Achaleven Primary School

CHILDREN IN NEED 

 Today, 16^th November, the whole school has been involved in raising money for children in need. We all came to school wearing our pyjamas (even the staff!) and this afternoon we are having an unhealthy tuck shop to raise even more money. We have raised £91.50 from donations and we hope it will be about £150 with the addition of the tuck shop money. Everyone looks spectacular and we have all had a fantastic time! We are waiting to hear if one of pupils is going to be broadcasting live on Radio 2 this afternoon as we put in a request this morning and they phoned us back! We are keeping our fingers crossed!                                                             

Look at the sleepy heads!!!!!!!!!

  Pupil Council -The New Council for 2007/2008

 We have a pupil council meeting every second week on a Tuesday. There are eight pupils on the pupil council and one teacher. It is really great fun and we all have a job to do. There is a chair, a vice chair, secretary, and a rep.  We make decisions about what is going to happen around the school. We have to arrange to have the playground measured and then we are going to change and improve the conditions in our playground. 

 Eco Group 2007/2008

We have a meeting every second week on a Friday.  There are six people and three teachers in the Eco Group. We all have jobs, we have a chairperson, a secretary and some reps. We hold a tuck shop every month and most of the time we try to keep them healthy! Occasionally, we hold an unhealthy tuck shop at the end of term or when we are raising money for charity. We are working towards our third green flag and we hope to do well in the health promoting schools visit which is due next week.  As a member of the eco group I have been involved in planting activities, recycling and composting. 

Primary 4-7 have had a busy March. We have been to Oban to take part in Y Dance, visit the Fairtrade Exhibition, St Oran’s Church and St Columba’s Cathedral.

Fairtrade

Fairtrade is when workers in developing countries get the right payment for their hard work. We visited the Corran Halls to find out more about this.  We were introduced to a man from New Ghana, who worked in a tea plantation.  This plantation sells 200 million kilograms of tea per year. He worked long hours for very little pay. He told us a little about his life and country.   This will probably be the only opportunity he will have to visit Britain.  He found Scotland very cold. However he was happy to come and bring the message of Fairtrade.

Y-Dance

Primaries 4,5,6 & 7  went to the Scout Hall on Monday 5th March to dance.  Y-dancing is very similar to street dancing.  We played lots of fun games and even learned a funky dance routine. It was a real fun trip and we hope to do some more dancing.

     Making the most of our moves.                    

St Orans Church and St Columba’s Catherdral

Primary 6/7 visited both St Oran’s in Connel and St Columba’s in Oban as part of their Religious Education. We studied the inside of both churches, taking note of the different stain glass windows and religious artefacts.  We talked about the comparisons between them .  We would like to thank the Reverend Cringles and Father MacKay who took us round and explained things to us.

This is some of the games we have painted on the playground. We also have a variety of games we store in our shed. Our Buddies organise some games for us. There is always plenty we can do. When the weather is fine we play in the garden.

Pupil Council 

We have eight members of our Pupil Council, to decide who was elected we held a school ballot. The representatives are as follows; 4 members from Primary 6/7, 2 from Primary 4/5 and 2 from Primary 1/2/3.  We have an ‘Idea Box’ where pupils can post there ideas on school issues. During our meetings we discuss those ideas, and air them with the Head Teacher. Here are some of the items we have discussed;- Running a Bring and Buy sale to buy more inside games.Playground rules.Publishing a fortnightly newspaper. 

Watch this space to keep you up to date with the outcomes.

                 ECO Friendly Garden                                              Relax in the Rainbow Garden

The ECO committee has eight pupils (primary3-7) and three adults who meet every Tuesday. We are responsible for setting up ECO duties. These include emptying compost bins which are in every classroom as well as the staffroom. Energy monitors collect paper, cans and plastics for recycling.  We also have monitors who look after the plants both in and outside the school, feed the birds and generally do litter watch. After discussion we set up an ECO code:

Save Energy by – 

Turning off lights and computers.                               

Turn off taps.                               

Reducing waste by buying fewer items packed in paper/plastic.                               

Recycle and reduce whatever and wherever possible.

Being ECO friendly encourages us to look after each other and make our school as well as the world around us a safer happier place. We have been working very hard to encourage ECO friendliness throughout the school, and recently we were awarded our second Green Flag.

Our school                                                    Our garden

Our school is a small rural school on the shores of Loch Etive. There are over fifty pupils, three full time staff and three part time staff.  We have two buildings. Our main building has 2 classrooms, an office, staffroom and upstairs 2 storage rooms. In the annexe we have a classroom that doubles as a dining room. Our school has a large playground and a well maintained garden, it is situated beside the A85.We have PE every Friday which is held in Connel Village Hall.  The hall is only a short walk from our school. We study lots of different subjects, such as, Environmental Studies, Art, Science, Music, Drama, Health, ICT, Gaelic, French, Creative Writing, RE, PSD and Maths.

Hello from Achaleven Primary School in Connel, near Oban. We are creating our first blog here and we hope you like it.