Fair Isle Primary School, Shetland

News from Britain's most geographically isolated school

March 26, 2024
by Mrs Maxwell
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World Water Day

It was World Water Day on Friday 22nd March.  We know that water is vital for life and we use it every day for drinking, washing, brushing our teeth, cooking, gardening and for farming.  We know how privileged we are … Continue reading

March 18, 2024
by Mrs Maxwell
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LGBTQ+ History Month

February was LGBTQ+ history month.  Over the past year, we have learned more about the LGBTQ+ community and how attitudes have changed over the past 50 years.  Last month in class, we learned about the discrimination suffered in the past.  … Continue reading

Pop Art

February 27, 2024 by Miss Stout | 0 comments

The children have studied the artist Andy Warhol this term with their art instructor, Fiona. They have developed their understanding of Pop Art and worked on various pieces. We are very impressed with their colourful vibrant work and also their attention to detail in the Campbell’s Soup tin drawings. Their eye-catching work has certainly brightened up our classroom!

This gallery contains 14 photos

Rights Respecting Schools – Our Class Charter

February 16, 2024 by Mrs Maxwell | 1 Comment

As part of our journey towards becoming a Rights Respecting School, we explored the ABCDE of Children’s Rights.  Through this process, the children now understand that their rights are always there no matter what (unconditional) and that they apply to every child without discrimination (universal). We made a classroom display to remind us.

Our next step was to develop a charter for our school/class.  We started by exploring the UNCRC (Convention or Rights for Children) articles to decide what rights felt most relevant within our school environment.  Through discussion, debating and voting, the children agreed to incorporate 4 rights:

Article 12  –  Respect for Children’s Views – Our children’s views will be sought on all matters concerning them.  Their views will be taken seriously and considered.

Article 13 –  Freedom of Expression – Our children have the right to share their views and opinions freely.

Article 29  – Aims of Education – Education should develop the personality,  talents and abilities of all our pupils.

Article 31  – Rest, play, culture, arts – Our children have the right to play and rest.

A summary of Children’s rights can be found here:

https://www.unicef.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/UNCRC_summary-1_1.pdf

We then explored each of our chosen articles in turn to agree on actions for pupils and adults to uphold within each right.  Together, we decided on a display to represent our Charter.  The petals on the flowers are our 4 chosen rights.  The leaves on the left are pupil (Duty Holders) actions and the leaves on the right are adult (Duty Bearers) actions.  The roots represent the pupils and adults in our school community.

 

 

Duty Holders (pupils) will…..                               Duty Bearers (adults) will

(31 – Play and rest)

(29 – Aims of Education)

(13 – Freedom of Expression)

(12 – Respect for children’s views)

We included Article 12  in our charter which is one of 4 Guiding Principles of the CRC.  We wanted to include the other 3 other in some way too so Article 2 (Anti-discrimination) is the rain, Article 3 (Best interests of the child) is the sun and Article 6 (Life, Survival and Development) is the soil.

 

Our final task was to ask every pupil and staff member to agree and sign our Charter to show our commitment to uphold it.

 

 

This gallery contains 19 photos

Christmas Lunch

January 9, 2024 by Mrs Maxwell | 0 comments

We really miss Sue who was our lovely cook for 20 years before leaving the isle last summer.  As we approached the end of term, our fantastic Parent Council volunteered to cook the pupils and staff a delicious Christmas lunch on 15th December to keep the annual tradition going. Many thanks to Susannah and Eileen for the fantastic meal!  They even used up the rest of our home-grown school tatties! The children wrote and sent lovely invitations to our guests and made Christmas card place-cards.  Well done to Freyja for making the placemats for her final FIPS Christmas lunch!

This gallery contains 2 photos

A Fair Isle Nativity

January 9, 2024 by Mrs Maxwell | 0 comments

The children and staff of FIPS thoroughly enjoyed performing their Christmas Concert to our isle community on Thursday 14th December!  It was great fun to make, and a real team effort from all staff and children.

It all started after the October holidays.  We brainstormed a Fair Isle version of the Nativity.  Instead of Mary and Joseph in Nazareth, we had Magni and Merron in Lerwick who were expecting a baby.  Even though it was 2023, there was a National Census requiring everyone to return to the place of their birth.  Back to Fair Isle for Magni and Merron . Instead of travelling by donkey on the long and dusty road, they travelled ferry on the rough and choppy sea, as there was no chance of flying from Tingwall due to full planes or ice on the runway (common at this time of year).

We met many Fair Isle residents along the way, from the boat crew, Jimmy and Glen Dog, to three ‘wise’ crofters, Ian, Deryk and Marie, bearing gifts of lamb, veg and knitting!  Magni and Merron tried different B&Bs (Burkle, South Light and Springfield – all full) before settling in Steven’s byer.  The baby was named Nick – our nature-expert isle-resident Nick Riddiford was born on Christmas Day!

Fiona and the children made all the set pieces and backdrop in Art lessons.  Pat and the children rehearsed the singing and chime bar accompaniment to our Good Shepherd song (to the tune of Little Donkey).  With so few pupils, Hollie did a brilliant job playing herself, Josie, Steven and Marie with extraordinary quick changes in between!

We received excellent feedback from all in the community who thoroughly enjoyed the performance and the tea and mince pies afterwards, served up by our Parent Council.

This gallery contains 9 photos

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