Summer 2

Nursery

Nursery have had a wonderfully busy and engaging start to the term, centring their learning around the much-loved story Dear Zoo. The children thoroughly enjoyed exploring the different animals from the story through a range of creative, playful and sensory activities. From crafting animal masks to investigating textures and sounds inspired by the animals, the topic sparked imagination and hands-on discovery across the classroom.

A real highlight of the term was our exciting visit from Zoolab. This was a fantastic opportunity for the children to experience animals up close in a safe and interactive way. The session was filled with awe and curiosity as the children met a variety of fascinating creatures. Particular favourites included a friendly gecko and a scorpion that glowed under ultraviolet light! This unforgettable experience encouraged the children to ask questions, share their thoughts and develop confidence around unfamiliar animals. It also helped to deepen their understanding of the natural world in a memorable and meaningful way.

As we begin our final topic of the term, Oh We Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside!, the excitement continues to build. The children will be diving into all things coastal, exploring beaches, sea creatures, boats, pirates and traditional seaside fun. Through stories, role play, art and exploration, the class will develop their understanding of seaside environments while continuing to build key early learning skills.

We are particularly looking forward to our upcoming Aquarium visit, where the children will have the chance to observe marine life up close. This will be a wonderful extension of their classroom learning and a chance to spark even more curiosity about life beneath the waves.

To round off the topic, we also have an exciting Pirate Day planned. This promises to be a fun-filled day of treasure hunts, imaginative adventures and creative play, giving the children plenty of opportunities to immerse themselves in their learning and make lasting memories.

Nessa Class

Nessa Class have been hard at work this term, exploring the fascinating topic of what life is like in the Alps as part of their wider curriculum. This has allowed the children to develop their geographical understanding while learning about mountain environments, climate and how people live and work in such unique conditions.

In English, the class have been focusing on descriptive writing, particularly when creating vivid settings. Using the film Avatar as inspiration, the children have been experimenting with powerful vocabulary, imagery and figurative language to bring their writing to life. It has been wonderful to see their creativity flourish as they describe imaginative and detailed worlds.

In science, the children have been studying animals, including humans. This has involved learning about nutrition, skeletons and classification, helping pupils gain a deeper understanding of how living things function and how they are grouped. The children have shown great curiosity and enthusiasm, especially when exploring how the human body works and what it needs to stay healthy.

A special highlight for the class has been the Year 6 treat day, where pupils celebrated the end of their primary school journey with a trip to the water park at Adrenaline Quarry. The children had an absolutely fantastic time, enjoying the activities, challenges and chance to celebrate together. It was a well-deserved reward and a memorable way to mark the end of their time at Blisland Primary.

Kensa Class

Kensa Class have also had an engaging and creative term, with a strong focus on both science and art. In their learning about Charles Darwin, the children have been exploring his famous voyage to the Galápagos Islands and the remarkable discoveries he made there. This has helped pupils understand the importance of observation, exploration and scientific thinking, as well as introducing key ideas about evolution and adaptation.

In science lessons, the class have been applying their knowledge by classifying animals. They have learned how to group living things based on their characteristics, developing important skills in observation, comparison and reasoning. It has been fantastic to see the children confidently discussing features and explaining their thinking.

Creativity has also been a key part of Kensa Class's learning. Inspired by Henri Matisse's artwork The Polynesia Sea, the children have been creating their own vibrant collages. They have explored colour, shape and composition, producing beautiful pieces of art that reflect their individuality and imagination. The results have been truly impressive and demonstrate great attention to detail and artistic flair.

Overall, it has been a busy and rewarding term across the school, with all classes showing enthusiasm, creativity and a love of learning. We look forward to an exciting end to the term and all the wonderful experiences still to come.

Football Frenzy! 

It has been another busy and exciting week in Tregantle Class!

We have really enjoyed taking part in the Bridge Games this week. This year's event had a fantastic football theme to celebrate the World Cup, and the children loved getting involved in all of the activities. They showed amazing teamwork, determination, and enthusiasm, scoring lots of points for Brunel School. We are so proud of how brilliantly they represented our school!

We have also been getting close to nature this week with a bug hunt! The children were delighted to discover a wonderful range of mini beasts, including snails and caterpillars. It was lovely to see their curiosity and excitement as they carefully explored and found out more about the creatures around us.

We are now busy with our preparations for Sports Day next week. The children have been practicing hard and are looking forward to showing off their skills. Fingers crossed for some lovely weather so we can enjoy a fantastic day together!

Well done, Tregantle Class, for another brilliant week! 

What a fantastic month we have had in Year 2!

In History, we continued learning about Sir Francis Drake. We ordered the main events of his life onto a timeline and developed our understanding of his achievements and adventures. We also enjoyed a brilliant trip to Drake's home, Buckland Abbey, where we explored what life was like during Tudor times. We learned about the similarities and differences between life then and now and enjoyed discovering more about Sir Francis Drake's home.

In Art, we worked carefully through several stages to create our beautiful Van Gogh-inspired sunflower paintings. We practised different techniques and paid close attention to colour and detail. We were incredibly proud to display our finished artwork in our art exhibition, and the results were stunning!

In RE, we have been thinking about what makes some places special to believers. We began by discussing places that are special to us and why they are important. We then explored churches and mosques, learning about their features and considering the similarities and differences between them.

In Science, we continued our learning about plants. We set up an investigation using cress seeds to find out what plants need to grow successfully. We also planted broad bean seeds and have loved watching them grow. There has been lots of excitement as we compare our plants and see whose is growing the tallest!
On 8th May, we celebrated Sir David Attenborough's birthday by exploring all things animal! We particularly enjoyed using microscopes to observe bugs preserved in resin and learning more about the fascinating world of insects. We also made Sir David a birthday card and had the exciting opportunity to meet Luna the tortoise. We discovered what she needs to survive and learned more about how to care for animals.

It has been a busy and enjoyable month full of exciting learning experiences. We are looking forward to seeing what June brings!

The children have been working really hard this week on their performance for the Polperro Festival, and we cannot wait to share their production with you. They are incredibly proud of what they have achieved, and we look forward to showcasing all their hard work.

In Maths, we have been continuing our learning about time. We have been practicing reading the time on a digital clock, understanding the difference between a.m. and p.m., and exploring units of time including years, months, days, and hours. They have also been exploring volume with Mrs Lister and enjoyed getting outside experimenting with different sizes of jugs and containers. The children have worked hard to develop their understanding and have enjoyed taking part in a range of practical activities to support their learning.

In Geography, we have been exploring foods from around the world and learning about what can be grown in different countries based on their climates. We also put our map-reading skills to the test by using an atlas to locate different places around the world. This was quite a tricky challenge, but the children showed great determination and really enjoyed the activity.

A huge congratulations Dexter and Brody for being awarded Pupil of the Week! Dexter has been fantastic in our practice productions and has joined in with the singing perfectly! Brody has won this week for his enthusiasm for life! He is always making myself and Miss Colton laugh and is a real asset to the class!

A big congratulations to Alfie, Amelia, Tommy and Theo for achieving your 99 club badge this week - a fantastic effort. Well done everyone!

Miss Bolton & Miss Colton

This week we enjoyed some healthy baking in pre-school.  We made apple and honey flapjacks where the children helped to chop the apples and then mix all of the ingredients together.

We talked about what other fruits we could use in a flapjack recipe, and why we may use honey instead of sugar.  This lead on to lots of discussion about what we know about how bees make honey.  Did you know that a honeybee has 2 stomachs? One is specifically used to carry the nectar.

We have talked about what we enjoy for a healthy meal or what we can pack for a healthy lunch at pre-school.

The children have been using this as inspiration in our mud kitchen area and serving us lots of leafy salads!!

Next week we will be looking at other ways we stay healthy, such as washing our hands and brushing our teeth.

A reminder that on Tuesday 23^rd we have our whole school sports day starting at 1pm.  The pre-school will take part in a couple of races at the start.

Also, there is a sign-up sheet for our parent consultation week in pre-school entrance.  Please sign up if you would like an informal chat about your child and how they are doing in pre-school.

If there is not a date suitable, please do come and see us to arrange an alternative.

Parents of children moving up to Reception in September should have received an information pack from school and an invitation to attend the parent's welcome meeting on Wednesday 17^th at 2.30pm.

The Pre-School Team.

Hello Everyone,

This week, we have been using our enquiry question, which is all about Cornwall, and why it is special, in different aspects of learning.

In art, we studied some paintings by John Dyer, who has painted some bright and vibrant images of Cornwall. We picked out our favourite images within these paintings, and recorded them in our art books.

Our RE lesson this week, was all about special and sacred places in Cornwall. We discussed places that are special to us and the reasons that they make them special. We then looked at different places in Cornwall such as beaches, Truro cathedral, and St Michael's Mount, and discussed why they might be special to different people.

In English we have continued to use texts by the local author Ellie Jackson. This week we used Nelson's Dangerous Dive as well as Duffy's Lucky Escape. We have been writing descriptions and speech bubbles to help us to understand the story from the perspective of the animals in each story.

We hope you enjoy the sunshine this weekend.

From The Penhallow Team

Another busy week has flown by, including a fascinating UK Parliament outreach visit where Years 4, 5 and 6 learned more about the workings of the UK Parliament. Across the school, children have been enthusiastically rehearsing for next week's festival. It has been a real pleasure to hear the sound of singing and music filling the school and to catch snippets of their performances as I have moved around the school.

Polperro Festival School's Day is next Tuesday 16th June from 11am-2:45pm. Please send your child in with a packed lunch, drink, filled water bottle, sun hat and sun cream, and a raincoat because who knows what the weather will be doing! Please note that the timings below are approximate.
11.00 - 11:15 - Welcome and singing (whole school)
11.15 - 11:40 - African Drumming/Ukulele (children from Y4, Y5, Y6)
11.40 - 11:50 - Choir 11:50 - 12.00 - Young musicians/performers
12.00 - 13:00 - Lunch (12.30 - 13.00 Magician Performance for the children)
13:00 - 13:15 - Solo Singers
13.15 - 13.30 - Penhallow Class performance
13.30 - 13.45 - Landaviddy Class performance
13.45 - 14.05 - Talland Class performance
14.05 - 14.25 - Chaipel Class performance
14.25 - 14.45 - Singing finale

Children may be collected from their teacher following the final singing session. Children not collected from Big Green will walk up to Polperro School in time for 3.15 pick-up.

Wear Yellow Day Thank you so much for sending your children in today wearing yellow to help raise awareness and support the work of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. We raised a total of £125 which will go towards supporting the charity's vital work.

Bridge School Games Week The children will all be competing in the 5th annual Bridge Schools Games next week so please ensure that their PE kit is in as they will be taking part in different World Cup Football-themed challenges across the week. Polperro were the champions in 2022 and runners up in 2024 so are looking forward to competing again this year against the other 14 schools in the academy trust.

We look forward to seeing you at the festival next week.

Mrs Hillman

Summer 

As always, summer term is full of exciting outdoor based activities, however some of these have needed some clever thinking to be completed. In Design Technology, we have learning about nutrition and how to cook spaghetti Bolognaise and we were going to cook this using the forest school area and the campfire however,  the weather had different ideas. So an outdoor kitchen was erected under the awning outside Tolbenny class and cooking got under way. The children used their learning from previous lessons to create their own Bolognaise sauce which they put in glass jars complete with labels and nutritional information attached.

Sailing lessons are underway and this week we were joined by the Saga cruise ship in the river. This soon became a magnet for the Fusions as the children battled the wind and outgoing tide to follow the waypoints. We managed with only boat capsizing and as always, the children showed resilience and confidence to get back on the boat and carry on with the lesson.

Next week is the Bridge School Games and our Sports Day so lots of active days to look forward to.

Have a lovely weekend.
MrT and MrsW

TALLAND'S CLASS BLOG

We're hoping everyone has had a brilliant week and you're all set for the World Cup! We've had a bit of a West End week this week - the children have been fully immersed with rehearsals and singing practice.

Here's a snapshot of what we've been learning:

Maths:
Year 5 have continued their unit on decimals and fractions. This week they have been focusing on 'thousandths' - how you would convert from fractions to decimals and vice versa and writing numbers which represent tenths, hundredths and thousandths on a place value grid.

Year 4 have been fantastic this week. They have all completed their times table check assessments and they all did really well - well done to all of them!

English:
We have continued to rehearse in preparation for the Polperro Festival. We even did a dress rehearsal for Landaviddy which went great!

Art:
We have been very lucky to have Sean, the artist in this week. Talland have begun creating their new masterpiece...

CELEBRATIONS:
Congratulations Isabelle, Nevaeh and Max for earning their next badge in our 99 club challenge! A great effort from Harley and Reuben this week - I've thoroughly enjoyed their enthusiasm for the acting and singing during our rehearsals.

We will be heading into a crazy week next week - Polperro Festival (thank you so much for all the wonderful costumes and props) and the Bridge School Games begin - showbiz and sport incoming...

That's all from Talland Class this week. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing everyone next week.

Signing off, Mr. Langley and Mr. Bishop.

Friday 12th June

Some of this week's learning

The children have been continuing to explore The Rainbow Fish. To support our understanding of the book we have mixed colours and used pipettes to make a Rainbow Fish, we have used different mediums to paint and decorate fish also. The children's creativity has been amazing to see, and some lovely artwork has been produced.

In maths this week we have been decomposing shapes, and we used shapes to make different shapes. For instance, we cut a large rectangle diagonally and then rotated it to make a large triangle!! Mrs Lyden was set the challenge to see if she could do it! She needed the children's help!

We have completed lots of other activities too!

The Foundation Team 

We have had a very arty month this month!
We completed our learning about the designer Orla Kiely by creating our own Orla Kiely inspired prints. We also learned how we can bend, spiral and cut paper to create 3D art. We displayed our 3D tree sculptures in the school art exhibition. The art exhibition was a great success and we enjoyed looking at the work displayed by the other classes.
We've made the most of the beautiful sunny weather that we have been having and have been out in the woods pond dipping and also hunting for minibeasts. We were lucky enough to have fine weather for our class trip to Burrator Reservoir too. We learnt lots about the history, geography and flora and fauna of the area. 
We celebrated David Attenborough's 100th birthday with a special guest appearance from a tortoise. It was so lovely to see such an interesting animal up close. We also created birthday cards for David and thought carefully about the messages we wrote within them.
In maths we have been learning about volume and capacity and have been practising counting in steps of 2, 5 and 10.

Another week has flown by and we are in full rehearsal for our performance at the Festival on Tuesday. Everyone is giving their absolute best and it is going to be a great day! 

Our enquiry into Crime and Punishment is in full swing and we have looked at life in both Roman and Anglo Saxon times. We all agree that life was pretty gory back then and are glad that 'Trial by Ordeal' is something that belongs in the past.

In DT, we are designing and creating prototypes for a new school playground. We have designed our equipment, got into groups to share our ideas and create floor plans and then have taken notes on the equipment that we will need in order to bring our designs to life. Watch this space as our projects develop...

On Wednesday, our school was lucky enough to have been visited by a local politician (Tom) who talked to us about what politicians do and what the House of Lords and Commons are about. We were asked to put in a bill to be discussed and a unanimous vote for 'NO SCHOOL FRIDAYS' was put forward! 

It was WEAR YELLOW FOR CYSTIC FYBROSIS day on Friday and we all showed our support, wearing yellow and learning about the condition. 

Congratulations to our Person of the Week, Thomas, for demonstrating our school values and being a role model to their peers.

I have attached the Home Work Grid and Knowledge Web for our learning this half term.

That's all from us so enjoy the weekend and see you on Monday.

Miss Randle and Mrs Clary.

It has been a very busy start to the half term! This is the first newsletter after half term and what a start we've had! The weather has not played ball for some of our activities meaning that last week we didn't make it to the building site. We have rescheduled this for the 29th June and the crew on the site are already planning lots of activities. This week saw Class 2 spend the day at Trelowen Flowers - a local organic flower farm in Rilla Mill. They had a great time, looking after chickens, planting seeds, making flower bombs and so much more! Thank-you to Wayne and Tamsin for their hospitality. We will definitely be back to see how their farm grows. Yesterday was the annual beach day. Although we didn't go near the sea, the rain made sure it looked like we had. Despite the weather, we had a great time, building sandcastles, making art and beach-combing. Next week is also really busy: Swimming sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for Years 4 and 6, the Bridge School Games for all children and on Tuesday, a visit from a professional photographer. He is visiting all schools in the trust to capture what it means to be part of Darite. There will also be a whole school photo so can all children make sure they are wearing correct school uniform. There is so much that we do at Darite, I can't wait to show it to people. Finally, I would like to say how proud we all are of the children at Darite. Sometimes we do have to do assessments with them and this week Year 1 and some Year 2 sat the phonics screening check. Year 4 did the multiplication check and I had the privilege to show the Year 6 writing to an external moderator. He was very impressed with the writing and we are proud of all the children.

With Spring beginning, a lot of our learning this month has been centered around plants. We have searched for wild flowers in our school environment and we have learnt about how plants grow. We have planted and cared for seeds.
In Geography we have been thinking about the difference between human and physical features. We have spotted both in our local area.
For PE we have been enjoying athletics out on the school field.
We have had lots of lovely practical maths sessions recently as we have been learning to measure length and weight.
In RE we have been learning about a sense of belonging. We brought uniforms and other items in to show the teams and clubs we belong to outside of school.

What an exciting month March has been!
Right at the start of the month we marked World Book Day. It was great fun to dress up as characters from our favourite books and our costumes sparked lots of conversations about what we like to read. 
Over the month we have observed and looked after some tadpole, finally releasing them into the school pond where they can thrive in a lovely environment.
In science we have been exploring our senses. We have used out sense of smell to guess the contents of some mystery pots. We have used out sense of taste to describe the flavours of foods. We have used our sense of touch to create textured Easter egg 'feely' pictures.
This month we concluded out learning about what the weather is like in the UK by observing and recording the weather for five days. We used a thermometer, rain gauge and weather vane to give us data.
We have been learning to weave. We used our weaving skills to make woven Easter baskets. This required lots of focus and the results are just lovely. Now we are waiting for the Easter bunny to come and fill them!

The last fortnight has been exciting but very busy at Harrowbarrow, so there is lots of news to share:

Class 3 Visit Carnglaze Caverns
As part of their summer science, Class 3 children visited Carnglaze Caverns to learn about underground slate mining in Cornwall. At the same time, they learnt about one of the myths around a type of fairy, know as a Cornish Knocker. These mythical beings would make a knocking sound, warning miners they were at risk of imminent danger.



Class 4 Victorian Day
Class 4 are learning about the Victorians. To deepen their understanding, they welcomed Adrian Chapman from Blast from the Past. Adrian taught them all about Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel and brought the learning to life with his role play and range of interesting artefacts. 



Class 3 STEM Workshop
On Wednesday, Andy from Cognition Creative Learning ran a Lego robotics workshop in Class 3. The children had to design and make a moving Lego device that could be programmed using coding software. We had cranes, drills and even an open and closing coffin!



Design Technology
Class 4 are currently designing a multifunction navigation device. This week, they coded their own programme, which enabled a Micro:Bit device to point to the cardinal compass points and also operate as a pedometer at the same time. The buzz of excitement when the children successfully completed the task was brilliant to see.

In their design technology lessons, Class 3 are designing and making their own torches. Last week, they created a circuit to light a bulb, manufacturing their own switch to turn the light on and off.


Parent Parking
Finally, a polite request to help keep pedestrians safe. Please note, the yellow markings at the front of the school are not for parking or stopping on. Access to the school drive should also be kept clear at all times. Thank you for your understanding.

Residentials, Cricket Workshops, Kids Day Out and wonderful learning opportunities have filled this week at Brunel. Please enjoy browsing through this week's edition of the Brunel Bulletin.