This term we have 2 main things to work on.

 The first thing we are deciding about is Sports Relief which is on Friday 23rd March. We have been working together to think of ideas of thigs to do and on Monday we gave each class a questionnaire about what we thought we could do and we wanted all the children in the school to have a say about what they would like us to organise. Today, Thursday, we counted the responses from the classes.

Classes could choose from the following with the numbers of votes for each one:
a sponsored event - 43
Glaitness Got Talent - 43
a mixed sports league - 32

It was amazing that the sponsored event and Glatiness Got Talet event got the same number. The pupil council took a vote to decide and the votes from the pupil council were as follows:

a sponsored event - 1
Glaitness Got Talent - 9
a mixed sports league - 2

As a result, we will organise a Glaitness Got Talent for Sports relief.

Thank you to all the people who voted.


The other thing we are going to work on this term is about children's rights and responsibilities. Mrs Miller shared with us the fact that a lot of children have said that they think children in our school don't behave well and we have been asked to organise an assembly for Monday 20th February about behaviour in our school.

Children in Need fundraising

The pupil council met today, 9th November, to make decisions about fundraising for Children in Need.

Children in Need takes place on Friday 18th November and we hope that the whole school will take part in these events.

We decided to hold a baking competition which will involve 3 things.
1. decorate a cupcake
2. best tasting chocolate cake
3. best tasting cookie - any flavour

The judges will be announced shortly but we are going to ask 3 members of staff at the school to judge this competition. Entry for the baking competition is 30p per item entered. There will be 1 prize per category for children and 1 overall prize for the best entry from a staff member across all 3 sections.

There will be a raffle for the chance to win a pudsey bear, a blush bear or a beannie hat with pudsey lugs! Each raffle ticket will cost 20p.

We are asking people to wear spots for Children in Need day as well and to take 50p into school for doing this.

We hope everyone has great fun on Children in Need day and we raise loads of money.

Last meeting 6.10.11

We met on the 6th October and discussed a number of things. We spoke about the pupil council board and the banner to put up. Lauren from P7 came down and spoke to us about having a 'bake off' competition. We decided to hold a baking competition as part of raising money for Children in Need in November. P7 are also wanting to hold a bake sale as part of their fundraising for kayaking. We still need to design a logo for the pupil council. We agreed to put some posters on our notice board and Mrs Miller took our photos for the blog as well. Look out for them shortly. Everybody on the pupil council got a badge showing that they were on the pupil council - watch out for your pupil council members wearing their badges.

new pupil council

The new pupil council of 2011-2012 met today for the first time. We discussed ways of making the notice board stand out and had a democratic way of deciding which colours to choose. Mr Scott is going to replace the background colour for us and the P7 and 5A pupils are going to do up lettering for the new look board. Keep looking to see what is happening.

For the next meeting we are going to design a logo to have a logo for the pupil council. We will put this on our board and on the blog as well. In 2 weeks time Mrs Miller will take the camera and take our photos for the blog and the board.

We will update the blog every time we have a meeting.

Pupil Parliament

Pupil Parliament in Slovenia is something similar to Pupil Council in Scotland, except for it is based on the country level and not on the individual school. The programme was designed with the idea of raising youth for democracy. Brought up issues are discussed on a regional and later on, on the national level. Its beginnings go to the year 1990 and since then it has the role of encouraging children to state their opinions on the raised questions that they choose themselves. Furthermore, the main aim is also to draw their attention to issues such as human and citizens’ rights.
On the one hand, Pupil Parliament was actually established on a student initiative with the idea of being able to present their opinions, ideas, dilemmas about the questions they consider important in their process of growing up in the area they live, attend school or spend free time in. On the other hand, attention form those who posses power to change things or make them better, may it be school, local authorities to government or non-government organisations is expected. In each school, pupils get elected who later on participate in regional and national meetings. Some of the topics of previous meetings were: Taboos- the prohibited things, Primary school now 9years-our opinion, Youth’s fun and free time, Love and relationships, Stereotypes, racism and discrimination.

A Right Blether!

Today was voting day at Glaitness School!

The meeting room was all set up as a polling station and each class took their votes along and posted them in the ballot boxes.

P7 pupils helped some of the younger ones to cast their votes.










This was part of the Right Blether campaign -  a national vote organised by Tam Baillie, our Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland and we were giving our views on what is important to us at home, in our school, our community and in Scotland.
Tam Baillie came along in person to see how our voting was going and he was able to answer our questions and tell us more about the campaign.

He told us how important it was that we use our votes and make our voices heard so that it helps people like him and politicians to know what needs to be changed.

He also took time to look at P7s Happy Birthday board which is celebrating 21 years of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
P7 have drawn some cartoons about superheroes who could help children and have made up some lovely recipes for improving children's lives. (some examples will be added here later)

We were very lucky to have Tam Baillie visit and it made the day more meaningful and special to us all.
The Pupil Council will count the votes and return the results to Tam's team. It will also published on this blog. 
Look out for it shortly!
You will find more information by following these links:
A Right Blether
UNICEF
Every child matters

A Recipe for a Real Childhood

A pinch of kindness

A spoonful of love

A sprinkle of friendliness

A drop of respect

1 litre of smiles

150grams of fun

A cupful of fairness

101 grams of education

A teaspoon of shelter

Half a cup of warmth

An armful of toys

A handful of care

A bucketful of happiness

Mixed together in a safe home and let it cook in a warm bed every night.

The Recipe for a Childhood

2 tablespoons of love.

1 spoonful of happiness.

1 litre of respect.

4 oz of kindness.

1 teaspoon of care.

A pinch of  family.

500g of life.

1 forkful of toys.

A pinch of fun.

A heap of clothing.

A truck load of freedom.

A dash of houses.

A splash of school.

A dod of safety.

1 sack of parents.

A pint of health.

Children in Need

Friday 19th was Children in Need day and we were busy doing our bit for the charity.
We paid 50p to dress up in spots and sold some Pudsey goods at playtime. The tattoos and stickers were very popular. We sold all our bandanas and badges too.
A cuddly Pudsey and Blush were raffled with the lucky winners being Ross from p4 and William in p3.

All P1 pupils had a busy afternoon creating lovely pictures of Pudsey and Blush from buckets of loose change that they had collected around the school.

When all the generous donations were added together we had a total of £606.53!

A magnificent total - a huge thank you to everyone who contributed.

Anti Bullying week

"Bullying can happen to anyone at any age. Being bullied at school, home or online might involve someone pushing you, hitting you, teasing you, talking about you or calling you names. No one has the right to hurt you or make you feel bad, and if you are being bullied you don't have to put up with it, you can talk to someone about it."
from Childline

for more information click
Childline bullying

Bullying is an issue we need to talk about as it can affect all of us from time time. We are all responsible for looking after each other and making sure no one is being a victim of bullying.
15th - 19th November is National Anti Bullying week so Ms Dennison talked to us about it at assembly.
She showed us a video story about bullying which was made by p6. You can watch it here.

Other useful links on bullying:
Bullying UK Junior
Stop That! - a song about name calling
Hero in the Hallway - pupils taking action against bullying behaviour.

Alistair Carmichael Award Presentation

Today we got an exciting visitor called Alistair Carmichael, who is our local MP. He came in to present us with our Full International School award, which we got by linking with schools around the globe. It was a real privilege to have him come to our school.
Glaitness School works with partner schools in Trinidad, Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, India and Bangladesh.
You can read all about our International activities on our blog by following the link below
http://glaitnessinted.blogspot.com/

A RIGHT blether - voting coming soon!

What's important to you? We want to find out! Take part in the RIGHT blether vote, especially for young people under the age of 18. This is a national vote organised by Tam Baillie, our Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland.

Glaitness School will become a polling station and you will be able to cast your vote in the ballot box. We want to take forward your views and participate in this important consultation.
So What's important to you? At home, at school, in the local community and for Scotland?
Vote and you can make a difference!

Vesna Visit

The pupil council had a visit from Vesna Oslak who has come all the way from Slovenia.
The purpose of her visit was to find out about the way the education system works in Glaitness School.
We gave her some questions to answer about her home country. One of the questions we asked about was the temperature in Slovenia and she told us it is approximately 25'C in the Summer and approximately -10'C in the Winter, which is very different from up north in Orkney.
She also told us a little bit about the landscape and  60% of Slovenia is trees and the other 40% would be land.
Vesna also told us about the food that they eat there. They eat about the same portions of meat as in Scotland.
Their school system in Slovenia is VERY different from ours, they do not wear school uniform and they work in individual desks.
In Slovenia they do not fundraise for many charities like Childeren in Need and Red Nose Day .
We look forward to hearing more about Slovenia when she comes to work in our classrooms.
Check the map to see where Slovenia is.

View Slovenia in a larger map

Pupil Council - or when a school is really about their learners

Hi. My name is Vesna and I am a Comenius Assistant from Slovenia, currently working around Orkney schools (You will soon be able to find out more about me and the reasons I am here at the page of International Education).
Besides visiting different classes and getting a good overview of how teaching-learning relationship works around here, I also got the chance to attend meetings of Pupil Council. Even though, I do not believe we have such a thing as Pupil Council around schools in Slovenia, I really liked the idea of it. The most important thing, in my opinion, is that the learners are able to cooperate in establishing a school to be positive learning environment to work in. Bringing up their own ideas and with the help of the school staff managing to put them into practice enables them to feel that the school is about them and theirs.
During the last PC meeting I was also asked some questions by the learners who are a part of PC. They were mainly interested into why I decided to come to Orkney, how I like it and whether Slovenia is a very different country from the place they live in. It was my pleasure to answer all of their questions, as well as point out some major differences between the two places. Speaking about Slovenia and showing them brochures with all the pictures and everything made me think about my country and that I still FEEL sLOVEnija, despite the fact that I like Orkney.

Intenational Day of Peace

At our assembly on Monday we discussed International Day of Peace recognised across the world on Tuesday 21st September. We watched a video clip and sang peace songs including Waving Flag. We all need to take time to think about the changes we can make.

Newly elected council

We have elected a new pupil council for this session and have voted for our chairperson, vice chairperson and treasurer.
We have had two meetings this session so far and you can see the minutes by clicking the link on the right of the blog page.
Ellie has chaired her first meeting and all members have had a chance to talk on behalf of their classes. It looks like we have a council with lots of good ideas and enthusiasm!

We welcomed Vesna, a comenius student, who has come all the way from Slovenia to get some school experience in Orkney. She will be spending time in all classrooms throughout her time here.
Keep an eye on our blog for more information and an interview with Vesna.

MADD 5

We had a successful MADD 5 day. More news here.

Sport relief on Friday!

We are selling socks for sport relief!

Please remember your £2!

We are also having a design a 'funky sock' competition, a penalty kick challenge with Gary and Michael, a Lazy Town party for the early years and a Wii challenge.

See you there!

Haiti Earthquake Children's Appeal

A message from UNICEF

EMERGENCIES DENY CHILDREN OF THEIR RIGHTS.

All children have rights, all of the time. They have the right to a childhood. They have the right to be educated. They have the right to be treated fairly. And they have the right to be heard.

But during emergency situations children are at most risk of being denied these rights. Amid the chaos, children annot live their normal lives.  Instead, they face separation from their family. They often become vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. And their lives can be put at risk by disease, malnutrition and dehydration.

Unicef  photo gallery of children affected by the earthquake in Haiti.

UNICEF provides supplies to ensure children's basic rights can be protected in emergencies. This week children at Glaitness will be deciding how they can best help children in Haiti through fundraising. We will let you know what the Pupil Council and classes decide they are going to do.

Please support our fundraising efforts!

Find out what it was like to be caight up in the earthquake by reading this Oxfam aid worker's diary.

Play!

Do you have a great time together at school?

Tell us what you do when you play together.

Look out for Pupil Council members in the playground, take a speech bubble and write on it or post a comment on this blog. Your comments will be displayed on the Rights Respecting School wall.

Giving the gowns

Here in school we continue to make gowns with the Tshirts we have collected. You can see the Blue Peter team giving out the gowns Guwahati in India, on the Send a Smile campaign video here.

A Rights Respecting School

We have registered our school for the Rights Respecting School Award which has been developed by UNICEF. The Award has been developed to help everyone in schools behave responsibly by respecting each others rights.

190 of the world's 195 countries have promised to recognise the rights of children.

Click here to download a leaflet which summarises the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In a similar way to your class representatives going along to the Pupil Council to represent you, we have MPs who go to the government meetings to represent all the people in Orkney. Alistair Carmichael does this job in London for Orkney and Shetland. He will be coming into school with some of the people who work for UNICEF to see what we do at Glaitness to try our best to be a Rights Respecting School.