We have had a super busy week at Brunel and couldn't be prouder of our Year 6 children who have been so determined and focussed during their End of KS2 SATS. It has also been a busy week with visitors, trips and super learning experiences for our children. We hope that you all have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday. In the meantime, please enjoy browsing through this week's edition of The Brunel Bulletin. 

Friday 15th May

Some of this weeks learning

In English this week the children have been drawing pictures from our story and then writing small captions underneath to match their picture. Then the children have been writing lists of their favourite fruits ready to finish our unit of work next week by making Hungry Caterpillar fruit kebabs. The adults were so impressed with the children's phoneme to grapheme correspondence, and we have had some amazing writing.  

In maths this week we have concentrated on adding more. We have done this in many ways using lots of different resources. The children have worked hard at using full mathematical sentences when answering questions and using mats I the provision.  

The children have continued to embrace the minibeast life and have been real scientists looking at and exploring, classifying and describing. They have also made painted butterflies and have drawn bees and bee hives after our special community visitor Liam came to show us his bee keeping equipment and tell us all about bees and how honey is made. We even got the chance to taste honey and try on a bee keeping suit!

We continue to be amazed with how well the children are progressing

We wish you  a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team 

I am so incredibly proud of year 6 this week! They have approached SATs with maturity, determination and resilience. 

They have taken all the tests in their stride and gave them all their full effort. I hope they have a much deserved relaxing weekend!

Miss Burton

Tregantle Class Visit Saltash Fire Station

This week, Tregantle Class enjoyed an exciting visit to Saltash Fire Station.

The children walked to the station and spent the afternoon learning all about fire safety and fire prevention. The firefighters showed the children around the fire station and explained how they help keep the community safe.

Everyone loved exploring the fire engine and discovering all of the different equipment carried onboard. One of the highlights of the visit was having the chance to use the water hose and aim at a target - the children had so much fun taking turns and showing off their aiming skills!

The children also enjoyed trying on the firefighters' protective kit and pretending to be firefighters themselves. It was wonderful to see their enthusiasm and curiosity throughout the visit.

A huge thank you to everyone at Saltash Fire Station for welcoming us and inspiring the next generation of firefighters!

Our focus story is We're going on a picnic' and we designed our own picnic blankets today at St Anne's.

We had a wonderful afternoon with the residents and staff at St Anne's this week - who really enjoyed listening to our poetry readings - these were the incredible poems we wrote for the Fowey Festival Competition about animals that come out 'After Dark'. 
We also enjoyed listening to the memories and stories the residents shared with us about their own pets and favourite animals. Thank you to St Anne's for hosting us and we look forward to seeing you all again soon! 

Well done to Team Brunel who had several prize winners and several runners-up and highly commended in the competition. Two prize winners were invited to Fowey Harbour Hotel for a special presentation with their families and won Waterstones vouchers. What a creative group of young people we have at Brunel!

We have continued with exploring planting and growing this week at nursery.
The children have planted sunflower seeds and are very excited that their flower and broad bean seeds from last week are starting to grow!
They have enjoyed some still life painting of fruit this week. The children have identified different fruits in the bowl, naming them and discussing differences before having a go at painting them with some great results.

At story time this week we have read the book "Supertato" and "Tilly Plants a Tree". The children have been encouraged to identify different parts of plants from the book such as petal, stem and leaves.

In phonics this week we have been channeling our inner superhero's and have been making speech sounds to different superhero moves. The children used instruments to play along to the song "Superhero's in the sky" and have been matching initial sounds to the correct superhero.

In maths we have continued to create our own patterns and recognition of different numbers.

We have four more days until the half term now and just a little reminder that next Friday is an INSET day so we will be closed.

Have a good weekend

Julie and Sarah

Playtimes are always enhanced when we have access to the field and this year we have introduced additional equipment to make the playtime experience even more positive. Here are a few photos of the children enjoying the opportunities they have for socialising and positive play.


Well done to our Year 6 pupils who completed their SATs this week. However we try to reduce the pressure, inevitably, some children will always feel anxious about doing these tests. They all did incredibly well and can look forward to finishing the term without the shadow of SATs hanging over them. Next half term, the Year 6 pupils will have the opportunity to attend transition sessions in preparation for secondary school. Parents and carers can access guidance on how to support their children with transition to secondary school by accessing this workshop:



Congratulations to Lesley Connell who got married at the weekend. Lesley will now be known as Mrs Sammels, but is very understanding of anyone who forgets and calls her Mrs Connell - she still forgets herself!

A free half term opportunity for children:

These sessions are open to children aged 5-12, each session will be approximately 2 hours long. 

Sign up will close one week before the session date, or when the session reaches capacity, whichever comes first.

If your child is into drama, why not sign up to this free opportunity at an amazing setting. It is a long way to travel but well worth it and it could be combined with a family day out in the beautiful west of our county:

This week the children have all enjoyed planting some sunflower seeds, in the hope that little shoots will start to show in the next week or so.

All the children thoroughly enjoyed learning about the key features of the life cycle of a plant and showed their understanding with a sequence sticking activity, showing what happens when we plant a seed.

We are expanding this learning over the next couple of weeks as we begin to look at the many wonderful minibeasts that we may find in the garden and look at some of the life cycles of these too!

This topic is always good for group discussions on the importance of respecting and caring for living things and our natural environments.  The children have all shared their own experiences and understanding through our grand conversations at carpet time.

The children this half term have had lots of number challenges given to them, to really build up their confidence in number recognition.  We encourage counting in all areas of play, even when reading a story, and its good practice even at home to count small groups of objects and then to know the last number reached. We have also been practicing showing our 'finger numbers' to numbers 1-10 alongside this.

With this being a very short term before we begin our final term before summer break, I want to reassure parents of those children that will be starting Reception in September that all information will come out to you in plenty of time.  There will also be an opportunity to book a parent consultation with a member of the team during Summer Term 2.  We will let you know available dates after half term.

The Pre-School Team.

Hello Everyone,

We have had great fun this week in our English lessons, using the story of  'George's Marvellous Medicine' as a stimulus to begin to write our own ,marvellous medicine.  We have been learning all about the features of instruction writing, and have identified and used imperative verbs in our own sentences. 

During RE this week, we began to find out about the gospel in Christianity. We discussed the concept of forgiveness, and how we forgive others, as well as how others forgive us.

Our history learning has continued with the theme of explorers. We found out about Christopher Columbus, how he 'accidentally' discovered the Americas and about the different foods that he brought back to Europe. 

In art this week, we have created some amazing art work in the style of Henri Rousseau, using water colours and oil pastels. We used our skills of drawing leaves and blending watercolours to create a background.

In computing this week, we looked at algorithms, and practiced giving precise instructions to Bee-Bots, using the beebot. App, as well as physical beebots and mazes. Brilliant team work Penhallow!

Have a lovely weekend!

From The Penhallow Team

Year 5 have been enjoying learning more about area and perimeter in Maths and found it exciting to see an adult using his maths skills in real life whilst building our sensory garden. His careful measurements have resulted in a special space for our children to enjoy as the plants grow! We have also been having fun, measuring objects and estimating their area this week.