Penhallow Class Blog: 26th April 2024.

It has been another week of fun in Penhallow where we have learned lots of wonderful things along the way!

We started the week by celebrating World Earth Day, we have been working hard to pick up any litter we see around the school grounds in a step to look after our planet!

In Science, we looked at different animals and the characteristics that made them what they are. We worked with a partner to describe our animals to see if our partner could guess which animal we were trying to describe by it's key characteristics.

In English this week, we have been looking at the difference between fiction and non-fiction books about animals. This is in preparation to write a non-chronological report (a fact file) about a chosen mini beast! I can't wait to find out more about the mini beasts the children choose to write facts on.

Maths has been an adventure for Reception this week who are counting to 20 and beyond. The Year 1s have been counting in 2s and 10s to start their multiplication topic. In 99 club, the children tried brilliantly to answer their questions in 10 minutes.

PE was great fun this week where on Wednesday we worked on our underarm throws. We enjoyed a mindful Yoga session on Friday afternoon which we really enjoyed and stretched all of our muscles. We found the spider pose particularly tricky!

We enjoyed an afternoon of coding with some fantastic 'mousebots' on Thursday. We learned that robots could hold a place in our future job and we showed that we are going to be experts if we ever need to programme a robot in our future roles.

In PSHE, we discussed: What made a good friend? We were able to tell each other what we thought made up a fantastic friend and also the importance of being a good friend ourselves.

Well done to our 'People of the Week' April, Jemima, Max and Iylah were picked for showing great examples of being 'Excellent'. This is one of our school values and our focus this half term.  

We hope you all enjoy a lovely weekend!
Keep up with your amazing reading and head onto TwinklGO! for some more learning opportunities.
Mrs Taylor, Mrs G, Miss Colton, Mrs C and Miss Hodge.

Life Cycle of a Butterfly.

This half term, we are delving into the fascinating world of animal life cycles. The children were overjoyed when a small box arrived in the nursery today. Inside were five tiny caterpillars! We dove into some nonfiction books that revealed intriguing facts about caterpillars and butterflies. 

 We talked about the life cycle of our caterpillars and what we may see next. The children thoroughly enjoyed exploring the process and used some wonderful new vocabulary that we had been learning. The children made their own wonderful pictures of the butterflies' life cycle and decided where to place them in class so they could watch and wait patiently for the changes to happen.

  Watching the caterpillars change into chrysalises and then emerge as butterflies in the coming weeks is a fantastic opportunity for our children to learn more about the natural world around them.

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Our school values are Curious, Creative, Excellent, Responsible, Determined and Enthusiastic and we explore a different value each half term. We started the week with an assembly about our school value for this term which is ‘I am Excellent.’ After splitting into Houses to discuss what being Excellent means, the children came back together to share their thoughts. As usual, the children had the best ideas and fed back that to be excellent means trying your hardest, trying new things, being extra kind and doing your best.

Fowey Festival Writing Competition Congratulations to three of our year 6 writers whose poetry about the Normandy beaches received a commended (Wyatt and Lily) and Highly Commended (Bayley) in the Fowey Festival, Competition for Young Writers and Artists.

Online Safety Please find attached ‘Parent’s Guide to Cyberbullying’ poster which has a useful link to information on how to keep your child safe online.

School Uniform The link for our supplier for uniform with a school logo, has changed to www.uniformsales.co.uk/school/polperro-primary-academy/ Our uniform can also be bought from most supermarkets and we have some very good quality preloved uniform available from the office for a small donation.

Swimming The pool is nearly up and running and when the weather is warm enough, we will start lessons for all year groups. In the meantime, you may wish to organize your child’s swimming kit which should comprise a swimming costume/trunks, towel, waterproof bag, swimming hat. Please ensure everything is named. We have swimming hats for sale. Please email the office if you would like one. These can be paid for on Parent Pay.

Upcoming Dates School will be closed on Monday 6th May which is a Bank Holiday and then closed to children on Friday 24th May for INSET (staff training). 

Have a good weekend.

Mrs Hillman

Talland's Class Blog 26.4.24

Week two came and went in the blink of an eye!

There's been an abundance of sport, jelly making, science investigations, instruction writing and much more...

Maths:
Year 4 have been finding out about how to write fractions and decimals and hundredths. Some children have been thinking about how that can link to percentages too.
Year 5 have continued to measure angles and perimeter in shapes. They're very handy with a protractor now!

English:
We have finished writing our instructions about 'How to make Jelly'. We have followed the instructions and made our own jelly. The children are now planning how to make instructions for a 'Gruesome Smoothie'. I'm looking forward to getting outside and finding our ingredients next week!

PE:
Talland have explored a range of activities to play in an outdoor environment and we've been practicing how to return the shuttlecock in badminton. Some children challenged themselves to catch their opponent out and return the shuttlecock to a space on the court where the partner wasn't to help them win a point.

Science:
We have looked at and experimented on jelly - how does it change its state of matter? Why not ask your child how the jelly changes when heated and then cooled...
We also began thinking about our experiment for next week - What is the best material to wrap a cup in to keep drinks warmer for longer? The material and the ice cubes are already waiting...

Computing:
This topic is linking nicely to Science this term. After we have our results for the experiment, Talland will be creating an excel spread sheet to gather data. We will then transfer the data to a graph, which will show help to show our results in a pictorial manner.

A huge well done to Nuala this week for being noticed for excellent behaviour and trying her best in lessons. 

Exciting News:
School trip information coming Monday... I'm personally looking forward to the 10th May. I think all of Talland will be once we find out where we are going!

That's it from Talland this week. We hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Signing off from Mr. Langley, Mr. Bishop and Mrs. Hodge. 

Week 2 

The children have had a wonderful second week of amazing learning!

In English this week the children started to explore the story of Mr Gumpy’s Outing. WE read the story and went on a little outing around school to see what we could see. We practiced the story lots by using our story map and we made up actions to remember it . We then worked as team to sequence the story- Miss Hughes tried and got it all wrong! BUT luckily the children helped her to sequence the story correctly! The year 1’s then sequenced it in their books and thought of fantastic time conjunctions to write alongside the pictures. The Foundation children also sequenced the story and they wrote key words next to the pictures to show their understanding! The year 1 children have also been writing sentences from the story using conjunction ‘and’.

In maths the year 1 children have spent this week exploring mass and volume , they have used bucket scales and they have been using ambitious vocabulary such as  balance, mass, heavier, lighter. They have found out the mass of objects in cubes and also compared the mass of different objects.

The Foundation children have been exploring the composition of 10 , they have continued to use their number bond to 10 knowledge to help them explore the number 10 in detail.

In PE the children have continued to explore throwing with our coach Ryan and have enjoyed building skills to play quick cricket.

IN PSHE the children are all exploring relationships, this week we had lots of great discussion about what makes a caring friend. The children in this class are so thoughtful and kind and really contributed well with this lesson.

IN Geography the year 1’s have been exploring physical features of Looe! Yesterday they explored a map of Looe and worked well to identify physical features , they then looked at a picture of Looe and showed their knowledge by labeling all the physical features they could see!

The foundation children have been building Looe out of Lego, riding the balance bikes around a chalked Looe track, drawing their favourite things they like to do in Looe and so much more!

On Tuesday we celebrated St Georges day and all of our activities were based around St George . The children loved exploring the story and a great discussion happened about whether we think St George really killed a dragon or whether he was known for being  a great person that protected his village!

What a wonderful week

Have a lovely weekend

Foundation /year 1 team. 

w/e 26.4.24

On Thursday, we visited Saltash library for an exciting Live Lesson from the aquarium. We enjoyed seeing and learning about the different marine life and loved the fun facts shared!

We also took a look at the books in the library - lots of the children would love their library cards, so please do pay them a visit! You can even apply online and reserve your favourite books! https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/libraries-museums-and-archives/libraries/join-the-library/ 

More photos below!

This week Year 4 have been fulfilling the PE curriculum by taking swimming lessons. They have had an amazing time each afternoon.

They have shown great determination and resilience as they have all endeavoured to improve themselves. It has been fantastic to see so many children progress and everyone can be pleased and proud of themselves.

It was so good to see parents come to our sporting event last Friday.  Thank you so much for the continued support you have for the children.  So many of the children have said how much they appreciated doing sports they had never tried before. 

Have a well-earned rest over the weekend everyone.

Miss Pittas

What a busy week we've had in Chaipel Class! The week got off to a flying start with an assembly about our Bridge School value (being Excellent). During this assembly, we branched off into our House Teams and discussed what being excellent looks like at Polperro School. We then came back together as a school and shared some of our ideas with each other. Three of our Y6 pupils (Lily, Bayley and Wyatt) demonstrated 'being excellent' by recieving certificates from the Fowey Young Writers Competition. Bayley was Highly Commended and both Lily and Wyatt were Commended for their tremendous efforts on their poems about the D-Day landings.

In English, we have begun to write our explanation text on the seven life processes (Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition).  In PE, we have started to learn what it takes to be an expert at badminton and amazing at orienteering. - ROSIE GRACE

Also this week, our class have picked out our new reading books. They are a range of very interesting texts which we can all enjoy as they are organised so that we can read and comprehend them independently. After we have finished our books, each pupil in Chaipel will do a book review and a persuasive leaflet, explaining why reading for 5 minutes a day is good for our wellbeing! In Computing, we are learning all about algorithms and for Art we have been looking at colour schemes for our tie-dye project! - DAISY R

Our new enquiry has got off to a great start and this week, we have learnt about the reproduction process in a range of living things, moving onto comparing the life cycles of certain animals.

In our Celebration assembly, Jack C got person of the week for being an excellent learning partner to his freinds. In 99 Club we have a big 'well done' for Lily R for achieving her Bronze club (100 arithmetic questions in 4 mins). 

PARENTS!
Your child has come home today with a letter about Chaipel's    tie-dying art project. If you could let Miss Randle know whether you are providing a white T-shirt or would like the school to purchase one no later than next week so that we can get the materials we need to make a start!  - JACK

Have a lovely weekend,

JACK, ROSIE AND DAISY

It's been a very busy week here at WPA. Here are some of the highlights.

Eco Council

Our fantastic Eco Council led Monday's assembly marking Earth Day. They challenged everyone to play their part in making the school and Wadebridge litter free.

Fowey Festival

Congratulations to all children who entered the Fowey Festival competition recently. In our assembly we proudly presented certificates to children who were recognised by the judges.

FOWPA (Friends of Wadebridge Primary Academy)

I really enjoyed meeting with some of the committee members and hear about the fundraising and social events planned for the rest of the year. We’re really lucky to have such a dedicated team supporting our school community, whether through organising events or obtaining grants to help all our children at school.

Upcoming events:

Thursday 16th and Friday 17th May (after school) - Uniform Sale

Wednesday 22nd May - School Disco

14:15-15:00 Reception - Year 3
15:15-16:00 Year 4 - Year 6

Friday 28th June - Quiz Night at Wadebridge Town Hall (TBC)

Further details about these events will be sent out shortly.

RNLI

We were really grateful to the RNLI for their visit to speak with KS2 on Wednesday. The children were given a detailed explanation of the different flags they will come across at the beach. It was wonderful to see how well-informed they already were, but a little reminder never hurts. Two eager volunteers were selected to dress up as lifeguards; they really looked the part. Everyone was really attentive and showed great respect for the important messages shared.

Football Success

We are so proud of our Year 5 and 6 football team who competed on Tuesday. Despite not playing that many matches as a team, they showed great teamwork throughout the five rounds, winning the first four games without conceding a goal. What a fantastic achievement! Although we came runners up in the end, every player gave their all on the field. Thank you to the team for representing our school with such dedication and upholding our values.

Welcome Coffee Morning/Afternoon

You are warmly invited to come along to one of my welcome coffee mornings/afternoons in the school hall. I’ll share a bit about myself and the focus for the term. If you’re not able to come, I'm often around on the gate in the mornings should you want a chat. I will also be sharing the slides by email following the sessions.

There's no need to sign up, but if you can possibly attend the session according to your child's year group, that would help with numbers. If that isn't possible, please do still come along. If you have children across the school, you only need to come along once as the content will be the same in each session.

EYFS & KS1

Thursday 9th May 08:45-09:30 
Thursday 9th May 14:15-15:00

KS2

Tuesday 7th May 14:30-15:15
Friday 10th May 08:45-09:30

I’m hoping we can run regular coffee mornings throughout the school year. Not only might these be an opportunity to meet up with other parents and members of staff, we could also offer various workshops based on your feedback.

Dates

Please look out for the email today with dates for the rest of the term. If there are any updates, we will let you know as soon as possible. Key dates can also be found on our website under ‘Events Diary’.

Have a great weekend.

Chris Wathern

Three new Cafes for Brunel families

The KIRFs Cafe will be held at the start of each new half term. Thank you to those parents and children who have come along so far, we hope you found it useful.
What are KIRFs?
KIRFs (Key Instant Recall Facts) are pieces of mathematical knowledge that we want the children to learn off-by-heart or be able to work out very quickly (within 3 seconds).
They are designed to support the development of the mental skills that underpin mathematics.
They are particularly useful when calculating, be it adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing and include facts such as number bonds, counting on, back, times tables, equivalence of units of measure, and square numbers.
Each year group is allocated key facts to focus on throughout the year, in line with age related expectations. These should be practised for rapid recall.Check out the website and class blogs for the newest KIRFs each half term.
Reading Cafe (monthly) Parents, children and siblings are invited in on the following dates to share stories, recommendations and chat about books along with Miss Pentreath and our Reading Pioneers. Tuesday 23^rd April- Year R, 1 and 2 Tuesday 14^th May-Year 3 and 4.Tuesday 18^th June-Year 5 and 6.
At the first of the Parents Cafes, held last week, we welcomed Matt Wilmott, Autism Advisor from the Cornwall Autism Team, to talk about Autism and effective adaptations which can be made both within school and at home. Parents and Carers had the chance to network with other parents, ask questions and look at some of the resources we use to support neurodivergent children

We look forward to welcoming you at cafe events in the future and welcome suggestions for topics.

This week at nursery we have been continuing to look at planting and growing. The children have been planting beans in the hope that they can grow a beanstalk like in the story and coloured a giant's castle to go in the pot with it.
They have all been busy with arts and craft and have been creating handprint flowers and carrots in the paint.
The children have practiced writing their names in order to create a name flower.
We have enjoyed some nice weather this week and have spent lots of time outside, especially in the sand and water trays.

At story time, we have been reading the story of "The runaway pea". The children have also planted their own peas and we will watch as they grow here in nursery beofre they take them home.

In maths this week, we have been naming and ordering numbers. The children have been identifying smaller numbers up to 5 and bigger numbers up to 10 and beyond for some.

In phonics this week, we have looked at "shopping" and the children have enjoyed playing games such as Robot Rick's shopping trip where they had to blend sounds into short words. We have talked about and identified sounds in our nursery environment both indoors and out and have been identifying inital sounds in words.

Have a lovely weekend

Julie and Sarah

Wonderful Tregantle

What a hard-working week we’ve had! Our Year 1 children have been writing the class version of the story Christopher Nibble. We have changed the character to Fluffy Nibble and the place to ‘Carrotville!’ They have worked so hard to increase their stamina for writing. In maths the children have a new tuft tray with a weekly maths challenge. This week they have been showing their knowledge of doubling and halving. The EYFS children have been exploring in the garden this week. The BFA have kindly bought us some new resources for our mud kitchen which we have enjoyed using. We have seen some wonderful writing this week; all of the hard work in phonics is paying off as we can see from the wonderful ‘have a go’ writing! We all enjoyed another music lesson from the specialist music teacher Mrs Butlin this week. We worked on creating rhythms and identifying loud and soft, fast and slow music.

Week 2 

Year 1 have been very busy in the last couple of weeks! Last Friday we had an alternative sports day at school. We took part in activities such as Segway, athletics, fencing, archery, football and more! The children absolutely loved it and it was brilliant to see them trying new things and giving it their all.

We have been designing our rockets in computing ready for when we make our own. We have been using sketchpad to do this and we have talked about the importance of saving our work. We also talked about why it is really important to save our work in the right place so that we can find it again. We are really looking forward to our designs coming to life in a few weeks time!
In English, we have started our new learning journey based around the book ‘Mr Gumpy’s Outing.’ To launch our English learning journey we went on our own outing around the school to see what we might find.
In maths, our unit is all about length and height. We investigated the question ' do taller people have bigger feet?' We really enjoyed measuring our feet and sharing our findings.

It has been a great week here in Year 1.

As always any questions do not hesitate to contact. 

Miss Bolger 

Music to our ears...

This week in music, Mrs Butlin taught the class how to write musical notes - Quavers and Crotchets (quick and slow notes).

Summer 1 - Week 2 - Algebra, check!

Congratulations to Finlay for coming 1st place in Fowey Festival's KS2 Poetry writing competition! Another well done to the Year 6 boys that represented Wadebridge Primary this week in a football tournament; taking home the 2nd place medal. We were visited by the RNLI on Wednesday. They reminded us of the importance of staying safe at the beach and what to do if we got into trouble in the water. 

English
Over the past couple of weeks, the children have been learning how to incorporate a variety of writing skills into their writing. Some of these skills include descriptive writing, imagery, figurative language, building tension, creating atmosphere and micro-expressions. We have been using the animated video Alma as a stimulus for writing and the children have seemed to really enjoy the genre of this story. We have been very impressed with their writing so far. Next week, they’re putting all the skills together to independently write a narrative.

Maths
We’ve been tackling algebra this week and, although many of us felt unsure at the start of the week, the children have grown in confidence. They have demonstrated that they can form algebraic expressions and equations and have solved both 1 and 2-step equations!

Art
We have continued with our Greek Gods and Goddesses collages and the children are producing some colourful, creative pieces of work.

DT
We have started cutting and constructing the frames for our automata toys. The children have also worked in pairs to come up with a design.

Reminders
Please keep encouraging your children to work through the CGP books which were sent home before Easter. If you haven’t already, please ensure your children’s form for the residential trip is handed back into school next week.

Enjoy you weekend.

Best wishes,
The Year 6 Team