This week we congratulate our First Lego League competitors from Year 6. On  Wednesday, the team of Talan, Jayden, Josh V, Cadan, Josh M, Belle, Arabella, Jack, Eli and Rioch joined hundreds of children from schools across Cornwall for a day of Lego robotics competition at RNAS Culdrose. There were many ways in which teams could excel and be recognised for their achievements. Although the team were unable to secure the most points and progress to the national finals, they received the judges award for engineering excellence for their robot design (below). We are very proud of the team for their efforts and the work they have done over the last two terms in preparation for this event. As well as building the robot to complete different missions, the group had to come up with a presentation which they delivered to judges on the day. They also built a model drone in support of their presentation. Thank you to volunteer Karen Brinson for her work supporting Sam Watts and the team over the last few months.




Year 3/4 football match

Only one competitive match this week, which saw the team lose narrowly to South Petherwin. They will have one more opportunity to secure a win on Tuesday as the competition draws to a close. Whatever the outcome, we are proud of their efforts and know they will have learnt lots of lessons from being involved in competitive sport. 

Cross-country round-up
The league season came to a close with the final race at Lanhydrock. Abi Flashman thinks that almost every runner finished with a personal best in this race, which is brilliant. A special mention goes to Jacob Bloye, which secured enough points to be invited to the county finals. Thank you to all the parents who supported their children with races, whatever the weather!

End of term
As we enter the last few weeks of term, a reminder that our last day is Thursday 2nd April and pupils will need collecting at 1.30pm on this day.

This week in pre-school we have been discovering rock pools and all the wonderful sea life we may discover in them!

Our rockpool tuff tray set up was hugely popular with the children and gave them a good immersive experience of how the animals may hide under rocks or seaweed. The children were able to understand that if we were to go rock pooling on a beach, we must be very careful whilst exploring, and that it is important to not disturb the creatures in their homes.

We took our playdoh play to another level with lots of shells, google eyes, pipe cleaners, gemstones and sea creature shapes to expand our experimenting to make our own sea creatures.

The children have all shown tremendous teamwork to help us tidy up our playground area with lots of sweeping and scrubbing with bubbly water. We were then able to enjoy some ocean themed water play and practice our scooping and pouring skills with the water play area.

We even gave our box of shells a good clean using scrubbing brushes.

During our phonics this week we have also been discovering Jungle Animals - our activities including recognising and naming the animal sounds, using instruments to move like the animals, and listening to the first letter sounds.

Lastly, the children were busy creating a special card for Mother's Day and we hope that all our lovely pre-school mums have a special day on Sunday.

The Pre-School Team.

We are incredibly proud of the many leadership roles our children take on across the school. These opportunities help our pupils develop confidence, responsibility and a strong sense of community.

Today we are celebrating our wonderful Brunel Buddies, who support our Reception and KS1 children at lunchtime. They help younger pupils play together, solve small problems and make sure everyone feels included and happy during their break times. All of our Brunel Buddies had to advertise for their positions, sharing why they would be great for the role and how they would support others. Thus week, they were officially recognised and awarded their Brunel Buddy hats - a proud moment for them all. We are so proud of the kindness, leadership and responsibility they show in helping the younger children in our school community. Well done, Brunel Buddies.

We are incredibly proud of our School Council. They visited Wesley Methodist Church to deliver their Winter Warmer Bags for members of the homeless community. The bags were thoughtfully prepared to provide warmth, comfort and a reminder that people care. It was wonderful to see our pupils showing such kindness, empathy and commitment to supporting others in the local community. Well done, School Council - you are fantastic ambassadors for our school.

Hello Everyone,

This week in Penhallow, we have been enjoying a little bit of sunshine outside. 

We have been busy singing Spring songs and going on a walk outside, on a scavenger hunt, looking for signs of Spring.

We have been continuing with our Katie Morag and the Isle of Coll unit in English, where we have been writing character descriptions and descriptions of settings. 

In Geography, we have been comparing the Isle of Coll, with K'gari, an Island off the Eastern coast of Australia. We used the internet to find photographs, maps and videos of wildlife, as well as geographical features.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

From The Penhallow Team

This week we have been gathering all the information we know about Edinburgh in order to write a non-chronological report. The children enjoyed sharing facts they have learned and talking about some of the famous landmarks, history and interesting features of the city. They have been working hard to organise their ideas and think about how information can be grouped together in a report.

In maths we have been exploring the ideas of equal and unequal groups. The children used practical resources and pictures to help them understand how groups can be the same or different. We also began looking at odd and even numbers, practising recognising them and sorting numbers into the correct groups.

In RE we thought about the disciples' emotions during the Easter story. The children discussed how different people might have felt at different points in the story and talked about why those feelings might have changed. We also worked together to put the events of the Easter story into the correct order.

In Geography we have been learning about human and physical features. The children talked about the differences between things that are made by people, such as buildings and roads, and things that occur naturally in the environment like hills, rivers and forests. They enjoyed spotting examples and discussing which category they belonged to.

We also spent some time making some lovely Mother's Day cards. The children put a lot of care and effort into their work and were very excited to create something special to take home. During circle time we shared some of our favourite things and listened carefully to each other's ideas.

In PSHE we talked about medicines and how to keep ourselves safe. The children learned about the importance of only taking medicine when it is given by a trusted adult and discussed ways to stay safe and healthy.

In PE we took part in ball skills activities. The children practised throwing, catching and controlling the ball while working on coordination and teamwork.

Everyone has also been practising singing Easter songs with Mrs Butlin, and the children have really enjoyed learning the words and actions. In addition, we have been learning to sing the days of the week in Spanish, which the children have found great fun.

Reception's Reading and Drawing Club has been amazing this week. The children have been very engaged with the stories and have produced some fantastic drawings inspired by what they have read.

We topped off a very busy and productive week by enjoying some sunshine during Forest School, where the children had the chance to explore, play and learn outdoors together.

This week in Year 3 has been full of fantastic learning and great enthusiasm!

In English, the children absolutely blew us away with their brilliant vocabulary choices while using onomatopoeia to create tension in exciting scenes from Traction Man. Their writing was full of wonderful sound words that really brought the action to life. Each piece was a delight to read and we were so impressed with the creativity and effort shown by everyone.

In Maths, we have been enhancing our multiplication skills to help us when multiplying and dividing a single-digit number by a two-digit number. The class has worked very hard and we are seeing some great progress, particularly with their growing confidence in their times table knowledge.

During PE, we have been enjoying cricket. The children have been practising their bowling, fielding and batting skills, and it has been lovely that the weather has been kind enough for us to play outside. There has been some excellent teamwork and great effort from everyone.

On Friday, we were lucky enough to have a special assembly with a visit from the RNLI lifeguards. The session was interactive and very interesting. The children impressed our visitors by showcasing their sea safety knowledge and asking some fantastic, thoughtful questions.

We all hope you have a restful and wonderful weekend.

Mrs Lister, Miss Bolton and Miss Colton

We have had a busy week in Chaipel. Our WW2 balanced argument is now complete and we have assessed our writing and all agree that we are extremely pleased with what we have produced. Next week, we will be learning about the life and times of Anne Frank, building up to writing a diary entry - from her perspective - on the day her family went into hiding.

In Maths, we have worked together to complete a SATS arithmetic paper and are very pleased with our results. We will continue to do this up to the SATS week to best prepare us. In other areas of maths, we have been investigating algebra (expression/formula/substitution) and the properties of a circle.

In our wider curriculum, we have looked into the Home Front and what the civilians did for the war effort, designed a steady hand game for DT and learnt about the difference between orthodox and progressive Jews in RE.

On Friday, we had the RNLI in to explain how to stay safe at the beach. I was overwhelmed at how much Chaipel knew and feel confident that they are beach-ready for the summer season!

That's all from me, so have a lovely weekend and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

Miss Randle and Mrs Clary

At Storytellers, we have been busy preparing something very special to celebrate Mother's Day. The children carefully decorated their own plant pots, using bright colours and patterns to make each one unique. They took great pride in their creations and enjoyed talking about the special people they wanted to give their pots to.

 Once the pots were decorated, the children planted them with beautiful flowers. They carefully filled the pots with soil and gently planted the flowers, learning about how plants need water, sunlight and care to grow.

 The children were very excited to take their special flower pots home as gifts for their mums, and we hope they will enjoy watching their flowers grow together. It was a lovely activity that combined creativity, learning about plants and celebrating the people who care for us so much. 

Tregantle Class - Science Week Fun!

Science Week has been so much fun in Tregantle Class! The children have loved getting involved in lots of exciting activities and experiments. One of our favourite experiments was investigating what happens to wax crayons when they are heated. The children watched carefully as the crayons melted and changed, and then used the melted wax to create some beautiful, colourful pictures. It was fascinating to see how the crayons changed when heat was applied!

We also enjoyed exploring our school pond. During our visit, we released our class newt and some tadpoles so they could live in their natural habitat. The children were very gentle and excited to watch them swim away into the pond.

In maths, the children are doing brilliantly. They have been working hard to find different ways to make 10 using Numicon, and they are becoming much more confident with their number bonds.

Our new gravel pit has also been a huge hit with the class! The children have loved digging, scooping and exploring, and it has led to lots of imaginative play and teamwork.

Well done, Tregantle Class, for such a fantastic week of learning and fun!

It was wonderful to see so many of you at our parent/carer consultations for Penhallow, Talland and Chaipel Classes this week. Mr Langley will be holding consultations for Talland Class next Wednesday. Miss Bolton will be holding them for Landaviddy Class on Wednesday and Friday. If you have not been able to meet with your child's teacher yet, please contact the office to arrange an appointment.

Cross Country Success The Polperro team yet again did brilliantly well in last week's final league race at Lanhydrock. Congratulations to the children who all ran well. Thank you to Mrs Turnbull and Miss Colton for their wonderful team support this season and to parents and carers for transporting our runners to each race come rain or shine (mostly rain!). An amazing effort all round from Team Polperro. Special congratulations go to Flora and Isabelle who have qualified for an Inter Area competition at Par Track on 30th March.

RNLI Beach Safety Assembly Lifeguards from the RNLI visited today to hold an assembly about how to stay safe on the beach. They enlisted the help of pupils to demonstrate how to get help if they get into trouble in the sea. They also discussed where it is and isn't safe to swim and what to do if you are caught in a riptide. Your child will have brought home a leaflet which contains the information discussed.

Comic Relief, Friday 20th March - Crazy Hair MUFTI Day This year Red Nose Day is on Friday, 20th March. The School Council would like the children to come to school in MUFTI with Crazy Hair with a minimum donation of £1 for this MUFTI day.

FOPS Easter Discos Reminder that we will be holding Easter discos on Friday 27th March. Tickets are on sale in the office and cost £3. The disco for Reception, Year 1 and year 2 will be from 3:15-4:15pm. Pupils should bring a change of clothes and will be able to change after school. KS2 (years 3-6) children should go home at the usual time of 3:15pm and then return to school for their disco which will be from 4:30-6:00pm.

Bags for School Collection Monday 16th Reminder that these are being collected from Nursery on Monday 16th March. Please ensure Nursery have your bags before 9am.

MHST Wild Wellbeing Please see attached details of the Mental Health in Schools Team (MHST) Wild Wellbeing sessions being run this Easter holidays in collaboration with Natural England, Cornwall Wildlife Trust and National Trust. These free sessions are open to children aged 5-12 to help understand and support emotional and mental wellbeing. Each session will be approximately 2 hours long. Sign up details are included in the attached poster. Sign up will close one week before the session date, or when the session reaches capacity, whichever comes first.

Wishing you a lovely weekend

Mrs Hillman

Friday 13th March

Some of this weeks learning:

In English this week the children continued to wow Mrs Phillips with their phonic knowledge. The children had a sentence dictated to them and their job was to use their phonic knowledge to write that sentence, using a sound mat. The adults in class were blown away with how amazing the writing was! Next week we move onto instruction writing and how to build a rocket. We want to be like bear in the story and build our own rockets!

In maths the children have been exploring number bonds to 10. They have explored using two parts and have used lots of resources to make the parts individually and working as a team!

In PSHE this week the children continued to explore how we keep ourselves healthy. This week the children spoke about what they do before bed to ensure they get a restful and full night's sleep. WE also had the RNLI come into school today, to deliver an assembly all about how to stay safe when you visit the beach! 

WE were also so lucky to have our new recycled playhouse delivered by the wonderful Looe Shedders! The children have already put lots of things inside and cannot wait to keep playing in it, we have already decided to act out a part of The Three Little Pigs story! 

The children have been exploring space and this week they have made space pictures, made lolly-stick pictures, role played astronauts in the role play area and on Wednesday Mrs Lyden put paper on top of the tables AND under the tables, the children had the task of drawing space pictures as a table. The pictures that were produced were amazing!

Have a lovely weekend

The Foundation Team 

It's been another very busy week at Darite with all the children working hard in all their learning. The songs for Song Fest are sounding amazing and the children who are attending Sterts are looking forward to it. We also have our Bridge Song event on Monday and some KS2 children will be singing with all the other schools in Liskeard! We had amazing grounds to celebrate yesterday as the First Lego League team won the Robot Performance award for the 5th year running at RNAS Culdrose! The team of 6 children from class two performed amazingly under pressure in their three times games, coming first with a huge score of 285 points! Despite coding issues and technical problems. this was the highest score in this part of the event over both days! The support the team showed each other in help, guidance and problem-solving means more to us than any trophy. Sadly, the team did not qualify for the national finals in Harrogate this year, such was the strength of the competition, but they should be really proud of themselves (I know I am). The icing on the cake was that they also won the top placed play of for ultimate bragging rights for this next year! The team at Culdrose were so impressed, we even made it to Spotlight and BBC Radio Cornwall! Well done team!
I had a meeting this week with the Educational Welfare Service about attendance and punctuality in schools. Our attendance is improving which is brilliant and thank you for your help in this. Remember, we are happy to administer Calpol in school if needed.
We have been asked to monitor punctuality as our next step as we have a number of pupils who are sometimes later in. This means learning is being missed. If punctuality is an issue for you, please let the school know and we can see how we can help improve this for the children.
There is a lot still comping up in the final few weeks of this term, make sure you keep up to date with the newsletters and website.

We have finally been able to start the improvement phase for our Early Years outdoor learning space.  A lovely group of volunteers, Looe Shedders have previously built us a playbus and some large planters for the Key Stage 1 playground.  They have been enjoying making this shed for a number of months and yesterday it arrived and was built in the front play space.  They have made the shed from items they already had access to with donations from local suppliers for paint etc. and I am very aware that they have contributed to this project themselves.  As you can see, it is beautiful.  It has stairs and a small mezzanine floor inside and Mrs Phillips, the Foundation class teacher has already begun to stock if with homely items for role play.  It took most of the morning to erect in place and the children were getting more and more excited as they saw it grow.
Thankfully, we had some sun and they were able to give it a good check over and explore.  It was a special moment to watch their joy and excitement at their new house.  It has made such a difference already to the space.

The class with the help of the adults, raised an amazing £500 from a pancake race on Shrove Tuesday and some of this has already been spent to begin to make their outdoor space more colourful and appropriate.  The recent storms had a big impact on the spaces and we had trees down and lots of debris.  It has meant that the children have not been able to safely use these spaces for a few weeks, but the arrival of the playhouse gave us new energy and excitement to get the project done now and with some help from our premises team at Bridge Schools.  Watch this space and a very big thank you from us all to Looe Shedders!

It has been an incredibly busy week at Brunel. Please enjoy catching up with the latest news and events in our weekly Brunel Bulletin.

This week at nursery we have been exploring the story of "Superworm".
The children have enjoyed listening to the story and have made their own colourful worms by wrapping wool around card to create them.

They have been practicing their fine motor skills by threading cheerios onto pipecleaners to make worms and on the writing table have been practicing pencil control by following the different trails that the worm has made.

As well as the story of "Superworm", the children have enjoyed selecting other favourite books including "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Hungry Caterpillar"

In phonics this week we have explored the different sounds that we can make with our voices and body.
The children have been identifying and creating different animal sounds and joined in with the song "Hoppy Poppy's Zoo" to the tune of "Old Mcdonald had a farm".

In maths the children have been naming and ordering numbers, sorting groups of objects and using these objects to represent numbers.

We have a Bags2school collection on Monday 16th March so if you hve any good quality used items such as clothes, shoes, bags or belts then please bag them up and bring them to nursery before 9am on the day.
It is Comic Relief next Friday so children in on this day are very welcome to come in wearing something red and with "crazy" hair!! A £1 donation would be appreciated.

Have a great weekend

Julie and Sarah 

Making clay fish and litter picking! 

We've had a great start to the half term in Year 1 and 2.

We have been enjoying our new big question: Would you rather live in a hot or cold place? In Geography, we have been finding the seven continents, the North Pole and the South Pole and the equator.

In Science we have been exploring living things and their habitats. This week, we learnt about why habitats might become endangered, and what might happen to the plants and animals that live there if they do. We then went around the school and picked up any litter we could find. The school looks cleaner and we helped the plants and animals too!

We were very lucky to take part in the Clay Fish project that is happening around Looe. The children were taught how to make the fish and they really do look wonderful.

We have got lots of learning to look forward to - especially our Eden project trip on the 19th March!

Thank you all.

Year 1 and 2 Team

Curiosity and Questions

This week we have been writing our sonnets in English based on cats after midnight. We used Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 for inspiration and the children have enjoyed using archaic language.

In maths, we have been learning about metric measures and how to convert between them. We have been using our knowledge of how to multiply and divide by 10,100 and 1000 to help us. 

In science, we conducted an experiment to find out what the best material for a phone screen is. The children tested a range of materials to see if they conducted electricity, if they were magnetic and if they were transparent. We discovered that the marble was the best material even though it doesn't conduct electricity because it was not magnetic but it was transparent. Through research, we found out that the glass used in phone screens has a special layer of metal called indium tin oxide added to it which enables it to conduct electricity from our fingertips to the phone. This is what makes it work and why we cannot wear gloves when using the phone. 

Have a great weekend!

Miss Burton