This week at nursery we have continued with our planting and growing of seeds. The children have been busy planting sunflower seeds and have been planting grass seed to go with their decorated houses in order to make their own gardens.
They have used different materials such as wool to make flowers and also made some from paper plates.
The children have had lots of opportunity this week to practice thier cutting skills. In the tuft tray, they have been snipping leaves and have been cutting by following a line on their paper plate flowers.

In story time this week we have enjoyed the books "Tilly plants a tree" and have been looking at non fiction books such as "Grow it, eat it".

In phonics the children have been at the cafe and have taken part in cafe bingo. They have been breaking words down into syllables when talking about what they eat for breakfast and have been joining in actions to different songs such as "I'm a little trapot".

In maths, we have been identify numbers from sight and writing/ making marks that represent numbers.

We now have a long weekend ahead of us as it is bank holiday on Monday, so we hope you all have a lovely one and look forward to seeing you all back from Tuesday.

Julie and Sarah

Welcome back Foundation / Year 1! 

We’ve had a lovely first few weeks back in our class. We have started our new big question for this half term which is ‘how does your garden grow?’ We will be exploring this in lots of different ways.

In Science, Year 1 are focusing on plants. We have talked about the parts of a plant and different places we might find them.
We have started our new learning journey in English focusing on the story Mr Gumpy’s Outing. We have learnt the story through actions and have now sequenced the story. Year 1 have written sentences to match the sequenced pictures and Foundation have written initial sounds and key words.
We were also very lucky this week as Bond Dance Company came in to do an animal dance workshop with us. This was to finish off our PE unit from before Easter. We absolutely loved it! We really enjoyed thinking about different animals and how they might move.
We have also really been enjoying the sunshine this week! Foundation have been doing lots of activities outside. Just a gentle reminder that because it is so warm the children do need to have a hat and a water bottle in school and if possible, sun cream on in the morning. We will then top this up at school.

Just some reminders for this half term:

PE days are on a Tuesday and Thursday.

Please remember to order lunches on a Thursday ready for the following week.

Please bring your childrens reading records and books on a Friday for them to be changed.

We have the VE Day Celebration on the 9th May from 2:00 to 3:15. You are more than welcome to join us and bring a picnic along.

Thank you everyone!

Foundation / Year 1 Team

Come and join us if you can! Reception will bring their posies, Year 3 will share their Cornish dancing and Year 5 will proudly parade their mosaic.

What a glorious week of sunshine we have experienced. I have had the privilege of joining the children several times over the past few days at breaktimes and thoroughly enjoyed seeing them having fun on the school field. It is obvious that some children have had sunscreen applied before coming to school and are wearing sunhats but this is good opportunity to remind you all to think about sun safety. Applying sunscreen, bringing a refillable water bottle and sunhat would be sensible. Hopefully, the weather will continue for the May Day celebrations on Monday - good luck to all our Maypole dancers.
We are fortunate to have such fantastic outdoor facilities at Harrowbarrow, including our forest school. Last Saturday, Abi Flashman and a team of PSA and parent volunteers spent the day clearing the brambles and giving this space a makeover. They also developed a new sand play area for Class 1. A huge thank you to Tom Brittan, Sarah Marley, Leanne & Will Francis, Kym Lovejoy, Lily Urbanska, Leanne Chapman and Abi Flashman for giving up their time for the benefit of all children - we are very grateful. The end results are stunning.



Staffing update
It is with great sadness that I share the news Rachel Lane will be leaving Harrowbarrow at the end of term. Rachel has been an integral member of our staffing team for almost two decades but has decided to call time on her work at Harrowbarrow. Countless children have benefitted from Rachel's passion for music, which has become a feature of our unique identity as a school. It is fair to say Rachel is irreplaceable and will be greatly missed. Alongside all the wonderful music opportunities Rachel has provided, she has held many other roles over the years and we know she will miss all her work with the pupils, even throwing herself off the 'Leap of Faith' at Porthpean to the raucous cheers of the children! We wish Rachel the very best for the next phase of her career and thank her for all she has done for so many years. We will, of course, mark Rachel's leaving nearer the end of term with something appropriate.
It is also with sadness that we will also be saying farewell to teaching assistant Jane Carne at the end of this half term. Jane, who has a forest school qualification and is a passionate enthusiast of outdoor learning, is leaving to pursue opportunities elsewhere. We will miss Jane's contributions both in the classroom and outside it in the forest school and wish her all the very best for the future. We will also mark Jane's departure in an appropriate way before half term.

Other activities taking place across the school this week include all junior children starting whole class flute lessons. I had the privilege of joining Class 4 for their lesson but, disappointingly, couldn't get a sound out of my flute mouthpiece! The children were far more successful than me and, over the course of the term, will gradually start to play the flutes. During our art and design technology lessons we have had several classes making things. Infant art lessons have been about creative making, where the children make designs using a stimulus such as 'must fit in the palm of your hand' or 'must be contained in something'. The open ended nature of this has inspired some great creativity. In Class 4 design technology lessons the children are making automaton. This week they were measuring and cutting the parts in preparation for construction.

                                                                                                  

Dates for your diary


12.5.25 - 15.5.25: Year 6 SATs week
21.5.25: Year 6 cricket tournament at Lanhydrock (details to follow for team members)
22.5.25: Year 1/2 multisports event at Callington College (details to follow)
22.5.25: Last pupil day before half term
23.5.25: Staff training day - school closed to pupils
2.6.25: First day for pupils after half term

A Sunny Start to the Summer Term at Blisland Primary School

We’ve had a fantastic first week back at Blisland Primary School following the Easter holidays! The sun has been shining, and pupils have returned full of energy and excitement, ready for a busy and fun-filled summer term.

In Nessa Class, pupils have launched straight into a fascinating new history topic all about the Anglo-Saxons. This term, they will explore who the Anglo-Saxons were, why they came to Britain, and what life was like during this important period in history. Pupils have already begun investigating where the Anglo-Saxons settled and how they shaped the Britain we know today. It's been wonderful to see their curiosity and enthusiasm as they dive into this new learning adventure.

In English, Nessa Class pupils are channelling their creativity into writing an exciting sports narrative set in the magical world of Harry Potter. Using the thrilling sport of Quidditch as inspiration, pupils are developing characters, building tension, and crafting action-packed scenes full of magical twists and turns. We can’t wait to see the finished stories – there are already some brilliant ideas flying around!

Meanwhile, in Kensa Class, the new topic is "How Does Our Garden Grow?" Pupils will be learning all about plants, what they need to survive, and how gardens and natural environments change through the seasons. There is already a real buzz in the classroom as pupils explore seeds, flowers, and the life cycles of plants.

To bring this topic to life, we are hoping to organise an exciting visit to the Eden Project, where pupils will experience the incredible diversity of plant life from around the world. It will be a wonderful opportunity to deepen their understanding and see real-world examples of how gardens and ecosystems thrive. More details about the trip will be shared with parents very soon! It has been a brilliant start to the term, and we are looking forward to all the learning, adventures, and sunshine still to come at Blisland Primary School!

Copper Valley Careers Fair

The Copper Valley Infant site held a careers fair for the whole school. The children learned about a wide variety of careers, having some wonderful experiences and asking lots of thoughtful questions.


Our visitors included a vet who is also a farmer, a  dog groomer, a dog walker, a health and safety manager, marine engineers, an oil tanker driver as well as information about working for the National Trust!

We are so grateful to all of our visitors for giving us their precious time and for showing us some of the many careers out there in our locality.


Hopefully, some of the children will be inspired to pursue some of these careers themselves!

If we can't go to the museum, the museum will come to us!

While Truro museum is undergoing refurbishment, the staff, along with many of their artefacts, have been using the Library Service van to come out to schools. Year 6 were lucky enough to be able to hold real primary source artefacts from both the Roman and Ancient Greek eras.

We had to wear special gloves so that we wouldn't damage the precious artefacts and we learned all about what these items can tell us about the time they originate from. 

One of the favourite objects was something that baffled us. Being placed among the oil lamps, we assumed it was also an oil lamp, however, it turned out to be a baby's bottle made out of pottery!

Welcome to the Summer Term!

We have had a lovely start to the new term, exploring our enquiry question: ‘How does your garden grow?’

In science we learnt about the process of pollination. We watched some short video clips which showed how pollination occurs and Year 1 children drew a comic strip to explain the process themselves. We enjoyed examining parts of flowers, including the parts where the pollen is taken from.

Our English learning this week, has been based around the story of Peter Rabbit. We familiarised ourselves with the story and wrote a character description of Peter. We re-told the story verbally, and drew a story map of the events.

Our art lesson this week, involved studying bluebells and sketching different parts of the flowers. The children excelled themselves with some extremely careful observational sketches. We then used watercolours to practice mixing the right colours and shades.

We have also been enjoying practicing songs which will be performed at ‘The Big Green’ and we look forward to seeing you next Thursday afternoon if you are able to be there.

Have a lovely weekend!

From the Penhallow Team

The Summer Term has already started with an action packed week.

In English, we have been finishing our persuasive argument about who should appear on the next £10 banknote. Through the power of democracy, we chose as a class to focus on Queen Elizabeth 1. Ask your children what reasons they have decided to include her. 

In maths, we have been focusing on reasoning questions and we spent a few days looking at telling the time and timetables. 

In PE, we started our unit on football. The children were practicing their dribbling skills in the sunshine and we focused on tactical skills on whether to dribble or pass. 

Our new geography topic is 'Would you like to live in the desert?' Please see the knowledge web below. We started by looking at different biomes across the world and finding out what the main features of a desert are.

The week ended with Brunel day; what a fantastic day it was! We started by completing a reading comprehension all about him and then answering grammar questions focused on his life. After that, we learnt about on of his creations: Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. We then practiced our drawing skills by creating a piece of art work which showed our talents in cross-hatching, stippling and shading. In the afternoon, we went down to Lantic Class and helped them to make trains in groups. I was overwhelmed by how mature the year 6 children were. They were brilliant role models and helped the young children extremely well. 

With SATs week fast approaching (12th -15th May), I will be holding a parents information evening on Wednesday next week (30th April) to explain all about it and answer any questions. I hope to see you all there.

Have a brilliant weekend!

Welcome back everyone! I can't believe we have reached the Summer term already! 

We have been rounding off our previous enquiry in Science, by learning about the function of flowering plants and identifying each part. Can you recall what the sepal is and what is does? We even went outside and picked daisies, which we then looked closely at to see all the different parts. 

Our enquiry question for this half term is 'How does the weather affect our environment?'. Across the half term, we have a lot we plan to cover. In DT, we will be exploring cooking and nutrition, following recipes and designing our own healthy wraps. During Computing, we will be exploring emails and how these work. Geography lessons will focus on weather and how we can measure and record the changes in weather around us. We will also be developing our Team Building and Basketball skills during PE lessons this half term! 

In English, we have started a new unit on writing persuasive letters on plastic pollution. We have already learnt a lot about how plastic is destroying marine life and littering Cornish beaches. We have thought carefully about what it means to persuade and even held our own debates this week on the topic. Over the next few weeks, we will be writing letters to convince King Charles to do more to prevent the pollution of our local beaches. 

During Maths this week, both year groups have started a new unit on Mass and Capacity, with Year 2 measuring mass in grams and kilograms, and Year 3 measuring mass by reading scales with accuracy in grams.

Congratulations to George and Frankie for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week!

As the weather begins to get warmer, the pool will be open and ready for us to dive in! Please make sure you bring in your swimming costumes, towels and swim hats ready for this. 

Have a super weekend and we can't wait to see you all on Monday! 

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Bowden and Miss Colton