We had a visit from Karl the SMUHA Jarl and his squad. The bairns enjoyed singing the UHA song for the last time this year. Ruby and Joey put on a quiz. The first round was general knowledge and our pupils had to help the squad with this one as they did not know many of the answers at all!  The second round was all about Sandwick and the Jarl did much better answering these questions. The third round was all about SMUHA and the squad certainly knew their facts about SMUHA. We also got to have a closer look at their outfits and weapons. It was an exciting start to the day!

We enjoyed a visit from school nurse, Gemma Bulter, on Thursday. She came in to talk to us about germs, illnesses and how to prevent the spread of germs etc. She used a water spray to represent a sneeze and we looked at how far the water went, then we used a hand to catch the “sneeze” and a tissue to catch the “sneeze” and talked about which one was the most effective.

We had the light box in the school to help us see how good our handwashing is/isn’t. We put cream on our hands to represent germs that are picked up throughout the day. We washed our hands and then put our hands in the light box to see if we had got all the cream (pretend germs) off. We could see that most people need to wash around their nails a bit more and that a few people had a cleaner right hand that left hand.  We spoke about washing for 20 seconds and played a game to guess how long 20 seconds is. We ALL thought the 20 seconds was up quicker than it was, even Mrs Anderson!

Gemma also showed us some items that might be used when visiting the nurse/dr so we can explore them and realise they are not scary. She showed us stethoscopes and we got to have a play with them. She also had blood pressure monitors and a pulse oximeter.

It was a positive visit and good to know germs are normal and part of our lives, we can be proactive and helpful in stopping spreading some germs by using tissues and washing hands.

Thank you to Gemma for coming to talk to us. It was great fun!

This week has been so busy!

We have had Book Bug with Mrs Grant. The class sang songs and listened to Mrs Grant read the book Paper Dolls. They then made their own Paper Dolls to make a class display. Thank you Mrs Grant!

We have done ERIC (Everyone Read in Class) time in class this week.

We have had a book quiz organised by the Primary 5 class. Riley and Bella were quiz masters and read out the questions to us. There were some hard ones that not even Mrs Henry and Mrs Anderson knew. Here are some of the questions for you to try:

• Who has purple prickles?
• What food did The Hungry Caterpillar eat on the 3^rd day?
• What colour is Winnie the Pooh’s top?
• What is the name of The Smartest Giant in town?
• What does BFG stand for?
• Name 2 creatures that Tiddler met?
• Who is the main character in The Gruffalo?
• Who wears a blue coat and eats marmalade sandwiches?
• What did The Hungry Caterpillar turn in to?
• Why did the Gruffalo’s Child leave home?

We shared our favourite books with the class. Having to use our describing skills to describe the book and the rest of the class tried to guess the correct book.

We did a book review of our favourite book.

We went to the Book Fair in the library.

Some pupils also dressed up for World Book Day!

We were all so excited to get a visit from the Bressay UHA squad and get to see Emily all dressed up. There was lots of excitement and the bairns enjoyed having a shot of the helmets, shields and axes.

This week we begin our third four‑week block of PE. So far this term, the class has enjoyed learning dance and handball, and we wanted to share what we’ve been working on.

Dance

In our dance block, pupils explored how to use movement to express ideas. We focused on:

• Using imagination and responding to different stimuli
• Travelling, stillness, shapes, jumps and gestures
• Changing rhythm, speed, level and direction
• Repeating patterns in movement
• Showing expression and confidence

The children had great fun experimenting with creative movement and performing short sequences.

Handball

During handball, we concentrated on building throwing and catching skills and taking part in small‑sided games. Pupils learned some of the key rules of the sport:

• Players have 3 seconds to pass or shoot
• Players may take 3 steps only while holding the ball

We also practised moving into space to make successful passes and talked about how handball is a fast‑paced, exciting team game.

Her we are being banger fireworks.

Here we some pictures of our first week of handball.

We have been learning about the senses that our body has. We looked at smell and had great fun experimenting with using our nose without using our eyes. We had 10 different smells to try and guess including washing powder, mint, lemon, shower gel, vinegar, vanilla, coconut, coffee, soy sauce and blackcurrant juice. The easiest ones to guess were coffee and lemon. Vinegar was the one that divided people, some hated it and some loved it.

We have also written facts about all the senses and are in the process of making up our own non-fiction books on the human body. We are going to add in a blurb, a contents page, index and glossary. We have done our front cover already and can’t wait to add more pages.

How does human smell work? – BBC Bitesize

We had an absolutely superb Up Helly Aa day. We sang and cheered along with the Jarl Squad and visited the bill. We even had a super visit from the Senior Jarl Squad and got to look at their outfits close up. They looked amazing!

P2/3A have learned a new song to wish everyone a happy new year!  After learning the melody and the lyrics, we learned how to read a basic graphic score which showed us which instruments should be playing at different parts in the song.

We used percussion instruments as part of our song and we each had a turn of playing all four – boomwhackers, tambourines, triangles and claves.

Here they are in action!

This is information on what P2/3a will be learning this term.

P2 3a – Curriculum Information – Term 3 2025 2026