Raasay Primary School

On Tuesday 8th May Pupils in P4 & 5 took part in the annual Skye Schools’ Cross Country event in Portree. We were delighted that Nelly, Noah and Thomas were able to represent the school and all put in a fantastic performance – defying the very wet conditions and even managing to look quite fresh at the end! This was the first time in this event for Thomas and Noah and the second year for Nelly. The course is a tough 1.5 miles which is no mean feat so congratulations to all! Nelly even managed to  improve on her last year’s position by 9 places!

This year, we will have 5 Raasay Primary School pupils representing the school at the annual local Gaelic Mod. Pupils will be competing in various competitions including traditional song, poetry recitation and violin. This is the first time in recent years that we have had an entry to the violin competition and we are delighted that Nelly is going to be entering. Pictured are pupils during their weekly lessons with Mrs Bungard. The Mod will take place in early June so pupils will be practising hard and rehearsing over the next few weeks.

This week pupils are planting beans to learn what conditions they need to sprout and grow. They planted one bean without soil, one without water, one without light and so on – to see what conditions are required for growth. They then planted their own bean and will observe it over the next few days and weeks, noting any changes and developments in their ‘Bean Diary’. Here are the pupils pictured with their newly planted beans!

On Wednesday 25^th April, we had a visit from Ann Larkham who comes each year to do K’Nex workshops with the pupils. For pupils in P4-6 the workshop was ‘Programmable Robots’ – see the report below by Nelly Blair P5.

Building and Programming our own Robots!

During school time on Wednesday the 25^th of April 2018 P4-6 went down to Raasay Community Hall and joined Ann Larkham for a k’nex workshop. We went to the hall and we got into teams and were given a box. We had to build our P bots ourselves and then we all had to get through the course that we were given. Noah and I struggled to get through the course because it was hard to programme it. Eventually I managed to get a token, then after a long time of working with Noah he got a token too. After that we had a harder challenge – it was one where you had to get two flags out of the parking spaces and it was all twists and turns as well. I like the person who does it because she is really kind and helpful, for example if my team was stuck I would just have to say ‘Ann we are stuck’ and then she would just come and pull us out of the mud! (she would just come and help us.)  All in all I enjoyed it because I always enjoy it .

By Nelly Blair P5

Pupils in P1&2 were challenged to create their own ‘Space Bots’ – these were to be their own version of the ‘Mars Rover’ and they were given certain features that would have to be included. As you can see, they came up with some amazing creations and had great fun doing it! Here is what they had to say about the workshop:

Calum P1 “I liked doing the driving. You had to not hit the aliens but you had to hit the cones to get points. My robot was called Beebot”.

Tamsin P1: “You had to do three things – 1. Draw your robot 2. Make your robot 3. Drive your robot. I liked building aliens – you had to hit as many skittles as you could but not aliens”.

Hamish P2: “The robot was to be like the ‘Mars Rover’ – the first ever thing to land on Mars. It had to have all the bits such as six wheels and eyes instead of cameras. The bit I liked best was doing the obstacle course”.

As part of Global Citizenship and RME, the pupils have been studying Fair Trade and how we can help Farmers in other countries by purchasing Fair Trade goods – which tasted lovely as we had a taste of them! Please see the report below by Tabitha Carslaw P6.

Fairtrade visit to the shop

Fairtrade is giving the men and women who actually plant, take care and pick the agricultural produce (cocoa beans, flowers, fruit, vegetables,) the money they deserve.

On Tuesday 24^th of April Raasay Primary School went to Raasay Community Stores to find Fairtrade products and listed them down. We found Green and Black’s Organic chocolate, Essential Organic Hazelnut spread, Golden Caser suger, Mars Maltesers, Traidcraft Fruit and oat chewy cookies, Green and Black’s hot chocolate, Tropical wholefoods organic apricot and raisin bar and Traidcraft’s geo bar.

Geobar is right at the heart of Fairtrade, bringing opportunity and hope to growers around the world. Geobar pack a global mix of Fairtrade ingredients into every bar. Delicious, natural, and wholesome ingredients sourced from their travels.

Since we went to the shop to find Fairtrade things we bought TraidCraft fruit and oat chewy cookies, two of Tropical Wholefoods apricot and raisin bars and Green and Black’s organic milk chocolate.

Biodiversity in our Art

This term our focus in Art is mixed media where children have the opportunity to extend their skills using various materials to make collage, using texture in man-made and natural materials. Develop the skills in overlapping and overlaying to create effects and create artwork which takes into consideration specific qualities; warm, cold, shiny, smooth. They will also be continuing to extend their mixed media skills through their Weaving Club and through enterprise and Fair Trade lessons which link to textiles and fabric. Look out for our colourful coasters coming to a stall near you soon! Here we are creating a ‘Spring Collage’ which is positively buzzing with life!

On the last day of term pupils enjoyed lots of fun Easter activities. These included Egg decorating, cake decorating, Easter lino printing with Fiona Stone and the Easter story. We also had an Easter Egg Hunt round the playground, following clues planted by the Easter Bunny! We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Easter!

On Friday 23^rd March, Raasay Primary School took part in Sport Relief and raised a whopping total of £142.75! Pupils came to school dressed in their sporty outfits or dressed as their favourite sports star. They then went out and about round the village and local area collecting money for the charity. Parents and friends came along to support them on their way and the local community contributed generously as always.

By Tabby Carslaw P6

On Tuesday 20th of March pupils and parents visited the mobile dome Planetarium which was set up at the hall. When we arrived they were still blowing up the dome but while the dome was blowing up we saw life size cut outs of Tim Peak and some information about space and space travel. Then we went inside and the dome appeared much bigger on the inside than the outside. There was a projector inside and first they showed us information about the moon and stars and then we learnt about different constellations and their names.

Secondly we were shown a video of two rockets landing on Earth and of robots on Mars.  These robots are going to drill into the surface of Mars to identify if there is a possibility of life. We learnt about some of the planets and their moons that might support life, for example Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, which has an icy crust that holds water and therefore the possibility of life.

Even though I would not like to live on Mars or the Moon I still found everything really interesting and out of this world!

We are continuing to work on our Gaelic Placenames map with Caroline Deer, the Community Arts worker for the project. These workshops are provided by Aros’ year-long community arts programme for Skye and Raasay: Tha Seo Math Dhuibh – Good for You.  The programme is supported by the Highland Culture Strategic Board and the Highland Council and Creative Scotland Take Pride, Take Part Investment Fund.

As you can see – our large scale map is coming along nicely and we are also working on a more detailed map of the Holoman area. John William Gillies has managed to detail more than 50 names from around that area alone – these names would be lost in time if not recorded and we hope that this project could be a starting point for a bigger project in the future.