PORT ELLEN PRIMARY ECO DAY
We had an Eco Day on Wednesday 14th Febuary 2007.We all had to take a clean plastic milk bottle into school to design and make the bottle into something we could reuse. At the end of the day we showed them to the whole school to see what they thought of them. Primary 1/2 sang us a song called ‘Reduce, Reuse Recycle’, it was very good. They also drew posters to tell the story of King Wastealot and gave the wormery a spring clean.
Primary 3/4 made up posters for our Walk on Wednesday project. We are now a WOW school and everyone tries to walk or cycle to school on a Wednesday.
Primary 5/6 did another ‘Fruit and Veg Mania’ tuckshop, with lots of healthy and tasty snacks on offer for us.
P6/7 designed an Eco Board Game which was absolutely brilliant!
We all carried out an environmental review of the whole school using survey sheets. Each class chose one of the surveys to do. We had to choose from water, waste, transport, health and well being, school grounds, energy, litter and bio diversity. The Brilliant Beginnings Committee use this information to tell us what we need to work on to make our school better over the next year.
The school had to make eco banners for its eco code. Everybody worked hard to finish off the banners and Mrs Onions sewed them.
We had a good day and got lots done. P1/2 did a survey to find out if everyone enjoyed the day. Almost everyone did, so we plan to have an Eco Day every year!

In Port Ellen we have been busy making some fantastic Eco School banners to repersent our Eco code. Each class did a different part of the code. They where displayed in St. John’s Church on Mothers Day and were blessed by Mrs Stather in a school assembly.They are now hanging in Port Ellen Primary School and they look fantastic!
by Craghopper and Rau

DEAR OLLY
Dear Olly is really good book and I enjoyed reading it.Dear Olly is about a girl called Olly and she has a brother called Matt,who wants to go to Africa to be a clown. Dear Olly is good to read and it is really emotional. The book can bring lots of emotions.If you want to find out more you’ll have to read it !!!

by muffin

Eco School Code
Our Eco School Code helps keep our school green. Why don't you have a go? All you have to do is Reduce, Reuse and Recycle! It is as easy as that - 3 simple steps. Go on, three simple steps to save the planet from extinction!

Our Code-

• Walk to school when you can
• Turn off the light when it is bright
• Eat fruit every day
• Water - save it, don't waste it
• Reduce, reuse and recycle

We have had a visit from Constable Mitchell on Monday 15th January. He brought with him high visibility waistcoats for all the children to use walking to and from school. These have been purchased by Argyll and Bute Council.We asked him some questions and here they are.
Why is it a good idea?
So people can be seen.
Do you think children will like them?
Yes, because they look cool and groovy.
Do you think it will encourage children to walk?
Yes because it is new to people and they will be into them.
Do you like the idea of the visability waist coats?
Yes because small people will be seen in all weathers.
Do you think it will make children healthier?
yes because children can walk or cycle to school with them on.

So look out for school children walking or cycling to school in our new waistcoats.
by Lulu & Lisa B

Last year we achieved our goal of getting enough money to instal our allweather pitch and timber trail for the pre5 unit and primary 1/2. We are hoping to get them built for the Easter or the Summer holidays. We will keep you posted - watch this space!

Here is cogs and fluff,we are here to tell you what has been happening with the Brilliant Beginnings team and what is going to happen! First of all we are going to tell you how much we made for the Beach clean,Bingo and ebay.For the Beach clean we raised £900. We a great time, weather was good and we did a very good job. For the bingo we raised roughly £150 and we got a very nice donation from the Port Ellen Bowling Club for £500. So far on E-bay we have raised over £300 which is FANTASTIC!

We have lots of exciting ideas, like, P.7 are making a float for the Feis and the theme is Boats and Buses. That will be held on the 3rd June. Also on the 3rd June there is a shinty Tournement.

Mrs MacDonald and Jeramy Hastings have been working on a pond. They have made the test holes and the test holes are three feet deep and two feet wide.They made the test holes to see if
the water would rise by its self and if not we would have to put lining down in the pond.
On Monday test hole 1 got 13cm,test two got 9cm and test hole was damp.
Then on Tuseday in test hole one was 1cm,test hole two had know water and the same with test hole three.
Then on Wednesday all of the test holes had no water in them.

On Friday the 12th all of the classes are making eco banners.They will be going up all over the school.That will be fun for everyone to do and will remind us of the eco school code.

We'll keep you updated on more BB news!

Brilliant Beginings On the 15th/3rd/06 we had a meeting and at the meeting we talked about fundrasing for our all weather pitch and right now we have £15 000 and we need £32000 in total !!!! In Port Ellen the Royal Bank of Scotland we might be putting collection buckets in the bank because we raised quite alot of money last time . Next week we are aiming to do a beach clean on the 30th of march. There will also be a bingo night in the Lodge that will take place on the 28th of April the night the french trip people come back.As you already know we are selling things on Ebay and we have made £50 but we have a request to sell things like clothes from the distilleries e.g.caps, jumpers, tops and everything because they are easy to post. So thats all for now thanks for reading.
By Cogs,Dee and Fluff