September 17, 2024
by Mrs Maxwell
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September 3, 2024
by Miss Stout
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Science Focus – Dissolving!
We have been learning about soluble substances and dissolving this week by experimenting with different liquids and solids in water eg. oil, sugar, salt, chalk, sand, flour, soap, vinegar, etc. The children tried their hardest to mix the oil and water and were fascinated that they separated every time! We discussed density and are now keen to experiment with oil, soap and water next week! The rainbow skittles experiment was a favourite to watch!
September 3, 2024
by Miss Stout
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ERIC Time
We have introduced ERIC (everyone reading in class) time for 10 mins every day after break time. We recently received many old magazines and comics from Freyja, such as The Beano, The Week Junior and Nat Geographic Kids which our pupils are all currently enjoying. We ordered some new fictional books for our library too. This is a peaceful and enjoyable part of our daily routine.
August 29, 2024
by Miss Stout
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Outer and Inner Self-portraits
The children created self-portraits showing their outer and inner selves:
Ander loves trees, his climbing frame, football, his iPad, love, Don dog, hot dogs, burgers and has shown his Shetland and Argentinian roots! Harris has shown his love of Xbox, phonk music, spiders, the sea and orcas. He included his pet snake Thistle too!
Heidi loves her cats, trees, birds, orcas, rainbows, sunny days, the colour pink, her iPad and the big slide in the playground! Luca loves sharpening pencils, mushrooms, prawns, lobster, monkey bars, Lego, football and his Shetland and Argentinian roots!
August 29, 2024
by Miss Stout
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End of August Update
P2 have enjoyed using the laptops to type up their news for the Fair Isle Times. They love using the clicker programme which reads back their sentences and also helps with spelling. P2 are also working hard on money this week, by practising counting up coins to make amounts up to 20p.
The children enjoyed creating a road and shops in the playground using chalk. They have worked together as a team with everyone involved in the game during break times.
On Wednesday the children spent time in the school garden with Pat. They pulled up some tatties and onions. We have so many onions that we decided to deliver some to Triona and Stewart and enjoyed the walk down and back, as the sun had come out!
The children love their Art sessions with Fiona! Last week they did a fantastic job creating light and dark comparison scapes. Following on from that, in class we learned about day and night and why daylight changes between winter and summer. We had fun using a globe and a torch to explore this concept, with each child picking a different part of the world to ‘live’ then we rotated the globe. Next, we moved the globe to the other side and discussed the difference. We also learned about nocturnal and diurnal animals.
This week in art, the children had so much fun ice-painting. They mixed colours on blocks of ice and using salt to increase the rate of melting in places. They enjoyed swirling and mixing their chosen colours.
Welcome Back!
August 16, 2024 by Mrs Maxwell | 0 comments
It has been lovely to welcome Luca, Harris, Heidi and Ander back to school this week. As it was a lovely day, we went on a nature walk for daily mile, collecting as many different flowers (and fungi) as we could find. The angelica is getting really tall so everyone found a tall one to stand beside. We sorted the flowers back at school and identified them.
For Daily Mile on Thursday, we visited plantation to explore Fair Isle’s small patch of trees. Luca spotted some fungi in one of them.
In the afternoon, Pat and the children worked on the school garden and harvested the fruit and veg. A lot of peas and the final strawberries have been eaten by the children this week! Harris made home-made chips from the giant potato.
On Friday for free choice of learning, Ander and Heidi had fun playing with magic sand and the water tray.
Luca and Harris spent time exploring the different colours of dye they could make from beetroot, blackcurrants and various plants. They dipped cotton wool in the dyes and plan to dry it over the weekend.
This gallery contains 20 photos
June 30, 2024
by Mrs Maxwell
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Farewell Freyja
We had a special Farewell Tea to say goodbye to Freyja who is off to high school after the summer holidays. We gave Freyja a big card full of lovely messages from everyone across our school community. Freyja also received a photo album of her time at FIPS from nursery to P7, and a scientific calculator to get her started on secondary maths.
Freyja has been a wonderful pupil and an incredible asset to our school. We will all miss her friendly, bubbly presence and conversation. All the best for high school Freyja – keep being you and go smash this next step!
June 26, 2024
by Mrs Maxwell
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A busy month of visitors!
Fair Isle Marine Protected Area Weekend
On Friday 7th June, Katie (Project Officer DR MPA) and Emma (Whale and Dolphin Conservation) , worked with the primary school children all day, starting with with a very interesting presentation about cetaceans. Our children learned many facts about these fantastic sea mammals, explored artefacts, like a piece of baleen, and learned to ID Risso’s dolphins; they even had the chance to name some of the local dolphins in the ID catalogue (Flash, Silver, Humphrey, Scar and Finn). We learned about echolocation and went up to North Haven to test out the special hydrophone to see if we could hear any cetaceans (sadly we didn’t but we did enjoy listening to underwater sounds). In the afternoon, to celebrate World Ocean Day, we reflected upon the things we love about the sea.
The Secret of Seeds
Ger from the Netherlands has been staying in Fair Isle, after first visiting 49 years ago. He came in to speak to us about his job as a teacher of gardening, where schools from all around his city visit the gardens/education centre for weekly lessons. We explored seeds carefully, taking them apart to examine the root/shoot with food dye under a microscope – amazingly we could see the detail of the leaves in this tiny part of the seed. It was fascinating to learn that there is a complete plant inside, ready to grow! Pat and the pupils showed Ger our school garden and the sunflowers we are growing in our classroom. Sunflowers are Ger’s favourite flower so we will send him pictures of their progress.
Art with Bev
Bev is an artist from England who is staying on the island this month. She used to be a school teacher and offered to visit us for an art session. One of the focuses for her art on Fair Isle is lichens so the children had the opportunity to create some lichen artwork, and also to do some upcycling by turning milk cartons into a mini wallet. Later in the month, the community were invited to visit the studio at the end of Bev and Rob’s residency at Lower Lough to see the artwork and enjoy some tea and scones. Bev’s artwork is beautiful and we had a lovely afternoon.
Heidi and Ander’s Lichen’s
Maui and the Sun
Chantelle, a school teacher from New Zealand, was staying on the isle and came in to work with us. We had a lovely time learning more about New Zealand, from earthquakes and volcanoes, to wildlife and Mauri culture. We learned the story Maui and the Sun and had fun re-enacting it out in the playground, trying to catch the sun!
Thanks to all our lovely visitors to our school this month. Our children thoroughly enjoy learning from others and about their life and where they come from; such experiences are very enriching for our pupils!
June 9, 2024
by Mrs Maxwell
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Rights Respecting Schools – Silver Award
Fair Isle Primary School has been awarded Silver in the Rights Respecting Schools Awards.
The UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) supports schools across the UK to embed children’s rights in their ethos and culture. The award recognises achievement in putting the UN Convention on the Right of the Child (UNCRC) at the heart of a school’s practice to improve well-being and develop pupil awareness of rights. Our pupils continue to develop their understanding of situations, both locally and globally, where children may not be able to access their rights, and to inspire our pupils to campaign for change. There are 3 awards:
Bronze: Rights Committed
Silver: Rights Aware
Gold: Rights Respecting
Our pupils, parents and staff all participated in the Silver Accreditation virtual visit online. The assessor was impressed by our children’s awareness of rights, the activities taking place in school to develop this understanding and our school culture that ensures respecting children’s rights are at the centre of our ethos. We were excited to receive our certificate and banner! Our whole school community is very proud of the children’s effort towards achieving this award.
May 17, 2024
by Mrs Maxwell
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Outdoor Fun!
The weather has been beautiful this week and the children have enjoyed playing outdoors in the sunshine. This afternoon, they played with the new basketballs and also tested their STEM boat designs in the small paddling pool – one could even stay afloat with two basketballs (and Mousy). Our pupils have had a lovely time playing with Maggie who is visiting Fair Isle with her family this week.
