Weekly News 22nd Nov 24

Well, what an interesting week it’s been! I am always slightly sceptical when the children tell me that it’s going to snow but they were certainly right this week! I hope that everyone managed to enjoy the snow if possible and that you all stayed safe. Thank-you for your understanding on Thursday. As you know, staff work at Darite from all over the county and making a decision to open or close is very tricky. We know how much parents and carers rely on schools to support their work and that we never close the school unless it is absolutely necessary. In this case, safety of the staff, pupils and parents is paramount which is why the decision was taken to close. Again, thank-you for your understanding in this matter.


In addition to the fun of the snow, Class 2 had a visit from Will from Biffa. This workshop taught the children all about recycling and what happens to waste in Cornwall. They had an amazing time in the workshop and all went away with a real sense of the importance of recycling. This workshop all came about because of one of our Year 3 pupils wrote to them asking to donate some litter pickers for school. I am delighted to say that they were successful and, when the ice melts, the school council will be using them a lot!

Year 6 Parents and Carers: 

Please come along and join us for an afternoon with a bit of crafting and a bit of quizzing to celebrate the festive season with the Year 6 class.

Autumn 2

Snow Day

Last week beautiful Blisland was blasted with a blizzard. The children made the most of the snow with snowmen, sledges and snow-ball fights. It is a rare day but such a special one I', sure children will remember for a long time.

Cross Country

We are up and running with cross country. The club is a very healthy size with 12 members. We have been running through the woods and been doing some hill training. Hopefully the mild weather will continue and we can get some longer runs in.

Christmas Play

Both Kensa a Nessa class have been bust learning their lines and learning the songs for our up coming Christmas play. Dates for the performances have been emailed out so make sure you check your siaries.

Parents Evenings

Kensa class have completed their parents evenings and Nessa are continuing this week. Thank you for taking the time to come in an discuss your child's progress. It is always a pleasure to share whet we have been doing at school and to receive positive feedback from home. 

Another week has flown by and we have been extremely creative in Chaipel Class. Phase One of the Polperro Christmas Switch-On lantern making is now complete. Landaviddy and Penhallow will be decorating them next week, ready for the light switch-on next weekend. We were also visited by a couple of FOPS members who helped us to make decorations for the chapel's Chirstmas display in the village. 

ENGLISH
We have been learning how to use cause and effect, subordinate clauses and rhetorical questions as main features for our explanation text writing, which we will begin on Monday.

MATHS
Y6s have been investigating the use of BODMAS to solve number sentences involving multiple operations whilst Y5s are revisiting equivalent fractions before moving on to ordering, comparing and simplifying. Y6s will also be moving onto Fractions next week.

HANDWRITING
Our lovely new pens have arrived and Chaipel wasted no time in testing them out - especially the fountain pens! Handwriting and presentation is so important so hopefully these new pens will inspire us to take even more pride in our work then we already do! 

WIDER CURRICULUM
In Science, we have been learning about the Digestive System and its role in providing the blood with the water and nutrients it needs within our Circulatory System. Our skills in Fitness and Basketball are improving greatly and we finally completed our symbolic artwork, which Miss Randle has combined together to make one awesome piece of artwork. Next week, we will be looking into Chiaroscuro - the art of contrasting between light and dark, creating the effect of 3D. 
 
SCHOOL TRIP
Tuesday is our school trip to Truro museum/cathedral. Remember to wear school uniform and bring a snack, water bottle and lunch!

Congratulations to our People of the Week - Lily and Ava - for demonstrating our Bridge School Values and being super role models.

Enjoy your weekend and see you all on Monday!

Miss Randle, Mrs Clary, Mrs Hodge and Miss Colton.

We all had a lovely day out at Newquay Zoo which was helped by the good weather. We saw lots of interesting animals and had a talk about the different animals you might find on a farm. The children especially enjoyed finding out about the goats and watching them trying to eat the guides bag and coat. The children also liked looking at different skulls and bones of different animals.  

 We have really enjoyed our book of the week ‘Farmyard Hullabaloo’ with its funny rhyming verses about lots of different animals found on a farm.  

Cross-Country Success Well done again to our intrepid cross-country running team who did the school proud, running a difficult course at Lanhydrock last Friday. They showed amazing team spirit, cheering each other on and in many cases beating their personal best times.

New - Yellow Head Bump Wristbands If your child comes home wearing a yellow wristband, this is to inform you that they have banged their head at school. It replaces the yellow head bump letter which we issued previously. You will also receive a record of what happened on a tear out form from our accident book.

Christmas Gift Room fundraiser Next Friday, 29th November We are holding a Christmas-themed Mufti day on Friday 29th November. In exchange for wearing Christmas MUFTI, we are asking that your child brings in any new or unused items such as chocolates, toiletries, socks, notebooks or items you’d be happy to receive as a gift. (No alcohol or DVD’s please). Then, on Monday 16th December, during school time, Santa’s workshop will be open for children to choose a special gift or two. Each gift will cost £2 (max 2 gifts per child). The elves will then help to wrap the gifts, which will be brought home at the end of the day to go under your tree.

Just to clarify, next Friday 29th November when pupils wear Christmas MUFTI in exchange for bringing in any items for the gift shop, this is full MUFTI. On 13th December, our Christmas Jumper Day for Save the Children, children should wear uniform with a Christmas jumper instead of their school jumper.

Polperro Christmas Lights and Lantern Procession On Saturday 30th November, the Christmas lights switch on, there will be a lantern procession. Willow lanterns, made by children from Polperro School, will be available for children to carry. Each lantern has been made by groups of the children working together and the materials for the lanterns have kindly been paid for by the Christmas Light Committee. If your child carries a lantern, please ensure that the cane is returned to school so that we can reuse them next year. The children (with parents) should congregate at the Chapel at 4.15pm to collect a lantern, ready to leave promptly at 4.30pm. Please note that although staff from school will be present at the procession, children will remain the responsibility of their parents at all times.

Polperro Christmas Tree Festival The Christmas Tree Festival in the Chapel will open at 9am on Saturday 30th November to coincide with the Christmas light switch on and it will be open during the evening that day as well. A huge thank you to Mrs Peters and Mrs Hood for making decorations with the children to hang on a tree which they are kindly providing on behalf of the school.

Christmas Wreath Making Workshop Please see attached a poster for a Christmas Wreath Making Workshop on Wednesday 11th December at 6:30pm in the Village Hall. This is kindly being hosted by Megan Fletcher on behalf of FOPS (Friends of Polperro School) with all profits going to School.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hillman

Another week has passed for Landaviddy class, and what a busy one it was!

During our Wider Curriculum lessons this week, we learnt about the chronology of Ancient Egypt by plotting key events on a timeline in History. We also explored what early life was like in Ancient Egypt, which we found fascinating! Can you recall the name of the river that runs through Egypt? Why might the Ancient Egyptians have used Egyptian jars, boats or ploughs for? In Computing, we looked at algorithms and discovered which commands we had to use to make our dinosaur move. PE this week focused on developing our ability to control a ball whilst dribbling with our feet, which was very challenging but lots of fun!

In Maths, Year 2 have been continuing to develop their addition and subtraction skills, exploring different methods we can use to add and subtract numbers. Year 3 finished off their addition and subtraction unit, and have started work on multiplication and division. So far, we have looked at making equal groups to multiply, which was helpful revision from last year.

In English, we have been busy planning our Egyptian versions of Little Red Riding Hood by adapting the setting and villains of our stories, with some children innovating further. We thought carefully about how we would describe our new setting and villain by producing a mind-map and labelled diagram. Next week, we will write our new stories and edit and improve our writing for our final neat copies. 

Congratulations to Lowen J, Rosie and Nevaeh for being Landaviddy's People of the Week. And a big well done for those who achieved their 99 club this week! 

Reminder: We have our trip to The Royal Cornwall Museum and Truro Cathedral on Tuesday 26th November. If you haven't done so already, please ensure you bring your permission slip back for the cathedral by Monday 25th November. 

We hope you have a restful weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday!

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Bowden and Miss Colton

Hello Everyone!

It’s been a very busy week in Penhallow.

We have been sequencing the story of Cinderella, labelling pictures and writing character descriptions of the ugly sisters. Year 1 are becoming experts in using interesting adjectives in their writing, while Reception are becoming much more confident at using their phonics to write their own words. Well done everyone!

In Year 1 maths, we have enjoyed plenty of practical work this week, which has helped us to reinforce our knowledge of our termly target: To recall number bonds to 10. We have used blocks, games, counters, bead strings, iPads. You name it, we have used it, to increase our fluency in adding these numbers. 

In computing, we have used our knowledge of Andy Warhol’s style of art, to create a set of repeated images using different paint programs on iPads. The children were extremely pleased with their results, which were vibrant, colourful and creative.

Thank you so much to all those who have brought in their themed show and tell this week. The children were excellent at listening to each other and asking questions.
Next week, please can the children bring in a gadget/mystery object from the past. If it’s not possible to bring in the actual object, a photograph will be fine. It would be great if the children could use their thinking skills to try to work out what the objects are. Show and tell is on Friday afternoons. 

Please keep practicing your reading at home everyone. When you have read your reading book 3 times, you can choose your next book. Every week, you can also choose a new library book when your previous book is returned. You also have your paper Twinkl phonics book to read at home which will help you with the phonics that you learn each week. We are all so proud of how much your reading is improving. Keep up the good work!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

From The Penhallow Team. 

TALLAND'S CLASS BLOG 22.11.24

We hope everyone has had a lovely week this week - Talland certainly have!

Maths:
Both year groups have come to the end of their first unit of Multiplication and Division and are starting the next unit of Multiplication and Division next week.

English: 
Talland class have put their handwriting to good use and have written up their top copies of their adventure stories... they're looking and sounding GREAT!

History:
We have looked at time lines and artefacts from Ancient Greece. We've spoken about BCE (Before Christ Era) and CE (Current Era). We then thought about what would archeologists find first on a dig: an item from the the BCE or the CE?

Art:
Talland used a range of mark making tools (different leads of pencil, oil pastels and charcoal) to draw, colour and shade a still life image. They look fantastic!

Well done to Everly for being noticed for being an amazing member of Talland class this week. Also, congratulations to Everly (again), Callum and Skye for passing their next stage of the 99 club.

That's all from Talland this week. We hope you have a brilliant weekend and can't wait to see you on Monday.

Signing off,

Mr. Langley, Mr. Bishop and Miss. Colton.

Friday 22nd November

Some of this week’s exploring and learning:

The children have had great fun exploring instructions on how to toast a marshmallow this week. They have been exploring using fab vocabulary to start the sentence such as, get/let/hold/check. The most exciting part of our instructions is that today we got to toast marshmallows with Mr. Liddement! It was an amazing experience at school! The children were using words such as magnificent, delicious, crackling and wonderful!

The children have been subitising this week (saying an amount without counting) to three and some even beyond to five! The children really are working so hard!

In phonics this week we have revisited and reviewed writing the letters g/o/c/and k/. Alongside oral blending practice, their reading is progressing amazingly!

In outdoor learning with Mrs Gregory the children made tree sprites, and they were superb! They also had the chance to learn how to fly a kite just like Kit and Sam in phonics!!

The children have also learnt how to draw a robot toy, made their favourite toys from plasticine, designed some amazing toys using their imagination and so much more!

We wish you all a wonderful and restful weekend

The Foundation Team 

Year Group News
Every fortnight, attached to my email you will receive Year Group Newsletters for Reception to Year 6. These give you a brief overview of what the year group have been learning, what’s coming up and any important year group notices. These will also be uploaded to the year group webpage. 

As mentioned before, your first point of contact regarding your child, is the class teacher. If emailing teachers, please note they will respond to you when they can, as they are in class teaching most of the time. Please also note, some of our teachers are part time. Should you need to contact the class teacher urgently or give a message, e.g. your child isn’t going to an after school ECA, please contact the school office as normal and they will pass on the message. Thank you for your cooperation.

Grandparents’ Stay and Learn
It’s hard to sum up the wonderful atmosphere created on Tuesday. We had over 130 special visitors come into school and share memories of the past with the children and with each other over a cup of tea in the Hall – beautifully decorated as ‘The Forgettory’. A special thank you to our School Choir, the House Captains, Miss Folland and everyone behind the scenes for making this such a successful morning. We will be creating a display in our Hall to remember the event. We are also considering ways we can host other events for the children’s grandparents/ older relatives in the future. We welcome any feedback from anyone who attended and/or show an interest in helping/volunteering at our school. Please email Mrs Orme: eorme@wadebridgeprimary.co.uk, thank you.

Year 6 Assembly
What an amazing first year group assembly. Huge congratulations to the Year 6 children and team of staff. The audience were treated to an immersive experience whilst joining the street party. From acting to singing to trumpet playing – well done Year 6!

A typical comment from the review cards on the table included: “It was just perfect. I felt like I was back celebrating at a street party when I was younger. Loved the singalong! Well done Year 6 – smashed it!”

Reception 2025 Stay and Play
Yesterday, we welcomed September 2025 families to our Reception Stay and Play session. It was wonderful to see so many new families as well as familiar faces come for a play session and a look around our Early Years environment. The children enjoyed the art and craft activities, as well as being able to access all of the resources and outdoor learning areas. We will be holding our final 'Stay and Play' session on Thursday 28th November between 10:00-11:00. We can't wait to see you there.

Road Safety Week
To mark Road Safety Week, we began with a special assembly on Monday. You may have also spotted a black Peugeot driving around the car park at 10mph too – it’s a lot slower than we might all think, and drive! A couple of our Year 6 children have also supported us to make a short film, with some reminders about the use of our school site, car park and drop off arrangements. Please find a moment next week to watch this video – a link will be emailed out early next week.

Year 3 Stay and Learn
Year 3 are looking forward to welcoming their parents to the first year group’s Stay and Learn next Friday 29th November between 08:45-09:45. Get ready to join your children for a maths investigation in the Hall. All Year 3 parents/other relatives welcome!

House Points
Congratulations to this week’s winners, Swans. Overall, Swans still maintain the lead, though other Houses are narrowing the gap:

Swans – 2961
Choughs – 2724
Cormorants – 2489
Puffins – 2262

Coffee Morning - Children’s Mental Health & Wellbeing
It was wonderful to see so many parents at this morning’s coffee morning. As well as being on hand to listen and speak with parents, Mrs May and Mr Smith were able to show parents the dedicated spaces we use to support our children. If you couldn’t make it and want to get in touch with Mrs May or Mr Smith, please contact them on mmay@wadebridgeprimary.co.uk or jsmith@bridgeschools.co.uk or catch them in the mornings when they are around.

Our final coffee morning of the term will take place on Friday 13th December after drop off (outdoors!) in the Reception playground. Wrap up warm for some al fresco refreshments and Christmas tunes!

Compost Donation
A big thank you to Arthur’s parents (in Year 2) and Mrs O’Dwyer for transporting the generous donation of compost from the Green Waste company to our school site.

Winter Fayre – Friday 6th December 15:00-16:30
We look forward to welcoming everyone to our Winter Fayre on Friday 6th December. There will be a mix of stalls, games and refreshments on offer to both enjoy and raise money for the school. With FOWPA’s support, our main fundraising efforts this year are going towards improving the Key Stage 2 wet area/learning zones between classrooms, as well as additions to our outdoor learning and play environment. Further details about the Fayre and arrangements for all the other festive activities will be coming home next week. All the dates are below again for information.

FOWPA Christmas Jumper Sale
FOWPA is holding a pre-loved Christmas jumper sale on Thursday 28th November after school - all jumpers £1. Please donate any unneeded clean Christmas jumpers in the box in the main reception. Alongside festive wear will be our regular second hand uniform.

WPA Christmas Fun Run 2024!
The elf is returning to WPA once again and hopefully with some snow! On Wednesday 11th December all year groups will take part in our Christmas Fun Run in aid of a charity close to our hearts. For the last few years we have helped Children’s Hospice South West raise much needed funds to provide children and their families vital support. We are once again asking pupils to take on the fun run and high-five the elf and get as much sponsorship as possible. The route around the school grounds will be shared with pupils soon. The date of the run is also our Christmas Jumper and Christmas Dinner day, therefore the plan is pupils will be dressed in Christmas attire for the run! We will be sharing a JustGiving link like in previous years soon, so please keep an eye on your email and Facebook for the link. We appreciate any donation given, regardless of amount. Thank you!

School Emergency Closures
Following yesterday’s flurry, a timely reminder that in the event of an emergency (e.g. snow, flooding, no water or heating), leading to a decision to close the school, parents will be notified as follows:

• By mobile phone text message
• Email
• School website news feed and banner
• Local radio stations, if possible

In addition, providing it is safe to do so, a member of staff will be at the school gate to meet any parents and children who have missed the above messages. Should a decision be made during the school day, we will follow the same messaging as above, but supervise your children in school until they are safely collected.

Reminder: Please ensure the school office has your most up to date contact details.