Fair Isle Primary School, Shetland

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.

We had a slightly topsy-turvy start to the new term (and calendar year) here in Fair Isle. The snow fell the day before we were due to come back and school was closed for two days. Snow is fairly rare in Fair Isle so we made the most of it by wrapping up warm, heading outside, sledging and socialising with our friends, relatives and community members as well as taking some photographs of our beautiful island covered in this thick blanket of white. Here are some of those photographs for you. We are looking forward to the term ahead and cannot wait to share some of our learning with you.

A second installment of our Christmas festivities for all our eager blog readers. Seeing as it is the last week of term, we have been holding some exciting events. Our wonderful parents, Alice and Eileen, cooked us a School Christmas Dinner on Tuesday where we invited all the staff who have helped us this year to join us. We designed placemats for everyone, helped to set the table and had a wonderful time pulling crackers and telling jokes.

We then hosted our Christmas Party with some classic games including the “hat, scarf and gloves” chocolate game, music statues and pass the parcel. There were some funky dance moves on show.

It was such a lovely day though, so we could not resist getting out and about for a walk in the morning (to really earn all those tatties). The midwinter sun put on a spectacular show. At this time of the year in Fair Isle, the sun does not rise until 9:00am and has usually set by 3:00pm so it makes our sunrises all the more special. Please do read our Festive Fair Isle Times for a review of our brilliant pantomime starring our fabulous children.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here at Fair Isle Primary School. We have been having great fun decorating our setting for the festive season. As ever, we love collaborating and working as a team and have made sure that there’s a little bit of extra sparkle here in school. From writing some beautiful Advent Acrostic Poems to Christmas-themed Maths challenges, there’s been some fabulous learning. We even teamed up with our friends at Sandwick Junior High School to watch the dress rehearsal of their Christmas show (thank you linking us in) and we are going to show them ours this coming week.

The final week is going to be action-packed. Our parents very kindly cook us a school Christmas Lunch and we have our own Christmas show on Thursday. Stay tuned for “Part 2” of our Christmas festivities.

So far this year, we have been very lucky to have lots of visitors (both virtually and in person) who have shown generosity and kindness toward our peerie school.

Firstly, you might remember seeing our fabulous artwork created with visiting resident artist Lori Deeley, where we made our own paint by grinding up different materials. Lori lives in Newfoundland in Canada and sent us the most beautiful book about her home, which also can be sung. It is about wanting to live by the sea in harmony with nature and not in a big city. So it is just perfect for Newfoundland as well as Fair Isle. Thank you Lori.

Secondly, we met a lovely teacher in the Summer Holidays called Mr Shields, who works at Eton College in England. Eton is a very different school to ours and we had fun exploring the differences. But, what unites us is a love of reading. Eton asked us if we would like some books as they often have fundraisers and send books to other schools as well as their own. We looked through our own library and put together a wishlist. Very kindly and generously, funds were raised to buy the whole list! Here are some pictures of us with some of the books, with a whole ferry-load to follow in January.

We may be a school of four children, but we love making links and getting to know folk far and wide.

Today was, quite simply, an epic day. Children in Need is a charity that Fair Isle has been proud to support for many years, especially the Radio Shetland fundraising appeal. We don’t do things “by halves” here at our peerie school so, to raise as much money as we could, we planned a “Lighthouse to Lighthouse Ramble” from one end of our island to the other. This is (wait for it) 4.1 miles! We invited members of our community to join us and our Pudsey teddies joined in too.

It was a glorious day. A (mercifully) gentle wind was behind us all the way and, as you can see from the pictures, the conditions were perfect. We are so proud all our children managed the distance, from our 5 year old P1 up to P6. Our wonderful nursery child joined in from his grandparents house and walked the final 1.5 miles (sensational rambling from him, we thought).

We completed the distance in just under 2 hours! We then mingled, munched and recounted with community members during a cake and coffee afternoon with our mums and other helpers busy baking some delicious goodies as we had a well-deserved rest.

So far, the total we raised is a phenomenal £650. The generosity and kindness of the community here is what makes our isle special. We even appeared on Radio Shetland.
Good Evening Shetland – 25/11/2025 – BBC Sounds (listen from around 25 minutes).

A huge thank you to everyone who supported us. We may be four children living on an island, but we know how important it is to support less fortunate children through the work of this wonderful charity.