All posts by Mrs Smith

Welcome back!

Before the holidays, we decided on a class name and P4/5/6 chose the Draatsis.  Please look out for a photo of your ‘Draatsi’ in the Home/School Diary today!

For these first two days, we have been settling in again and those new to this classroom, have been getting used to their teachers and routines.  We have talked about our holidays and completed camera snapshots of our summer memories.  We have started our self portraits for the year in the style of Chuck Close, an American portrait artist.  We have tried a Maths problem solving activity that required us to persevere when our answer didn’t quite work out first time.  We have worked on various Team Building games that have helped us work together, communicate well with each other and  be patient and encouraging!  They did very well.  I think it will be a good year!

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Platinum Jubilee

This week P4/5/6 have been finding out about the history of our school and they have been looking at all the amazing artefacts that have been kept following the Queen’s visit to our school in 1969, when she opened it.  Some pupils were surprised to hear that there were once 5 small village schools in the South Mainland and that these schools were all closed to make the school that we have today….although it’s grown over the years too!

We invited Mary Andreas in to talk to us and prepared questions to ask her about her memories of the Bigton school and how she felt about moving to a much bigger school, out with her community.  She also recalled how the children and teachers prepared for the Queen’s visit and talked to us about her feelings on the day.  We looked at photographs and enjoyed spotting some relations.

Our discussions this week ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, have definitely sparked an interest in the pupils to go home and ask their older family members about their experiences of school.  Well done everyone!

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Star Fundraiser!

A huge well done to one of our pupils who recently cut her long locks  in aid of The Princess Trust.  To date, she has raised an amazing £743 .   Very well done!

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We got mail!

Five pupils were delighted to come back from their Easter Holidays to find that they had received replies to the author letters they wrote for World Book Day!  Some were standard replies from very busy authors but we were still grateful!  One  was a lovely, handwritten, personalised reply.  The rest of the class are patiently waiting!  🤞

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Last Day Of Term

It’s been a beautiful day and what better way to start it than a walk to school!  Our JRSOs have been working hard behind the scenes to organise the final activity in The Big Walk and Wheel Challenge.  They’ve been encouraging all classes to be physically active during the day, especially when some pupils can’t manage to walk or wheel to school.  Today, they helped organise the buses to drop everyone off at the football pitch to walk to school together.  Some pupils even managed some laps of the pitch while they waited for the buses to arrive.  The website tells us, we have logged 368 physical activities and we are in 295th position in the Uk for participation and 74th in Scotland!

For the rest of our day, we enjoyed time reading our own books, finishing our Easter cards, problem solving Maths using Tangram shapes, active time with P6/7 and Assembly time with Mrs Finch!  Now time for a rest!  Fingers crossed 🤞 for a holiday filled with weather like today!

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Farewell Ms Henderson!

We have had a super day for Ms Henderson’s last day at Dunrossness!  The pupils all made a great effort dressing up for the occasion.   We enjoyed following the P7 Jarl Squad procession and singing along in front of the beautifully decorated galley. We were treated to musical items in the hall and were delighted to hear Kate and Leah play their violins! Ms Henderson joined us in class for us to play her our PowerPoint poem and join us for a game of Hangman! We had time for Reading and some tessellation work before lunch.  We also managed to squeeze in our Recognition Board prize as all the pupils have been setting good examples over the past few weeks.  Then it was back for more singing and celebrating in the hall!  We will all miss her but wish her good luck in her new job!  Three Cheers…Hip Hip!!

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Celebrating Success

Well done to Jessie for completing the ‘Active Every Day in February’ challenge set by Active Schools.  She was chosen as one of the winners and received a token to spend for her efforts.  Very well done Jessie!

Rachel and Kirsty have also been active in the swimming pool.  At a recent competition, Rachel was awarded a silver medal for 25m front crawl and a bronze for her 25m back stroke.  Kirsty received two bronze medals for 25m breast stroke and front crawl.  Well done to you both!

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Maths – Exploring 2D Shapes

In P4/5/6 this week, we have signed up to the Shetland Sumdog Competition so we made a start at climbing up the leader board on Friday.  We are hoping to build on our success in the National Competition last time so it would be wonderful if the pupils could log in at home too and play along.  It runs until Thursday 17th.  Good luck!

These past few weeks, the class have been learning about 2D Shapes.  We have found out about polygons, regular and irregular 2D Shapes, parallel and perpendicular lines, how to find the number of diagonals a many sided shape has and naming quadrilaterals.

All of this helped lead up to this week’s Maths lesson where pairs of children were given either a description of a 2D shape or a specific shape for them to describe using the correct Mathematical terms.  They had to use different materials to make them as accurately as they could.  I was really impressed with the team work shown and their ability to keep working when shapes did not quite come together and when clues had to be puzzled out.  (Sorry for out of focus photos!)

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Festival of Care

This week, we have been preparing for The Festival of Care 2022.  The Festival runs from Friday 18th February until Tuesday 22nd.  Our school, along with all the other Shetland schools, have received a pack with suggested ideas for us to work through.  The #ShetlandCrew are a group of care experienced children and young adults who are asking us all to think about the different types or combination of families that children grow up in and to be aware that, for some children, growing up can be difficult, especially if they are care experienced.

The theme for this year is, ‘Tending the Light’ and they are asking us to think about the following questions.

  • Do you have someone who is a lighthouse for you?
  • What makes them a lighthouse?
  • How do you think you can be a lighthouse for the children and young people who need it most?

We looked at examples of care experienced characters in famous books and films and spoke about the different families they grew up in and what these characters have in common.

We enjoyed playing some games suggested by the #ShetlandCrew to get us thinking about what it may feel like to be care experienced.

Finally, we created our own lighthouse window art that will be displayed next week to show our support for all those who are care experienced throughout Shetland.

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One of the games saw us leading a friend who could not see. They had to put their trust in a friend to safely guide them.
Everyone was kind and gentle towards those who could not see.
It felt strange not knowing where we were going. That was when we had to trust our partner knew what to do!
Andrew felt like he was falling but Ryan was there to catch him!
I’m right behind you, Eilidh!
It was a strange feeling!
The second game saw us forming a tight circle around a friend who could not see.   They were then spun around and around until dizzy!
We spoke about how this felt. They didn’t know which direction to move in. They felt dizzy and a little out of control.
As they started their journey to find their place back in the circle, there were kind hands reaching out to guide them and show them the way.
There you go Jade! Well done!
We started making our lighthouses that will be displayed next week. How fitting to have the light streaming in on us as we worked!
Andrew, Scott, Robbie and Ayanda get started.
Archie, Rachel, Lily and Freya worked together.
Scarlett, Jade and Olga happy at their work!
Ryan, Innes and Ruben take a rest from glue and tissue paper!
Coming on nicely!
Amazing teamwork! Almost done!  We look forward to sharing our finished window displays next week!