Fair Isle Primary School, Shetland

During Term 4, the P1-P7 children have very much been taking ownership of and leading their learning in the form of personal self-directed projects. We feel this is a really valuable aspect of learning as it encourages all those skills of communication, curiosity, independence and collaboration. Also, we believe that children learn best when they are pursuing their own interests and immersing themselves in something that they would love to learn about.

Across all ages and stages, the children have embraced their projects. We have had a fashion project, which included the design and making of an actual (and exceptionally beautiful) dress to wear, a project on the Hercules plane with a plan to make a model of one – as you’ll see from the pictures we think it is simply sensational, and a “Fishing around Fair Isle” project with tasting menus, quizzes and practical activities involving fishing equipment. All three children asked members of the community to visit school to work alongside them during their projects so a massive thank you to Neil, Anne and Steven for their engagement with the children.

To celebrate, we had a showcase event in the hall where we presented our projects and invited all the Fair Isle community to come and see them and ask us about our learning. As ever, we received lots of support and spoke confidently about our learning, receiving lots of positive comments as we did so. Check out the pictures.

Our last school trip of the year followed swiftly on from our previous one a few weeks ago. Sandwick Sports Day, Shetland Museum, Lerwick Police Station (trying not to get locked in a cell), Clickimin Swimming and much more besides made for a very memorable final stay as a group of three. Please enjoy this bumper set of photographs that summarise what a wonderful time we had.

Those regular readers of our blog will know how important our enrichment trips are to us and this one was no exception. The children have been absolutely superb throughout – supporting and encouraging one another, working together and being superstars in all we did. Jonathan and Hollie were, once again, so impressed with how the children plunged (quite literally, as you’ll see from one photograph) into all that we had planned.

There are many people to thank for our trips across the year and we made sure to write thank you cards to swimming instructors, hostel staff and even The Maxwells (who always welcome us for a playdate at Hamnavoe). A special thank you, however, on this trip to all the staff at Tingwall Airport and the airfield crew back in Fair Isle for getting us home before the fog set in. As you’ll see from the final photograph, it was a good job we made it home.

A lot of planning and effort goes into the trips our bairns take part in so we are grateful to everyone for making them happen. Now for the final fortnight of term with lots of exciting events “back at base” planned.

Just a normal week at Fair Isle Primary School.

It’s been very busy recently with the end of term fast approaching. We are heading to the mainland for the second of our enrichment trips this term shortly but, in the meantime, we thought you’d like a little peek into what we’ve been up to lately.

Local fisherman, Steven Wilson (who is also helping with a P6 project on fishing), volunteered to come into school to do a talk to the children. We were fascinated to learn all about how he first began his journey on the high seas and how the life of a fisherman works around our isle. Jonathan and Hollie were very impressed with how well the children identified all the different types of fishing equipment he brought in for us to get “hands-on” with and would like to say a big thank you for answering all our questions and preparing some fascinating resources and information for us.

Our sessions with Carla the Ranger from F.I.B.O (Fair Isle Bird Observatory) continued with some super rock pooling down at South Lighthouse. We love plunging into the outdoors and being curious, free and explorative – diving under rocks and seeing what we can find. This visit did not disappoint. We had starfish, soft-shell crabs and even a beautiful sea urchin. The fish we found made a bid for freedom and evaded capture but we are always careful to put rocks and sea creatures back where we found them and respect our seashore environment.

Finally, we had a visit from our police officer – Bryan. Bryan is stationed in Lerwick in mainland Shetland but comes out to visit our isle from time to time to chat to the community and make sure we are law-abiding citizens. He is fabulous and we love having him in school. He took us through all his equipment, how it is used and talked to us about the work life of a police officer. We even had time to be placed in handcuffs and try on his rather large police jacket and hat. Thank you so much for visiting us and we are looking forward to a tour of Lerwick Police Station when we venture out soon.

You might remember seeing, earlier this year, that we completed some artwork to turn into cards for our cruise ship stall. This is a stall we run in the hall when ships visit our island from all over the world. We sell tea towels, puffin bags, cards and postcards full of our own unique designs.

We love our stall because it gives us a chance to run our own business, deal with money and transactions as well as communicate with and chat to people from different places who always have a story to tell. It teaches us so many skills that are useful for the world of work.

The money we generate goes toward our school trips and all those activities we do that you will have seen in our previous blogs such as swimming lessons, trips to the climbing wall, cinema trips and cafe visits. We are always very grateful for the generosity and kindness of all the folk who visit and buy our “merchandise”.

Here are some pictures of us “in action” at our stall…

More news from Fair Isle Primary School in the form of the first of TWO mainland trips this term. This trip was three days full of a plethora of different events and activities. Read all about it below.

Tuesday
We were straight off the plane, into our hire car and off to Aith for a climbing wall session. Our regular instructor, Andy, is someone who we always like to say thank you to and who encourages and challenges the children to succeed. Jonathan and Hollie were very impressed with the determination, strength and resilience of the children as they tackled harder climbs and made it ALL the way to the top on different occasions.

It was then time for some well-earned lunch at Michaelswood, followed by an explore. Michaelswood is a beautiful memorial garden, wood and trail in memory of a young man who sadly lost his life over twenty years ago. We had the privilege of meeting his mother who told us all about how the area is maintained and looked after.

In the evening, we were joined by our Shared Headteacher, Christie, for tea and a good chat to tell her all about our day. Along with past pupil Freyja, we went for our customary wander around Clickimin Loch and Broch before bedtime.

Wednesday
Straightaway after breakfast, we hopped into the car and set off for the most southern tip of the mainland for an archaeological tour of Jarlshof. This is a prehistoric site dating back to nearly 3000BC, with discoveries from the bronze age to the era of Norse settlers. What made the trip was a fabulous tour by the amazing archaeologist, Lucy, who gave us a complete tour and had so much knowledge and expertise. Thank you, Lucy! We really recommend Jarlshof to anyone who is interested in the past.

In the afternoon, it was time for a swimming lesson and some time in Lerwick to spend some pennies. Not content with just one dip in the pool, we then teamed up with the children from fellow remote island, Foula, who were out on a trip themselves, for an evening splash. We really value the link we have with the children there (who will eventually share a hostel with us when we reach High School) and, after lots of fun in the pool, we were all treated to a chippie tea in Lerwick with our pals before bedtime.

Thursday
The trip continued. Our eldest learner was able to join children from our shared headship school, Sandwick, for a P5-P7 hockey tournament at Brae. A massive thank you to the teachers at Sandwick and the children there for welcoming us onto the team. It was a cracking day organised by Active Schools, Shetland and Jonathan was very proud of the hockey skills on show. Our remaining learners hopped in with Christie and travelled south to Sandwick JHS to join in with lessons in larger classes once again and, as always, received a lovely and warm welcome from the teachers and children. Thursday showed just how valuable our shared headship is and how it is working so well for the children here in Fair Isle.

There was time for one final trip to the Lerwick playpark before the 4:00pm flight back home.

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.