Fair Isle Primary School, Shetland

News from Britain's most geographically isolated school

Tag Archives: Health and Wellbeing

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.

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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.

 

 

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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.

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Christmas Jumper Day & Blythswood Care Shoebox Appeal

January 9, 2024 by Mrs Maxwell | 1 Comment

As a Rights Committed (UNICEF Bronze Award) school, we are generating awareness of children and people in the UK, and around the world, whose human rights may not be met for a number of reasons.  This can range from natural disasters or war, to poverty and other events that can affect lives.

In addition to our UNICEF and Children in Need Coffee Morning Fundraiser in November, the pupils and staff of FIPS decided to support two further charities last term.  We took part in the Blythswood Care Shoebox Appeal.  Each of our families filled one or two shoeboxes for children of different ages.  The boxes included a toy, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, sweets, socks, hat, scarf and gloves.  Our pupils appreciate that every day items like these can make a difference to the lives of children who cannot always afford such items.

On Thursday 7th December, we took part in Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day.  The children enjoyed wearing Christmas clothing that day. This event introduced the children to another important charity that helps children around the world. We raised £30 which we think is brilliant for a tiny school like ours!

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