On Wednesday 16th September, we welcomed a range of visitors to the school to deliver workshops focusing on various aspects of Health and Wellbeing that are particularly relevant to current social issues, including online safety, AI, anti-bullying, hate crime, and smoking and vaping.

Our pupils engaged positively throughout the day and shared the following reflections:

• “Words can make a massive difference to someone’s life.”
• “It shows how a fun can have consequences.”
• “We purposely got to break the rules then learn the consequences.  Definitely never doing that in real life!”
• “I learnt that the police can get access to everything.”
• “Vaping can affect your whole body, not just your lungs.”
• “I like a good debate about the affects of AI.”
• “I didn’t know some of these things were crimes.  I am going to be kinder to people.”
• “Make it more interactive and hands on.”

The following video link gives a greater insight into the coverage of the day:

Whalsay #VSVS event 2026

Thank you to Miss Irvine and all the organisers for a worthwhile event.

A huge well done to our Secondary football team for taking part in the Shetland football competition on Wednesday. We are all very proud of their efforts with special mentions to Ryan, Zak and Harry for rotating in the goalkeeper position.

Thank you to Ms. Cheyne for organising and supporting the team. The boys have already said how much they enjoyed representing the school and how much they are looking forward to the next matches!

In partnership with our colleagues at Developing the Young Workforce, we had Filmmaker Barnum Smith (Film Instructor, Shetland Arts) come to visit Whalsay School on Wednesday 11^th March for a hands-on workshop exploring the creative industries.

Pupils in S1 and S2 found out how to get involved in Shetland’s creative scene, courses to study in S3, and look at potential career pathways. They then had the opportunity to make their own short film, learning practical filmmaking skills with Shetland Arts’ equipment! All pupils were engaged in the film making process and created some great short films.

Whalsay school S1-3 pupils were involved in running two fundraising events for 2026 Trips & Activities.

An impressive £3575 was raised at the Fish & Chips fundraiser and a brilliant £2230 at the recently held Coffee Morning, giving an amazing total of £5805 raised for trips & activities for 2026!

The school would like to thank the following local businesses for their generous donations and support for both fundraisers:

• Endurance
• Resilient
• Defiant
• Tranquility
• Charisma
• Serene
• JWJ Whalsay Ltd
• Tetley & Anderson
• Northlink ferries

Thank you to all the volunteer cooks and helpers for the Fish & Chips night.

Alongside the generous parents who provided raffle donations for both fundraisers and baking for the Coffee Morning.

These fundraisers wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work from volunteer parents on the Trips & Activities working group – Anita Sparrow, Doreen Porter, Allison Hutchison, Julie Anderson, Margaret Leask, Caroline Manson, Gemma Jamieson, Diane Wishart, Leona Jamieson, and Kari Hamilton. Huge thank you for all your contributions.

Finally, well done to all the S1-3 pupils who were involved in helping at the events. Their duties included meeting and greeting the public, selling raffle tickets, clearing and setting up tables, and tending guessing games stalls.

We are extremely grateful for the support from the community in supporting our upcoming trips and activities. The first school trip of 2026 leaves TODAY for skiing in Italy, and the second trip to Edinburgh will be in June. The Activities days will also be held in June within Shetland.

S1 learners were treated to a lesson on fireworks and sparklers from a S3 Chemistry pupil.

S1 recently completed their topic on Elements, Compounds & Mixtures and were broadening their knowledge on the topic with a demonstration relating to a real-word context.

They were guided through the different flame colours provided by different salts containing metal ions, which creates the colourful display from fireworks. Learners were shown a sparkling finale to demonstrate how sparklers work.

Each pupil was given a task to identify the unknown salt by testing to find the flame colour when burned. Working together they successfully identified the 3 salts as sodium chloride which burned with a yellow flame, potassium chloride which burned with a lilac flame, and lithium chloride which burned with a red flame.

Well done Tasnim for delivering this engaging session to S1! She showed great leadership skills in guiding and motivating younger learners in science.

A Connected community of …. volleyball players!

Well done and thank you to everyone who took part in our staff, parents and senior pupils volleyball game. The number of participants may have been higher but for some challenging weather conditions! Very well played to everyone who took to the court to play – a lovely way of bringing people together and a game played with smiles on faces and in great spirit!

A big thank you to Ms. Cheyne for organising the whole game – talks of a rematch are already underway … Watch this space!

     Bats about Bats 

Over the last few months there have been quite a few sightings of Bats in Whalsay.  Several of the pupils have seen (and heard them).  Ms Irvine saw two bats at Hamister and even managed to get a smudgy photo of one as it fled past her.

Mrs Simpson’s S2 class were full of questions that she couldn’t answer so she decided to invite our local Bat expert, Mr Pete Gulliver, to visit the class.

Pete came into school on 3 December and gave a fascinating talk and slide show.   He has tracked and monitored bats for years and often cares for injured or exhausted bats.  He had amazing footage of a bat flying around his hallway at home.  He took in the equipment he uses to listen to bats and played audio clips, explaining how to distinguish between the different species.  In one sound clip there were 4 different species of bat identified at one time.  What shocked everybody was that this sound clip came from Skerries a couple of months ago!

Bella Jamieson, who only recently took up crocheting, had made a beautiful bat (without a pattern!) as a thank you gift.  Bella presented this to Pete on behalf of the whole class.

Pete messaged later to say “..the pupils were wonderful and very attentive.  Please make a special point of thanking Bella for my beautiful gift, I am thrilled with it and am going to name it “Pip”.

The feedback from the pupils was very good.  Several said they were now much more interested in seeing a bat and knew what to look out for and when.   One pupil stated they thought Mr Gulliver was very kind to be devoting so much time and effort into caring for bats and helping release injured ones back into the wild. Everybody left the talk much more informed and enthusiastic about bats so the whole class would like to say a HUGE

thank you again to Pete.

Last week saw our Secondary pupils take part in a well contested and highly skilful Interhouse basketball competition.

A big thanks to the Team Captains for taking Responsibility for the organisation of their teams and to Ms. Cheyne for leading the event.

I write this blog post as a very proud Head Teacher having had the pleasure of being involved in a day of learning which shone a light on the diverse range of learning, volunteering and employment opportunities available here in Whalsay.

On Thursday, we had P7, S1, S2, S3 and S4 pupils visit 28 stations that were occupied by different businesses and service providers who operate within the isle. Witnessing all of our exhibitors share their passions for their professions and contributions to community life, engage with our pupils and make connections through points of mutual interest was wonderful to observe. Discussions ranged from subject interests and specialisms to career pathways to what is involved in different roles within healthcare and leisure, renewable energies, transport, fishing and a whole host of other opportunities within the isle.

The event embodied what we are always striving for as a school – To be a Connected Community of Learners who take opportunities to learn from one another and support one another.

This event would not have been possible but for a lot of time, dedication and effort from multiple organisers behind the scenes. To Mrs. Hamilton, our Business Management and ASN teacher, a very sincere thank you for making and developing many connections with local businesses. To Emily van Tonder, Emma Chittick and the team at Developing the Young Workforce, a very sincere thank you for your skills and expertise in coordinating and communicating with multiple parties to ensure the day ran smoothly. A big congratulations to our pupils for asking lots of questions and being keen to learn about opportunities that may play a prominent part in their future after school. To our staff here at the school, who supported with logistics and arrangements as well as representing the school as a potential place of employment in the future, a sincere thank you.

Finally, to all our exhibitors, a very sincere thank you for your time and efforts for showcasing your work in various capacities. It has inspired lots of great conversations in school today and prompted plenty of thinking and reflection amongst our pupils and staff.

Screen Free Zone – Secondary break times

Health and Creativity – Following discussions with parents and pupils, we are introducing a ‘screen free’ zone for Secondary pupils for first break (10:35 – 10:50)

Pupils are welcome to the Music classroom on the ground floor where pupils can read, draw, play board games etc as an alternative to being on screens.

Supervision for the area will be rotated between different staff volunteers.

Thanks (again!) to Miss O’Dwyer for kindly creating the digital poster to raise awareness of this initiative.