Glaitness Green Swans

2011-10-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

Come and join us!

We will be planting native trees on Friday 4th November 1.40 - 3.30.

All welcome. Call the School Office (873648) to let us know you're coming.

Bring your wellies and a spade.

Hot drinks and homebakes when we are finished!

2011-10-20T05:31:00.000-07:00

Orkney Hamper Competition Prize Winners

Adult Section: Alex Fender

School Section: Molly Hay, Louise Robertson, Charlie Corsie, Fraser Bruce, Elin Sinclair

Click here to see more photos.

2011-10-03T03:39:00.000-07:00

Win a hamper of Orkney Foods!

Design and make a poster which encourages people to make a recipe using local foods.
Click on the link to Recipe Competition Rules .

AND/OR

Look at the Orkney foods on display in our foyer.
Can you find out where they are made?
Click on the link to Orkney Food Hamper Mapping Competition entry form. Print your entry form and map.

Anyone can enter! If you are not a pupil, make sure your name and address are on on your entry. Our School Office and Foyer are open 8.30 - 4.00 from Monday to Friday. Entries in by 9.30am on Wednesday 12th October.

Winners will be notified and invited to our Harvest Celebration Assembly on Friday 14th October at 2pm, where Prizes will be presented.

Meeting 29thy Sept 2011

2011-09-29T07:14:00.000-07:00

Hi!

At our first Green Swans meeting we discussed the Snack Shack.

We thought about the three questions below, shared the views of our class mates and made the following decisions for the whole school.

Who will run Snack Shack next term?

P4 to 7 pupils will be asked if they would like to join up for the rota. Experienced Snack shack servers will team up with new servers to train them.

What do we like about Snack Shack?
Lots of Fruit.
We'd like to have Milk shakes and sweet foods - perhaps on Fridays?

What do we want?
Peedie make-it-yourself sandwiches.
Fruit Pick and Mix which is prepared before serving time.
"School bars".
Prices on the front of the boxes and bags.

We want to limit bread and biscuits and cheese to only 3 pieces (you can mix and match).
Limits written on the area near the foods.

A set weight of cheese for 5p.
Self-service for customers (reducing germs). Pay the servers .

We would like to remind everyone this is Snack time, make sure you are still hungry for your lunch at Lunch Time.

The BIG Tidy Up!

2011-05-23T03:02:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday at 3pm we had a BIG clean up around the school. The Green Swans, Pupil Council, some classes, parents and staff all helped.

We are all ready to go with our gloves and tabards on.

Here we are gathering stuff from round the back of the school!

Aha a crisp bag! It must have blown in the wind to here.....

The 'Tidy Up' team find litter in all the bushes along the front of the school.

Hunting in the heather bed!

Emerging from a hole in the bushes! We ended up with over 10 bags of rubbish!

A splendid effort. Let's just keep it tidy now....

Planting trees at Muddisdale!

2011-04-14T04:23:00.000-07:00

Classes 1C, 1F, 1A and P7 all got very busy at Muddisdale plainting trees with Jenny from the Woodland Trust. Hopefully these trees will grow to a good size and we can appreciate them for many years to come.

Here we are at various stages of the process!

Phew! That was hard work!!

Getting busy!P7 were so supportive of the younger children.

Happy teams finishing a good job.

Excellent work - high five time!

Working together.

Getting the plastic pushed down to stop the weeds choking the tree.

Fairtrade Fortnight - Bunting World Record

2011-04-14T04:03:00.000-07:00

We decorated the Eco board with our Fairtrade bunting! There were 60 flags in total.

These have now been sent off to the Fairtrade Foundation as part of a Guinness World Record attempt to make the longest and fairest ever piece of bunting.

The current record is 2,696 metres and the target proposed is 4,350 metres (over two and a half miles).

Let's hope the target is reached and we have done something to make a difference!

Earth Hour 2011

2011-03-22T01:37:00.000-07:00

We are looking towards a bright future and Earth Hour 2011 gives us the opportunity to share hope for this. People all over the world will be switching their lights off for one hour to show that they care about protecting our world and tackling climate change.

We are planning to switch all the lights off in Glaitness on Friday between 11.30am and 12.30pm to mark this event.

Then at home on Saturday evening at 8.30pm you can do the same there. Get the word out and make a difference!

http://scotland.wwf.org.uk/how_you_can_help/campaign_with_wwf_scotland22/earth_hour_scotland_2011/

Check out the Earth Hour Scotland website too and hte Earth Hour 2011 video clip.

Fairtrade Fortnight

2011-03-02T06:03:00.000-08:00

We have been raising awareness of fair trade products. Morgan and Neve highlighted this at our business meeting on Monday.

We have launched Glaitness Fairtrade Fortnight with a mini football league using fairly traded footballs.

We are also having promotions in our healthy tuck shop, the Snack Shack - banana milkshakes, Geo bars and other fairly traded goodies!

We also plan to take part in forming the world's longest piece of bunting made from fairly traded cotton!

Keep an eye on the space for photos and updates! Try out the link below to find out more!

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/fortnight

Feeding the birds

2010-11-25T12:46:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday 24th November, Sue Whitworth from RSPB came to show us how to make bird food so that we can help our feathered friends to survive in the cold winter weather.

For the food balls we needed some lard, seeds, dried fruit and even some porridge oats!
We squeezed it all together and moulded it into balls.
Next we added a perch made out of twigs and some string to hang them up by.
We will hang them among the trees in the playground after they have hardened a bit in the fridge.

We also made some 'worms'! Mrs Whitworth mixed some wholemeal flour, suet and water together to make a sort of dough.

We rolled little bits into worm shapes for the birds to pick up from the ground.

We looked at pictures of the types of birds we will be helping and learned that some birds don't like to eat from tables but prefer to pick their food from the ground.
We hope the birds will enjoy their treats!

Home grown carrots!

2010-11-25T12:17:00.000-08:00

The Green Fingers Garden Group planted carrots in the courtyard earlier this year and some of them still needed to be harvested.

Mrs Scott made some delicious carrot cake for the Snack Shack to sell at playtime. We sold some raw carrot sticks as well. It all sold out very quickly!

Waste survey

2010-11-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

We are very lucky at Glaitness to have a selection of tasty, healthy meals to choose from at lunchtime.

Our cooks were concerned about the amount of food that is wasted at lunchtime so we set up a food survey last term to see if we could have less waste.

Each sitting at lunchtime had the waste weighed and we kept a chart to compare sittings and to see if the amount got less as the weeks went on.

We're going to really try to have clean plates from now on!

Mudfest Logo Competition Winner!

2010-11-04T11:20:00.001-07:00

This is the winning logo from our 'Mudfest' competition. It was designed by Leigh and reflects aspects of the outdoor environment at Muddisdale. All the classes very much enjoyed exploring there last term and had lots of exciting experiences in the outdoors. Please look at the class blog pages to find out more!

MADD5 - Biodiversity

2010-05-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

MADD 5 took place on Wed 19th May and was a hugely successful day full of activities. Our theme this year was biodiversity and found us all getting closely involved with nature in various ways.

The sports hall was visited by all classes with a range of activities on offer. Fantastic art work was produced on the floor, using a selection of natural products such as leaves, twigs, flowers, cones etc.

Some more images.
Other activities included a composting quiz, nest building, bug viewing, a biodiversity fortune teller to make, a picture sort, and a reading corner with books about nature. Suggestions and information were added to a Darwin's Footprints poster also.

The JRSO team were on hand with some games on pedestrian and cycle safety and information on Walk to school week. They also had a lucky dip and some free bookmarks and stickers. Alice, Tom, Robert and Julia were amazing with their support in the hall. Well done and thank you.

A biodiversity theme would not be complete without an outdoor experience and we were lucky to have beautiful weather to enhance the day. Most classes took advantage of the chance to take a nature walk up the Muddisdale path and we are reminded how lucky we are to have such a fantastic outdoor resource on our doorstep. We were also lucky to have Jenny Taylor from Orkney Woodland Trust to join us and lend her expertise in identifying plants and trees.Examination of creatures after a tree shake activity.

Many different species were found along with a variety of creatures, including a large, hairy caterpillar, a strange ladybird and the sound of a cuckoo! It was wonderful to see different age groups of pupils interact with each other and to see the level of engagement and interest shown by all. Definitely an experience worth repeating.
Throughout the week an amazing collection of 'Bionimals' appeared! We had a competition to see what kind of creatures could be created from natural materials and the results were outstanding. We can be reassured that imagination and creativity is alive and well at Glaitness! A huge thanks to all who took part for your time and effort.
Take a look at these - How can we choose winners when they were all so good?

Make a Difference Day 5

2010-05-14T03:51:00.000-07:00

MADD 5 is next Wednesday 19th May.

The whole school will be taking part in activities for Biodiversity Day, Walk to School Week and the Kew Gardens Great Plant Hunt.

This is an important part of being an Eco School, making sure we keep thinking about how we can keep 'Sustaining our World'.

Our actions have an impact on the biodiversity around us in Orkney and also affect biodiversity around the world.

Through our international links this year we have found out about the very different environments and eco-systems and biodiversity some of our link schools have around them.

Biodiversity - getting 'oot and aboot'.

2010-04-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

This term classes are looking at different aspects of biodiversity in and beyond the schools grounds.

The pre-school think they know what they will find in their digging area outside.

Class 3/4 went to Scapa to find out about the variety of living things there.

They found evidence of 23 different living things!

Getting ready for Spring in the pre-school garden

2010-04-15T06:01:00.000-07:00

Some developments have been underway in our school grounds.

The pre-school garden team have created a vegetable garden.

Remember to show your support!

2010-03-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

Fairtrade Fortnight - What is your swap?

2010-03-01T12:52:00.001-08:00

Earth Hour 2010

2010-01-27T08:57:00.000-08:00

This year's theme is : Wear something bright, turn off the light!

Its your chance to make a statement about the need to care for the planet by turning off the lights for an hour.

We will be marking Earth Hour in school - find out details here closer to the date:

27th March.

RSPB Big Schools Birdwatch

2010-01-27T02:14:00.000-08:00

From 18th January to 1st February it is the RSPB Big (and Little) Schools Birdwatch.

P3/4 have taken part by checking which birds are in the playground over an hour in the afternoon. They went outside to count the birds which landed in the school grounds or on the buildings.

They then entered the information online and looked at the ways it could be displayed in different types of charts.

They made some 'snappers'.

They had to think about the distinctive markings and colours of the birds we might see in Orkney.

Can you tell what they are?

Green Swans Meeting Summary

2010-01-20T07:56:00.000-08:00

The Glaitness Green Swans met this afternoon in the library.

We discussed feedback from our Green Flag visit which we were all pleased about.

We also spoke about being involved in the paths project for the Peedie Sea and were keen to do this.

Mrs Rendall told us about the Orphir and Rousay Eco Blogs and we thought up a comment to add to them.

Finally, we thought about outdoor learning and our playground. We need to know what the classes think and decided how we would do this. Watch out in school for more information.

Our meeting finished at 3.25pm and we went back to report to our classes.

UN International Year of Biodiversity

2010-01-15T02:43:00.000-08:00

2010 is the UN international Year of Biodiversity. To find out more have a look at the website.

We will be considering how we can encourage and support and maintain biodiversity around our school and the wider world through our Eco - Schools work.

Well done Rousay and Orphir!

2010-01-13T01:18:00.000-08:00

Rousay and Orphir Schools have each set up an Eco Schools group and have begun a blog to share their progress. Do you have any ideas to share with them as they think about what they do already and plan actions for the future?

Radio Broadcast

2010-01-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Listen to Mrs Rendall and some of our pupils describe how we achieved our second green flag.

Our Green Flag

2009-12-16T02:13:00.000-08:00

After a follow-up inspection we have been re-accredited with our 'Green Flag' status!

Copenhagen Conference Events

2009-12-14T03:05:00.000-08:00

P7 took part in live Glow Meet with Heather Reid, BBC weather presenter and professional meteorologist. Heather answered questions on weather, climate and the impact of global warming.
Find out about their ice hares here.

Some of the ways we try to be an Eco-School

2009-12-14T02:22:00.000-08:00

Our global footprint

2009-12-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

Why is it so important to reduce our impact on the planet?

Have a look at these power point presentations by two of the P7s.

How to have a Sustainable Christmas

2009-12-07T06:04:00.000-08:00

Our school Christmas tree will be chopped up after the holidays and used as compost.

During its life it has helped the earth's atmosphere.

What other ways can you make Christmas more eco friendly? You could:

make sure your tree is from a local area
buy a tree in a pot and replant it
use LED lights

Please add to these ideas by leaving a comment.

Save our Seas

2009-12-04T06:45:00.000-08:00

Last year's class 4 told the story of how the leatherback turtles and other sea animals can be threatened by litter in the ocean.

These turtles hatch out on beaches in Trinidad, close to one of our link schools.

The beaches there are under threat from coastal erosion in a similar way to Orkney's coastsline.

This year Class 1 are going to find out how big the turtles are. Check their blog for some photos soon.

Remember the Cool Seas Roadshow?

P7 take part in the Blue Wave

2009-12-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

World leaders will get together in December at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen to decide how the world tackles climate change for decades to come.

Oxfam is looking for two key outcomes:

a cap on rich country carbon emissions.

an adaptation fund is set up for poor countries, so that they can cope with the effects of climate change.

Thousands of people will show their support for a safe and fair agreement to be made at the talks by joining The Wave.

P7 took part by cutting out hands with blue and adding messages to the government about Climate Change. These will be displayed in London at The Wave event on the 5th December to show support for a fair and safe climate deal in Copenhagen.

This is the video of their wave which you can also see at Oxfam's Blue Wave website.

Type in 'Glaitness'.
Can you see anyone else you know there?

The pre-school get outside.

2009-11-23T06:58:00.000-08:00

Ready to go outside and do some composting!

This is where all the food scraps from snack time go.

Feeding the birds is an important job too.

Its important to make sure we put some food out all around the school and make sure there is some food for the birds where they are expecting it.

WWF - One Planet

2009-11-17T09:45:00.000-08:00

Click here to watch the WWF One Planet Future Animation on Green TV.

What is Grounds for Learning?

2009-11-17T08:43:00.001-08:00

Current issues

2009-11-17T07:10:00.000-08:00

In order to retain our green flag status we have two hours to show the inspectors what makes us an Eco School on the 15th December.

We have to demonstrate that we have made a difference in nine areas:

Water

Biodiversity

Energy

Sustaining Our World

Health and Wellbeing

Litter

School Grounds

Transport

Waste