We’ve been back at school for a couple of weeks and everyone has settled back really well.  In Assemblies we are focusing on our school values of “Safe, Respectful and Hardworking”. We will also be setting up the Pupil Committees this term. In Philosophy we are using picture books, and have started some work around “Where the Rainforest meets the Sea”. 

Our School Improvement Priorities this session are to develop our Engineering curriculum, to be reaccredited with the Gold Sports Award, to develop woodworking at the Early Level and to continue to ensure that our standards of assessment are in line with other schools across Orkney.  

Nursery 

This term in nursery we will be following an interesting idea from one of the children; we are going to be looking at reflections and reflective surfaces and materials. We will also be developing our woodworking area and are looking forward to having some new resources and another workbench. The nursery will be joining P1-4 for PE.  

P1 – 4 

The P1 – 4 topic this term is “The Human Body”. The children are learning about parts of the body and what they do, the 5 senses and how to stay healthy. In French and Spanish they will be learning the names for parts of the body and revising introducing themselves. The class role play area is a Doctor’s Surgery so we have visited the surgery to see what we needed. The children are enjoying diagnosing and treating their patients! RME work is focusing on our own values and beliefs, and respecting those of others.  In English the children have been working on instructions and are going on to look at story writing and report writing. In ICT we will be focussing on basic computer and typing skills. In PE this term we are working on our ball skills, in particular aiming and shooting, and working on our climbing skills through games on the traverse wall, freedom climber and wall bars. 

P5 – 7 

In science, the P5-7 children are currently learning about the features of vertebrate groups. They are also learning to use keys to identify animals and how to construct these branching keys themselves. Social Studies work is about the geography of Scotland. So far, the children have learnt to locate various cities, landscape features and landmarks on maps. RME work this term focuses on the Life of Jesus. Health and Wellbeing work is about handling different types of risks by identifying them and considering how to reduce the likelihood of harm. French work has involved learning vocabulary for pets and farm animals and then putting these nouns into sentences. They’ve also been using cognates to work out the meanings of unknown words. As well as the usual spelling, grammar, handwriting, etc, English work is currently on learning about non-chronological reports. The children have read various reports and have learnt to identify common text structures and language features. In preparation for writing their own non-chronological reports, they have been looking at note-making techniques. In PE this term we are learning volleyball skills and enhancing our climbing skills using the traverse wall, freedom climber and wall bars.  The children are learning to play tuned instruments in music, including guitar, recorder, keyboard, violin and ukelele.