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.

September 20, 2024
by Miss Irvine
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African Drumming

We are delighted that Joy is coming back to us in Term 4 for African Drumming. She was in school yesterday and is planning to come up once a term until Term 4.

There are a number of benefits to African drumming including exercising the brain and body as well as being great fun, you can read more here

Doing a warm up

Hands up if you’re glad to see Joy

September 20, 2024
by Miss Irvine
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Eco Group

We had a very productive afternoon at Eco Group today. The bairns swept up leaves, picked up litter and planted some plants Miss Irvine got for free. All the bairns worked so well together and did a super job.

We are hoping to go to the beach next week to get stones to paint for the garden.

September 13, 2024
by Miss Nairn
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P3/4 RNLI Topic

As the RNLI are celebrating their 200 year anniversary this year, P3/4 decided to explore how the RNLI works.

We have been investigating the different types of lifeboats and their life saving features.

RNLI lifeboat crews protect hundreds of communities around the UK and here in Shetland we know how important they are. They have a 24-hour search and rescue service! We have been finding out about how the RNLI was founded and listened to some stories of daring rescues they have been called to.

We know that Lerwick life boat crew have received lots of awards and medals for their bravery. We decided to make our own bravery medals which we would award for acts of heroism.

On Tuesday we had to design and then make our own medals. Here are some photos of us in action and then proudly displaying our finished work!