Bookbug week ran this year from 13–19 May 2024.  This years theme is “Bookbug says Hello!”, celebrating the many languages spoken by families across Scotland.

We excitedly said our “Hellos!” to Bookbug during two events held in our school, on Tuesday and Thursday of this week.

On Tuesday, we held a Big Bookbug session with pre-school, Nursery and Lower Primary pupils, involving listening to a story, playing games and singing.  This was followed on Thursday by our Mini Bookbug session with nursery pupils, listening, playing and singing, held outside in the sunshine.

Curious for more about Bookbug? Tammie in the library is your go-to person for all things Bookbug-related.

On Wednesday 8 May 2024, the school hosted our annual YPI final – The Youth Philanthropy Initiative (YPI), involving S3 from Mid Yell and Baltasound Junior High Schools.

YPI is an initiative managed and funded (with contributions from schools and partner organisations) by The Wood Foundation. The initiative was launched in 2008 and involves schools all over Scotland.  “YPI fits our school values of “Learning at the Heart of our ISLAND’.  It helps to build a culture and puts the values into action – Inclusive, Supportive, Learning, Aspirational, Nurturing and Developing.

This year, there were a total of five teams – three from Mid Yell and two from Baltasound, each choosing a social issue and then selecting a Shetland based charity to support. This year, the charities represented were: The Compass Centre; Ability Shetland; Space2Face Shetland; Mind Your Head; and Shetland Bereavement Support Service.  The level of work and commitment of all the teams in engaging with and researching their chosen charity was evident to all and all the teams delivered presentations of a very high standard.  All teams spoke passionately, raising awareness of each charity of the vital role they play in supporting Shetland community.  All described how completing this project had developed their wider skills, including: confidence, taking initiative, communication, independence, responsibility and supporting each other.  These greatly impressed the judges who had a tough task in deciding who would win the final and have the opportunity of presenting a cheque for £3000 to their charity.

After careful consideration, the judging panel selected the Mid Yell JH team who had presented on behalf of Shetland Bereavement Support Service: Honey Henderson, Chloe Kennedy, Aaron Kennerly and Hunter Coutts.

Yesterday our S3 class hosted our Annual Senior Citizens Event.  This event started with some musical performances and followed by a Christmas feast, served up by the S3 pupils.

S3 pupils had to organise the event – setting up tables, welcoming guests, serving, raffle calling and cleaning up after the event.

A big thank you goes out to:  the wonderful audience, canteen staff and our S3 pupils.

On Friday 1 December 2023 we had a visit from Dogs Against Drugs, Michael and Axel (the dog).  They told us about their roles in drugs detection and shared details about their new website.

Dogs Against Drugs – Detecting and Deterring Drugs in Shetland

On Wednesday we held an assembly during which pupils shared their learning and we celebrated pupil successes.

Lower Primary shared their learning about climate change and what we can all do to reduce our impact.

Key messages they shared with us all include:  switch off lights when you leave a room, switch off devices not being used, plant more trees, don’t cut down trees.

Celebrating Sporting Success

Annual pool, badminton and chess competitions are run for lower and upper primary classes and we celebrated their success.  We also celebrated our successful S2 badminton players who won at the Shetland Schools Competition last week.

On Wednesday 8 November 2023, S2 pupils travelled to Lerwick to visit the Lerwick Power station & LEF.

During our visits we: had guided tours, learned more about electricity, engineering and fabrication; how important they are to our local economy; learned about health & safety issues, about job roles, skills and careers routes

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Our S1 pupils were lucky to have Scottish Rugby coach pop along the school to develop their rugby skills.  All pupils were very enthused by the experience.

Our thanks go to Active Schools for organising the visit.

Our S1 planned an overnight trip to Lerwick.

Plan

• Service bus to town
• Isleburgh Youth Hostel – drop off bags
• Clickimin Swimming Pool
• Tesco for breakfast, packed lunch and snacks
• Magnos for tea
• Islesburgh for film night and some sleep!
• Next day
• Coasteering with Outdoor Education (changed to Rock Scrambling at Tingon, due to high swells)
• Return to school

Fun had by all!

Working Together – Problem Solving – Challenging – Resilience – Healthy & Active – Independent – Supportive

Our S3 pupils were given the opportunity of taking part in an overnight sail on the Swan.

They departed from the Uyeasound Pier on Tuesday 12 September and arrived at Mid Yell Pier on the Wednesday 13 Sept morning.

Lucky for them the weather couldn’t of been better.  Good enough even for a morning swim!

We made Winter Vegetable Soup from the crop of vegetables from our school garden.

This year the garden has been very productive.

The peelings have been composted ready to help next years veggy supply.