Day 4 at Benmore

We are all away getting glammed up for the disco tonight.

We have had another fantastic day, with two birthday cakes for Tyler and Indie!!

We are looking forward to giving you all our dirty washing tomorrow!!!!

Day 3 at benmore

Sorry for the late post from Wednesday the internet was not working last night.

For breakfast we had cereal and fruit followed by sausage, beans and toast. It was very tasty!

After breakfast we went off to do our duties. Most rooms got 10/10 today for room inspections. The lowest score was 8/10.

After that it was time for our morning activities. These ranged from orienteering, forest adventures, ropes and biking.

For lunch we had vegetable soup and a filled roll. There were mixed feelings about the soup.

Our afternoon activities ranged from climbing, caving, canoeing and forest adventures.

We had flapjacks for cake oclock and then it was time for free time. People decided to shower, play frisbee, chat and play pool during this time.

For dinner we had battered chicken, rice and curry sauce. It was delicious! We then had artic roll and peaches.

After that it was time for a quiz around the house.

We are looking forward to our last full day tomorrow.

By Murray, Owen, Kian, Alfie, Christopher

Rights Respecting School

At Windygoul, we are currently working towards becoming a bronze level Rights Respecting school.  Classes throughout the school have been learning about the importance of children’s rights and raising their awareness of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Further information about this can be found at:

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child – Unicef Uk

A summary of the rights can be found in the Parent Zone of the school website.

Day 2 at Benmore

Hi,

We started our day by getting up and ready for breakfast. Some of us were up rather early. For breakfast we had cereal, fruit, yoghurt, toast, bacon and scrambled egg. After breakfast we had our chores to do. These were things like sweeping the floor, making our beds, emptying bins and tidying up. We had a room inspection not long after.

In the morning each group went on an activity. These ranged from shore scrambling, canoeing, abseiling, biking, orienteering, gorge walking and the high ropes.

We came back to the centre for lunch, which was tomato soup and a filled roll followed by a biscuit.

After lunch it was time for our next activity. These ranged from gorge walking, canoeing, biking, orienteering and the high ropes.

After that we had cake o’clock which was a jam doughnut. It was messy but delicious.

At free time people climbed trees, played football, had races, showered, chatted, and played a variety of games.

For tea we had spaghetti bolognaise with garlic bread. It was amazing! For pudding we had jam and coconut sponge with custard. It was surprisingly quite nice.

People are now visiting the tuck shop while we write this. We are about to go on a scavenger hunt around the grounds of Benmore.

We will update you more again tomorrow.

by Rihanna, Emily D, Katie, Hannah R, Niamh B, Amy H

Day one at Benmore

Hi there, we have all arrived safely at Benmore. We have checked out our dorms, made our beds and unpacked our things. Each group has been out on a forest walk, with some people walking up waterfalls, crawling through tunnels and getting rather muddy! At five o’clock it is cake o’clock. Today we had cookies, they were excellent! For dinner we had fish and chips followed by ice cream and jelly. It was delicious! The breadcrumb on the fish was very crispy. We are just about to go and get ready to go on our night walk. We are excited and a little nervous.

We will update you more on our adventures tomorrow night!

from Sophie, Emma L, Craig, F, Lewis F, Shane, Alfie and Christopher

Children’s Parliament: Children as Human Rights Defenders

Back in April and May, 6 Members of Children’s Parliament (MCPs) and child Human Rights Defenders called Hannah, Cameron, Dylan, Alexander, Anna and Emily (aged 12 and 13) led five workshops across Scotland in Tranent, Edinburgh, Blairgowrie, Inverness and Benbecula. The workshops explored why children’s human rights are important and what children and adults can do to defend these rights. Every child involved created a piece of artwork, a story, a rap or poem about a right they feel strongly about defending here in Scotland – and these were just incredible!

We have created films about each of the five workshops which you can find here.

So what happened next?

In June, the 6 MCPs were joined by another 6 child Human Rights Defenders. They worked together to sort through the creative work produced in the workshops and organised the artwork into five key themes. These were:

  • Defending the right to play
  • Defending the right to education and a decent standard of living
  • Defending the right to be ourselves and participate
  • Defending the right to be protected from harm
  • Defending the right to be loved and cared for

In August, the 12 children worked together over five days to decorate five giant papier-mâché shields, painting and collaging images and text from children’s creative work produced in the workshops. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of fun making them! We’re so grateful to all the children who were involved in the workshops – so many of the ideas and views shared are woven into the shields in some way and we can’t wait to see what you all think. You can read Dylan’s blog about the process here.

Over the past few weeks, the children have been preparing to take the shields to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s Day of General Discussion which is at the end of next week! The children will give tours of the shields to children and adults from across the world who will be participating and will share stories about what each of the shield means and represents. We’ll be blogging and tweeting from Geneva next week so do keep an eye out for updates!

From all of the 12 children going to the DGD next week and from the rest of our Children as Human Rights Defenders team, we want to say a huge thank you to all the children involved in the workshops for sharing your ideas with us and for playing such an important role in the upcoming global discussion about defending children’s human rights.

Families Connect for P1 and P2 Families

Windygoul Primary School are going to be running the Families Connect programme for 8 weeks from Friday 26th October. The programme enables parents to support learning at home. We are having a Coffee Morning on Friday 5th October from 9.00 until 9.30 and we hope that you will be able to come along and find out more about Families Connect. Look out for the leaflet that will be coming home next week. If you require any further information, please contact either Louise Innes (Principal Teacher) or Tina Mackinnon (Support for Learning Teacher) at school.

Seashore fun in P2C

P2C have had lots of fun over the past few weeks learning all about the seashore. We have been looking at ways to sort animals, what food chains are and about the different features that make seashore creatures perfectly adapted to their habitat. Today we learned about jellyfish and had a go at making our own ones using paper plates and tissue paper. We hope you like them!