March 17, 2025
by Miss Irvine
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World Book Day was officially celebrated on Thursday 6th March with various literacy events taking place across each setting over Wednesday and Thursday of that week.
Reading sessions
Secondary 1-3 took part in paired reading sessions with nursery to P3/4, we have organised this for the past few years now and it’s lovely to see the engagement between the older and younger pupils.
Parents were invited in to Primary library slots to read with their child and do some literacy activities. The new reading Jenga game proved popular and will used during Library sessions to get pupils speaking more about literature.
Secondary
Secondary pupils were involved in various reading activities as well as the paired reading with nursery and P1-4, including a Bookface photo activity for the entrance tv and the 3rd years were involved in making up a scavenger hunt for the 1st an 2nd years to do during their library time on Tuesday.
Author Visit
Local author Ann-Marie Anderson launched her new Shetland dialect book “Hirda the Oorick.”We were delighted that she was able to come and visit the nursery and younger classes and read her new story. To follow up, primary pupils created new characters they thought would be good at picking up bruck and the nursery pupils made Ooricks.
Reading Challenge
Primary pupils were invited to take part in a reading challenge at home and pupils who returned sheets were entered into a draw to win a £10 voucher. Well done to everyone who took part.
Science Show
Science Teachers Mrs Constable and Mrs Simpson led a Harry Potter themed magic show on Thursday morning. Various experiments took place with The House captains supporting younger pupils. Mrs Irvine used her sorting hat to pick pupils to help with the experiments.
House Captains took part in a colour experiment mixing 2 liquids together to change colour and the final colour placed them into the correct Harry Potter house.
Mrs Simpson used a pupil dressed in a skeleton suit to show different bones in the body. P34 pupils were chosen to make shapes of small bones in their hands and upon hearing Brackium Emendo the bones began to melt through their fingers.
The next experiment used some feathers from Hedwig and P456 pupils had to charge their wands with cloth and say Wingardium Leviosa to lift the feathers off the table.
P12 pupils got to look closely at a Marauders map using UV torches, it showed a map of Whalsay. Class teachers borrowed the map and wands so all pupils could have a go in class. It was important to follow the safety rules and not shine the torch in each others eyes.
The Marauders Map showed dragon feet near the school and it turned out that Mrs Constable and Mrs Simpson had a small dragon hiding in a big tin. They fed the dragon its breakfast but he ate it too fast and there was a firey bang!!
Environmental Print
Primary 1-4 pupils were encouraged to bring in examples of Environmental Print for a wall display. On the wall we have drawings of road signs, packaging, merchandise, clothing logos and photos around Shetland.
Across the primary, pupils took part in various literacy focused activities please have a look at the individual class blogs on the Primary blog for more information and photos.
There was a lovely buzz around the school with the different activities taking place, we would like to thank everybody who took part and supported our World Book Day celebrations.
Lots of great physical activity happening at Whalsay School today with football club at lunch time and badminton after school club. Big thanks to Eoin from Active Schools for facilitating both of these sessions.