Our Residential Trip to Fort William

Recently the pupils and staff enjoyed a residential trip to Fort William. The focus was swimming lessons, along with other educational activities.

The weather proved a little challenging both ways, We were really grateful that The Bigger Dipper could help us get to the mainland. The children thought:

“I really liked it because we went up and down and it made me jump up and down. It was the highlight of my trip. Sometimes when we were turning it felt really nice because we were leaning. It was SO fun! The bouncy seats that the crew were sitting on looked quite fun” – Alex

“I really loved it because of the waves and how they smashed on the windows!” – Marian

Below is Magnus’ picture of the Bigger Dipper:

Dentist

Emma the dental nurse was really welcoming and the children looked around the dentists’ room. They got to have a go on the chair and Emma showed them how the dentist would look inside their mouths using the special mirrors. The children then used the mirrors to look inside the teachers’ mouths. Next we brushed our teeth and used disclosure tablets to find out if there were any areas that were being missed out. The tablets made our teeth go VERY pink and we all looked a bit like we’d been to a party and worn lipstick.

“I really liked when we got to see the dentist and we got stickers. I learned that the disclosure tablets show you where you’ve missed spots of your teeth with dark pink, but the light pink shows that you’ve cleaned all your spots on your teeth.” – Heather

“I went on Miss B’s lap and we both went on the chair. The dentist would look at your teeth with a special mirror.” – Marian

“I really enjoyed using the disclosure tablets and it stained our tongues pink for a really long time. I found out which teeth I need to brush more.” – Tara

Fort William Newton Room

After swimming we rushed to the brilliant Caol Community Building to the Newton Room. Nick was very friendly. We talked about lots of things while we ate our sandwiches and then we went into a cool classroom.

Our STEM challenge was to learn about land yachts and come up with our own design. We talked about some of the important design elements and then learnt about how the different bits of lego could be used. The children worked as two teams to design, build and test the parts of the land yachts they’d built. After modifying the designs the groups came together to build the land yacht. We all made a guess about how far the land yacht would travel. There was a fan which powered the yacht and we used two long measuring tapes to find out how far it had gone.

Everyone seemed delighted about how far the land yacht had travelled.

“We built lego land yachts and it was my favourite because I liked building the sail.” – Heather

“I really liked making the body and I also made a mechanism to have rotating front wheels. I was just fiddling around and I found a way to make it work and it wouldn’t have worked without it.” – Alex

“Me and Tara liked building the sail together!” – Magnus

“I liked it because I was having so much fun I didn’t want to leave. It was so fun building the land yachts!” – Marian

“I really enjoyed the Newton Room and I was quite pleased with how far our yacht went.” – Tara

Gymnastics

After the Newton Room we went to join in with Lochaber Gymnastics Club. There were lots of other children in the huge gymn hall and there were parallel bars, a vault, springboard, beam and tumble run. There was also a huge sprung floor space.

“Gymnastics was really fun. I really enjoyed trying to use the parallel bars and eventually I did do it. I figured out that I can do a cartwheel along the squashy floor” – Tara

“I really liked gymnastics because I liked going on the parallel bars and I like the springboard and doing a forward roll on to the big blue mat!” – Heather

“I liked it because I liked doing the running and doing the low bars and eventually I could do it on the high one too.” -Marian

“I really liked doing roly polys and also I did some bear walks which was quite fun because I did them super fast and beat Tara!” – Alex

“I tried doing handstands and cartwheels but I couldn’t yet. I ran super fast on the springboard then we jamp up onto this thing and then we jamp on to the mat!” – Magnus

Swimming

Our swimming lessons started on Wednesday. Tara had hers first and then the others went into the Dolphin Pool for their lessons. Phoebe went into the pool (mainly to splash them!). Tara worked on (sorry you’ll have to check with Miss B/Tara). Tara felt like her lateral breathing really improved with all her practicing. The younger children were practising making sure that they were confident in the water. As part of this they practices getting splashed, blowing out bubbles with their faces in the water and jumping in safely. They learnt that it’s not the water that hurts their eyes but their fingers when they rub them. They learnt that it’s really important to have nice knees (not bending knees like cycling knees) and floppy feet to make themselves float properly. The children practised on their fronts and backs, using lots of different floats and tools. All of them took armbands off at different points.

“I really liked going under the water because I learned something new. I did breathe in water but that didn’t matter because it was still fun.” – Heather

“I learned how to swim to the other swim to the other side of the pool on my back without putting my feet on the ground and without armbands. My ears were underwater and it felt like I was lying down in the bath. It felt great” – Alex

“I liked it because I managed to swim a little distance without armbands on my front. Next I need to practise swimming more without armbands.” – Marian

“I can now go right under water. I feel happy because I can go under water and I don’t need help.” – Magnus

“I really enjoyed swimming and I think I really improved. Mandy was a really great teacher. My front crawl really improved and I learned to breathe to the side much better. With my breaststroke I learned to be more in time with my arms and legs. I also had a go at butterfly. It was alright but tricky especially when I added the arms.” – Tara

Alex’s Birthday

Alex enjoyed his 7th birthday whilst he was away, and loved his birthday breakfast, lego at the library as well as the climbing wall and the pizza dinner.

“I really enjoyed where we all got to spend time together on Alex’s birthday. I really loved my cheeseburger!” – Heather

“I liked it because I had a pizza and the pizza was really yummy because it had a lot of cheese.” – Marian

“I really liked that it was Alex’s birthday and I also enjoyed my pepperoni pizza!” – Magnus

“I really enjoyed going to the cinema café and I really liked my pizza except it had too much BBQ sauce. I loved having our little pots of ice cream and they had chocolate at the bottom. The cake looked really good!” – Tara

“I really liked the Lego cake. It was my first time having a lego cake and it was my first mainland birthday!” – Alex

Library

On Thursday morning Phoebe and the P1s and 2s visiting Fort William Library. We had a tour of the library and chose two stories. Anna and Michelle gave us a choice between making a needlefelt square to be part of the big quilt project (which is up in the library if you’re passing) and doing Lego Club.

“We built with lego and made little lego armies.” – Magnus

“My second favourite thing was the lego at the library. I built a secret home and I also found some dinosaurs and recreated Jurassic World. Then we put it on display!” – Alex

“I made a mermaid out of lego. I made a little needle felting picture of my daddy’s boat and it was really fun.” – Marian

“I did the Beinn in needle felt. They’ll be put up on the wall with the other quilts.” – Tara

Bookshop

After the library the children took their spending money to the bookshop. They spent a lovely time looking around at all of the books and talking to the very kind shop assistant. Everyone very carefully chose a book to buy and everyone was so pleased with their purchases that they read them in the landrover.

“The bookshop had loads of books – children’s books, grown up books…it had wonderful stories and I chose a sticker book. It was really sparkly and I thought I was going to love it and I did!” – Heather

“I looked at a book about cows and two books about sheep. I bought a sheep dog book called Just Like Floss. I looked at it in the land rover. Then I started reading it and it took me about half a day and a whole day. I finished it on myself because I wanted to be striving!” – Magnus

“I bought a book called Dragon Storm and I’ve got to Chapter 15 and there was a fire and whenever he was on his own in the house there was a face in the fire and it was one of the king’s knights! I talked to the person who I paid and I asked her where she got her lego from and we wnt to the Granite House to get some!” – Alex

“The bookshop was really fun. I looked at lots of really good looking books and eventually I couldn’t choose so I got Miss B to choose from my options!” – Tara

Climbing

On Thursday evening we squeezed in our climbing session that we moved from Tuesday afternoon. Kayleigh was really kind and the children had a great time bouldering and then moving on to the roped courses where they all had turns belaying (or bellringing) and climbing.

“I liked it because I took three steps higher and it was a great view. It was a bit scary but when I was up higher I felt really good! I liked swinging too!” – Marian

“I really liked climbing because the little frog face holds were fun to put your foot in. I was the bell ringer and I had to pull the rope for Marian. When someone was climbing I had to say ‘Climb when ready’” – Heather

“I went up as high as Tara. I liked it because I had a really good view. I could see the whole world!” – Magnus

“I was really happy that I got very nearly to the top of the rope which was the highest it was possible to go. I really enjoyed abseiling down too!” – Tara