Fair Isle Primary School, Shetland

At Fair Isle Primary, we enjoy times during the week where we are able to lead our learning and pursue our own interests. We know that learning is also about those skills that we will need for life, such as communication, problem solving, critical thinking and self-motivation. In Term 4, the children all select a topic that we would like to tackle for our “Endeavour” projects (self-directed learning that spans the whole term). This also considers the 4 capacities that are at the heart of the Scottish curriculum.

It has been lovely to see our learners so engaged in what they are doing. We have overcome hurdles and difficulties, thought and worked very creatively and have invited members of the community into school to help us along the way. This is what life in Fair Isle is all about, learning from all our adults and involving them in the life and work of the school.

Here is a flavour of what we have been up along with some descriptions of our projects.

P6 – Fair Isle and Fishing
This includes going out at the weekend on a fishing boat to learn those skills associated with catching, gutting and cooking fish. This is building towards a tasting menu for others to try in school (already a mini-version of this has taken place with seaweed crisps and limpets). During some sessions in school, a very creative “fish mobile” has been crafted and made too.

P3 – Hercules Plane Model
This has included some excellent problem solving as this learner is making his very own model Hercules plane. Design and technology skills have been at the forefront of this particular project with the fuselage, wings, engines all being drawn according to a scale with some fantastic sanding and collaboration with a community member (Neil) with an interest in model planes.

P1 – Fashion
Our youngest primary learner loves all things fashion and really wants to learn sewing and making skills with a final aim of creating her very own dress. This is a fabulously creative project with lots of drawing and conceptual tasks before the making process has begun. For this, we naturally had to call upon a community member (Anne) who has a wealth of experience with both knitting and dressmaking.

We had a wonderful and highly educational afternoon with the Fair Isle Bird Obs ornithology team this week. As part of our session organised by Carla, the wonderful ranger, we were invited to join the team on a “trap round” and see what birds had been caught. It was a beautiful afternoon as we set off wandering and learned all about how the traps work, how the birds are looked after and how it is so important for the scientific work the Bird Obs does to track, monitor and ring them so their details can be shared with other teams in the U.K and across the world. We discovered how the rings are put on the birds, how they are checked carefully by the ornithology team to see how healthy they are and even how they are weighed (upside down in a little tube). The team even let us release some in outside the ringing room. Chiffchaffs, blackcaps and a sedge warbler were all spotted. A huge thank you to the team for giving us a glimpse into the fascinating work they do.

Da Voar Redd Up is the UK’s most successful community litter-picking event. It makes a huge contribution to the protection of Shetland’s natural environment and wildlife, clearing Shetland’s beaches, coastlines and roadsides of litter and the debris washed up by winter storms. Naturally here in Fair Isle, our peerie school plays a part in keeping the isle clean. So, we donned our gloves, armed ourselves with litter-pickers (kindly provided by Pat) and set off on a 3 kilometer walk to clear as much rubbish as we could find. Our Shared Headteacher, Christie, has been visiting us from the mainland this week too so we were delighted she could see how eager-eyed we are and how we take pride in our surroundings.

We managed a whopping three whole bags full of rubbish. Because we were out and about in the community, we could not resist the chance for a stop to see some newborn lambs and one of our mums, Eileen, provided us with some delicious cake to keep us going at the halfway point! A big thank you to everyone who joined us and a massive well done to our children for their efforts.

Stay tuned for more updates from our collaboration with the Bird Obs and the first of the cruise ship visits…

As regular visitors to Fair Isle and this blog will know, one of the birds synonymous with our isle is the puffin (or “tammie norrie” as we call them in Shetland). After wintering out on the rough seas, the birds have started to return to land, are busy with their burrows and are giving us much joy in the process.

The weather today was beautiful so we couldn’t resist venturing up onto the cliffs at the harbour and seeing how close we could get. It is always amazing how tame and unruffled the birds are by our presence. Being out in nature is one of our favourite things.

Enjoy the photos.

It has been great to welcome the children back after the Easter holidays. As always, we wasted no time in cracking on with our learning. One thing we love here at school is our link with Fair Isle Bird Observatory (FIBO or “The Obs” for short). On Thursday for the Fair Isle Times, we interviewed two of the lovely seasonal workers who have returned back for the season – Luke and Maebh. We found out lots of interesting information about them and even made them play a game of “Mr and Mrs”. We learned that they first met on another island – Lundy, that Luke is the better driver and Maebh always has the last word in an argument.

Here is an introduction to the term written by P6:
Welcome back to a whole new term of Fair Isle Times. Spring is upon us: lambs are jumping about, flowers are blooming but the sea is as rough as ever. Also, don’t forget that the Obs is reopening and that means Kenny’s Bar is returning so we can hang out and socialise together. We are enjoying welcoming back familiar faces. In this edition of the Fair Isle Times, we are interviewing (drumroll please…) Luke and Maebh! The much-missed duo have returned.

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Later in the week, we went down to The Obs to pass on some of our learning. Steve, the wonderful Hospitality Manager, had asked us to complete a front cover for a folder that will display Fair Isle Times articles that visiting guests can read. How exciting! Our older learner had completed a fantastic leaflet for people who are staying at The Obs to read about his favourite walks around Fair Isle, so they have kindly agreed to display that, too. Who knows… maybe they will follow his recommendations?

Here are some super photos of us with Luke and Maebh and us down at The Obs.

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.