International comparison

In Slovenia, children enter school at the age of 5 and leave it at the age of 14 approximately, which means they spend whole nine years in their primary schools. These nine years are later further divided into first three, second three and last three. In the first three years children are taught all basic subjects by one teacher. They get a new teacher each year, but she or he stays with them throughout the whole year. This seems to be the case in Scotland as well. In class four, they are still left with one teacher, but they usually start to learn a foreign language at this stage, which is done by a specialized teacher. From class five on, classes get a master teacher, who deals with the class issues, but all the subjects are taught by specialized teachers. Geography would be taught by a geography teacher, English by an English teacher and so on. Next, the classes switch classrooms during break times in order to get to “geography classroom” or any other classroom which subject is on next. This is also one of the things classes do not do here, in Scotland. Moreover, classes in Slovenia are also given a weekly timetable at the beginning of the year which lasts throughout the whole year. It is a big difference to see pupils in Scotland don’t follow a particular whole-year timetable, which means teachers have more of a free choice of when to teach this and that. I like this, because it gives you more freedom and enables you to fit in the things when you consider appropriate. Here is where we come to the International education. Going international is a very important aspect of how to bring the world closer to the children and how to make them understand the way the world works outside there owns. I’d be very happy if I could say we have International Education in Slovenia as well, but we don’t have it to that extent. During the last four years, some improvements have been done where many schools get visiting students form other countries, but to make links with schools, where classes communicate with classes and where they exchange e-mails and send letters to each other, we simply don’t have that in Slovenia. This is what can really be called learning, whereas in Slovenia learners would be told how people live and work and play in another country, here, learner have a chance to discover all these things on their own. Giving children the chance to teach one another brings them closer to becoming a responsible global citizens, who understand the world, respect others and the whole thing makes them realize we only have one planet that we need to look after and share.

Hello Sally!

Welcome Sally!

This week the whole school met Sally the sea turtle at assembly. Children from P1 explained that she had come from Trinidad for a visit and tried to work out how old she was.

There were lots of questions.

Class 1 are making a display all about Trinidad for their topic, 'My Island Home'.

Voice from Slovenia

Hi there. It’s me Vesna, current Comenius assistant from Slovenia. I graduated in June 2010 and was eager to spend a part of my life working and living abroad.

But who is actually responsible for me being here? Here is the answer. On the one hand, it is the European programme – Comenius Assistantship which offers teachers to be (either students or teachers who haven't started teaching yet since graduation) a chance to get their first teaching experiences abroad, while on the other had it was me, as I applied for being a Comenius assistant.

At the beginning I wasn't actually sure of whether I was going anywhere at all, since I was put on the reserve list. Later on, they contacted me and here I am – right in Orkney :) …
Thanks again to our National Agency in Slovenia and to the people who encouraged me to take this opportunity and spend 6 months abroad.

I’ll never be sorry for coming here and that’s why so many thanks go to those who welcomed me here in such a nice manner as well.

In my upcoming blogs I’ll be speaking about differences between the school systems and tell you more about Slovene culture and holidays as we go along.

Look forward to speaking to you soon.

What makes us happy?

What do we need?

Class 3  are creating pictures for an art competition on the theme of 'What makes us happy?' 

What do you need?
Is it the same?

 The fundraising competition will raise awareness of what the children in Bangladesh need.



Mrs Whittles in Bangladesh.



Class 3 will be sharing their pictures on their blog next week.

Icelandic visitors

This week Class 7 learned a little Icelandic and found out about life for children their own age in Iceland.

To read about the visit you can go to the class blog.

We hope we can build a link with a school in the North East of the country where it is already snowing!

Hello Trinidad!

The Primary 1 classes have a new friend!

Sally has arrived from Trinidad!

She will be finding out all about life here in Orkney while she is here.

To find out more look at the Class 1F blog here.

International School Award Success!

We begin the year with the news that we have achieved the full International School Award.!

Well done everyone!