What a week in P6!!!

Troot in the Shed

Thursday was amazing! We Finished our Troot in the Shed project by releasing our baby Fry into Mill burn

We put on our wellie-boots and headed for the banks of the Mill Burn which runs only a few trout leaps away from our school… What started as a handful of pea-sized orange eggs has turned into very healthy fry, with hardly a hint of a yolk sac left. The tank temperature at Stromness Primary was in the “danger” zone of 11-12˚C. However we have kept a very close eye on water quality.

Malcolm Thomson led the release operation and we all managed to let some fry swim freely into the lovely little burn which starts its short journey to the sea in the Stromness Hills, runs under the Academy car-park through a pipe and eventually meets Scapa Flow below the school.

Extra care was needed when releasing the fish in order to avoid thermal shock and the tank water temperature which was 9°C was gently lowered by adding burn water and bringing it to around 5˚C to match the new fry environment.

Malcolm also did a few “kick-samples” by stirring the bottom of the burn and collecting micro-invertebrates into a fine mesh net. The children were able to see what the diet of their fish was going to be for the next few years: gammarus (freshwater shrimps), snails, mayfly nymphs, small worms and a chiton. It’s all very reassuring to see the larder full before our fry start feeding on their own!

A big thank you to Malcolm for making himself available and for sharing his vast knowledge of trout with us!

Scottish Parliament Outreach Visit

Ian from the Scottish Parliament Education team came to Orkney this week.  SPS were lucky enough to have him visit our school.  P4 and 5, P6 and P7 received visits.

  

We then made our own political party.  There were 4 in total.  Each party elected a leader to represent their group.  Then we wrote our manifestos. 

Our leader then presented our manifesto to the rest of the parties.

We had to listen to each group and then vote for the party we would like to elect.  We were not allowed to vote for our own party.  We had to put a cross on our ballot paper, just like adults do when they vote.

After our elections, we then learned about debates.  

We chose a topic to debate.  We picked - Pupils should have an hour of PE every day.  We wrote for and against reasons for this debate.  We had some interesting ideas!  

1. The Presiding Officer opened the debate by introducing the topic.

2.  The Presiding Officer invited MSP's to speak - giving their opinion on the topic.

3. MSP's voted using their controllers.  YES / NO / ABSTAIN (choosing not to vote)

4. Ellys our Presiding Officer closed the debate by announcing the majority vote.

We found out that if there is a draw then the Presiding Officer has the casting vote.  Fact: The Presiding Officer must always vote NO! 

 Thank you very much to Ian the visit was fantastic!