Body dysmorphic disorder and helping to your child to build a healthy body image.
Stigma and mental health: a parent’s guide
Natasha Devon, the government’s Mental Health Champion for Schools, offers advice on how to help your child.
Setting safety and privacy settings for social media apps
If you want to set parental controls on apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, here’s how to do it.
Orienteering After-School Club
We now have an after-school orienteering club. We started off doing some work on orienteering symbols and indoor courses before moving outside.
P1/2 Update
This week P1/2 walked a whole mile! When they got back they drew a map from memory of where they walked. All of their maps were stunning.
Also this week P1/2 and Pre 5 spent the whole morning listening to The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark. After they listened to it they researched the owl cycle and looked at clips on the BBC website. They also went into groups and drew the characters and settings from the book then they made chocolate nests with mini eggs and then ate them! Yum! They all had a fab morning!
Mirren and Ciaran
Geology With P5/6/7
P5/6/7 have been doing geology as their topic. They have been learning about renewable and non-renewable energy. Renewable sources are sources that will not run out and non-renewable sources are sources that will run out. They also have been learning how the energy is converted into electricity. They made posters on renewable and non-renewable sources. Some non-renewable sources are coal, gas, oil and nuclear power. Renewable sources are wind power, solar power, geothermal, tidal power and biomass. Wind power is using a wind-mill and when the wind comes it spins the wind-mill and creates electricity. They will be going on a field trip to smash up rocks next Friday.
Start talking PANTS!
The NSPCC explains how a simple conversation will help to keep your child safe from sexual abuse
Mindfulness in schools: a parent’s guide
Schools are increasingly turning to mindfulness as a way of helping pupils relax, concentrate, and avoid distractions. But what is it – and will it help?
New waterproof gear arrives!
Here are P3/4 just kitted out in the newly arrived waterproof gear. Of course they had to go outside to test it! The maps got a bit soggy!
Weather
Primary 34 topic this term is weather. They have been finding out which clouds are which, facts about storm Henry and they have been making graphs on excel about how high wind speeds are. We have made rain gauges and anonometers to measure the wind speed. We have also made an animation of the water cycle. It was very interesting to learn about.
Bird Facts with the Nursery by the Eco Group
The nursery are doing a topic on birds and they have a bag of bird seed that will last a whole year.
Also they made bird food balls and this is how you make them you get: bird seed, bread crumbs, bread crusts and water. The crows try to steal the food but they can’t because the birdhouse that they made it too small for the crows to fit in. They have also bought new bird feeders.
At Joint Sessions with P1/2 David Wood from the RSPB has been working with the children and he came into the school to tell them about birds and went bird watching around the school grounds with the children.
Since the weather has been horrible they weren’t as many as they had hoped. They saw lots of geese in the field and lots of Black Hoods Crows.
Beach Clean! :)
Last year on Friday 9TH October we did a beach clean.We each slit up into different groups.Each group got a bag to put all the rubbish in, grabbers and gloves so we don’t get germs on our hands.We had Rejig to provide us with the equipment as they do every time we have a beach clean. After we tidied the beach we got biscuits. Then we headed back up to the school knowing that when we go down to the beach it will be nice and clean.
By Joseph Hamilton and Mirren Brown
A parent’s guide to Kik Messenger
What adults need to know about the app their children love using.
The Brilliant Book Group
The book group, which is one of our citizenship groups, is starting again. We are planning to run a library club, decorate the library, do some book swaps, buy new books, and do something very exciting for world book day which is on the Thursday 3rd March. We are going to dress up as our favourite book character, we are also going to organise a lending library. We are going to make a suggestion box for the library as well.
Media Group Is Back With A Bang !!!!!!
The new and improved media group has new and improved ideas about how to improve our community and school. We have some great new ideas – News letters for parent, different sorts of blogs like internet safety and Port Ellen school movie.
The new media group will continue until the end of term and by the end of term we want t be successful by showing what we have achieved. We do this every Friday afternoon.
This media group is trying to get the community to know whats going in the school. We hope you enjoy seeing what the media group have achieved.
Crofting Group
One of our Citizenship Groups is Crofting. As crofters we are planning to grow trees, flowers and vegetables like potatoes, carrots, pumpkins and a few other things. We have five raised beds that we are going to use. We will need to prepare the beds before we start to plant our seeds. We are going to dig up the croft and plant lots of veggies. It is going to take a lot of work.
ENTERPRISE GROUP
The enterprise group are going to be making soaps this term to sell to places on Islay. In our group is Murray, Jack, Darren, Freya, Ruaraidh, Alexander and Charlie. Our slogan is we are soaptastic. We have a logo with a world on it. We want to experiment making different kinds of soaps. We will have our notice board completed. We will research and type up 5 key facts for our notice board. We will have a group photo.
Global Citizens
This is the Global Citizens. We are trying to make the world better to live in and trying to support Fair-trade and other charities. We will be trying to make money to donate to special charities that really need our help.We will be also be having a tea and coffee morning with Fair-trade food.
Fair-trade means trade between companies in developed countries and fair prices are paid to the producers.
By The Great Global Citizens:)
The Fantastic Eco Group
On Friday afternoons Port Ellen primary all do citizenships and one of the groups are called the Eco Group and the people that are in the Eco group are Holly, Abi, Kaya, Katie, Matthew, Rowan, Sophie and Harmony. What the Eco group do is we try and do litter picking to keep Port Ellen playground tidy. On some of the afternoons we do beach cleans to keep the beach clean and we are hoping to clean the pond, have an Eco day, plant flowers, tidy the round house, clean up the weeds and plant trees. Also our slogan is SAVE THE PLANET!
By The Fantastic Eco Group.
Swimming School Nationals
On Saturday 30th January I went to the swimming nationals in Tollcross. It was double the size of the local pool because Tollcross is 50 meters long and Bowmore is 25. Tollcross was built for the commonwealth games. There was about 1,500 people including spectators and swimmers. There was 10 lanes in the pool so it was 10 people in a race. I was swimming backstroke and the person in my race broke the Scottish record. I came 30th out of the whole of Scotland. We also got a swimming cap, a t shirt and a jumper as souvenirs.
by Ross Thompson
Writing Competition
P567 entered a writing competition around Argyll And Bute. We had to write a story based on a piece of art. The people who came 1st, 2nd and 3rd got books for a prize. After we wrote our essay, the people in our class voted to see whose essay was the best in our class. The people who had the most votes in our class got entered to the competition. I got entered to the competition and when the results for the competition got announced, I came joint second! I had so much fun writing it and I look forward to other writing competitions throughout the year! Read my story here https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ab/SAL/files/2016/01/JASMINE-MIDDLETON.pdf
The Fabulous Burns Day
On Monday 25th January 2016 all of Port Ellen Primary School had a wonderful ceilidh and Burns dinner. At 12 O’clock everybody in the school had a lovely Burns dinner and on the menu was mince and tatties or haggis, turnip and mashed potatoes. After the lovely lunch at 1.30 we had a Burns day ceilidh. At the ceilidh they had poem competitions, highland dancing, chanters, accordions, bagpipes and lots of Scottish dancing. For primary 1 the winner was Mya, for primary 2 the winner was Ciara, for primary 3 was Dearbhla, for primary 4 it was Ellen, primary 5 it was Rowan, for primary 6 it was Kaya and for primary 7 it was Bronagh. Everybody had a brilliant day and wished it had never ended.
5/6/7 TOPIC POETRY AND ABSTRACT ART
P567 have been doing a topic on Poetry and Abstract art. First, we looked at some abstract art online by famous artists. We said how we felt about them. Then, our teacher said that we could make our own abstract print and a poem to go with it. We all planned our poems and our print. I did Nightmares as my poem and I made a print with it. Afterwards, we planned a poem with at least 3 verses. We also learned about Kennings, Hakius and a few other poem sorts. We all made our own Kennings. We really enjoyed our topic very much. 
P5/6/7 Swimming Lessons
P5/6/7 go swimming on Tuesday mornings to get ourselves ready for our swimming gala. We learn how to do front crawl and how you take a breath. You do three strokes and tilt your head to the side and take a breath. We also learned how to float; you take a deep breath in and then go onto your front or your back. We also learned how to sink you take a deep breath and when you are under water let it all out and then close your mouth. That is what we do at swimming lessons.
Endeavour
This term is the time our class is really starting going with Endeavour. Endeavour is when you choose a topic to do by yourself and our class have written a letter to someone who could give us advice on our topic. Here is an example of our topics; Book writing, Card making, SSPCA, RAF and baking.
5 ways the internet can help you enjoy family time together
Here are our five top tips on enjoying tech together as a family.
Understanding and supporting anxiety in your child
It’s estimated that around 290,000 children in the UK suffer from this debilitating condition. Here are some tips to help you help them.
My New Endeavour Project
Hi my name is Natalie and I am doing an Endeavour project, and I thought I would share it with the world. Endeavour is an independent project where you choose your own project and learn about it for eight months and in June we have a big fair and share our learning with friends and family. For my Endeavour I chose “Walks Around Islay.” I chose this project because there are ALOT of places on Islay I have never been, and I would like to find out some information/ history about Islay. So every so often I will share some information and history about place I have been on Islay.
The people that are able to help me are my family, Walk Islay and mainly people that would like to go for a walk or another place that they have been before or a new place.
I planed my project with my mum and we had a wee chat about something she would be able to help me with and we could go places together in the holidays.
At the end of my project I will have an Explorers Book, A Collage of photos and maybe a book of information.
Viral internet trends: a parent’s guide
The growth of social media has brought with it some strange modern phenomena. One of the more recent ones is the viral online challenge…
Under 13s and social media
Most popular social media services don’t allow anyone under 13 to join. Even so, lots of younger children manage to set up accounts. What can you do?
