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

The primary classes in Mid Yell, Burravoe and Cullivoe have been learning about compliments during their library time. They have helped the Grinch’s heart grow by writing him compliments and speaking about ways to be nice and make people feel good.

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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World Children’s Day is celebrated every year on 20^th November, to mark the adoption of the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child).

Today our pupils have taken part in various lessons and activities to raise awareness and understanding of their rights, as well as learning about people from the past and present who have fought to defend our rights.

The nursery have enjoyed learning about their rights through a story ‘Let’s Explore our Rights’.

Our primary department took part in the ‘Great Big Live Assembly’, have learned about some of the articles in the convention, identified the difference between ‘needs and wants’ and been researching some ‘rights defenders’ and their impact on the world.

Meanwhile, some of our secondary classes have researched children who are activists for children’s rights, made protest posters and discussed positive role models both locally and world-wide.

Well done to our S2 pupils for organising a brilliant Children in Need day. We had a scavenger hunt across the whole school with pupils in teams of all ages as well as a bake sale. We raised a total of £378.84!

A huge congratulations to Max and Callum who represented Mid Yell Junior High School at the S2 Shetland Badminton Competition today. Callum was the overall winner of the competition and Max was 3rd! Well done boys.