This week at Storytellers, we have been learning more about our bodies, with a special focus on our teeth.

 The children have enjoyed exploring books and stories about teeth and talking about why it is important to look after them. We have also introduced new toothbrushes and practised brushing our teeth, learning how to brush carefully and keep our smiles healthy.

 Our role-play area has been a particular favourite, giving the children opportunities to act out visits to the dentist, take on different roles and talk about what happens when we visit the dentist.

 Through stories, discussion, role play and hands-on activities, the children have been developing their understanding of healthy choices while building confidence and independence in caring for themselves.

This week we have been exploring homes and pets. The children have been talking about where they live and about any pets they have at home or would like.
They have been busy making paper plate animals, fork print cats and they have created houses out of different shapes whilst been encouraged to recognise and name these shapes.

At story time this week we have enjoyed reading "Pig the Pug" and "It Wasn't Me".

At phonics the children have been listening to different sounds in their environment and trying to identify and name them. They have used their bodies to make different sounds
and tried hard to recognise initial sounds of words in a game of "Silly Socks".
 
In maths we have been been exploring and building with shapes and objects, completing inset puzzles and finding numbers in everyday life.

Have a good weekend

Julie and Sarah

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Thank you to everyone who came in to visit during Art this week!  The children have moved on to the next lesson of creating paints using natural resources.  They picked berries, leaves, dandelions, soil, sand, grass and flowers to grind down, add water and paint onto paper.  They really enjoyed this!

Our history lessons have been focusing on what the word "Prehistoric" means and created a timeline that was presented on the playground!

In PE, hockey is going well and the children learned how to "push" and pass the ball safely.  In PSHE, the children brainstormed ideas of what a "Dream School" might look like! They decided that a dream school would be everyone being nice to one another!

We are all looking forward to the Festival of Words trip on Monday! 

What another busy and brilliant week it has been at Brunel! 

It has been wonderful to see so many exciting learning opportunities taking place across the school and our children continuing to show such enthusiasm, curiosity and determination in everything they do.

Our after-school clubs are now well underway, and we are incredibly proud of the range of opportunities available to our children. There are still spaces available in a number of clubs, so please do take a look and consider signing your child up. Clubs are a fantastic opportunity for children to try something new, develop their talents and spend time with friends.

A huge thank you to our staff who voluntarily give their time to run these clubs. Their willingness to provide these additional opportunities is just one of the many things that makes Brunel such a special school.

Our Helping Hands group has also been very busy this week! They have worked together to create a wonderful new Little Engineers Shed for our youngest children to enjoy during their lunchtimes. We cannot wait to see the imaginative building, designing and problem-solving that takes place there. Thank you to everyone involved in bringing another fantastic addition to our school grounds to life.

We were also delighted to hold the first Lighthouse Room Parent Café this week. It was a really positive opportunity for parents to come together, find out more about the support available through our Lighthouse Room and talk with members of our team.

Thank you to everyone who joined us. Finally, a reminder that our Reading Café takes place next Thursday, 1st October, straight after school. We would love to see as many of our families there as possible.

Come along, enjoy some time together and help us celebrate something that sits right at the heart of learning at Brunel – a love of reading!

Thank you, as always, for your continued support. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Degemer An Jydh – Seize the Day!

Another busy week of learning...

This week, the Yr5s and 6s have been learning about speech within texts. We have been practising coming up with our own direct speech, punctuating it accurately as well as adding action and emotion. This will help them to then insert dialogue into their own consequence story, inspired by the novel Letters from the Lighthouse.

Within maths, we are continuing to work through our Place Value unit which includes understanding the value of number, ordering and comparing number. Their books are looking beautiful - they are taking real pride in setting out their work correctly and explaining their reasoning in detail.

Friday 25th September

Rame Class continue to be amazing!

Some of this week’s learning:

This week in phonics we learnt the phonemes   i/n/m/d. We have really been practicing using the sounds we know to ‘robot talk, read the word- blending the sounds to read the word.  Only three weeks in their new school and they are achieving so much.

Continuing with our big question, this week we have been exploring what we like and what we dislike. We have explored how we grow and have ordered pictures from babies to the elderly. We have been outside exploring the bricks and trying to make massive, big, humongous houses!! The children used these amazing words!

We have started Mastering Number( our new maths journey) this week and the children have adapted to the formal lessons well. They have ‘blown’ Mrs Phillips’ socks off with their knowledge! Number blocks 1, 2 and 3 kept setting the children subitising challenges and they beat those challenges every single time! (Subitising is knowing an amount without counting).

Today we had bucket time, and we explored conkers in their shells, the children used wonderful vocabulary to describe the conkers, the adults then opened the shells to explore inside. We will use the conkers next week in our learning!

This is only a small fraction of what the children have been doing, and they continue to impress us every day!

Rame Class is the best!!

Have a lovely weekend

The Foundation Team 

Another busy week of learning...

This week, the Yr5s and 6s have been learning about speech within texts. We have been practising coming up with our own direct speech, punctuating it accurately as well as adding action and emotion. This will help them to then insert dialogue into their own consequence story, inspired by the novel Letters from the Lighthouse.

Within maths, we are continuing to work through our Place Value unit which includes understanding the value of number, ordering and comparing number. Their books are looking beautiful - they are taking real pride in setting out their work correctly and explaining their reasoning in detail.

Week 3 in Whitsand!

Our Year 1 children have been amazing mathematicians this week as we've been exploring greater than and less than. We made our own Numbergators using card and split pins, and the children loved using their hungry crocodiles to work out which numbers were bigger and smaller. They showed great confidence explaining their mathematical thinking.

In Science, we became investigators and carried out an experiment to discover which materials are the stretchiest. We tested a variety of different materials and found that rubber bands stretched much more than anything else. We also discovered that felt was one of the least stretchy materials, and the children enjoyed making predictions before testing each one.

Our History lesson sparked some wonderful conversations as we shared the fantastic feedback from parents about how school has changed since they were at primary school. The children were fascinated to hear about the differences and similarities, and they loved comparing school life then and now.

We're so proud of all the enthusiasm, curiosity and teamwork the children have shown this week. Well done, Whitsand Class – keep up the amazing work!

Autumn

We have had another busy and productive week of learning across the curriculum.

DT
The children have continued their exciting Viking longship project. They have been working incredibly hard to create each individual component that will eventually be assembled into a complete longship. So far, they have designed and created sails, carefully mixed paints to match the appearance of timber for the planks, and used saws safely and responsibly to cut out templates for the decks and masts. The children have also been studying authentic Viking designs to create historically accurate shields. Over the coming week, they will begin crafting the dragon heads that will complete their impressive models.

English
We have been exploring different ways to add detail and depth to our descriptions. Through grammar activities, vocabulary choices and varied sentence structures, the children have been developing their writing skills and learning how authors create vivid images for their readers.

Maths 
The class is completing the final stages of our place value unit. The children have worked hard to strengthen their understanding of number and will soon be using these skills to support their learning in our upcoming addition and subtraction units.

Art
Our new whole school creative sessions with Mrs Fernie and Mrs Hughes have focused on self-portraits. The children have been experimenting with different artistic techniques and considering how they can express their own characteristics and personalities through their artwork.

French
We have been revisiting key vocabulary, including the days of the week, colours and numbers to remind ourselves that we can speak French! This recap work will provide a strong foundation as we move on to more focused learning, tailored to where each child is currently in their language development.

PE
In our two weekly sessions, we have been developing our skills in tag rugby and a variety of ball games. We have been fortunate enough to have both PE sessions outdoors so far this term, and we hope the favourable weather continues so that we can make the most of our outdoor learning opportunities.

Working around lessons this week, I have been impressed by the level of effort from the children. This is only the third week back, but already we are seeing a high level of learning and some strong outcomes. As ever, it is great to be able to share some of this with our school community.

Art
Class 4 have been using a map as a background to sketch work. The focus has been on using soft B pencils to draw strong lines that dominate the page, distracting the viewer from the background. I think these dragon images certainly draw attention away from the maps behind.




Class 3 continue to use charcoal this week. After studying ancient cave paintings, the children created their own through different types of hand prints.
 

Writing
Both junior classes have been doing some paired writing this week. In Class 4, partners Jack and Anoud wrote this paragraph in the form of a non-chronological report about an outlaw:

In the heart of Sherwood Forest, lived Robin Hood, a selfless outlaw during the 1600. For years, his generosity to the poor was immaculate; he could steal from the noble for the unwanted. Since Robin was a kind hearted man, he was hated by the heartless sheriff of the state. He was often chased by the guards; he outran them by a fair distance. He will always be honoured in lots of books today. 

Clubs
It is great we have so many children wanting to join our after school clubs this term. Many of the clubs have been oversubscribed and children placed on waiting lists. We will try to ensure fairness by prioritising these children for clubs in the future. This term we are offering:

- First Lego League Lego Robotics Competition Team (Years 5 & 6)
- Musical Theatre (Years 3 - 6)
- Forest School (Years 3 - 6)
- Cross Country (Years 3 - 6)
- Multi Skills with Pro 20 Sports (Years 1 & 2)

In addition, our peripatetic music teachers are offering the following individual and group lessons:
-Rocksteady Band
-Brass
-Guitar
-Piano

If your child is interested in learning an instrument, please contact Amy Souch in the school office for contact details.

Snacks
In Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, the government provide free fruit and vegetables to ensure a daily healthy snack. Children have a range of healthy options to choose from, including bananas, apples, pears, oranges, tomatoes, mini cucumbers and carrots. This isn't provided for children in Years 3- 6. However, children are welcome to bring the same fruit or vegetable snack for their morning break. We ask that children don't bring crisps, chocolate bars, biscuits etc as we want to maintain the healthy eating culture established in the infants. For children attending after school childcare club, please feel free to send them with an equally healthy snack.

Security Fencing
Bridge MAT managed to secure Department for Education funding to replace our perimeter fencing, which was starting to fail in places. New fencing is currently being installed around the school field and will also be extended to the front of the school in the coming weeks. At the moment, the new fencing has made some wooded areas of our field inaccessible but these will be accessible through gates that have yet to be installed as the contractors are still awaiting their delivery. In addition, Sarah Marley has secured 135 native tree saplings through the Woodland Trust. These will be planted by the children in November, inside the boundary of the new fence.

I look forward to sharing more of the children's learning next week.

Another busy week

This week in Pendennis class we have been exploring colours using rainbow filters, messy water play and coloured carpet tiles. We are able to identify colours, and we are learning to spot patterns. The coloured water play also helps us with our hand eye coordination and our motor skills with pouring, as well as our maths too! 
In our This is Me topic, children have been using letters of all shapes and varieties to spot letters in our names. Some of us are able to put those letters together to build our name. We have also been playing board games together which builds on our social skills, helping us to wait and take turns as well as building our vocabulary. 
 

A very warm welcome to all our Year 3 children and families.

We are excited for a fantastic term ahead, filled with engaging learning experiences, new challenges, and lots of opportunities to grow and succeed.
Please find attached our newsletter, which outlines the learning and key topics we will be covering this term, along with important information regarding our class.

We look forward to working together and sharing a wonderful Year 3 journey with you.

Thank you for your continued support.

It has been a busy and exciting week of learning in Little Foresters!

We have been thinking about who lives in our house and talking about the different people and families who make up a home. We have also been exploring how houses are made by making our own houses from nets and getting creative with junk modelling to design and build houses.

In Year 1, we have been recapping our number knowledge to 10, developing our confidence with numbers and exploring different ways to represent them.

In Reception, we have been learning about Numberblocks 1, 2 and 3, exploring how these numbers are made and represented.

We have been enjoying the story We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. We have been working on ordering the events of the story and thinking carefully about what happens next. We then used our imaginations to create a new part of the story, developing our storytelling and vocabulary skills.

We also learnt some important first aid skills, including what to do if we have a cut. The children enjoyed practising how to bandage each other’s arms, helping them to develop confidence in caring for themselves and others

It has been wonderful to see the children using their creativity, imagination and growing confidence across all areas of their learning this week!

Handwriting, Hockey, Nouns and Verbs! 

We’ve had a great third week back at school for Heligan class.

This week, we have started our handwriting each day. We do this through warming up our fingers by line tracing with music. We then have been practising forming the letters in the air, and then writing them down. We’ve been working really hard on our letter formation and it shows in our writing!

In PE, we have started our Hockey lessons. This week we focused on how to hold the hockey stick and how to control the ball. We did this through small taps, making sure we had two hands on the stick and we were keeping the ball close to us. We then played a few games to practise these skills. We have loved Hockey and have said how much we’re looking forward to working on it again next week.

In English, we have been learning about nouns and verbs. We have consolidated our learning of common and proper nouns and we keep practising this in the classroom, finding common nouns and finding proper nouns. We have now begun looking at verbs and have done some sentence building using verbs. We played ‘spot the missing verb’ in different sentences.

We have also been focusing on numerals as words in Maths. We had to find the word to match the number!

We’ve had a great week.

Well done Heligan class.

What a great start to the new year and Autumn Term! We've thrown ourselves fully into our topics for this half term and have been using 'Back Pack' activities to help us understand our emotions along with MHST: Online Decider Skills Workshops. On Tuesday 22nd September we were visited by GB athlete and professional surfer, Ollie Adams, who gave us an inspirational talk about his own health battles and resilience to triumph in a sport he loves. The key message being 'You can do it!'.

English:  'Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar'
By the end of our first unit with Grammarsaurus, we will recognising the parts of speech that make up independent clauses, single clause sentences and reinforced our use of punctuation and word classes.

Maths:  'Place Value'
We've used Base 10 to support our understanding of Place Value by making and partitioning numbers, consolidating our prior understanding. 

Science: 'Humans including animals'
Our first lessons have been based on the digestive system and the function of the organs. We've had great fun acting out the flow of food!

Backpacks: Linked to our emotions, all activities that we complete are designed to help support a skill or area of regulation. Year 3/4a particular enjoy 'Creature Creations' and the 'Learn to draw' activities.

MHST Workshops:
These workshops run along side our PHSE programme and are based on pupils understanding regulation strategies to support with recognising and regulating emotions.
These are run by: Children's Mental Health Support Team