Fair Isle Primary School, Shetland

During this term at Fair Isle Primary School, we have been looking at how important water is. It may be all around us here in the isle but access to clean and safe water is difficult for lots of children around the world. This got us thinking about how we could play our part, especially when realising the sustainable development goal of clean water and sanitation for all, as well as the individual rights of all children.

So, we decided we would raise some money and “twin” our toilet via the charity “Toilet Twinning” (check them out, they do some brilliant work and you can even twin your own home toilet). The children at the school wanted ours to be twinned with a latrine in South Sudan.

We designed a “Go Blue for a Loo” day, where we dressed in blue and took part in some activities designed to provoke our thoughts about water, from transporting water across an obstacle course and creating a “water run”. Jonathan even got some folk to dig deeper into their pockets in return for being soaked himself (a luxury not everyone in the world has).

Our toilet is now proudly twinned and we can think about how fortunate we are, and how others are not, whenever we use water throughout the day in school.

As you may know (or may not know if you are new to our blogs), one important element of life at Fair Isle Primary School are our trips to mainland Shetland. These are hugely important to us for a whole range of reasons: the children gain familiarity with the halls of residence where they will eventually stay when they move from primary to secondary, the trips give us chance to take part in all those exciting activities that we do not have access to here in Fair Isle and we now (through our wonderful shared headship with Sandwick) have the chance to go and spend time in bigger classes with more peers of our own age.

So, put the kettle on, sit back and read all about the Spring trip we embarked on this week. We warn you, there are thirty photos and lots to read about but (given we had to rearrange it three times due to the weather) it was definitely worth the wait.

Day One – Wednesday
After keeping our eyes on flight radar, it was time to head to the airfield, wave goodbye to our parents and leave Fair Isle behind us. Touching down at Tingwall after an exceptionally bumpy flight, we collected our hire car and dropped our suitcases off at the halls of residence. We then wandered into Lerwick for some retail therapy. This included exchanging our World Book Day tokens at the bookshop, spending our pocket money at Harry’s Deparment Store and even being offered some free samples at Island Larder. There was time for a trip to one of Lerwick’s fabulous playparks where a P6 pal met us too. On the way back to the hostel, we stopped at the Clickimin running track for a 400m dash, earning our macaroni cheese that evening at the halls of residence. In the evening, we headed out to beautiful Hamnavoe for a playdate with our friends who used to live in Fair Isle. Those friendships are super important to us and we had a great time (thank you to Gillian and Tom for allowing us to invade you for the evening).

Day Two – Thursday
We were up and raring to go on the Thursday morning! This was going to be a busy day. After breakfast, we were kindly given a tour of the Anderson High School by deputy headteacher Mrs Jamieson. Again, gaining familiarity with our surroundings when we eventually make the step up to High School is invaluable to us. Also invaluable to all of us are our swimming lessons and that was where we headed next. A whole hour in the pool with different instructors meant we certainly earned those baguettes that the Halls of Residence supplied us with. We munched on them after driving out to Aith, on the west side of the mainland for a lesson at the climbing wall. Our instructor, Andy, was fantastic and made sure we tackled some hard climbs. Even Hollie and Jonathan made it all the way to the top after being challenged by our speedy gladiators. It was then time for a well-deserved hot chocolate in The Dowry with our Headteacher, Christie, who came to meet us from Sandwick. The marshmallows went down a treat. After a delicious evening meal of fish and chips and pizza at the Halls of Residence, we wandered around Clickimin Loch and Broch with two past pupils from Fair Isle who always take the time to come and see us when we venture out and it was lovely to see the children of Fair Isle (across the ages) reunited together.

Day Three – Friday
This was our day to head to Sandwick Junior High School. Bacon rolls awaited us for breakfast before we jumped, once more, into the hire car. Our Headteacher Christie was there to warmly welcome us all and take us to our classes. It was so fantastic to see our children, from P1 to P6, spending time mixing, mingling and learning with peers of their own ages and many more friendships were made and strengthened throughout the day. A big thank you to the teachers for having us in your classes. It is so lovely to see the shared school model in action in this way and we left full of smiles. Then, it was simply a case of back to Tingwall airport and a beautiful flight back to Fair Isle on the late afternoon flight where our parents were waiting for us.

And breathe! There are so many people to thank for making the trip so fun. Jonathan and Hollie want to praise all three of the children, especially our youngest P1 who spent all that time away from home with us – looked after by our two older children who are not only increasingly familiar with trips but also nurturing and caring as well. The Halls of Residence staff and kitchen for making our stay so comfortable and feeding us scrumptious food. Amy, our clerical “back at base” for helping Jonathan with all the bookings, flights and car hires. Talking of flights, the staff and pilots at Tingwall airport deserve a huge high five for being flexible and getting us out and back safely. Bring on the summer trip with further adventures to come!

It does feel like spring is on the horizon here at Fair Isle. Brighter and longer days are on the horizon and the isle is looking rather lovely.

There has been lots going on here at Fair Isle Primary School as we approach the Easter Break. Last week was World Book Day. Whilst costumes were very much optional, it was more important to us here at our school that we celebrated our love of reading and put that front and centre of a “reading themed day”. We designed new front covers for our recent class novel, “Danny the Champion of the World”, made sea creature themed bookmarks out of felt and invited our parents in for a lovely paired-reading session where we relaxed and read some favourite stories to one another. It was a great day.

In our RME lessons, we have been focussing on Buddhism. As part of this, we learned about Bodhi Day. Bodhi Day is the day that the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, awoke from what Buddhists believe was his seven day meditation underneath the Bodhi tree after achieving enlightenment. After considering what Buddhists think living a good and fulfilling life means, we made some delicious Bodhi Day biscuits (in the shape of leaves, naturally) and shared them with our friends and families.

This coming week is our school trip to mainland Shetland for swimming lessons, climbing wall excursions and trips to see our pals at Sandwick. Fingers crossed for more lovely weather.

As you may have read on a previous blog, as a school we have committed to carrying out regular beach cleans four times a year on a designated beach in Fair Isle (we like to think of it as the “school beach” but it is, in fact, Muckle Uri Geo down by the South Lighthouse).

This week, we completed the first one of 2026. We were once again joined by our resident expert, David, who guided us through the fascinating methodology of how to complete a beach clean and ensured that Jonathan was doing proper scientific recording of the different items we found. Overall, we located and bagged 8.2kg of litter, from one huge hosepipe to plastic bottles and even a couple of shoes. David will join us next week in school to help us input the data online and we are very grateful for him giving up his time to help us. A big thank you to the parents who continue to support us too!

We are determined to keep our coastlines as clean as we possibly can and play our part here in Fair Isle.

It feels like those long, Winter months are possibly behind us with some beautiful, early Spring weather. We have (of course) been taking full advantage of this by being out and about with our digital cameras to add to our photography I.D.L (interdisciplinary learning) topic. We have had some ideas for how we can use our photographs in a meaningful and purposeful way.

P6
In P6, the plan is to take photographs of the iconic Fair Isle landmark, Sheep Rock, from a variety of angles and create a leaflet with a set of suggested walks (complete with maps) for visitors to our isle where they can enjoy viewing (although not trying to walk onto) the inaccessible Sheep Rock. These leaflets will proudly be on display in the newly reopened Bird Observatory for anyone to read. What a fabulous concept.

P3
A different plan here with photographs focussed on the airstrip here in Fair Isle with the plane taking off and landing, along with the refurbished waiting room in the airstrip building. This will then be magically turned into a “Welcome to Fair Isle” poster for anyone to take when they first land here. A brilliant idea.

P1
Houses are really important here in Fair Isle. Sometimes, we are even referred to as our house names (something quite common to Orkney and Shetland). In P1, we are going to take pictures of our own houses and the houses of our friends and think and write about why they are important to us. This is a lovely project.

We were out and about today gathering content. Have a look at these beautiful photos.

We have had a busy week with Lucy (who very kindly travelled all the way from Skye to teach us once again) which has included a mini project on South Georgia in preparation for our visit from Dave.

P6 and P3 wrote detailed reports about the geography and biodiversity of this fascinating island. They made some thorough notes before writing excellent reports, including fabulous features of non-fiction genres along the way.  Our P1 created some beautiful artwork to show the wildlife.  We also learned about the incredible story of Ernest Shackleton’s expedition.

In PE we enjoyed gymnastics and made huge improvements in our vaulting skills.  Check out our youngest learner mastering a fantastic shoulder stand.

There was even time to try playing the oboe Lucy brought with her all the way from the West Coast. It was brilliant to learn a bit more about an instrument we were fairly unfamiliar with.

Thank you so much again for coming to teach us Lucy (braving a somewhat bumpy North Link ferry in the process). We cannot wait to see you again after the summer holidays.

For our topic this term, we have been out and about in Fair Isle. One place we really wanted to visit was The Good Shepherd IV . This is the isle’s lifeline ferry that is skippered and crewed by members of the community here. It brings essential goods (such as Luca’s favourite balsamic vinegar) along with other supplies and even transports the lambs to mainland Shetland in the summer. We were given a guided tour by the skipper, Ian and one of his crew Khalid (also a parent to one of our children). As well as learning lots of technical vocabulary such as “bilge, galley and wheelhouse”, we learned about how the radar and navigational systems work on the ship and the way the propeller operates to keep the boat moving through the water. One very important task we did was to learn how to put lifejackets on and discover how they keep us safe at sea. It was fascinating! We even had time to have a Quality Street (other chocolates are available) from the galley – just don’t tell Steven we ate his favourite green triangles.

A massive thank you to Ian and Khalid for giving up their morning to help us learn about something so essential and important to life here in our wonderful isle.

What creative and artistic children we have here in Fair Isle Primary School. Over the last few weeks with Jonathan, we have been busy creating new designs for our cards that are sold when cruise ships visit in the spring and summer. As well as the classic “Puffin in Fair Isle Knitwear” design that has become somewhat of a tradition, we also had some terrific landscape drawings of famous Fair Isle views.

In Fiona’s art lessons, we have been studying traditional Inuit artwork. Fiona’s mother once worked amongst Inuit communities as a nurse so we used her artefacts and the belongings she had passed down as a basis to create some lovely pieces together and individually, including a magnificent owl piece. Please do have a look at these pictures.

Who knows? We may see you at a cruise ship visit later this year…

In our science, we have been learning about how water is made clean for drinking and general use. This got us thinking about the science behind all of it. Cue us experimenting with materials to create our very own filters. We used cotton wool, sand and even activated charcoal to purify water we found in muddy puddles outside. Naturally, we could not be sure it was 100% safe so we didn’t drink it but it looked pretty clear once it had gone through our homemade filters.

We then went onto learn about how some changes are reversible and some are irreversible by mixing together lots of substances and using our filters and other techniques to “reverse” the process. It really made us think about irreversible changes such as dissolving sugar in tea (for example).

This term (from January all the way to the end of March) we will be completing an I.D.L (inter-disciplinary learning) topic on photography. Rather excitingly, Jonathan bought us each a digital camera so we can take individual photos as we explore. This is very much going to be a topic linked to our own unique context here in Fair Isle, where we will choose areas of the island to explore with our cameras. We will then be selecting the direction our learning goes in: from written guides for visitors coming to the island to information leaflets on the history of Fair Isle itself. Naturally, we will be inviting the community to come and see our very own art gallery at the end of the term. Watch this space for that but in the meantime, enjoy these photos that Jonathan took of us taking photos (that’s a tongue twister) on a beautiful January morning the day our cameras arrived.