Richard Wilson

Kisimul Castle         Castlebay and the excellent Kisimul Cafe

Holidays this year were spent in Barra thanks to Angus MacRury, a native and ex Head Teacher of Eoligarry Primary School at the other end of Barra Airport. We had a fabulous time in and around the island. If you haven’t visited, get it on your list of places to go it is a bit special. The scallop pakora in the Kisimul Cafe is a very rare and beautiful thing, I can still taste it yet, fantastic.

The beaches are absolutely stunning and my three wee boys had a ball and here they are as the Barra Beach Boys in an Animoto movie. This free programme makes slideshows more interesting and creative. I hope to use it more in school when our new website is up an running.

Another free website that is worth a look is Musicshake. This is like an on-line version of Apple’s terrific Garageband which is a cruelly underused resource in schools. You need Internet Explorer 7 to make it work properly but they are working on adapting it for other browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari soon.

 This piece of calligraphy was presented to the school  by our Japanese visitors from the area around Osaka. It was written by Toshiyuki Tsuchiya and represents a prayer for happiness and longevity. It will take pride of place at the front of the school.

 Toshiyuki is fourth from the left in the picture and is a senior education official from the Nara Prefecture. The visitors were particularly interested in the development of career opportunities in the curriculum and how Scottish schools run. They found their visit to Pinkie very interesting and asked many questions about our education system. Like all first time visitors to Pinkie they were impressed by the ethos of the school asd particularly the huge asset that is our playing fields. It is always interesting to have visitors as it makes you reflect on what you are trying to achieve in your field. I also took the opportunity to bang on my favourite drum and asked about Japanese boys and literacy. Guess what! It’s the same in Japan as here, a tail off of achievement from early in the primary through to secondary. I feel an action research field trip coming on, let me examine my budget figures………….

Harris, Nasal Engineer, First Class.

I had occassion to visit the Edinburgh Sick Kids’ Hospital recently with my son Harris and increased my knowledge of medical procedures as a result! I was leaving school to buy some equipment and received a distressing call from my wife to say that she was on the way to the Sick Kids’ with Harris and could I get there asap. It turned out that he was experimenting with the properties and uses of Blue Tack and discovered that if he made a small ball it fitted perfectly up his nose. He further experimented as to just far he could push it up and discovered the limit was the length of his index finger. Sadly, this put the Blue Tack past the point of no return, just above the nasal bridge. It was blue and it was tacky and most definitely stuck. If you looked hard you could just make out the faint blueness of the expertly positioned object. My son does nothing by half measures. Well and truly stuck. Initially, hospital was fine due to the distractions of a variety of toys, and anyway, boys can function with one nostril perfectly well when it suits them. The panic started when reality bit in the form of a doctor and a nurse who wanted to admire his nasal engineering. Not fun, not playing! Seemingly, one good way to get the passages unblocked is the Parent’s Kiss. My wife kindly volunteered me for the procedure. This involves covering the child’s mouth with your own and blowing as hard as you can. This dislodges the blockage and other unmentionables down the child’s nose onto your chin. I did this four times, much to his amusement, and only managed to dislodge it a wee bit. He then had to be held down until the doctor could insert a big metal hook and pull the blue tack out. This is where my Team Teach training came to the rescue as I could hold Harris firmly, without distress, in a wrap until the doctor did his bit. So, thank you Harris and Bostik for allowing me to discover the amazing world of adhesives and sealants and their numerous applications and discovering the alternative Parent’s Kiss, which, by the way he found highly amusing!