How we reflect on our learning

We think it is important to think about the learning we have done and know about the skills we are good at, and which are more challenging for us. We do this by looking at the cloud of labels on the blog and choosing one which we think we have done well. When we click on that skill it creates a list of posts which remind us of activities when we used that skill. Now we can choose an example which we remember and are pleased about doing well. We do this at home with our parents and at school once or twice a term. Its great fun to look back at things we have enjoyed and remember how we felt about them.

When posts are put on the blog we can label them with the most important skills we used in that activity. We can look at the cloud of labels and discuss, choose and agree on the best ones. Most of the skills can be used for many different areas of the curriculum (labels like writing and using mathematical skills aren't used much on the blog but you can see these skills on our wiki literacy and maths pages).

Using the blog labels to review learning.
Thinking about the skills we used and how we like to learn.

We learn in lots of different ways and we all like a different mixture of ways of learning, but most of us agree that model making and real life activities are some of the best ways of learning, some of us prefer drama and role play or debates. In our learning review we think about how we like to learn. This helps Ms Mackay give us choices about how we might be able to do things.

A few of our favourite ways of learning - investigating technology outdoors, planning and conducting experiments,
model making, playing games, creating pictures, organising fund raising, print-making.

All of us do things in and out of school which are important to us and we feel a sense of achievement about. Sometimes this can mean we win a medal or earn a certificate, but sometimes it is a real life skill like cooking a meal for the family or being a class representative on the Pupil Council. We like to share these achievements with our teachers so that they understand about our life outside school and what we are good at!

We do lots of things outside of school which we are proud of!

Read All About It!

Our World War 2 topic we have been creating the front pages of newspapers for the year 1940. We have used a lot of the information we have learned about the Home Front. Many of the campaigns were about recycling and reusing and being more self sufficient, reducing food miles. These are familiar ideas to us today but we have found out that they are not new at all!

The Daily Post

The Eagle Times

The UK Herald

Bin questions and answers...

Today Maria Cuthbertson, Waste Services Manager for Orkney, and Dennis MacDonald, Team Leader Waste Operations, visited our school to answer some questions we had after thinking about bin design and what would be good for collecting marine litter at Scapa. We found out that a plastic bin would be best as it wouldn't rust and it could be picked up by the lift on the bin lorry. A large sliding lid which opens wide enough to take big items would be best. Dennis thought that locking wheels would be enough to keep the bin in place and that it wouldn't need an anchor post. This type of bin already exists and is used in our school grounds. At 1100 litres it has a big enough capacity and there is no need for bin liners. In winter the bin would be emptied once a week but in summer the bin would be emptied three times a week. We thought this was great! When the beach is busiest more people might help remove the marine litter and more capacity would be needed.

Our next job will be to design signs and decide how to tell people at Scapa what the bin is there for and try to encourage them to use it!

The S Team : Research and Development

Back in class the S Team continued their work by sorting and cleaning smaller items to be used in art work.

We identified some of the livings things that make up the ecosystems at Scapa and started compiling our 'biodiversity' list - a list of all the living things we find on our visits.

Some of the larget items have to be hosed outside.

Next we designed and made models of bins which we thought could be used at Scapa to solve the problem of where to put marine litter. If visitors to Scapa used the bins that are there at the moment for marine litter they would fill up very quickly and that would create another problem. Some of the items are quite large and don't fit in a regular bin.

'The Rubbish Digester'

'The S bin'.

The Scaspa Box

Scapa Litter and Information Station

The Green Giant

The Wheely Bin 7000

Evaluating our designs meant we had to think critically about the problems of collecting and removing litter as well as how to encourage visitors to Scapa to help.

Launching the S TEAM!

 Today we (the S Team) were at Scapa Beach picking up litter or ‘Bagging the Bruck’. It was a very windy day but we picked up various types of materials but the main concern was plastic as, although many people don’t realise it, it does not biodegrade and disappear it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces and it is being found in the human food chain in some parts of the world. Some of the other materials we found included rope, bottle tops, shot gun cartages’ and parcel ties.

Sue Whitworth and Lindsay Taylor (the RSPB field officers) met us at Scapa to tell us a bit about the shells, wildlife, the affects of litter and they were also there to give us a hand with picking up litter. We didn’t only go to Scapa to pick up litter we also went to raise awareness of the amount of litter being dropped not only in Orkney but everywhere around the world, to achieve the second part of our John Muir award and also to collect ‘bruck’ to use in our art work.

We managed to collect 12 bags of rubbish and a huge piece of fish netting - it took the whole team to pull it out of the sand.

By Joanne and Leah