What a fantastic week of learning we've had in Year 2/3! The children have shown such enthusiasm and curiosity across all of our subjects - it's been lovely to see them so engaged and eager to share what they've discovered.

Maths:
In Maths, we have continued our work on addition and subtraction, building on our understanding of place value to help us add and subtract larger numbers confidently. The children have been using their knowledge of tens and ones to partition numbers and find efficient strategies for solving problems. It's been wonderful to see how they are becoming more independent in explaining how and why they chose a particular method.

English:
This week we began our new whole-school genre focus - traditional tales - with the much-loved story of Jack and the Beanstalk! The children have enjoyed retelling the story in their own words, identifying key features of a traditional tale, and practising their comprehension skills by retrieving and summarising important information. There's been lots of great discussion about characters, settings, and what lessons we can learn from Jack's adventure!

RE:
In Religious Education, we started our new topic: How do festivals and family life show what matters to Jewish people? We began by learning about Shabbat, exploring how Jewish families prepare for and celebrate this special day of rest. The children were fascinated by the traditions and rituals, and they reflected thoughtfully on what makes family time special in their own homes too.

PSHE:
Our new PSHE unit, Celebrating Difference, got off to a great start. We talked about how every family is unique, and how these differences make us all special. The children spoke beautifully about the love and care that families share, no matter what they look like or how they are made up.

Topic - 'Who lives in Antarctica?'
Thursday was a particularly exciting day as we launched our brand-new Geography and Art topic: Who lives in Antarctica? The children revisited the seven continents and discussed their relative sizes before using maps to explore the lines of latitude and locate the icy continent itself. In Art, we looked at cold colours to begin our Antarctic-inspired paintings and created our own adorable penguin families using oil pastels - they look fantastic! The children are already brimming with questions about life in such an extreme environment.

Science:
In Science, we began our new unit on Forces and Magnets. The children explored different types of pushes and pulls and thought about where we can see forces in action in our everyday lives. They are very excited to start experimenting with magnets next week!

It's been a busy and inspiring week of learning - well done, Year 2/3!

Please see the attached document for more about what we will be learning this half term in Mousehole class.

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

Odd Socks Day - Monday 10th November and Anti-Bullying Week
Next week is Anti-Bullying Week, a national event dedicated to celebrating kindness, inclusion, and respect. We'll be launching the week with Odd Socks Day on Monday, where children (and staff) are invited to come to school wearing odd socks. This fun activity reminds us that it's great to be different and that our uniqueness should be celebrated. We'll begin the week with a whole-school assembly to explore the theme of Anti-Bullying Week, followed by a range of class-based activities designed to help children understand how small acts of kindness can make a big difference.

Year 1 visit to Wadebridge Library and Cricket Club
Year 1 had a wonderful time visiting the library and cricket club in Wadebridge on Wednesday. The children enjoyed exploring all the books in the library followed by a whole range of sporting activities at the cricket club. These are such valuable community facilities that we are very fortunate to have. It was lovely receiving the following feedback from the library staff: "Thank you for bringing your beautifully behaved Year 1 classes down to the library, we all commented on their lovely manners and behaviour whilst in the library."

Children in Need - Friday 14th November - Non Uniform Day Friday
14th November is Children in Need Day. Children are welcome to wear non-school uniform or combine non-uniform/dressing up with the Children in Need theme. If you would like to contribute to this fund-raising event, please send your child to school with any voluntary donations in cash which will be collected by the teachers in class. All money received will go to Children in Need.

FOWPA - Donate your old Pudsey items and Christmas jumpers
Ahead of the Children in Need non-uniform day on Friday 14th November, and events later this term where children are invited to wear Christmas jumpers, FOWPA will have a rail in reception with donated items for sale. FOWPA are looking for your donations to add to the rail. Please leave any outgrown spotty items, Pudsey themed t-shirts, jumpers etc, and any Christmas jumpers, in the usual basket in reception.

PUDSEY/SPOTTY SALE (proceeds to Children in Need) 10th - 13th November
CHRISTMAS JUMPERS SALE (proceeds to FOWPA) uniform sale 20th - 21st November and then in reception until mid-December.
From FOWPA

Exploding Worlds Festival at Callywith College
At the end of last half term, a group of children from KS2 had a fantastic time at the Exploding Worlds Festival at Callywith College, a celebration dedicated to bringing the magic of literature to life. Throughout the day, pupils took part in a series of creative workshops led by renowned authors. Tom Palmer shared his passion for football, even including a lively penalty shoot-out as part of his session. Vashti Hardy inspired imaginations to soar as children created their own fantasy worlds, while poet Joshua Seigal encouraged curiosity and confidence through playful and thought-provoking poetry. Every child left the festival with a free book and the exciting opportunity to have it signed by the authors themselves - a wonderful day full of creativity, inspiration, and a real love of reading and writing!

Grandparents'/Special Family Members Stay and Learn Tuesday 18th November 08:45-11:30
"Sharing Stories, Making Memories"
Following the success of last year's event, we are once again delighted to invite grandparents/ other special family members to join us in school for a very special morning. This event is all about celebrating the wisdom of our grandparents/special family members and the joy of childhood. The morning will include: Performances from the children; shared activities with grandchildren/special family members (crafts, games, and storytelling) and a chance to enjoy tea, coffee, and biscuits together. We to hearing shared stories as well as helping to create some lasting memories.
Grandparent/Special Family Member Photos: Prior to the event we would like to ask for your help in providing photos the grandparents/special family members may have of their own childhoods to decorate the hall. Please can these be sent in with your child or emailed to secretary@wadebridgeprimary.co.uk by Friday 14th November. Unfortunately, we won't be able to return any photos sent in with your child, as we will use them after the event for display. We look forward to welcoming everyone!

House Points
Congratulations to this week's winners, Puffins. Overall, Choughs take the lead:
Choughs - 3009
Swans - 2688
Puffins - 2686
Cormorants - 2481

Friday 7th November

Some of this week's wonderful exploration has included:

Our big question for this half term is: Who is afraid of the big bad wolf?

We will be exploring traditional tales and nearer the time the Nativity Story.

In English this week we started to explore the story The Little Red Hen. The children used a story map to help learn the story and act it out. We read the story but also watched videos of the story , we then used our oracy skills to discuss how the stories were the same and different! The children then used their oracy and sequencing skills to retell the story in their books.  

The children started guided reading this week and they have amazed the adults at how well they have adapted to the routines of a guided reading session! We are going to have some amazing readers in our class!

In maths this week we have begun to explore representing numbers 1 2 and 3 in different ways! The children are progressing well with recognising, making and ordering numbers.

We have had two 'Understanding the World' days this week.  On Monday we explored Halloween and used lots of learnt skills to cut, stick, and build Halloween tasks.

On Wednesday we learnt all about why we celebrate Bonfire Night. We explored how men tried to kill King James 1^st but did not succeed. We then explored how different people celebrate Bonfire Night. All of our activities were based on this celebration, we even made edible sparklers!

We have explored so much during the first week back at school.

The Foundation Team 

Welcome back to Darite after what a I hope was a relaxing and pleasant half term break. This is one of my favourite half terms of the year with the run up to Christmas, performances and lots more trips and activities! Congratulations to our new school council who were elected this week to make the school an even better place. They will be meeting regularly and already have some great plans - watch this space! Next week we welcome Sarah Wallis from St Luke's hospice back into school to launch this year's Rudolph Run. The children had an amazing time last year and raised a fantastic amount of money for this cause which helps so many families in our community. The annual flu nasal sprays are on Thursday next week. All children in school are eligible for this and we highly recommend that children are vaccinated before the flu season really kicks off. Please see the previous correspondence to give permission if you have not yet done so and would like to take up the offer. Finally, next week if the BBC Children in Need appeal. To help raise money for this amazing appeal, next Friday will be a non-uniform day. Children can come in non-uniform or spotty clothes for a £1 donation. We are also asking for kind donations of cakes and treats for a cake sale at breaktime and lunchtime on Friday. Because of allergies in school, please could you provide a list of ingredients so that all children can enjoy a treat.

What a wonderful first week it has been back after the half term break.

We wish you all a wonderful weekend and hope you enjoy looking through this week's Brunel Bulletin.

Just a gentle reminder that next week we are marking Anti-Bullying Week with the theme ' The Power of Good.' On Monday, the children are welcome to wear Odd Socks to school as we celebrate us all being different and unique. On Tuesday, we warmly welcome our families and local community to join us for our Remembrance Service. The gates by the side of the library will open at 10:40am. We hope as many of our school community will be able to join us for this important date in our country's calendar.

Let's Celebrate! 

This week in Tregantle Class, we have been getting creative with the theme of celebrations and festivals. The children had a fantastic time making firework art, splatting coloured paint onto paper to create bright, explosive patterns that lit up our classroom!

We've also been busy crafting poppies in preparation for Remembrance Day next week. The children showed great thoughtfulness as we talked about the importance of remembering and honouring others. What a lovely way to think about special times of the year.

Our learning through play has continued to shine this week, too. In our music area, we've been linking music with phonics. The children were set the challenge of finding different sounds on the xylophone to create their own tunes - a wonderful way to explore sound and rhythm!

Over in maths, the children have been working hard to become experts at ordering numbers and matching Numicon shapes to the correct numerals.

Their confidence is growing every day, and it's been fantastic to see their enthusiasm and teamwork. What a fun, creative and inspiring week it has been in Tregantle Class! Well done, everyone!

Hello Everyone,

This week in Penhallow, we have immersed ourselves in the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We have been singing songs, which retell each part of the story, drawing story maps, and describing characters. Reception have had some amazing discussions which have sparked their imagination, and we are really proud of the way in which they have 
been creative in their ideas about the story.

In Geography this week we have been learning about the continents of the world. We sang a song, to help us to recall the names of the continents, and completed a jigsaw to place them on a map.

Art this week, has consisted of comparing art work and using colours from Tingatinga art. We also followed instructions to draw  a tortoise in the style of this art work.

We look forward to seeing you next week for our parent/teacher consultations. Please call the school office, or catch us at the end of the day, if you haven't already booked.

Have a lovely weekend.

From The Penhallow Team

Next week is National Anti-Bullying week - we will be working with the class leaders, team captains and student leaders to share their ideas with their classes on the theme Power for Good. Monday 10th November is our chance to nod to odd socks day so please do support this if you can.

Message from PTA: Our PTA Annual General Meeting is on 19th November at 2:15pm (meet at school reception). Everyone's welcome - come along to meet the committee, share ideas, or just see what we're all about.

Welcome back for the second half of the autumn term. It was lovely to see so many of you today at the rearranged autumn/harvest assembly. Thank you to all those who were able to attend for a parent consultation this week and hopefully Class 1 parents have signed up to an appointment time for next Wednesday. We have reduced the length of these sessions for the first consultation of the year and narrowed the focus to talking about how the children have settled into the new school year and to discus their learning attitudes and behaviours. To complement this, we want to share children's learning progress through further opportunities for you to come into the classroom to see what your children have been learning. We did this last half term with our maths morning and art exhibition and are planning further opportunities in the weeks ahead.

Design Technology
This half term, we have design technology lessons in all classes. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to teach this subject to both junior classes, which also provides me with some lovely photographs for my blog!



Class 4 are designing and making stuffed toys. For the first week, they came up with a design and made a template they used to cut out the fabric. These photos show Rudy's strawberry design.



Class 3 are learning about 'pavilions' and used the first week to make structures through a trial and error approach using match sticks and plasticine. Lowenna and Joey worked together to create the first design and Penny and Madeleine made the second. They are both very elaborate and required a lot of teamwork. I look forward to sharing more in the weeks ahead and hopefully we will be inviting you to an exhibition of children's work before the end of term.

Rocksteady Bands
Our Rocksteady bands started this week with music teacher Joe Spurrell. Once he set up his equipment in the library, which looked like a recording study with everything he had, the children were very excited to join Joe for this first session.

As always, there are lots of exciting learning opportunities in the weeks ahead, culminating in our festive events at the end of term. This year, in a change with tradition, we are planning a whole school Christmas performance at the village hall. Further details will be shared nearer the time, but for those needing to take time off work to attend, here are the dates and performance times:

It was lovely to see the children back after the half term break and we have been busy diving into our enquiry question "How does colour make us feel?"
In addition to this we are exploring different shapes with the children.
This week the children have been busy exploring colour and as it was bonfire night on Wednesday they made some glittery, glue firework pictures to hang in nursery.
They have enjoyed our bonfire themed tuft tray and have created breadstick sparklers to take home and eat.

At story time we enjoyed the books "Sparks in the Sky" and have been exploring the story of "The Colour Monster". The children have been encouraged to talk about the book and how the different colours made them feel as well as discussing what makes them happy, sad or scared.

In phonics this week the children enjoyed playing a game of "I Spy" and tried hard to listen to the sounds at the beginning of the words. We clapped the number of syllables in different words and used our voices to create different noises and sounds.

In maths, we are naming and ordering numbers 1-3 and beyond and have been comparing amounts.

We hope you all have a great weekend and see you on Monday.

Julie and Sarah

 

Pyjamas or Onesies for Children in Need

To celebrate the Children in Need appeal and to help to raise money towards this, we are inviting the children to come to school dressed in their jazziest pyjamas or cuddliest onesies. 

Children will still need coats suitable for playing outdoors and proper footwear for the day. Slippers may get a bit soggy out on the playground! We are asking for a £1 donation with all donations going directly to BBC Children in Need.

Thank you for your support!

October has been such a busy and exciting month for our class! In maths, we've been consolidating our addition and subtraction skills, especially focusing on the tricky concept of crossing into a new hundred when counting in tens. It's been great to see everyone's confidence growing as we practiced using number lines, base ten, and mental strategies to solve problems. In science, we became real scientists by practicing our Scientific Enquiry skills. We learned how to ask thoughtful questions, make predictions, and form hypotheses before testing them out. Everyone enjoyed being curious and finding out how things work through investigation.  

This month we have continued to find the answer to our Big Question 'Where on Earth are we?' by learning that we live in a county called Cornwall. We have learnt to find our local area on the map and have identified the school, the River Tamar and Gunnislake on a local area map. We have continued to learn about materials in Science and have tested their abilities to float or sink and to absorb water. We drew our final 'Wild Thing' illustrations after testing out different ways we could draw the various parts of our creatures body. The half term was rounded off by a Halloween dress up day and disco which was great spooky fun!