three smells that we liked best. Together we chose rose, caramel and coconut. A few Days later we made teas that replicated the smells that we chose with different flavours of tea. You can make it with 4tsp of black cat caramel tea, 3tsp of rose black tea ,1 pukka relax tea bag and 6 leaves of stevia.
We made are distillery with card and some modelling card to make it stand up because it is a circle it couldn’t stand up on its on own so we cut up strips of card to hold it up.
Our Loch Lili Distillery
Our Loch Lili distillery is near a loch and it is located there because it is near water. Our distillery’s special features are we grow our barley on the roof and we have a windmill outside. It is located there because it is near a ferry so we would have some tourists around. But the negatives are too many tourists about and that could be a problem. We made a model distillery and this is a picture.
Glens Whisky Islay
Our distilling topic is about whisky. We made our own distillery models with stills, wash backs and mash tuns and we made a barely farm on one of the sides. Our distillery also had a car park with cars then a truck with draft in the back of it. We have a mash floor above the ground we have an outside seating area.
We made are own non alcoholic whisky from different flavoured teas and identified the smells we wanted in our drink. We also made an advert for our drink including a photo.
Our Glenastle Distillery
In school we have been making distillery’s. My distillery group was called Glenastle. The different jobs are; manager which is William; casks and ageing which is Jack; Jacob is the still man and Teddy is the malting and peat. Our distillery its sited on Glenastle because there is 2 locks for water and the bottle is like a triangle shape so it can be packaged easy. The disadvantages is the roads are dirt tracks and the ground is not level so you have to level it or the distillery will be squint. We designed our own drinks and made the distilleries as models. We will be presenting to parents so they can see what we have learned.
Dolphins championship
Dolphins is a swimming club and we did a championship which was 5 hours. We had to bring a packed lunch and 2 towels; one to sit on and one to dry with.
I all of my races I got gold; breaststroke , front crawl, butterfly and back crawl. I won 2 shields, one of the overall winner for my year and I also got a shield for the fastest IM in my year: I got 1 min 45 secs. An IM is 4 lengths of all the strokes together and it is butterfly first, then back-crawl, then breaststroke and then front crawl.
At the end off all of the races we went and got all of our medals and trophies and we got sweets crisps and juice. Matthew Campbell got the club record.
Vets in ELCC
We started to set up our vets surgery today. We have lots of patients in already and lots of resources to make them feel better. We read a story about Mog the cats visit to the vet. We also have a lovely story sack with lots of puppets that goes with a book called Old MacDonald. We sang Old MacDonald had a farm and shared the puppets.
FOOTBALL LEAGUE
Our Dodgeball Club
In school we were making clubs for the school and our group is the dodgeball club and the people that run it is Teddy, Duncan, Jack and Dylan. We do it every Friday. It is for everyone in the school and if you misbehave you go off for 5 minutes. We enjoy playing dodgeball!
Outside Farm in ELCC
We made our own farmland outside today on the tuff tray. We collected dirt and grass then children decided we needed stones and wood. We added our farm animals and had lots of fun playing in the farmland. Porter thought it was funny when the animals got dirty then jumped into the water bucket for a bath 😆🐮🐷🐴
Bottle Rockets
Last week students from the University of Exeter Engineering department came to our school and made bottle rockets with us. We had to design and make the fins and decorations on our rockets so they would fly straight. We went outside to launch them. They launched ours and it went flying and almost went in the field. The one that went the furthest had a lego figure attached called Dave! Thanks Exeter University for coming and visiting us.
Reading Club!!
Football Club
There is a football club on Monday at lunch break 12:30 to 1:00. It is for everyone in the school P1 to P7. It is run by William, James, Ben and Finlay.
We will split everyone in to 2 or 3 groups and do some drills and then a football match. All the teams will be a mixture of P1 to P7 so it can be fair. We enjoy coaching football skills.
Coding Club
On Thursday at lunch we have a club called coding club which P1-7 can come up into the fab lab and try coding there own and making games. We also teach them how to code and make there own code algrithrom and have fun.
ROUNDERS CLUB
At lunch break on a Wednesday there is a rounders club. It’s run by Mya, Katie, Callie and Thomas. This is part of our leadership and citizenship activities.
This is what we tell people that don’t know how to play it. You will have a bat or a tennis racket in your hand, Someone will be throwing the ball to you. You get three chances to hit the ball, Even if you miss it on your third try you still have to run. There is also four hoops on the ground the first one is the base that’s where you hit the ball. The second one is in the middle left that’s where you can run to as your first base before someone, and then there is fourth base. If you run all the way round you get a rounder. We enjoy playing with the school at lunchtimes!
P7s Highschool Visits
On Monday 17th May p7s received a visit from Dr Weatherhog where she talked to us about high school, uniforms and answered our questions.
She talked to us about the necessities we needed for high school . She told us all about induction days and how we would go about them. She then talked about behaviours and punishments. P7s then asked any questions that needed answered which took about an hour or so.
On Tuesday 18th May Mrs Mitchell came in and observed our maths. She helped us with our fractions, decimals and percentages. Then we came to the floor at the front and put the decimals on a number line. Next we turned percentages into decimals and fractions. Lastly we did decimal marble run on active learn then she headed back up to the high school. This is to help us with the transition to High School.
By Callie
Before You Pop!
Today P12 have been exploring the Emotion Works blue cog – regulation strategies. This helps us think about what we could do before we explode with anger, sadness or excitement. Things that might help us to calm down. We paired this learning with finding out a little bit about Andy Warhol and the POP art movement. We created fizzy juice cans in the style of Andy Warhol and added thought bubbles about different regulation strategies we could use when we needed them.
BREAKFAST CLUB
Herbal Teas
We have been learning about healthy eating and our senses. After planting our herbs in the garden we decided to make some herbal teas. We had to use our senses to describe what we could smell and we even had a go at tasting the teas. Some people thought some of the teas tasted nice and some tasted yucky !