Raasay Primary School

Please note that our annual Coffee Day will be taking place on Saturday 6^th October, starting at 11am and finishing at approximately 3pm. There will be all the usual stalls, our Parent Council Café, live auction at 2.30pm and lots of opportunities for wonderful prizes to be won! We hope to see you all there and that the sun shines! Look out for the posters for further information and please note that donations for the day can be dropped off at the school from now on.

Thursday 11^th October – there will be a World War 1 exhibition at the Hall, run by the Portree Archive Centre. Pupils will be attending this exhibition from 1.30pm and the children will be holding a mini workshop on poppy making as part of their school project. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to use the templates provided  to create their own poppy and write the names of any family or friends on the poppy as a way of remembering those who have fallen and those who have been affected by war and conflict in any way. We aim to create a ‘Poppy Cascade’ on the stairway of the hall before 11^th November which will be on display until the end of the year.

This term, the pupils are studying World War 1 and we were delighted to welcome a visit from the Armadale Castle Museum with their ‘Coming Home’ Exhibition which commemorates 100 years since the end of the War. The workshop focussed on children’s lives from World War 1 and the jobs that children undertook at that time. We also had the opportunity to learn a little bit about how the prisoners of war at the Raasay Iron Mine interacted with the island community and how the islanders ‘smuggled’ food to the prisoners and in return the prisoners created hand made toys for the children of these families. We also learnt about how children were involved in foraging and gathering during the war and identified the many uses for heather, bog myrtle and spagnum moss. The workshop finished with the children getting the opportunity to make beautiful woven designs using foraged materials.

It’s not often that we have a local wedding on the island so when Norman and Iona decided to tie the knot we couldn’t miss out! Fortunately the sun came out just in time for Iona to arrive on a dumper truck! After watching the guests and bride arrive, we had a treat at Raasay House Cafe before heading back to see the bride and groom on the front lawn. We all thought a certain classmate looked very smart in his kilt outfit. Iona is very much involved in our school, providing sports and dance clubs and we wish them all the best for the future.

Due to the weather at the end of last term, our Inter-school sports event with Carbost and Struan Primary Schools had to be cancelled. We did however arrange a suitable date for all three schools and on Friday 7th September we all enjoyed meeting up with fellow pupils from partner schools to have some fun and competitive sports. Here we are enjoying the day.

David Crooks, Highland Council ICT Development Officer came to our school on Wednesday 5th September and delivered Chromebook training to pupils and staff as part of our ICT School Improvement Plan. The pupils and staff learnt how to create quizzes, work on a shared document simultaneously and how to access assignments. Our school allocation was for a one to one device for P6 & 7 and one other device shared between the P1-5 class.

To maximise on the impact of the Chromebook roll-out, we are looking at purchasing a one to one device for all our pupils and we have identified that the School Fund this year will be supporting this project. We will keep you posted of our progress and we will be sharing more of our developments in this area throughout the year via the website.

We were sorry to say goodbye to Fiona Stone as she left for her new life in Harris but are delighted that Katy Ann will be taking up the PSA hours in the school. Before she left Fiona completed the art project in the shelter – adding a fantastic fishing boat scene to go along with the Dun Caan mural already in place.  

This term the focus for our Inter Disciplinary Learning will be World War 1, also within Science we will be looking at Earth and Space and within Health and Wellbeing we will be focusing on Food, to name just some of the areas of our curriculum being covered this term. Within the World War 1 topic pupils will be researching family and local stories of those involved in the War. Perhaps you have some family connections or stories you would like to share with the pupils? If so, you can email the school on wilma.duncan@highland.gov.uk or rhona.gillies@highland.gov.uk or drop us a note. We are also delighted to be welcoming author Donald Murray to the school on Wednesday 12^th September for a Creative Writing Workshop linking to the World War 1 topic.

We welcomed pupils back to school on Tuesday 21^st August after our summer break. This year we have no new P1’s and we have no one leaving for High School so it is lovely to have the same group of 7 this session – here they are with their buddies for this session.

At the end of another very busy and productive year at Raasay Primary School, we were delighted that so many parents, friends, family and community members came along to help us celebrate the children’s successes at our annual Prizegiving. Pupils performed some of their pieces from the Mod and also some other pieces they had been learning. Our special guest this year presenting the prizes was Mrs Ann MacLeod who had tutored Nelly for her Gaelic singing competition at the local Mod. Also in attendance was Iseabail Strachan, Community Arts Development Officer, who worked with the school on a Community Arts based programme creating a Raasay leaflet of local placenames. The leaflet focuses on the area round Holoman and thanks were extended to John William Gillies (Bradan) who came into the school to share his knowledge of the area, totalling over twenty five place names. The leaflet will be on sale in the Shop, Raasay House and The Silver Grasshopper for 50p. All proceeds will go to the pupil Enterprise Fund. Also, we were delighted to show parents the final woven blanket which was a result of all the After School Weaving Club work that Miss Lillian MacLeod had undertaken with the pupils. The children have decided to gift this to the Nursery and all agreed it was lovely to see the finished product. Mrs Wilma Duncan thanked all those attending and also all the various individuals, families, community members, local businesses and groups who help and support us throughout the year. As you can see, the presentation was followed by some delicious cakes and refreshments and we were blessed with beautiful sunny weather which we hope will continue for the holidays!