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It seems that the school has been gripped by seaside fever. The nursery have been digging for hidden treasure in the nursery beach corner, they found lots of treasure there. The children were also really excited to find a message in a bottle on the shore, they have sent a message through to the P 123 class. It is all very exciting, beware if you go in the nursery though, you may be asked to walk the plank!

P 12 3 have created a fantastic pirate ship with the help of Mr Hayes, it is just brilliant, the children have really enjoyed taking part in this. The children wrote fantastic pirate stories which they are all going to read to the nursery.

P 345 all headed to Rosemarkie beach, they visited Channary Point and were delighted to be able to see some dolphins leaping. We have a very smelly classroom as they took back all sorts of interesting finds. All the children had a ball, and it is simply amazing now what they know.

P 567 did a new display for buildings in Fort Augustus of those old and new. They have been finishing off creating their "junk" buildings for their version of Fort Augustus High Street.

Children in P 345 and P 567 also watch a little of the Pope's visit on Thursday.

Thank you to everyone who donated money for the "Seeds to Africa" at the harvest thanksgiving festival. A total of £70 was made.

A super turn out at the Parent Council, with much debate about Curriculum for Excellence, feedback on the parent survey which was sent out in May, and I also outlined the improvement plan for the school for the next year. I hope that we see many of you at another meeting.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay

Hello there,

well, we said, "Cheerio" this afternoon, to ten tired wee primary ones. They had really enjoyed their time at school this week, but we could see that they were needing the weekend this afternoon. We hope they have a lovely weekend to get their breath back!

Mrs Walker's topic is, Pirates, and I was really impressed at assembly this morning at the amount of information the children could tell me about Blackbeard the pirate. I have learned some really interesting facts, did you know that he drank gunpowder in his rum?! He also wore lit fuses on his hair! The children were impressed! (Sorry but we can't start that as a new school uniform addition before you ask!) P 1/2/3 also wrote lovely shipwrecked stories it's amazing what the children come up with. In maths they have been working with numbers and place value. The Pr 1's also started their reading programme with gusto this week. After hearing about all that no wonder the wee souls were tired.

P 3/4/5 went on a trip to the beach on Thursday, well, not exactly the beach... we all headed to the sand pit with our chairs, there we talked about the seaside sounds, the sights, and what sand feels like. We reluctantly headed indoors and the children all wrote brilliant seaside sense poems. P 3/4/5 also went a trip around the village on Tuesday afternoon, but once more the power of technology transported us there as we travelled the village using Google earth. The children loved it, and this is connecting with work which we are doing in maths in regards to plans and maps. I can also let you into an exciting, not yet told to the children secret, that Mrs MacDonald is going to take the children to Channory point, Rosemarkie beach and North Kessock dophin centre on 15th September, letters will be going out next week. That will be fun.

P 5/6/7 have been busy learning more about different structures, and they are full of the trip to the Housing Expo in Inverness, it is great to see how that trip seems to have inspired them. P 7 were taking part in fitness tests the other day, I think they found them quite demanding! P 5 /6/7 children have all been practising for the cross country race which is being held shortly.

In the playground we purchased £100 of new toys for the children to play with, Tesco has at present a half price sale which we have benefited from the lower prices. The children are enjoying the toys.

Please note that the Harvest Thanksgiving day will be on 13th September 9.30 in the church all are welcome to join us for this. The church is having it's harvest weekend on the weekend before so we are making us of the decorated church.

Have a super weekend.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay

Welcome back everyone!

Pr 1 have settled so well into school, Mrs Walker is really pleased with all the children. Today is the first full day for them so I am sure that they will need a break at the weekend.

We were delighted to get new tables and chairs in the Mrs Walker's classroom and we have also bought lots of new toys and games for this classroom.

Unfortunately we have discovered that the time allocated to head teacher management time has been reduced due to falling numbers of the school role. This means that P 3/4/5 class will be seeing me for an extra day, so I will be teaching two days and Mrs MacDonald will teach 3 days. We will not see Mrs Gilchrist now in school at all, which is a shame.

The children in P 3/4/5 are doing a book study about , "The boy from Sula". They are enjoying learning all about the seaside and rural life on an island. We have also had lots of interesting objects brought into the classroom.

P 5/6/7 are learning about Structures. This is covering lots of engineering and design aspects. Today they are attending the housing expo with their class teacher Miss Starr. Miss Starr our new probationer teacher has really settled into life here at Kilchuimen, planning lots of exciting activities for the children.

We have been delighted to once more have an active school coordinator here, Jake Williams is doing golf lessons with P 5, fitness tests with P 7 and Rugby training with P 3-7. As Jake is a sport coordinator he should not be solely delivering these activities and we REALLY need some volunteers to work along side him for these events. These volunteers would help perhaps run other golf or ruby sessions when Jake has to move on.

We are planning to have a parent council meeting on Wednesday 15th September at 2.00. I hope as many of you will be able to join us. I shall be explaining what we intending to do in school over the next academic year, and would like to use this as a consultation meeting with parents. More information will follow. I also think that we need to have an evening meeting so mums and dads who cannot attend in the afternoon are able to come too.

I look forward to seeing you all over the course of the next session, and wish each children all the very best in their learning journey.

W S Scollay
Head teacher

I say this often but this has been such a busy busy week for the staff and pupils here in school. It has been just brilliant though and I hope that many of you have enjoyed the fun too.

The sun shone so beautifully on our opening ceremony, we could not have asked for better. The school fete was a great success, and Eddy the penguin was just lovely. The children have shown us all once more just what they can achieve. We are very proud of them all.

A school newsletter will come out in school bag mail on Monday so look out for that.

We are going to hold the prize giving ceremony on Friday morning at 10.30am in the church. All are invited. Children will be dismissed for the holidays from the church at 11.30am. Please collect children who normally travel by bus as the bus will not arrive until 1.15 as the Academy does not close until 1.00pm.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for help and support over the last year. I would like to wish the Pr 7 all the very best of luck as they move into the secondary school, I am sure that they will all do well.

Finally I would like to wish you all a safe and happy holiday.

W S Scollay

In a school often staff have the funnest of conversations with children. Today I was blown away by a Pr 3 child who told me all about the northern lights and how they occur. Did you know that the magnetic field pings like an elastic band, which then causes the lights? To be honest he explained it much better than I... wow... I love that!

Anyway much later in the day I received a phone call in connection with the classroom opening, I have been waiting for the call to come through from Lady Gaga and waited late tonight just in case. The phone did indeed call... AND no Lady Gaga BUT one of the Pr 7 girls had written to Mika. (the pop singer). Well did his PA not call, and did I not go, "who?" "Sorry but you will need to start again, I have no idea who I am talking to!!" So after my bumbling attempt at answering the phone, I found out that Mika had sent his apologies and although he would love to come, he is out of the country. Well at least he will be thinking of us!! He also mentioned that he was glad that we no longer had to live in, "smelly classrooms". So the invitations for the opening are far and wide travelled! It is so lovely for the children to see that their letters really do reach the folk that they have written to, many thanks to those who have replied to them, it means a lot.

Preparations are going ahead for the Fete, Pr 5/6/7 have been busy coming up with games and fun activities for Tuesday's fete so bring along a lot of money!

On Tuesday we will also be unveiling our mural, which is looking simply stunning, Mrs MacDonald (Art) has really shown her talents here with the children. It was great to see some of the children really getting into the painting, and seeing their drawings come to life.

The book has been printed but I will be relieved to see it, we have been promised it by Monday, everything is crossed.

The nursery have been busy in their garden, the tatties, and veg are really shooting up! The children have been on a bug hunt today, and were looking at them through the computer microscope. They were fascinated with this. It is an amazing world we live in and the wee ones so appreciate that.

So I look forward to seeing many of you next week for the Opening at 1.30 - 2.30 and then the Fete, there is still time to bake cakes and goodies for the baking stall. Please do buy one of our raffle tickets, £1 a ticket, the top prize is a fantastic gas barbecue donated by BAM and HIS. Wonderful! Lets see if we can raise a bit on that!

On Thursday we shall at last see the play Eddy the Penguin the children are so excited about this and the singing that I have heard is brilliant! I am sure we will have a very entertaining evening there! Come and join us in the school hall at 7pm.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay

Good afternoon,

Another busy week has passed us all by!

The children have been working hard, they continue to practise Eddy the penguin. The older children are making a super job of the mural with Mrs MacDonald on the wall outside. All the classes had a Reduce, Reuse and Recycle talk by a man from the council. The children now know exactly what goes in the blue recycling bins. Pr 3/4/5 had a lesson about seed dispersal by Mrs Gilchrist and they are very knowledgeable about this now. Their project is Scottish history at the moment and the children wrote about Robert the Bruce and the spider, the children also wrote stories pretending that they were evacuees and they did a very good job of this.

Pr 1/2/3 have been learning about co-ordinates and wrote super book reviews about their reading books. The children tell me that, "Co-ordinates are easy!" Well done to them!

The nursery are in the summer mood, having taken delivery of a few new toys they have created a cafe, ice creams have been made and the children have been writing down all the orders. They are having lots of fun with that. They have also enjoyed playing with the climbing frame and slide this week, and also squeezed in time to do some more planting in the garden. I looked out the window the other day and was amazed that I could see the tatties growing like mad!

So as ever a busy school, next week we have lots more fun,

School is closed on Monday for in-service training.

On Wednesday we are having a teddy bears picnic, come and join us! It cost £3 to have lunch with us, take your favourite teddy bear with you!

Have a good rest and we look forward to meeting you and your teddy bears next week.

Kindest regards

Wendy S Scollay

Well the weather certainly has been in our favour this week. We had a brilliant sports day the children all had a lot of fun. "Thank you" to Mrs Campbell for arranging the event, thanks also to the secondary pupils who were a brilliant help to us. We had a great turn out of parents and friends which was super to see, it means such a lot to the children to have you there supporting them.

Some pupils from Pr 6 and Pr 7 represented us at the inter school sports in Inverness last weekend. They came back with a clutch of medals and some of you may have spotted their picture in the Highland News. Well done! Thank you to the Mums and Dads who supported the event.

Our open evening was well attended and it was nice to have the opportunity to talk to parents and children about their progress over the course of the year. Next session we intend to host 3 parents evenings so that parents have more opportunities to talk to teachers. There will remain report cards and two stars and a wish reports.

We are all waiting with baited breath for the post, nothing so far... Barry Hutchison and Gary Innes cannot come, which is a shame. We are waiting for Michael Buble and Lady Gaga to sort out their diaries!!!!!!!

We have decided that the official opening will be on 22nd June at 1.30pm and we will have a mini fete at 2.30 - 4.00. If you can help or would like to run a stall please do come and contact us at the school. We also have a small minor detail to resolve, and perhaps someone can help? We have booked a bouncy castle from Inverness, but have no way of getting it down and back up to Inverness, do any of you guys have a trailor or van and can help us. Please contact the school if you can help in anyway! Every little really does count!

I hope that the start of the summer really has come.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay