Sustainability - Term 3 2026

Whole School Big Question - How can our school take positive steps towards becoming more sustainable?

Classes are working on answering smaller questions which will support us in answering our whole school big question.

P1/2 & P2/3 – Can we make our outdoor environment more sustainable?

P4 – What variety of foods are produced in our local area?

P4/5 – How can be conserve and create sustainable energy within our classroom?

P6 – How do we encourage sustainable travel to school?

P7 – Could we make our lunches/ snacks more sustainable?

Throughout the IDL fortnight pupils will be applying meta skills and developing their understanding of the four capacities within the Curriculum for Excellence.

Joanne Addison from the Community Learning and Development Team at Moray Council organised for local agencies and partners to deliver workshops to our pupils. These were a fantastic start to our IDL fortnight, which also coincided with British Science Week.

STEM starts led workshops for P1/2, P2/3, P4 and P4/5 pupils on Monday the 9th of March 2026. Parents and family members also came along to take part in the workshops. Pupils were able to develop their curiosity skills as well as being creative, thinking critically, collaborating, adapting and making sense within different experiences.

On Tuesday 10th March 2026 we welcomed Sarah from Flock and Saunter to Mortlach Primary. Sarah spoke to pupils about her passion for all things wool and how wool is a sustainable resource. 

Pupils, parents and family members enjoyed the experience of wet felting their our soaps. Pupils also enjoyed the opportunity to learn about the journey of how wool is created and what it can be used for. Pupils were able to feel the fleece and see the different steps that this goes through before becoming wool. Pupils enjoyed watching fleece being turned into wool on Sarah's spinning wheel.

Pupils also interacted with some of the resouces left by STEM starts.

Also on Tuesday 10th March 2026, our P6 pupils and their families enjoyed a session led by partners from the CLD partnership focused on bees and flowers. The session explored the importance of bees in pollinating flowers and how they support sustainable plant growth.

Pupils were involved in interactive activities to support the development of their understanding. 

On the afternoon of Tuesday 10th March the whole school got together to watch a performance by the Moray Flying Circus. This performance was based on fire and the pupils learned about the fire triangle as well as the physics involved in fire and fire safety.

Our P7 class welcomed Lynne Ramsey into class later in the week. Lynne brought along Penny the hen and spoke about sustainable food production and the vital work that farmers do with regards to food production.

Penny enjoyed some hugs with pupils. Lynne talked to the pupils about food production and farming life in general. Lynne and Donald will be setting up an incubator at home with fertilised eggs. Donald and Lynne will report back to the class the progress that the eggs are making. We are hoping to have some chicks after the Easter break.

Our P1/2 and P2/3 classes enjoyed a lovely walk around our school grounds during the week. They were shocked to find that there was a huge amount of litter lying around!

Our infants decided to take action and organised a litter pick.

The infant pupils used the litter picking as an opportunity to apply their data handling skills. They collated how many pieces of litter they had picked and were so disappointed with the amount that they were unable to collect that they had a second litter pick later in the week.

Our P2/3 class have been thinking about how they can care for the environment and also how they can encourage others to do the same.

Look out for our pupils posters around the school, and wider community, reminding everyone to pick up their litter.

Katy Cameron, from Robertson's, led workshops with P4-P7 pupils. These workshops involved pupils in building/construction challenges. Robertson's are making our school more sustainable for the future through the work they are currently doing on upgrading our school building.

Grissans Renewable Energy came to talk to our P4/5 class about the work that they do.

Our P4/5 pupils then undertook some renewable energy experiments.

P1-3 pupils were identifying the birds that visit our school environment.

Our P1-3 pupils have been learning about planting. They completed some research into how to plant seeds. Then, with the help of some of our older pupils, all P1-3 pupils got the opportunity to apply what they had learned and planted their own seeds.

Thank you to everyone who donated items to support our P1-3 pupils with their IDL plans. They used lots of donated items to create a beautiful Bug Hotel for our school grounds. They had so much items left that they were also able to make some mini bug houses to take home.

P1-3 enjoyed having the EDF Rangers visit them. The Rangers helped the pupils to learn about the birds in our environment. The pupils learned so much interesting information during the hands on workshops. 

P7 welcome Lynne back into the classroom later in the IDL fortnight. This time Lynne showed the pupils how to churn their own butter.  P4 also joined in the fun! Thank you to Lynne for sourcing the butter churns and ingredients. The butter they made was delicious!

P7 were investigating local food sources, what is more local that a farmer within the class! In fact, in our P7 class we have multiple farming pupils. Luke very kindly brought in his goats for everyone to meet. It was great to hear about the work involved in rearing goats. Luke was pleased to also show is goats to the Mortlach Nursery pupils.

P1-3 had learned about the birds in our local environment, what they liked to eat and how they built their nests etc. Next they decided that they would make some bird feeders to encourage more birds into our school playground.

At the end of our first IDL fortnight we welcomed family, friends and the local community to come along to a Doors Open Afternoon. Everyone was excited to share the learning they had undertaken over the fortnight and to answer the questions they had originally made at the start of our Sustainability fortnight. 

Partners who had helped our pupils came along and set up 'stalls in the hall' to share information about the work they undertake locally, to inform our visitors and encourage them to also be more sustainable.

Thank you to everyone who came along to our Doors Open Afternoon, parent and family workshops and led sessions for our pupils. The support of our local community made the IDL fortnight even more interesting and informative. Our pupils and staff are definitely more informed about how to be more sustainable, we hope that our community are also feeling enthusiastic.