Raasay Primary School

On 23rd and 24th March we were delighted to welcome Stewart Bell, Area Co-ordinator Youth Scotland, to Raasay Primary School to deliver a two day workshop on the Carbon Neutral Islands Project. The pupils were invited to tell Stewart all abour their island environment and then took him on a tour of the local area visiting many of our community areas such as the local shop, hall, fire station and Heritage walk. We included a litter pick on the way and, as there had been a storm the day before, we collected a bag full of litter which pupils later categorized and grouped into different materials. Stewart was blown away by the stunning scenery and natural environment here on Raasay. Stewart engaged with the children in various activities during the workshop including: designing and creating their own 3D model eco house; writing a letter to their future self which formed part of a time capsule to be opened 2074!; describe themselves and the things they have around them e.g. the technology they use to see how things would have changed in 50 years time. Stewart also led some after school activities such as special effects make up using biodegradable glitter and materials and parachute games. They also had the opportunity to learn about building a fire and lighting with a flint – they had to show resilience to keep going with the flint until they finally got it lit! Stewart then showed them how to safely use and pour from a Kelly kettle. As part of the two day workshop, we also had a visit from Tom Lisink, Community Energy Scotland and the children presented their CNI Transport Challenge Powerpoint.

Thank you to Stewart for a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable workshop and also to Tom for visiting us at the school.

Pupils at Raasay Primary School took part in the annual fund raising for Comic Relief. Pupils brought in donations in return for dressing up in something red – or something to make people smile! They took part in the online dance sweepstake where they had to choose the style of dance they thought would win. The winning dance was Roly Poly and the delighted winner named his teddy Roly Poly! A total of £61 was raised and donated to Comic Relief.

After a recent fall of snow, pupils at Raasay Primary School were very excited to make the most of it! They managed to make their own igloo – and warmed up afterwards with some delicious hot chocolate!

Pupils at Raasay Primary School wanted to support the DEC Appeal for the recent Turkey/Syria earthquake. It was decided to have a collection at the Nourish Raasay lunch event and also have a donation tub in the shop for anyone who wanted to help. A fantastic total of £195 was raised and has been sent to the Disasters Emergency Committee. This amount will help many families and people affected by the tragedy. To give an idea of how your money will help, DEC provide the following information: £10 can provide blankets to keep two people warm; £25 can provide emergency food for a family for ten days; £50 can provide emergency shelter for two families.

Thank you so much to all who donated, your support is very much appreciated and thank you to Nourish Raasay and Raasay Stores for facilitating our collection.

Raasay Primary School pupils enjoyed celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March. They were able to come to school dressed as a character or theme from a book/story – or simply come in comfy loungewear to enjoy reading. The day started off with a World Book Day Assembly and pupils also undertook activities such as book bingo, crosswords and online stories. They also brought in some favourite books which they very much enjoyed sharing with their classmates. To finish off with, they created their own World Book Day t-shirts with the theme of a favourite book or story.

You can see some more of our World Book Day activities by following this link to our Padlet:

Pupils and staff attended the wonderful Nourish Raasay event on 14th February. This was a lovely way to bring the community together once again to share some delicious food and good company. Raasay pupils once again helped by escorting people to their seats, serving food and clearing away. The theme this week was Valentine’s Day and the ladies had gone to a lot of effort to mark the day with heart shaped bread on the soup, heart shaped willow place markers and even heart shaped butter pats! Pupils then celebrated Valentine’s Day by sharing with the community the poems they had written in class. Their poems had a ‘love’ theme – what they loved about nature and the environment. The boys received wonderful feedback on the lovely way they interacted with the guests and carried out their responsibilities.

As part of a follow on from the Treoir Project, pupils will be working with Gaelic Singer Anne Martin over the next few weeks. This project is called ‘Oran a chall’ (Lost Songs) and the aim is to breathe new life into the traditional Gaelic songs that have been ‘lost’. Anne will be holding workshops with the boys so that they can learn them and share them with the community so that they can be ‘found’ again.

Our P6 pupil attends shinty sessions with pupils in P6/7 in Portree Primary every Wednesday after school. They had a successful qualifying tournament for the national finals in Fort William and made it through to the semi-finals. The boys showed resilience and determination and they missed out by a small margin to some very strong opponents. Congratulations to all who participated and a big well done to our P6 for his representing the school and Raasay as part of the team.

This year the Chinese community celebrated their New Year on January 22nd. The year 2023 is the year of the Rabbit and their personality traits are meant to be kindness, confidence and strength. As part of their learning pupils studied the Chinese Zodiak and were able to find the animal relating to their year of birth. They also made their own paper fortune tellers. As part of the celebrations, Ann – our school cook, produced a delicious school lunch of traditional chicken with noodles followed by custart tart. The challenge was then to eat as much as possible using chopsticks!

Pupils attended The Newton Rooms Science Workshop on Wednesday 18th January in the Community Centre Portree. This was in association with the Glasgow Science Centre and brings the Learning Lab to Skye. The topic was ‘Salmon and Aquaculture’ and pupils were able to learn about the lifecycle of the salmon as well as their habitat, migration and threats to their survival.