Friday 20th March

Some of this weeks learning:

In Enlgish this week the children have been ordering instructions on how to make a jam sandwich. They then went in groups to the local bakery and shops to buy ingredients.  The children also practiced their clear and precise oracy skills to give 'a robot' ( Mrs Phillips has a robot button you know!). At first the children were not very clear and the robot got very confused and emptied the bread all over the table. Then when the children said - spread the butter, the robot scooped butter with their hand and spread it on the bread eewwww! However, with a little bit of practicing and prompting the children gave brilliant instructions to allow the robot to finish a yummy sandwich. The children then gave each other instructions to make sandwiches and then we ATE THEM!

In maths the children have been exploring the number ten and making ten with three parts! The children then explored doubles to ten in detail! Wow they are all progressing so well.  

The children have been helping Mrs Phillips make the outside area look soooooo much better. We have swept, scooped, cleaned and built! Our new activity picnic table is amazing, and the mud kitchen will be in its new home soon. The track area looks great and Mrs Waring has kindly brought us more stones as we ran out! It is beginning to look so much better. We cannot wait for our new sandpit and surrounding fences!

Enjoy the sun this weekend

The Foundation Team 

Year Group Newsletters
To see what learning has been happening in classes, and what's coming up over the next fortnight, please take a look at the Year Group Newsletters emailed home today. Copies can also be found on the class pages of our website.

Year 3 Assembly
On Thursday, Year 3 presented their amazing assembly about the Romans and Celts. They shared their learning from a range of activities linked to the wider curriculum, including: Roman numerals; historical costume art; mosaic making, cooking pizzas and not forgetting those catchy songs! One of the highlights was the video showcasing their re-enactment of the Roman invasion of Britain.

This feedback received, sums it up brilliantly: "I just wanted to say a huge thank you for all of the effort you and the Year 3 team put into the Romans topic. My child has really enjoyed it and was raving about the WOW day. It was a real joy to watch the children singing and presenting this morning, and the footage of the WOW day was brilliant and made us all laugh."

Thank you for coming to share in this experience, as well as getting involved with the enjoyable (and just slightly competitive) quiz at the end. Well done Year 3!

Year 2 Stay and Learn
It was so wonderful to see everyone at the Year 2 Stay and Learn this morning; a huge thank you to everyone who was able to attend. The children had a wonderful time sharing snapshots of their learning with you all. During the session, children were able to showcase some of their learning in Maths (coin recognition, choosing and using their correct coins); English (using conjunctions within a sentence and formulating expanded noun phrases); Science (habitats and materials) and Geography (naming continents and oceans together with recognising human and physical features). We are so proud of the hard work the children have put in so far and this was an excellent way to celebrate with you. Thank you once again for attending and for your continued support.

Parent/Carer Engagement Survey
Thank you for responding to our survey. We will be busy looking at all the responses and sharing the outcomes and next steps with you as soon as possible. Nicky Hepworth, who leads on the Parent/Carer Engagement Framework for Cornwall Council, was in school today to meet with me to discuss this important area of our development plan, as well as experiencing the Year 2 Stay and Learn.

Year 4 Stay and Learn - Friday 27th March
We look forward to seeing family members of Year 4 at their Stay and Learn next Friday 27th March. Doors open after morning drop off for refreshments, with a start time of 09:00. To help the morning drop-off routine, any Year 4 families driving are asked to try parking in the staff car park first (double parking is fine).

Lockdown Practice
This morning we held our annual lockdown practice. Everyone responded really sensibly and calmly. Before this took place, the class teachers let the children know about the practice and what they had to do in an age-appropriate way. What wasn't expected was the fire alarm being accidentally set off straight afterwards - once again the children and staff responded so well. A school lockdown is a safety procedure implemented on the very rare occasions where it is necessary to seal off the school so that it cannot be entered from the outside. This ensures that pupils, staff and visitors are safe in situations where there is a hazard in the school grounds or outside the school in the near vicinity.

Wadebridge Town FC Boot Bank
Wadebridge Football Club have set up a Boot Bank. The purpose of this is twofold, to prevent boots going to waste when they can still be used, and to enable children to have access to boots if they are unable to afford to buy a pair. You may have spotted a collection point just outside our main entrance for any donations.
On behalf of Wadebridge Town FC

House Points
Congratulations to this week's winners, Swans. Overall, Choughs are in the lead:
Choughs - 8984
Puffins - 8195
Swans - 7996
Cormorants - 7056

Cornwall Council - Support for Parents/Carers
Cornwall Council has a variety of help and support on offer for both first-time and experienced parents and carers to celebrate parenting, learn new skills and develop confidence. Their parenting support offer focuses on child development, building positive relationships with children and creating opportunities to join parenting communities, have fun and access peer support from other families. If you are interested, do take a look at their website which offers many free workshops.

Wishing you a wonderful (and sunny) weekend.
Best wishes,
Chris Wathern

A trip to the Eden Project! 

We had the best day visiting the Eden Project.

When we got there we were given an introduction and learnt a little bit more about Eden and the journey it has been on. We then went and explored the biomes. We have been learning all about the rainforest in Science and hot climates in Geography so we were amazed by the rainforest biome. We saw cocoa beans, palm trees, waterfalls and much more. We were using our curiosity to ask lots of questions and we talked about the impact of deforestation and why it is so important to look after these environments.

We then had a workshop all about seeds! We learnt about what a seed needs to grow, dissected a seed and found the baby root, and held the biggest seed ever! We then got to plant our own seeds to watch them grow at home. We were then given a certificate to say we had graduated as Eden seed experts! We were all very proud of ourselves.

I have to praise the children's behaviour and attitude at the Eden Project. They were real role models for Looe Primary and we were so proud! Well done Year 1 and 2!

Miss Bolger

This was our last week of exploring different stories and answering our enquiry question "What is your favourite book and why?"
This week we have been reading the story of  "The Gruffalo".
The children have enjoyed a themed tuft tray where they have used different natural resources to make Gruffalo crumble!
They have also created their own Gruffalo fork painting pictures.

At story time we have enjoyed reading "Wonky Donkey", "More Ketchup Please" and the rhyming book "Each Peach Pear Plum".

In phonics this week we have been playing with alliteration and exploring tongue twisters. The children have listening and talking about sounds they might hear at the beach and we have been matching initial sounds e.g. sea and sun.

In maths we have been constructing with shapes and seeing what we could make with them.
We have continued to find objects that represent nubers including those that are larger.

Today (Friday) we have dressed up in red and had crazy hair in aid of Comic Relief. The children all looked amazing and they enjoyed decorating red nose biscuits to take home. Great job!

We hope the sun is here to stay and that you can all enjoy a warm/dry weekend.

Julie and Sarah

It is wonderful to see the sun finally start to shine over Cornwall. The children have been enjoying the sunshine and moods have definitely been cheerful! It has been another great week with children learning lots of new skills. On Monday we joined together as a Trust in music and song to celebrate our love of the world and protecting our planet on a local and global level. Each school brought their own song to sing in front of other schools at St Martin's church in Liskeard. The children had the opportunity to sing with Luke Wallace - a world-renowned musician who came to join us all the way from Canada! The children were a credit to themselves, and it was a great event. The school was a sea of red today as we joined in with Comic Relief. This very worthy cause helps people all over the world, including in our own community. Thank-you to your generous donations, Darite added £26.78 to this year's grand total! As we (hopefully) get more sunny and warm weather, can I take this chance to remind all children to come to school with a refillable water bottle, sun hat and sunscreen. If the children can arrive at school with protection on, they can then re-apply the sun cream when needed. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to welcome Miss Bantock to Darite school. She will be working in KS2 to support learning as our newest teaching assistant. She is really excited to join the school, and I am sure the children will make her feel really welcome.

What a busy week it has been at Brunel Primary and Nursery Academy. Please enjoy catching up with all the latest news and events in this week's edition of The Brunel Bulletin. Have a wonderful weekend and we can't wait to see you all on Monday for another incredible week at our school. 

Outside learning

This week in Tregantle Class, we have made the most of the wonderful weather by taking our learning outside into our fantastic school grounds. From exciting obstacle courses to splashing fun with water play, it has been a joy to learn in the sunshine!

Our learning about life cycles has truly come to life this week. The children have been fascinated to see our tadpoles growing their tiny little legs, and there has been great excitement as our caterpillars have started forming their cocoons. It has sparked so many wonderful conversations and curiosity in the classroom.

We have also been enjoying our class story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which has supported our learning beautifully. The children have impressed us with their ability to re-tell the story and confidently order the life cycle stages using our toys, naming each stage correctly.

What fantastic learners we have in Tregantle Class!

Tree Planting
To celebrate the opening of the Community Pantry, our Year 6 pupils helped plant a special apple tree next to the new shop. Hopefully, we can all look forward to scrumping a few apples in the years ahead!




Litter Warriors
A group of children from across the school have volunteered to be our first Litter Warriors. The Litter Warriors will use their litter pickers to tidy up of our school site every Friday. The school council came up with this suggestion when asked to think about ways our school could be improved. They also suggested we improve our recycling, so Class 4 children made some signs to ensure children use the correct bins for their rubbish.



Community Litter Pick
Following on from our own litter pickers, we have been asked to share details of a community litter pick:

Callington Lions Club are spearheading a series of community litter picks as part of Lions Environment Week (18-26 April), celebrating World Earth Day on 22 April.

All relevant insurance, risk assessments, and volunteers are in place, and members of the local community are warmly invited to join them on Sunday 19th April at 11am to litter pick at Harrowbarrow Village Hall and the surrounding green areas. They would love to see as many people as possible helping to keep our local environment clean and cared for. 

On  Monday 16th March we joined together as a Trust in music and song to celebrate our passion for the county we live in and protecting our land on a local and global level. Each school brought their own unique style and personality to the showcase. St Cleer were very lucky to be supported by Sally Butlin who helped us carve out a rap to express our thoughts about this global issue. We loved spending time with Nick Hart who was a headteacher at St Cleer for many years as well as Luke Wallace - a world renowned musician who came to join us al the way from Canada! It really was an event to treasure. Thank you so much to the Trust and wider community for enabling this enriching experience to take place. 

This week we congratulate our First Lego League competitors from Year 6. On  Wednesday, the team of Talan, Jayden, Josh V, Cadan, Josh M, Belle, Arabella, Jack, Eli and Rioch joined hundreds of children from schools across Cornwall for a day of Lego robotics competition at RNAS Culdrose. There were many ways in which teams could excel and be recognised for their achievements. Although the team were unable to secure the most points and progress to the national finals, they received the judges award for engineering excellence for their robot design (below). We are very proud of the team for their efforts and the work they have done over the last two terms in preparation for this event. As well as building the robot to complete different missions, the group had to come up with a presentation which they delivered to judges on the day. They also built a model drone in support of their presentation. Thank you to volunteer Karen Brinson for her work supporting Sam Watts and the team over the last few months.




Year 3/4 football match

Only one competitive match this week, which saw the team lose narrowly to South Petherwin. They will have one more opportunity to secure a win on Tuesday as the competition draws to a close. Whatever the outcome, we are proud of their efforts and know they will have learnt lots of lessons from being involved in competitive sport. 

Cross-country round-up
The league season came to a close with the final race at Lanhydrock. Abi Flashman thinks that almost every runner finished with a personal best in this race, which is brilliant. A special mention goes to Jacob Bloye, which secured enough points to be invited to the county finals. Thank you to all the parents who supported their children with races, whatever the weather!

End of term
As we enter the last few weeks of term, a reminder that our last day is Thursday 2nd April and pupils will need collecting at 1.30pm on this day.

This week in pre-school we have been discovering rock pools and all the wonderful sea life we may discover in them!

Our rockpool tuff tray set up was hugely popular with the children and gave them a good immersive experience of how the animals may hide under rocks or seaweed. The children were able to understand that if we were to go rock pooling on a beach, we must be very careful whilst exploring, and that it is important to not disturb the creatures in their homes.

We took our playdoh play to another level with lots of shells, google eyes, pipe cleaners, gemstones and sea creature shapes to expand our experimenting to make our own sea creatures.

The children have all shown tremendous teamwork to help us tidy up our playground area with lots of sweeping and scrubbing with bubbly water. We were then able to enjoy some ocean themed water play and practice our scooping and pouring skills with the water play area.

We even gave our box of shells a good clean using scrubbing brushes.

During our phonics this week we have also been discovering Jungle Animals - our activities including recognising and naming the animal sounds, using instruments to move like the animals, and listening to the first letter sounds.

Lastly, the children were busy creating a special card for Mother's Day and we hope that all our lovely pre-school mums have a special day on Sunday.

The Pre-School Team.

We are incredibly proud of the many leadership roles our children take on across the school. These opportunities help our pupils develop confidence, responsibility and a strong sense of community.

Today we are celebrating our wonderful Brunel Buddies, who support our Reception and KS1 children at lunchtime. They help younger pupils play together, solve small problems and make sure everyone feels included and happy during their break times. All of our Brunel Buddies had to advertise for their positions, sharing why they would be great for the role and how they would support others. Thus week, they were officially recognised and awarded their Brunel Buddy hats - a proud moment for them all. We are so proud of the kindness, leadership and responsibility they show in helping the younger children in our school community. Well done, Brunel Buddies.

We are incredibly proud of our School Council. They visited Wesley Methodist Church to deliver their Winter Warmer Bags for members of the homeless community. The bags were thoughtfully prepared to provide warmth, comfort and a reminder that people care. It was wonderful to see our pupils showing such kindness, empathy and commitment to supporting others in the local community. Well done, School Council - you are fantastic ambassadors for our school.

Hello Everyone,

This week in Penhallow, we have been enjoying a little bit of sunshine outside. 

We have been busy singing Spring songs and going on a walk outside, on a scavenger hunt, looking for signs of Spring.

We have been continuing with our Katie Morag and the Isle of Coll unit in English, where we have been writing character descriptions and descriptions of settings. 

In Geography, we have been comparing the Isle of Coll, with K'gari, an Island off the Eastern coast of Australia. We used the internet to find photographs, maps and videos of wildlife, as well as geographical features.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

From The Penhallow Team

This week we have been gathering all the information we know about Edinburgh in order to write a non-chronological report. The children enjoyed sharing facts they have learned and talking about some of the famous landmarks, history and interesting features of the city. They have been working hard to organise their ideas and think about how information can be grouped together in a report.

In maths we have been exploring the ideas of equal and unequal groups. The children used practical resources and pictures to help them understand how groups can be the same or different. We also began looking at odd and even numbers, practising recognising them and sorting numbers into the correct groups.

In RE we thought about the disciples' emotions during the Easter story. The children discussed how different people might have felt at different points in the story and talked about why those feelings might have changed. We also worked together to put the events of the Easter story into the correct order.

In Geography we have been learning about human and physical features. The children talked about the differences between things that are made by people, such as buildings and roads, and things that occur naturally in the environment like hills, rivers and forests. They enjoyed spotting examples and discussing which category they belonged to.

We also spent some time making some lovely Mother's Day cards. The children put a lot of care and effort into their work and were very excited to create something special to take home. During circle time we shared some of our favourite things and listened carefully to each other's ideas.

In PSHE we talked about medicines and how to keep ourselves safe. The children learned about the importance of only taking medicine when it is given by a trusted adult and discussed ways to stay safe and healthy.

In PE we took part in ball skills activities. The children practised throwing, catching and controlling the ball while working on coordination and teamwork.

Everyone has also been practising singing Easter songs with Mrs Butlin, and the children have really enjoyed learning the words and actions. In addition, we have been learning to sing the days of the week in Spanish, which the children have found great fun.

Reception's Reading and Drawing Club has been amazing this week. The children have been very engaged with the stories and have produced some fantastic drawings inspired by what they have read.

We topped off a very busy and productive week by enjoying some sunshine during Forest School, where the children had the chance to explore, play and learn outdoors together.

This week in Year 3 has been full of fantastic learning and great enthusiasm!

In English, the children absolutely blew us away with their brilliant vocabulary choices while using onomatopoeia to create tension in exciting scenes from Traction Man. Their writing was full of wonderful sound words that really brought the action to life. Each piece was a delight to read and we were so impressed with the creativity and effort shown by everyone.

In Maths, we have been enhancing our multiplication skills to help us when multiplying and dividing a single-digit number by a two-digit number. The class has worked very hard and we are seeing some great progress, particularly with their growing confidence in their times table knowledge.

During PE, we have been enjoying cricket. The children have been practising their bowling, fielding and batting skills, and it has been lovely that the weather has been kind enough for us to play outside. There has been some excellent teamwork and great effort from everyone.

On Friday, we were lucky enough to have a special assembly with a visit from the RNLI lifeguards. The session was interactive and very interesting. The children impressed our visitors by showcasing their sea safety knowledge and asking some fantastic, thoughtful questions.

We all hope you have a restful and wonderful weekend.

Mrs Lister, Miss Bolton and Miss Colton

We have had a busy week in Chaipel. Our WW2 balanced argument is now complete and we have assessed our writing and all agree that we are extremely pleased with what we have produced. Next week, we will be learning about the life and times of Anne Frank, building up to writing a diary entry - from her perspective - on the day her family went into hiding.

In Maths, we have worked together to complete a SATS arithmetic paper and are very pleased with our results. We will continue to do this up to the SATS week to best prepare us. In other areas of maths, we have been investigating algebra (expression/formula/substitution) and the properties of a circle.

In our wider curriculum, we have looked into the Home Front and what the civilians did for the war effort, designed a steady hand game for DT and learnt about the difference between orthodox and progressive Jews in RE.

On Friday, we had the RNLI in to explain how to stay safe at the beach. I was overwhelmed at how much Chaipel knew and feel confident that they are beach-ready for the summer season!

That's all from me, so have a lovely weekend and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

Miss Randle and Mrs Clary