Whalsay School

September 13, 2024
by Miss Irvine
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RNLI Fish and Chip Fundraiser

With support from the local fishing community and parent council, Whalsay School are hosting a fish and chip fundraiser for the RNLI to celebrate their 200th Anniversary on Friday 27th September.

Pupils in Primary and Secondary are busy researching and learning about the RNLI with the view to showcase their work at the event where people can either sit in or take away their suppers. We are also hoping to have a stall for the RNLI shop, Spot the Lifeboat and a visit from Stormy Stan and the lifeboat.

Today some Primary pupils have been busy making posters for the community, which will go up next week.

Please see the poster below for more information about the event.

 

September 13, 2024
by Leona Sandison
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Cauliflower Cards – Christmas Design Project

Once again, we have decided to run another Christmas Design Project for this Autumn term!

The Christmas designs can be professionally printed and purchased on a range of products including Cards, Tags, Wrapping Paper and Gift Mugs.

Information has been emailed out to parents/carers of pupils in Nursery and Primary.  If any Secondary pupil wants to take part then please contact the school office.

For further inspiration please see links below or visit: https://www.cauliflowercards.co.uk/christmas-gallery

design_templates

colouring_in_sheets

artbook_primary

All artwork where orders have been placed must be returned to school by:

THURSDAY 10th OCTOBER 2024

We look forward to seeing lots of creative Christmas designs!

August 28, 2024
by Mr Healy
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Thank you for the warm welcome

Good afternoon,

I want to pass on a message that I shared with those in attendance at yesterday evening’s Parent Council meeting. It is a simple but heartfelt ‘Thank you’ for the warm welcome which I have received since joining the Whalsay School community. As I often share with students, starting out in any new role or entering a new environment brings a natural mix of emotions; excitement, nervousness etc.

What often provides a level of reassurance is meeting supportive and helpful people and that has certainly been my experience since taking up my post. It has been a pleasure to teach P.E. and Wider Achievement lessons as well as observing many other lessons in different phases of the school. I thoroughly enjoyed a quick trip to visit our students in the Nursery this lunchtime; our youngest learners were having great discussion about the food that was being served and the different types of fish that they know – how appropriate for where we are in the world! I was also lucky enough to observe and hear about the process of cooking garlic bread in an S4 lesson.

Seeing our students so well engaged in their learning and listening to their lovely manners has made me a very proud Head Teacher over the past few weeks. I look forward to continuing to work closely with our teachers, students and support staff as the Academic Year progresses.

Best wishes,

Niall Healy

August 28, 2024
by Mr Healy
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Biology Learning in S3 (Ms.Simpson)

 

Learning about the heart from a textbook is fine but seeing it in real life can make all the difference.

 

Last week the S3 Biology class dissected sheep’s hearts to see for themselves the heart chambers and main blood vessels.  Everybody was amazed at how flimsy the heart valves seem, given the important role they play in the body.

 

It was a fun activity with some pupils (possibly future surgeons?) doing the full dissection while others chose to watch from a distance.  All agreed it was worthwhile to do this and would like to thank the Science Technicians for organising the hearts.

August 15, 2024
by Mrs Eunson
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Inspirational Cadet Award

A huge well done to Hannah Wishart who was awarded the Inspirational Cadet Award at this years Army Cadet Force Warcop Training Camp in Cumbria.  She attended the annual camp along with 479 other cadets and took part in activities like abseiling, rock climbing, archery and shooting.  She also did field craft and first aid.

June 28, 2024
by Miss Irvine
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End of Term

On Wednesday afternoon we held our end of school year assembly. Primary 1 to S4 pupils and staff gathered in the afternoon to celebrate their achievements over the year and say goodbye to a few members of staff.

Mrs Moss welcomed everyone before Mrs Irvine and Miss Irvine presented a number of certificates and awards. Maalie won the house merit trophy and will receive their treat after the summer holidays. Primary 67 provided the musical entertainment with their Peat n Diesel song for which they received a Gold award at the music festival in March. Ms Simpson and Mrs Moss were then presented with flowers as a thank you for this year.

Mrs Moss presented flowers to Mrs Hughson who is retiring at the end of the school year after 37 years teaching at Whalsay School. Everyone enjoyed hearing about life in 1987 and seeing a video montage made by Edwin Irvine featuring photos and videos from the past celebrating Mrs Hughson’s time at Whalsay School.

Following the assembly Primary pupils received their certificates in class and over in the secondary staff and pupils were hosting a community cafe for people to come in and say goodbye to Mrs Hughson.

This afternoon P7 ran the corridor just before 2:00 as a farewell to primary, now a long standing tradition!

We would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs Moss, Mrs Hughson and Ms Simpson and for being great educators and colleagues and wish them all the very best for the future. We hope to see them back in Whalsay School soon.

Finally well done to pupils and staff for their hard work this year, thank you to parents for the support and we look forward to seeing you in August.

Have a lovely summer.

 

 

 

 

June 28, 2024
by Miss Irvine
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Sports Day

Sports Day took place on Monday, thankfully the weather was fine and didn’t disrupt any of the events.

The nursery held their mini sports day in the morning just before the P1-4 races began with P5-S4 sports taking place in the afternoon.

Pupils looked very smart in their new house colour bibs bought by the parent council.

Tirrick were the worthy winners of Sports Day with Shalder second and Maalie close behind.

William took some fantastic photos and we have printed these off for a display after summer.

Thank you to staff and pupils for helping set up for the sports, house captains for carrying out duties and finally to Mrs Shearer for kindly coming in to help out.

Here are a few photos following the trophy presentation.

Tirrick House Captains Primary and Secondary Sport Champions

June 28, 2024
by Mrs Eunson
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Biology Field Trip – Whimbrel

On Wednesday 26th June, Matt Willmott and Ali Robertson of the RSPB came up to Whalsay School to visit our S4 Biology class. We watched a fascinating presentation on Whimbrels and then headed out to a breeding site to see the birds for ourselves.
Whimbrels or Peerie Whaaps are very similar to a Curlew (Whaap) to look at, although they are smaller, have a straighter beak and have a very different call. Whimbrels fly all the way from the West Coast of Africa every summer to breed here. Most British breeding pairs are in Scotland (mostly Shetland). Recently there are have been some interesting shifts in distribution of these birds. Their populations appear to have moved from Unst and Fetlar which has led to a big increase of Whimbrels in Whalsay. In fact 10% of the British Breeding Population is in Whalsay!
We headed off towards Isbister and visited a site where Whimbrels are breeding. There were larks singing and a threatening looking Scooty Alan was circling. We were told that Scooty Alans predate on the eggs and young chicks of various species but actually help defend the Whimbrel by not taking their eggs. This is because Whimbrel eggs look exactly like their own and they can’t tell the difference.
Matt showed us an old peat bank and explained why these can be quite dangerous for baby Whimbrels, especially if they are trying to escape predators. They can easily fall to their death over a peat bank. RSPB are planning to improve this environment for Whimbrels by filling in some of these old peat banks to make a slope rather than a straight drop. It is all about restoring some of the old, obsolete peak banks, not stopping people cutting peat. They also plan to make some more watery pools for the waders to use.
We really enjoyed learning about the Whimbrels and were amazed that Whalsay plays such an important role in their lives. It is a nationally important site! We feel it is important that everybody knows about this and we are planning to help the RSPB raise awareness. We also hope to play a part in helping to improve the environment for our feathery summer visitors.
The weather stayed nice for us so we finished off our trip with a picnic at the play park and a few cheeky homebakes were washed down with a cup of tea from our flasks 
Thanks goes to Lohn Lowrie Irvine for the use of his lovely photos of the Whimbral and chick.

June 24, 2024
by Miss Irvine
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P1/2 Summer Assembly

Last week P1/2 held the final class assembly of the year all about Summer holidays.

They told us some of the exciting things they’re hoping to get up and showed off their maths skills by asking pupils their summer plans, using tally marks and creating a graph of their results. Then they told the audience about Whalsay Summer Days before finishing off with a lovely summer song accompanied by Miss Simpson.

Whalsay Summer Days coincides with the sailing regatta and there are a lot of fun activities organised for people of all ages. Check out their page on Facebook for more info.

Here are some photos from the assembly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 18, 2024
by Mrs Constable
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S2 John Muir – Ronas Hill

S2 had their first John Muir trip of the year today.

We were picked up at Laxo with no clue as to where we were headed! We set off North and it soon became apparent that we were heading to Ronas Hill.

Kitted out in full waterproofs, we traversed the arctic tundra terrain, working together to clamber towards the summit! The sky was heavy with rain but this didn’t dampen our spirits, with many embracing the wet surroundings on the way.

We stopped off at the highest loch in Shetland to refuel with lunch before carrying on to the highest peak at 450 metres above sea level! We found the trig point and learned how they came to exist and how to use them. We also explored the burial chamber nearby.

Then it was time to hike back down to the starting point, which proved tricky to navigate in the mist. We took advantage of a freshwater stream on the way to have a much needed refreshment!

John Muir leaders John and Grant were most impressed with the resilience of everyone and how they coped with the weather conditions!

Well done S2! 👏😄☔️


   

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