P5 and P6 STEM Visits

November 14, 2024 by Miss Hutchison

P5 – 7 had a visit on Tuesday from Emma Chittick. She led STEM workshops with each class which included lots of fun activities!

P5 did Game Design for their workshop. They used coding and programming skills to make games online, such as “the floor is lava” and mazes! They also discussed with Emma the skills which they used to do the coding and how these could apply to various jobs. P5 all really enjoyed this workshop and can now use the website to code their own games from now on if they wish!

P6 did a workshop all about driverless cars. They had a brilliant discussion with Emma all about driverless cars and what the pros and cons of their use would be. Then they got to play with their own! P6 used iPads to programme Lego cars. They could have them move, make noises, put on light displays, and so on! Emma set the challenge for the class to move their cars around the mats. P6 did an excellent job and used a lot of problem solving skills to work out the coding for each movement!

Both classes really enjoyed their workshops and had a lot of fun! Thank you to Emma for coming to visit.

This gallery contains 22 photos

November 11, 2024
by Miss Nairn
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Celebrating Success!

Writing.

P3/4 – we are working really hard on improving our writing. We know how important writing is as it lets us communicate our thoughts and ideas to a large audience. Last term we worked on improving our punctuation and we know that every sentence needs to begin with a capital letter and should end with a full stop/ question mark or exclamation mark. We are confident using punctuation correctly now.

This term we have been looking at using different sentence openers in our work. If our class gets 100% of our targets we can celebrate with a special treat – we had 10 mins added on to our playtime last week. We asked if we could celebrate a big success – by achieving 100% four days in a row – by wearing our pyjamas to school on Friday! We did it!

Here we are wearing our pyjamas to school celebrating with our teddies and the 100% trophy!

November 7, 2024
by Miss Irvine
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Be Bright, Be seen

Today the JRSO’s visited each class in Primary to hand out reflectors and present a powerpoint on staying safe on the roads in the dark. Pupils listened well and it was good to see a lot of bairns excited to get their reflectors on their bag.

the key messages were

– wear bright clothes that can be seen during the day and night

– wear something with reflective material – strap, reflector, vest etc

– walk in the middle of pavements

– keep safe by holding hands with an older pupil or adult

– carry a torch

The lasses did a super job and we hope everybody takes care in the dark nights.

October 11, 2024
by gw19patersonelizabet@glow
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Term 1 Interhouse

This Thursday was the first Interhouse competition of the school year. This term’s focus was basketball. The primary house captains organised their teams for the matches, supporting them and offering advice throughout their matches.

P5/6 were up first.

The children played well and it was lovely to see the team work and hear all the encouragement from their houses. Out of their matches, Maalie came 1st, followed by Tirrick in 2nd and Shalder coming in 3rd.

P5/6 Maalie Team

P5/6 Tirrick Team

P5/6 Shalder Team

Next up were the house teams representing P7. The children were determined to win their matches. It was lovely to see all the children showcasing the skills learned throughout their PE sessions this term. In 1st place for P7 it was Tirrick, followed by Maalie in 2nd and Shalder in 3rd.

P7 Tirrick Team

P7 Maalie Team

P7 Shalder Team

Secondary were up in the afternoon and once all the results were collated the results were as follows:

1st place – Tirrick

2nd place – Maalie and Shalder.

A huge well done to all the children for all their efforts.

October 11, 2024
by gw19patersonelizabet@glow
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Shetland Bus

As part of our WW2 topic we have been learning about the Shetland Bus.

To further our understanding of what the experience might have been like we took the time to listen to an album created by Bethany an Jenna Reid called ‘Escape’ which tells the story of Jan Baalsrud and the Shetland Bus.

As we were listening to the music we allowed our pens to flow freely.

‘When they were speaking about how wavy the sea was my pen started to kinda go wavy,’ – Tom.

‘When it was slow the pen went really slow,’ – Lisa.

‘When it was fast the pen would make bigger waves,’ – Rhona.

From our learning we created stories based on actual events. The children have enjoyed getting creative and writing an extended story whilst still thinking about their writing targets for punctuation.

We are all very proud of the work we have created.

October 11, 2024
by gw19patersonelizabet@glow
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P6/7 Trip to the Museum and Archives

P6/7 have had a busy last week of the term.

On Wednesday we took a trip the the Shetland Museum to take part in a WW2 workshop to support our classroom learning this term.

The children were given a guided tour of the WW2 exhibit. They were able to look at some of the artefacts and were then able to handle and discuss some of the artefacts up close.

The children were given the opportunity to ‘Make do and Mend’ by creating their own peg person. Which resulted

in an array of creative designs which the children were very proud of.

The children had a super day and were a credit to the school.

October 9, 2024
by Mrs Irvine
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P3/4 Trip to the Museum and Archives

Primary 3/4 had a great time at the Shetland Museum and Archives yesterday. Everyone met the the ferry and travelled by bus to Lerwick.

The museum staff were very helpful and designed two activities to tie in with our topic about the RNLI. There was a tour of the museum, highlighting interesting artifacts related to the RNLI and a craft activity where the children had to make their own lifeboats.

The class were delighted to present the cheque to the RNLI Lerwick branch from our school’s fish and chip fundraiser. The children were excited to have a chance to ask questions to members of the lifeboat crew.

It was a very informative and memorable day and P3/4 and their teachers would like to thank the Shetland Museum and Archives, the RNLI Lerwick branch, our parent helpers for accompanying us and the parent council for funding our trip.

October 1, 2024
by gw19patersonelizabet@glow
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DigiLearn – Live Lesson

Today the children took part in the DigiLearn live lesson.

The Data Education in Schools team, from Edinburgh University, set us an escape room challenge. We had to interpret information given to us in tables, graphs and spreadsheet. This lead to us working out the code to break out of the escape room. Fortunately we escaped in time.

This was a fantastic opportunity for our learners to use data and information in a different format.

Well done boys and girls.

October 1, 2024
by gw19patersonelizabet@glow
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P6/7 Anderson Shelters

This term the children have been exploring WW2.

As part of our learning the children were set a home challenge to build a model Anderson Shelter.

The shelter had to meet the following requirements:

support a 1 kg weight for 1 minute,
be big enough for a Lego man to fit inside,
keep the Lego man dry after a 1 litre of water was poured over the shelter.

Whilst we still have a couple of models to test, most of the models met the requirements and we only ended up with a couple of soggy Lego men.

A huge well done to all the children and thank you for all the support from home.

September 30, 2024
by Mr Healy
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Sumdog Success!

Sumdog is a games-based adaptive-learning app that tailors curriculum-aligned questions to each child’s unique level and is widely used by learners in different phases of Whalsay School.

Students from P4 through to S2 have been taking on their counterparts across different schools in Scotland and have achieved some very impressive feats. Of the 4,279 classes who took part, our classes finished in the following positions:

P4/5/6 – 285th place (278 points)

P6/7 – 58th place (468 points)

S1 – 51st place (493 points)

S2 – 48th place (500 points)

My thanks to the supporting teachers and congratulations to the students for working so hard to develop their mental mathematics skills.