International School Award Success!

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

Well done everyone!

Spirit Dancer

Spirit Dancer visited the school today.

P3/4 got a chance to sit inside the canoe.

James played the pipes.

It was a celebration for the P3/4 class who have had a link with a school in Canada this year.

The link was established through the canoe family who paddled the Spirit Dancer in Orkney last year.

This week there are more opportunities for members of the local community and families to paddle the canoe around Orkney.

Lots of people came to see the canoe and listen to James play.

Tommy from Trinidad

Tommy and Sally the sea turtles with visitors at Sans Souci school in Trinidad.

Our exchange travel buddy Tommy the sea turtle is preparing for the long journey to Orkney!

Will he bring news about Patrick's adventures?

More news here.

Fair Trade guests

Raymond Kimaro, Chair of the African Fair trade Network, shows Class 3 where Tanzania is.

Today we welcomed Raymond Kimaro to our school. He came all the way from Tanzania to tell us about how Fairtrade makes a difference to the lives of people in Africa.

At a whole school assembly Raymond and Betsy Reed, Director of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum,

explained how fairtrade works and how we can all help work towards Scotland becoming a fair trade nation.

Raymond told us about the lives of typical coffee farmers who farm on the slopes of Kilimanjaro and how hard life can be for them and how fair trade can help. Fair trade can even help the environment by giving out tree seedlings for people to plant in order to replace the trees they are forced to cut down for fuel.

Class 3 drummed and sang their Kuapa Kokoo song.

Reporters from the local papers asked questions and took photographs.

Many thanks to Betsy and Raymond for visiting our school.

The Tog

Class 5 have been celebrating Norwegian independence by taking part in the Norway Constitution Day Parade. Have a look at their blog.

The Story of Sedna

The Primary 7 classes have finished the felt picture of the Story of Sedna.

Christina Sargent came in for the whole day, and with Mrs Firth our art teacher, they made the felt.

This felt is different from the three which have been made at St Andrew's, Rousay and Sanday because it was made the right way round and started with the background, and details were added on top. It also had

three dimensional elements like Sedna's hair and her father's beard.
These were made using a 'resist' technique.

The children also made coloured balls and rope to depict the way we use the seas around us in modern times. These elements will be used in between the four felts along with sea creatures created in Sanday.
You can see all the schools at work in the video below.
Glaitness is the last school in the sequence.

This work was part of the Learning and Teaching Scotland Developing Global Citizenship team's project to illustrate how global citizenship can be embedded in interdisciplinary contexts for learning.

The felts will be exhibited at the Scottish Learning festival 2010.

Canadian Art

Class 3/4 have been creating artwork in the traditional style of the First Nations of the west of Canada, where their link school is.

This term their topic is 'Coasts' and they have chosen a sea creature to paint. Can you tell what it is?

We sometimes see these animals around the coasts of Orkney too.

Check out the slideshow of everyon'e pictures on the class blog here.