October 9, 2024
by Mr Healy
Comments Off on Shetland Wool Week
The Whalsay Secondary School maakers joined in with the Wool Week Celebrations in the Symbister Hall last Friday. Knitters from all over the world attended the hall to see the beautiful display of local knitwear and quite a few stopped for a chat with the girls. We were treated to cups of tea with brilliant homebakes and a great time was had by all.
October 8, 2024
by Mr Healy
Comments Off on Celebrating Languages at Whalsay School
European Day of Languages
To celebrate European Day of Languages last week, S2 and S3 spent some time in class to research a few of the more than 225 languages that are spoken on our continent. Some of these languages are spoken by millions of people, others are used only by a handful and are sadly close to dying out.
Everybody in Secondary 2 and 3 got to choose a language and then found out facts about it, for example how many native speakers there are, in what countries the language is spoken and they also learnt how to say a few things like “Hello/How are you?/Thank you” in their language. The pupils created a poster about their language to display and share what they had found out with the rest of the school. Some pupils chose languages like Georgian and Greek and were shocked when they realised that those languages don’t use our Latin alphabet, so making their poster was surprisingly hard. Others noticed that some languages like Spanish and Italian are closely related to French, which we learn in class, so they could understand a lot more than they thought.
Here are a few photos and a video of a few S2 pupils saying “Hello. How are you?” in the languages they researched. Can you guess the languages they’re using? Thank you to Brooke in S3 for putting the video together.
October 4, 2024
by Miss Irvine
Comments Off on RNLI and Home Economics
Last week to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the lifeboat, pupils in S3 and S4 went to needlefelt RNLI themed gifts at Peerie Oorick with the talented Ann Marie Anderson.
They needle felted 2 designs, which were presented at the Fish and chip fundraiser to Linda and Hazel who came up to represent the lifeboat with items from the shop.
To continue celebrating the sea, S2, S3 and S4 all cooked fish pies this week.
October 1, 2024
by Mr Healy
Comments Off on Croft House Visit – Social Subjects
On Wednesday 18th September S1 visited the Croft House and Shetland Museums. This gave them a brilliant opportunity to see what Shetland life would have been like in the Nineteenth Century.
We started our day by visiting the croft house museum; where the bairns got a chance to see inside the house, hear about the history of the building, find out more about Shetland history in general and to ask the curator their questions. Due to the super weather, we also got a chance to walk down to the mill.
Following our visit to Dunrossness we then travelled up to Lerwick to visit the Shetland Museum. Ailsih Goodlad gave a very interesting talk to the class and the bairns got the chance to handle the items from the resource boxes. This proved very popular, as they were able to try out a kishie, try on a Skekler’s hat etc.
We then had a look at the Croft House reconstruction, the crofting and fishing displays and the sixareen in the boat hall. On the way back out to the bus we also had a quick look at the sixareens in Hays dock.
We all had a fantastic day and the bairns were a credit to the school. Well done S1 J
September 30, 2024
by Mr Healy
Comments Off on 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 30, 2024
by Mrs Constable
Comments Off on S3 Shetland Schools Netball Tournament
On Thursday 26th September, S2/3 competed in a secondary schools netball tournament against AHS, North Isles, Brae and Aith. Whalsay arrived at Scalloway Games Hall ready to take to the court sporting their new kit, from the Whalsay Netball club, which was sponsored by the Tranquility.
Whalsay had a strong start, working well together as a team to win both their games against Brae and Aith.
They faced AHS next and the game started end to end, both teams eager for the win. AHS settled first scoring a few goals in quick succession, but Whalsay battled hard back into the game. The second half was more evenly matched, with Whalsay closing the gap. AHS held strong to win 12-7.
In their final game Whalsay faced Aith. Aith settled quickly with some quick-paced play through the court. Whalsay regrouped during the second half to pull back into the game with some great linking team play. Aith played strongly to win the match and the overall tournament.
Well done to all players involved and thanks to Marie Anderson for accompanying the team on the trip. Thanks to Active Schools for organising the tournament and providing transport. It was a great day out with the players reporting that:
“It was a fun day and it was great to represent our school playing against other school teams from across Shetland instead of just within our own club.”
“It was nice to meet in with other players from other schools.”
“It was great to see all players try their hardest for the team in competitive matches and good sportsmanship was demonstrated throughout the day.”
September 30, 2024
by Mrs Constable
Comments Off on S3 trip – Young People in Aviation event (DYW)
On Thursday 19th September, S3 took part in an event organised by Developing the Young Workforce – Shetland. The ‘Young People in Aviation’ event took place in Brae Community Hall, where pupils were split into groups mixing with pupils from Brae High School and Aith Junior High School.
The groups rotated around 8 stations based on different companies who work at the airport. Pupils were involved in taking part in fun activities and challenges at each station while listening to the advice from experts in their fields. Stations included Coastguard Search & Rescue, Air traffic control, Fire service, Security, and the MT department.
Pupils were introduced to the reality behind the scenes within an airport, including all the different roles and responsibilities of the wide members of staff working together for our safety and security. Pupils reported that it was interesting learning about all the different jobs, routes into these posts and learning transferrable skills into different posts. They particularly enjoyed learning about the circuit work in electrical engineering and listening to stories about the physically demanding and high-pressured role as a coastguard.
Thank you to Julie Anderson for accompanying the class, DYW – Shetland for arranging the event and providing transport, and to the airport staff contributing to the different stations.
Pupils quotes from the event:
“Really fun, interesting, cool, and entertaining, really enjoyed learning the phonetic alphabet.”
“Good, useful and interesting learning how many different jobs there are at Sumburgh Airport.”
“It was fun trying on the dry suit and fire suit and realising how heavy it was.”
“I liked learning how to open up an airway and what to do to become a paramedic at the coastguard station.”
“I liked scanning for security – surprising which items could go through in hold luggage and enjoyed searching scans for items in hand luggage.”
“It was surprising learning what airport firemen do as it was a lot different to normal firemen.”
September 23, 2024
by Mr Healy
Comments Off on S2 Coasteering trip to Cunningsburgh
S2 students had a really great trip to Cunningsburgh last week in glorious September Shetland sunshine! Students worked in pairs and in teams as they learned some hugely important techniques and strategies on how to enter the water safely. Activities for the day included a mixture of hiking, climbing, swimming and entries to the water from different heights and angles. The students were hugely supportive of one another and helped each other out at various points across the course. Each student pushed themselves out of their comfort zone and fully embraced the experience. The behaviour and resilience of Whalsay School students was commended by the activity leaders and we look forward to embracing further opportunities for learning with the Outdoor Education team.
September 18, 2024
by Miss Irvine
Comments Off on S4 Food Science Experiments
In the past few weeks we’ve been looking at functional properties of different foods. We have been cooking and doing some experiments to test these properties. So far we have carried out an experiment on sugar caramelisation and today we have been looking at why some fats are not suitable for shortening.
We began by making four batches of shortbread using different fats; butter, sunflower oil, stork margarine and crisp n dry and a dairy free sunflower spread. The quantities of ingredients were the same for each batch, they were shaped the same and baked at the same temperature and to keep the experiment fair.
Appearance – The only batch to look different before going into the oven was the Sunflower oil. It poured like a thick paste into the tin, the other batches could be shaped into a rectangle. The dairy free spread batch was the most yellow more yellow than the crisp n dry and stork. The dairy free batch stayed the most yellow after cooking.
Texture – The Sunflower oil mixture didn’t bake like the other batches, it dried out when it cooled but very oily and crumbly.
Taste – The shortbread made with butter tasted the best, followed by crisp n dry and stork. The dairy free spread shortbread was dense and tasted salty and the Sunflower oil batch was not good. It was very thin, crumbly and strong tasting.
We had a visit from some eager testers and it was interesting to discuss our findings with other teachers and pupils.
September 13, 2024
by Mr Healy
Comments Off on Wider Achievement
A quick snapshot of the various learning activities that are set out as part of the Wider Achievement Program this term. A pleasure to observe and speak to pupils who were developing skills in Gardening, Enterprise, Sports, Music and Party Planning amongst others. Great to see the levels of engagement and interaction amongst the students.
