Raasay Primary School

As part of our journey to the Reading Schools Silver Award, pupils have been collaborating with Eigg and Muck Primaries. They had an online meet where each school shared their recommendations for books they have enjoyed. We now have a list of recommendations in our library and have purchased some of these as class reader books. At a recent assembly, the boys each did a presentation of a personal book review. This is helping to promote reading for pleasure throughout the school. Another initiative we have undertaken is our ‘Book and a Biscuit’ whereby the children enjoy relaxing with their books, sharing it with others while enjoying a biscuit. As you can see from the photograph, the older boys were reading to the Nursery pupils which is something that they enjoy regularly.

The boys have been continuing to enjoy the After School Weaving Club, led by Raasay Weaver, Lillian MacLeod. They have produced some lovely work and Lillian was particularly impressed by their very neat edges and use of colour.

As this was the final Kayak session until April, the boys were tasked with planning the final session themselves. They had to make sure they incorporated a warm up followed by some fun activities which showcased the skills they have learnt so far. They had lots of fun and finished off with all jumping into the water.

This term the boys have been learning skills such as: turning, stopping, going backwards, sideways and balance.

As part of their STEM project the boys were tasked with making paper aeroplanes and to work out by trial and erro how much weight their plane could carry and where the weight should be placed. The boys did a fantastic job and also had a lot of fun trying out their different configurations.

Pupils in Raasay Primary and Nursery enjoyed their first Community Lunch of this session on Thursday 25th September. The boys enjoy sharing the lunch and also helping out with serving and clearing. Once again, thank you to all involved for a delicious lunch and lovely community get-together.

As part of our Reading Schools Silver Award pupils and staff were challenged to photograph themselves reading in an unusual setting!

As you can see, we were all up for the challenge and have the photographs to prove it! Maybe this will inspire some of you to find yourself reading for pleasure somewhere different…

The boys are delighted to get back into their Kayaking sessions for this term. This forms part of the P.E. curriculum and the boys are enjoying developing their skills. The weather was very favourable with a nice breeze to keep the midgies at bay!

At the end of last term our annual Local Sports Day had to be postponed due to external circumstances. Therefore we decided that we’d plan it for the first day back of the new school session. Fortunately, the weather played its part and we had a fabulous, sunny day. The boys had planned the activities together and the theme was sportsmanship and fair play. They all demonstrated this very well as the older ones helped to engage the Nursery pupils and support them through some of the activities. There were lots of fun events such as ‘Beat the Goalie’, ‘Grab a Grown up’ and obstacle race.

Thank you to all who came along to support and cheer us on – it was agreed by all that it was a lovely way to start the term.

We held our annual Prizegiving event on Wednesday 2nd July with our special guest this year being David Carslaw, Manager Raasay Community Stores. We wanted to invite David as our special guest because of all the support he gives the school throughout the year. We know he is always at hand to help whether it is lighting for the Christmas Show, photography at various events or selling our calendars through the shop and it is very much appreciated. A lot of what he does for the schools is in the background and we wanted to show our appreciation by inviting him to the Prizegiving as our special guest. David is also the lead Fire Fighter in our local service and always provides detailed, informative and fun learning sessions with the pupils of Raasay Primary School.

We always enjoy welcoming the community to our event to help us to celebrate pupils’ successes over the year and to share in some music, song and poetry. Pupils were piped in to the ceremony by Angus MacPhee, our school chanter tutor to our own school tune ‘Damsels and Dragonflies’. During the event pupils sang ‘Calum’s Road’, their own Raasay Eco song and shared their Gaelic poetry before being presented with the Oban Rose Bowl which they won at the local Mod for being the English Medium school with the most Gaelic points. David then presented the children with their awards, trophies, books and certificates. We also had a lovely celebration cake – made for us especially by Catherine Travis Timms.

Thank you to all (including Freya, our Pet Therapy dog!) who joined us for a lovely afternoon of celebration – and the sun even shone for us!

We all enjoyed an overnight camp out in the school grounds on Monday despite the weather! We find that we are getting better at putting up our tents quickly and identifying the right bits of kit required to do so. We were particularly slick this year – given we had midgies and rain to deal with! Once we had set up camp we made our way down to Raasay House for our dinner of fish and chips followed by ice cream and sauce – thanks to Raasay House for providing us with such a delicious meal which we all enjoyed and for opening up especially for us as Monday is normally their closed day. After our meal we enjoyed our time in Raasay House Library with some games – we especially enjoyed many rounds of connect four which got quite competitive!

When we returned to school we continued with some more games and enjoyed playing ‘Articulate’ and ‘Rapid Rumble’. Then we got ourselves changed for bed and brushed our teeth before tucking down for the night in our tents. The following morning we woke to beautiful sunshine, got ourselves organised and then walked down to Raasay House for breakfast – we were joined by the Nursery pupils and Staff and had a delicious full breakfast which set us up nicely for the activities planned that day. We went with Dave Croy, Raasay House Instructor to the crating area in the Raasay house grounds and had great fun working together as a team building crate towers to support our weight and reach the top of the rope. It was great fun. We also took part in some team games before returning to school for lunch ahead of our Sports Day event which was a kayaking challenge which Ms Duffus set up for us at Home Loch. The challenge was about applying the skills we had been taught over the term, focusing on accuracy. We had a sprint section and slalom section within the challenge with penalties being given if we touched any of the markers. It was a timed event and we were tasked to challenge ourselves rather than each other by completing the route twice with a focus being on improving our time and reducing penalties. It was a brilliant day but we were ready for our own beds that night!