Tag Archives: Life and Ethos of the School

Da Week Dat’s Awa!

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It’s been a very busy week in the Draatsi class!  We’ve even managed a photo and interview with the local media so keep your eyes peeled in the Shetland Times for news of our AI work with the Children’s Parliament!

Here are some of the activities we’ve been involved in…

Language

We have moved on to Target 2 in our Writing Challenge.  With Mrs Henderson the pupils started a longer story which they will build on over the coming weeks.  They need to try to include carefully punctuated sentences with interesting openers.  Today saw us looking in more detail at openers that begin with -ing words.  The pupils were given a sentence ending for them to decide on suitable beginnings.  We also looked again at using speech marks.  There’s so much to remember!

Maths

Various Maths topics have been worked on this week.  These include addition and subtraction methods, multiplication, fractions and work on area.  They have been working hard and developing the skill of explaining their answers in words.

Health and Well–being

Class PE is always really popular so we took advantage of the fine weather on Thursday to go outside and play some of our class favourites!  We love Capture The Flag and Rock, Paper, Scissors!

Last week, we watched the Oscar nominated animation, ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse.’  This week we created our own charcoal drawings in the style of Charlie Mackesy and wrote quotes that mean something to us.  Some examples are below…

Work by Scott, Jasmin, Rory, Scarlett and Alec.

Wednesday saw our class taken over by the Children’s Parliament.  We were joined by Gregory and Sophia who have visited before but were also joined by Cathy who is the founder of the Children’s Parliament in Scotland and Rona who is Head of Projects.  They were so impressed by the knowledge of the pupils and how they can articulate themselves.  😌

They helped us with our next Mission.  Each group was given a case study which used a different aspect of AI.  The children had to read these through and decide on how the AI was being used in a positive or negative way.

This group’s case study was about the use of online video games. They found more cons than pros in their story.

The next task was to illustrate how these pros and cons could be shown using plasticine!  This was a hard task but we were all amazed  at the imagination each group showed.  Each plasticine model had a detailed story behind it.

 

This group’s story was about how AI can be used when diagnosing illnesses and injury.
Models were created to show how people left out of facial recognition would feel.
We had to explain what our models showed.

The culmination of the day was creating a news report with each person taking on a different role…Presenters, Interviewers and Editors.  The pupils had to write a report about their case study and ask questions about the type of AI used in their story.  Joining us live, online, was Mhairi from The Alan Turing Institute.  She was able to answer all our questions while the editors quickly noted down her responses.  The children ALL rose spectacularly to the challenge and were not put off by the bright lights or Gregory’s dictaphone!

Our presenters were not fazed by the bright lights!
A career in the making…
Interviewers patiently waiting for their cue…
Delighted to be asking The Alan Turing Institute the cutting edge questions!
Presenters Fruit Cake, Sponge Cake and Chocolate Cake!

It was a fantastic day of learning and team work.  Thursday saw each pupil being interviewed by Gregory to tell him what they understand of AI and how they are finding being involved in this two year project.

We are very proud of each and every Draatsi!

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Platinum Jubilee

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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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World Down Syndrome Day

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Today we celebrated World Down Syndrome Day by wearing odd socks!

Down syndrome occurs when an individual has an extra partial (or whole) copy of chromosome 21. It is not yet known why this syndrome occurs, but Down syndrome has always been a part of the human condition.

World Down Syndrome Day (WDSD) , 21 March, is a global awareness day which has been officially observed by the United Nations since 2012.

The date for WDSD being the 21st day of the 3rd month, was selected to signify the uniqueness of the triplication (trisomy) of the 21st chromosome which causes Down syndrome,

 

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Farewell Ms Henderson!

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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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Halloween

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We hope you like the new image on our P4/5/6 Blog page!  What a motley crew we are!  We had a great time celebrating Halloween in class.  We made toilet roll tube characters, wrote spooky story starters, created a pastel crayon bat picture, enjoyed a special Halloween themed lunch in the canteen and took part in a co-ordinates Trick or Trick game in the afternoon.

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Last day of term!

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We have had a super last day of term!  Here’s what P4/5/6 have been kept busy with!

First thing, we all did a Double Doodle Soft Start activity.  Double Doodling is a great way to be creative, relax and stay in the present moment, only concentrating on where you want to guide your two pens.  You draw with a pen in each hand and use them simultaneously.  What one pen draws, the other mirrors.  This activity is a fantastic way to engage both sides of the brain so is particularly useful before written or reading tasks.  Why not watch the clip in the link and try this at home too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNzVn0BF9Ow

Once our brains were active, we continued to write our National Poetry Day poems.  We are still typing these up but hope to share them with you soon.  Here are some starting lines to whet your appetite!

If music had the power to heal the world I would … play the piano and the piano should give the world hope.  (Scott)

If music had the power to heal the world I would play every note, sing every song.
Think of the words to nature’s tune. (Georgia)

Every time a note is struck on an acoustic guitar,
A bit of litter is replaced with sand, so fine and smooth.  (Ruben)

We were in for a musical treat after break when Joy came to do drumming with us.  We even managed a dance outside as we moved and drummed to a Swahili song.

The afternoon saw us reflecting on what we’d enjoyed about Term 1 and what we need to keep working on next term.

Then we got the oil pastels out and created a moonlit sky background ready for a Halloween picture first week back.

It’s been a pleasure spending this term with you all!  Have a wonderful holiday!

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Dance in Class P.E.

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Over the past week, we have been putting together a class dance with an African feel!  It was a beautiful day so we took our rehearsals outside and managed to run through all the steps as a class.  They’ve picked it up really quickly.  In the afternoon Fearne’s Mum, Mercyline, met us in the multi court to show us some moves that would be typical in the Sengenya dance and then she helped us add some of these movements into the group sequences that the children created.  They had some lovely, creative ideas!  We’ll record these dances tomorrow and hope to share our work at the end of term.  A big thank you to Mercyline for giving up her time for us. 😊

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