Fair Isle Primary School, Shetland

We had Lucy visiting us this week, which was lovely. Lucy helped to teach us before Jonathan arrived in April and it was fabulous to have her back in Fair Isle (she travelled all the way from Skye after Storm Amy). We hope she’ll come back again at some point this year.

During the week, we have been learning about data handling. On Wednesday we braved the wind to visit Dave who has LOTS of data for Fair Isle weather! We used data to construct bar and line graphs and then interpreted each others graphs. In P1, we made 2 fantastic pictograms of everyone’s favourite weather and her croft animals.

Some other highlights of our week were Ninja moves in daily mile, making papier mache dragon eggs in art with Fiona and creating our own dragons. Enjoy the photos!

Autumn is well and truly upon us here in Fair Isle. Changing colours, sweeping weather, harvest, sheep gathering and peeled tatties. We have spent some time in our Literacy lessons thinking about how Autumn here is different to other places in the U.K (after all, no trees mean no falling leaves). Inspired by some photography from a recent resident artist, we studied some Autumn poetry, gathered our very own ideas and set out on the quest to write  some poems.

There was some excellent imagination on display, as well as highly effective and accurate syllable patterns too. Our finished poems are absolutely beautiful. We published them in the Fair Isle Times and even had a poetry recital for our younger children (poetry is best when read aloud, of course). We hope you enjoy reading them too.

It is not long until the Bird Observatory shuts down for the season (the end of October to be precise). With that in mind, we had another lovely rock pooling session with Ranger Carla. We added a splash of science and maths to proceedings with the number of species and individuals recording along with the size of the rocks (we are going to see if there is any correlation next week in our data handling lessons).

We even had a super-cool interactive “virtual rock pool” before heading down to the beach so we could assess risks and keep ourselves safe.

As ever, we love being in the outdoors, hopping from pool to pool and slipping and sliding over seaweed. We found crabs, limpets, butterfish and a shanny – defined rather accurately as a small, feisty fish living in rock pools.

Thank you to Carla for another fantastic session. Why not give rock pooling a go yourself? You’re never too young…

Harvest Festival is always a favourite day in Fair Isle, when the island comes together to share produce, raise money for charity and take part in games and other events.

Naturally, we like to play our part in such an important community event . We harvested our school tatties (grown here in our garden) to contribute to the local produce. We dug up a whopping 58 potatoes!

On Sunday, we ran a stall in the hall which included two games for people to play. One was a “Guess the Weight of the Potato” game involving our heaviest harvested spud. This was 567 grams (20 oz). We also did a “Where did the Tattie make its home in Fair Isle?” where people had to pay a pound a square. It was great fun and people were very generous. We raised £75.60 on our stall and overall the island raised just over £1,100 to donate to two different charities. Check out these photographs of all the impressive veg, the stall in action and our bumper crop of tatties.

It isn’t all about P1-P7 here in Fair Isle, of course. Our ELC learner has been very busy this term. We hosted a “Stay and Play” so their parents could visit the school and see what they have been up to, along with their favourite areas and ways to learn (reading and cups of tea are always a hit, no matter what your age). Having strong connections with our families is what we are all about. It was a lovely morning and the youngest resident of Fair Isle even joined in too.

You might be wondering what learning at Fair Isle Primary School looks like in a multi-composite class with children of different ages and stages. Well, allow us to give you a peerie window into some of this classroom learning. Recently in maths, we have been covering shape, symmetry and angles and have produced some work that has blown Jonathan’s socks off. From measuring and drawing angles in P6, to creating symmetrical patterns and identifying angles in P3 to using mirrors to design beautiful and colourful butterflies in P1, there has been lots of challenge and progress. We always celebrate our achievements together too and take pride in our learning.

We are raising awareness that The Great British Beach Clean is taking place up and down the United Kingdom from the 19th September to 28th September 2025. Here in Fair Isle, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work down at Muckle Uri Geo, the stony beach by our South Lighthouse. We planned our clean with Carla the Ranger and local resident David (who is also the Education Officer from the Fair Isle Marine Research Organisation). They helped us understand the science and methodology behind a beach clean: we had to record each item we found so we can input the data in school next week. It was, once again, fantastic to be joined by parents and community members who spend a good two hour scouring the shores. We filled quite a few bin bags and buckets so overall we counted it as a highly successful mission.

Please think twice before buying or discarding single-use plastic!

At Fair Isle, we love taking the learning in our own direction. Our chosen topic this term is “Dragons” (we know, cool right?). As well as linking this to skills in Literacy and Science, we wanted to direct our own learning in a way that would see us collaborate and be creative together. After discussing our ideas, we decided we wanted to make our very own board game. Thus, “Dragons and Ladders” was born.

We looked at what a good board game involves, how to make it colourful and appealing to potential players and how it should be challenging but not super-difficult. We made our own prototype and have begun our preparation to transfer ideas onto an actual foldable board. We have been testing different materials to give our game a 3D aspect (felt was a definite winner) and have been busy working in our STEM room to create ladders, pieces and other accessories. We even converted a shoebox into a box to hold our board game using technology and computing skills.

Stay tuned for pictures of the “finished product”.

Our peerie school is a busy place this term. Now there are children in the nursery and in P1, we thought it was the perfect opportunity for teaming up and having some joint sessions together. This really aids transition and, of course, gives us lots of time to play and learn alongside one another. We have been looking at what activities we like choosing in our indoor environment and have been busy in the mud kitchen making potions, pies and tea. Naturally, everyone else wanted to join in too.

We once again took to the outdoors on Friday with an “expedition” led by Nick Riddiford. Nick is a resident of Fair Isle who is an expert in biodiversity with over 130 publications and the winner of many an award. Most importantly, however, he possesses all the necessary “bug hunting” equipment that we loved using as we journeyed up to Sprittery Hole. As well as looking closely at the vegetation and habitat, we also spent time hunting for the Iberian Water Boatman (Corixa iberica). It was fascinating to learn all about how it tries to survive and thrive here in Fair Isle. Carla the Ranger joined us too and we had lots of fun. Please do read Nick’s scientific write-up of our expedition, found here: Fair Isle school Sprittery Hole Bioblitz