Merry Christmas to you all from Mrs James and I.

Thank you for all the lovely Christmas cards – it is very kind of you all.

We look forward to welcoming P7 back in 2020! 🙂

Mrs Laird would be very grateful for some help from the prefects with breakfast club during Health and Wellbeing Week. Any prefects that are able to help, please report to the school front door at 8:15am on any morning that you can, 6th – 10th January.

Our Christmas service takes place in the Church of Scotland tomorrow, starting at 10am. All parents, families and community members are warmly invited to attend. Please could P3-7 children wear school uniform for this performance as we realise this would normally be a dress down day. We look forward to seeing you there.

Christmas Service — 2019/20 ~ News

P7 were very busy with Mrs Laird today. Firstly we used watercolours to create a wet on wet background for our winter scenes. Then we completed some work towards Health and Well-being week. We looked at the Pirates of the Curry Bean performance for next term, discussed the characters and who would like to audition in the first week for roles.

After break, we made origami Santas. They look super and everyone followed the instructions really well!

This afternoon we had carol practice then finished our art work which look very effective before hearing some of the DYW presentations.

As part of our mini-topic on jobs involving history and heritage, P7 have been conducting research interviews over the last 9 days. I have been overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response from individuals and employers. So far 15 people have taken part. Many of them have come into school to be interviewed face-to-face and others have given up their time for telephone interviews. We have 3 interviews scheduled for next week too.

This has been a valuable and inspiring experience for all the P7s. It has been a great way to combine listening, talking, research, and note-taking under pressure. It has helped the P7s to make links between the skills they learn and practise at school and jobs and careers (that they might not have even been aware of) in the outside world!

Thank you to everyone who has taken part so far:

Calum Johnstone, Stonemason
Nicky MacLennan, Assistant Community Development Officer ~ Soirbheas
Alison Tanner, Historic Building Conservation Officer ~ Inverness Townscape Heritage Project
Liz English, Curator (Large object collections) ~ Highland Folk Museum
Tom Nelson, Drystone dyker & stonemason ~ Self employed
Shona MacDonald, Company Secretary & Office Manager ~ Jon Hearach Memorials Ltd
George McBurnie, Project Manager ~ Scottish Canals
Gill Bird, Education & Outreach Officer ~ The Highlanders Museum
David Christison, Works Manager ~ Historic Environment Scotland
Katie McGaan, Planning Resources Manager ~ Historic Environment Scotland
Andrew Bowman, Apprentice Stonemason ~ Historic Environment Scotland
Jade More, Apprentice Joiner ~ Historic Environment Scotland
Jennifer Johnstone, Archivist ~ Highland Archive Centre
Lorna Steele, Community Engagement Officer ~ Highland Archive Centre
Ian McWhirr, Building Services Officer (Urquhart Castle) ~ Historic Environment Scotland

Special thanks to Nicky MacLennan for linking us with so many different organisations. 🙂

Pupil presentations will follow in a week or so…

On Wednesday morning (4th December,) Gill Bird came to give a short talk to the class about her career, and her current job as Education and Outreach Officer at The Highlanders Museum at Fort George.

She also brought us some of the WW1 handling collection, which the P7s were very curious about.

Can you guess what these objects are? Can your P7 child remember?

Last Friday (29th November) P7 visited The Glenurquhart Centre to help to decorate saltire biscuits.

We learned a lot of lessons about how to make blue icing: you need a lot of icing sugar but hardly any water! Eventually, thanks to some kind helpers, we got the icing to work. Putting the white cross on was a lot harder than it looks in the photos!

Many of the P7s got chatting to some of the grown ups, and were particularly fascinated by a 1,000 piece jigsaw which showed a WW2 ambulance.

Thanks to everyone at The Glenurquhart Centre for making us so welcome (and for providing the biscuits and saving the icing!)

For the last fortnight, Mrs Mann has challenged the P7s to apply their coding knowledge for a STEM task involving Spheros.

Ask your P7 child what they have been doing!

On Tuesday 26th November, P4-7 enjoyed a special author visit from Barbara Henderson. She started off by explaining the publishing process. She encouraged everyone to aim high and keep working towards your goals!

She then explained the historical research behind her latest novella, “Black Water.” It’s a historical adventure story all about smuggling and Rabbie Burns! She asked for P4-7 volunteers to play some of the main parts, and then all of us joined in, trying to smuggle goods without being caught. Everyone had a great time!

After her presentation, some of the pupils were able to purchase signed copies of all 4 of her books.

On Wednesday 20th November, P7 spent most of the morning working with Nicky MacLennan (Assistant Community Development Officer, Soirbheas) Eve Boyle (Communities Liaison Manager, HES) and Dr Nicky Imrie (Training Officer, Scotland’s Urban Past, HES.)

We went to see if we could spot the Lady’s Well, close to the Grant Memorial site. We also investigated the old gated entrance to Balmacaan Estate. The discussion throughout our walk was really interesting, and P7 asked a number of impressive questions of the 2 archaeologists. We discussed population density and land use and compared and contrasted burial traditions across the globe!

On our travels, we found 2 pots left on lampposts. It was a bit of a mystery!

Once back in school, we did some map work, worked on the MyCanmore photo archive, and pieced together a very complex family tree!

Huge thanks to Nicky, Eve and Nicky for a fascinating morning. 🙂

P5/6 will be having a small bake sale for pupils on Friday (tomorrow) as part of their enterprise project. In school, they have baked shortbread and cupcakes. All items will be 20p. Thank you for your support!

Bake Sale — Primary 5/6 ~ Miss MacDonald 2019/20