Fair Isle Primary School, Shetland

We have all thoroughly enjoyed our action packed final week of term.  Tuesday evening was our very well attended Christmas Variety Performance.  Luca and Ander acted, sang, played their instruments and performed gymnastics ….the two shining stars of Fair Isle Primary!

On Wednesday, Eileen very kindly cooked Christmas Dinner for the children and all the staff.  Thank you for such a delicious feast Eileen.

Some much needed chill out time!

We also had our Christmas party on Wednesday.  Brodie, who will start nursery in February, threw himself enthusiastically into every game.  We were lucky to have Grace and Freyja, just home from High School joining us too.

Luca and Ander had just enough energy left at the end of the week for a final piece of work for the Fair Isle Times.

We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has helped us this term and have a very Merry Christmas!

We have had a very busy week practising for our Christmas Variety Performance.  The music is in safe hands with help from our grandparents, Pat and Neil.  Fiona is helping us to do a short play set on foggy Fair Isle.  We are also learning new skills for our Harry Potter inspired creative gymnastics display.  Thank you to Hollie and Ythan for their technical help and encouragement. Look out for the video next week.

In art, we have constructed 3D planets with Fiona. Lucy has been making sure that we are keeping going with our daily mile and doing plenty of maths and literacy as well.  Following on from our workshop in Shetland Museum, we made notes and wrote detailed reports about Johnnie Notions.  We have both been thinking about connections in our maths. Enjoy the photos!

Music with Pat

3D Planet Art

Costumes ready for our Variety Performance!

Ander thinking hard!

Luca working on equivalent fractions.

Report writing…”Who was Johnnie Notions?”

Read the finished reports in this week’s Fair Isle Times.

We had a little celebration in school this week to say goodbye to Harris and Heidi.  They were gifted a photo album of their time at FIPS and a card full of lovely messages – both beautifully put together by Amy who has a real talent for making things look pretty and perfect! Freyja was back from high school early so it was lovely to have her celebrating with us too. We all enjoyed eating delicious cakes (thanks Eileen), chatting and looking at the photos.  Harris and Heidi were also given memory jars with little rolled up scrolls with favourite memories from everyone – many thanks to Lucy for organising this the previous week, and also for the beautiful thank you card the children secretly made for me too! What a lovely sentiment! Harris and Heidi have had a great couple of years at FIPS and it has been wonderful to see them flourish during this time and this is thanks to the exceptional staff and children who have all had a positive and lasting impact on them. Thank you all so much for making such a difference.

It has been a real privilege and a pleasure to teach at Fair Isle Primary School.  The exceptional staff make it a very happy place to work, as do the amazing families who have been a dream to work with! Thank you to the wider community for the wonderful gift of one of Marie’s beautiful Fair Isle throws – I am touched by everyone’s kindness and generosity.

Best wishes to everyone,

Gillian 😊

On Thursday, Harris and Luca, helped the isle folk to ‘caa’ the sheep off the hill.  It was Luca’s second hill caa and Harris’ first. They started at Buness to help drive the sheep north and eventually up Vaasetter.  Heidi and Ander watched from the cattle grid as the sheep gathered at the bottom of the hill. Once all sheep were penned up at the cru, Harris and Luca worked as a team to help bring the male lambs to the small pen where they were sorted and lifted onto the crofters’ trailers. They did a brilliant job helping the community, and Ander and Heidi loved being part of it too.  What a brilliant community effort from all on a beautifully sunny day!

The children had a lovely week with their new supply teacher, Lucy.  They especially enjoyed learning about Lucy’s other job as a mountaineering guide on the Isle of Skye – it sounds very exciting! On Tuesday after school, Lucy kindly took Harris and Luca up Malcolm’s Head to enjoy the spectacular view. The following day, Harris and Lucy walked up Val Setter – Harris loved seeing Sheep Rock from another viewpoint.  Lucy left the children a packet of Isle of Skye tablet to share – it was delicious – thanks!  Lucy will return to Fair Isle Primary in December.  We will all cross our fingers that Lucy gets the weather window in November for her climbing trip to St Kilda!

Last Friday, at Fair Isle Primary School, we had a lovely visit from Heike, a German fashion designer staying on the island. We learned about OXO patterns, colours and Shetland Wool Week.

We designed our own jumpers:

Last Thursday we visited the museum.  Stewart answered all our questions!  Here are some of the things we found out:

One of the oldest exhibits in the museum is the canon from the Spanish Armada boat called El Gran Grifon.      Harris

We tried to count the number of shipwrecks around the island. We think there were 67 shipwrecks.      Luca

The Vikings came to Fair Isle a very long time ago.      Ander

The rock which Fair Isle is made of is Old Red Sandstone. There is also a seam of calcite which runs from Raeva right across the island.      Luca

The rarest bird on Fair Isle is Chestnut-eared bunting.      Harris

The Heinkel started flying from the North of Germany on a reconnaissance mission. Hurricanes shot it down over Sumburgh Head and it crash landed on Fair Isle. The pilot and one other survived. Stuart and Hollie met the pilot when he came back to visit in 1999. We can see parts of the plane in different places on the island.      Ander

Last week, professors from the University of Nottingham visited the isle as part of their project called Ragna’s Islands.

See their blog here : https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/ragnasislands/

They held a school and community event to explore Fair Isle’s Viking roots. Judith spoke about her current work on translating Orkneyinga Saga. We looked at Viking artefacts like a brooch, a comb with runes carved in it and a soapstone mould for making brooches. We wrote our names in runes and also discussed place names around the isle that come from old Norse.  When in Shetland last week, we selected some Viking books from the library. We learned in one of them, why runes were made of straight lines. This is because it was easier to chisel into wood or stone. We decided to chisel our own names in runes at our woodwork station, along with ‘Fair Isle.’ It was lovely to spend the morning with others in our community, and to enjoys some refreshments (cake of course)!

Monday

Upon arrival, we had a quick lunch at the hostel flat then headed to Clickimin pool for our first swimming lesson. Afterwards (following a well-earned snack of course), we walked to Bolts to collect the minibus then had a fun time playing at Hayfield Park before nipping to Tesco to stock up on more snacks and goodies for the week ahead.

It was so lovely to sit with Freyja and Grace at dinnertime and catch up.  As this was our only decent day of weather, we decided to visit Meal Beach in the early evening for some fresh air and fun. It didn’t take long for socks and shoes to come off for a chilly paddle in the sea!  Back at the flat, we ate a healthy supper of fruit before bed.

Tuesday

As forecasted, the weather was horrendous but luckily all activities today were indoors!  The rain was so heavy we even used the mini-bus to get to the pool (just around the corner) for our lesson!  Our next stop was UHI for some STEM activities.  We explored the senses box – everyone loved the upside-down glasses! We did some coding with Botley, the programmable toy, and had a turn using the VR headset!  We were also given a tour of the building to learn about different careers studied like nursing, teaching, construction, art, textile, hairdressing and cookery!

Our final activity for the day was a trip to the dentist!  On our previous trip in May, we visited Montfield for Child Smile classes and for the dental nurses to apply fluoride varnish.  This time, we had full examinations, and the dentist was delighted to report that everyone has healthy teeth, and they are all brushing thoroughly.  Harris had a couple of x-rays in the practice then we went to Gilbert Bain for Luca to have a proper x-ray to check on a tooth yet to appear.  Freyja joined us after dinner for a trip to Magnos for ice-cream (some of us were defeated by two scoops as they were colossal).  Back at the flat, we watched a movie.

Wednesday

We had a relaxing start to the day with a visit to the library – it was very peaceful! Afterwards, we visited Scalloway Museum.  The children spent most of their time in the children’s area, playing with the castle and Viking toys.  Outside, Heidi met Heidi the Shetland pony!

After lunch we spent the afternoon at Hamnavoe Primary (Harris and Heidi’s new school after October).  Mrs Robertson, the head teacher, met us in the playground and showed us around and introduced us to the pupils. They have climbing frames, a tree garden, some hens and new swings. The children played until the end of lunchbreak then Heidi and Ander joined the P1/2 class, and Harris and Luca joined the P5/6 class.  Afterwards, we went to Harry’s toy shop to spend our pocket money then in the evening, Freyja, Luca and Harris went to the pool for ‘free’ swim. Heidi and Ander watched a movie and relaxed at the flat.

Thursday

The children spent the morning at Hamnavoe Primary and joined the literacy and maths lessons followed by break. Then it was back to the flat for lunch before our final swimming lesson.  As the flights were cancelled, we had a relaxing evening before heading home on Friday morning.  It was a fantastic school trip all round with happy, tired children (and adults)! I am really going to miss school trips – it is one of my favourite things about this job!