TALLAND'S BLOG 23.1.26

Well there goes week 3 of Spring Term 1? Another high energy week that's been full of learning and playing with electrics (safely of course).

Here's a breakdown of our week:

Maths:
Year 5 have been multiplying 4-digit numbers by 2- digit numbers. Next week we will be solving word problems and looking at short division. They have also completed their unit on SHAPE. 

Year 4 have been looking at factors and have been making shapes.

English:
We have continued to work on instructions. We've been learning how to develop a method which is in chronological order and has an abundance of description to help the reader.

Geography:
Talland learned about  different grid references, investigated how to use them and had to locate different places on a map.   

RE:
We looked at the story of Noah and the Arc  in more depth and thought about what on our planet is good and what is bad. Are there things we can do to help our planet?

ART:
This week, we looked at how we can use tone and texture through shading. How to hold the pencil differently to give different effects and where light and shadowing would appear on a 3D object.

SCIENCE: 
We have been exploring electricity and how to make a circuit. Talland had to make a light bulb, a buzzer and a motor turn on.

CONGRATULATIONS to Kayla, Renley and Max this week for passing their next round in 99 club and well done to Arnie for being noticed for showing our school values. He's shown real maturity of late and his work ethic is fantastic!

That's all from us in Talland this week. We hope you have a fantastic weekend and can't wait to see everyone next week.

Signing off from Mr. Langley and Mr. Bishop.

Another week has gone by and we have covered so much learning. In Maths, we have been learning about angles in a quadrilateral in Shape and fraction and decimal equivalents in FDP. It's lovely to see the 'lightbulb moments' when the children are making links between the different areas of maths and working together to solve more abstract questions.

We have planned our narrative - to rewrite the ending of THE MIDNIGHT FOX - and are ready to write next week. I am looking forward to reading each and every one. Joey, in particular, has really put his all into his planning and I am excited to see what he produces.

In our Wider Curriculum, we have been learning about the city names in North American countries, we have 'built a god' in RE, learnt how to use aparatus for balance and core tension in PE and for our Art, we have been investigating Basquiat's use of animal art for his masterpieces. Tristan, has produced an incredible framed piece of work for his homework - thank you!

Congratulations to Henry and Imogen for being our People of the Week and showing our school values. 

That's all from us so have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday.

Miss Randle and Mrs Clary

Hello Everyone,

This week in Penhallow, we have been busy testing our knowledge of materials and their properties during our science lesson. We made parachutes from different materials and tested how quickly they reached the ground. We had great fun working collaboratively to make and test our ideas.

In English this week, we have been learning about techniques and devices in poetry, and have written an acrostic poem about clouds. Reception are putting into practice their fast developing skills that they have learnt in phonics, to write labels, captions and sentences, during their English learning. 

In maths, Year 2 have been learning about multiplication and division. They have already been given usernames and passwords for 'Times table rock stars' so that they can practice their multiplication tables at home. 
Year 1 have been learning about number lines, and have enjoyed making their own number lines from number cards, numicon and other apparatus.

During our history lesson this week, we learnt about the Wright brothers, and how they persevered to invent a flying machine. We found out how their ideas developed and were tested, and how planes have developed over the years. We made our own history timeline of the most significant events in their lives. 

From The Penhallow Team

We have had a busy second week in Landaviddy class. On Monday, we enjoyed line dancing with Mrs Hillman in PE and learning the names for fruits in French. In Geography, we learnt about settlements - what a settlement is and the different types. During Computing lessons, we practised our digital drawing skills, to create a bag of items we would take with us to the International Space Station. In Science, we continued work on materials, where we conducted an investigation in the classroom. We were looking for objects we could describe as transparent, opaque, rigid or flexible. We will be working on an exciting DT project in the next few weeks - watch this space! 

In Maths, we have moved on to multiplication and division. All the children were very confident making and adding equal groups, which was great to see. In English, we have started a new unit on instructions. We have enjoyed looking at different examples of instructions, identifying features, writing commands with imperative verbs and constructing an introduction for a Lemonade recipe using rhetorical questions. We are hoping to make this next week!

Congratulations to Lowen, Iylah and April for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week. And a big well done to Ella and Alfie for achieving their 99 club badges this week. 

We hope you have a super weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday. 

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Lister and Miss Colton

We have enjoyed a range of school assemblies this week. On Monday, Rev Richard led a thoughtful New Year assembly focusing on resolutions. This was followed on Tuesday by a lively singing assembly with Mrs Fitzsimmmons. On Wednesday, we held our first Reader, Writer and Mathematician Celebration Assembly of the year, and were pleased to welcome parents and carers of the children who received certificates. We ended the week with our Celebration Assembly today, where we recognised children who consistently demonstrate our school values, awarded 99 Club badges to pupils mastering their times tables, and celebrated Flora's recent triathlon success. If your child has an achievement to celebrate, whether in sport, the arts, or another interest outside of school, please encourage them to bring it in to share with us on a Friday.

Children's Mental Health Week 2026 We will be taking part in Children's Mental Health Week which this year is taking place between 9-15 February. This year's theme is 'This is My Place' where peers, families, schools and communities are encouraged to create an environment that gives children and young people a sense of belonging. As parents and carers, you play an important role in your child's mental health. There are free resources here which you may wish to look at beforehand. https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/resources/#families

As part of Children's Mental Health Week, we will be spending the morning outdoors on Monday 9th February when all staff and pupils will take part in the Big Schools' Birdwatch and other outdoor wellbeing activities. Further details to follow.

Clubs Our new Girls' KS2 Football Club kicked off on Tuesday and was a great success with the girls thoroughly enjoying the session. A huge thank you to Mr Peters for stepping in at the last minute to run the club and for kindly agreeing to lead it for the rest of this term. Reminder: All other clubs will start next week.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Hillman

TALLAND'S BLOG 16.1.26

Is that week 2 of this first Spring term complete already? This term is going to fly by at this rate! It's been a great week full of learning, sport, art and wet plays! 

Here's a breakdown of our week:

Maths:
Year 5 have have moved on to their second unit of MULTIPLICATION and DIVISION where we have begun multiplying 4-digit numbers by 1- digit numbers. Next week we will be multiplying by a 2-digit number. They have also been identify 3D shapes. Why not ask them about faces, vertices and edges...
Year 4 have been multiplying and dividing by 7, 1 and 0. They have also begun solving problems involving the area of a shape.

English:
We have begun working on instructions where Talland have looked at what is needed to write  a successful set of instructions. We've played with different ways to write an engaging introduction and looked at how to use bossy verbs to help our audience understand what they need to do.  

Geography:
Talland explored the cities of the United Kingdom and had to find them in an Atlas which was a lot of fun .

RE:
We looked at the story of Noah and the Arc and what promise (covenant) was made by God to Noah. 

PE:
With Mrs. Hillman, Talland put their country boots on and danced away to country music. In PE, we put the tennis rackets away and used our arms and hands instead. WE got some pretty good rallies going!

ART:
We've had a great time experimenting with oil pastels, chalk, charcoal and different pencil leads to create some realistic looking drawings where, tone, texture and light have been our focus. 

CONGRATULATIONS to Renley, Max and Reuben this week for passing their next round in 99 club and well done to Amber and Taran for being noticed for showing our school values. So polite, hard working and kind!

That's all from us in Talland this week. We hope you have a fantastic weekend and can't wait to see everyone next week.

Signing off from Mr. Langley and Mr. Bishop.

It has been another busy week for Chaipel, and Science has been a key point in our learning: testing out more complex circuits and drawing series circuits using scientific symbols for our components. 

In Maths, we have been finding fractions of amounts and missing angles in triangles. We also worked through an arithmetic paper together and surprised ourselves at how much we have learnt since our last paper: adding and subtracting fractions, mixed numbers and long multiplication/division. Next week, we will begin our fraction, decimal and percentage unit.

For English this week, we have been writing a setting description for our farmyard in The Midnight Fox - well done to HENRY for being our Writer of the Week for your 'creative' use of figurative language. We have begun to write up our recounts of the sightings of the black fox in our Fox Spotter Journals and will continue this next week - as well as characterising speech  - as a build-up to our narrative writing.

We have learnt about some of the geographical features of North America in Geography and made 1980's animation (the old-style flipbooks) as part of our Computing as well as begun to learn how to refer to and speak about our family in French with Mrs Hillman.

CONGRATULATIONS to Skye and Everly for being our People of the Week, demonstrating our school values and being positive role models.

HOMEWORK
I have attached the homework grid and KIRFs for this half term!

That's all from us so have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday.

Miss Randle and Mrs Clary.

Hello Everyone!

We've been getting creative this week, by studying some of the paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. We looked in detail, at the painting 'Starry Night' and used oil pastels to recreate the painting. We tried to imitate the type of brush strokes that he used, and then practiced our skills of blending the colours with our fingers. We hope you like the results.

We completed our English learning journey, based on Amelia Earhart this week. Year 1and 2 children have showcased all of their knowledge about biographies, by writing their own biography, all about Amelia Earhart. Reception have also been using their skills to write labels, captions and sentences, and have shown us how independent they are becoming when writing. Well done everyone!

Our history lesson this week also linked with Amelia Earhart. We were able to spot similarities and differences between modern planes and Amelia's plane called the yellow Canary. We drew and labelled pictures which illustrated these differences.

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

From The Penhallow Team

This week at  nursery we have continued exploring winter.
The children have been busy exploring ice both indoors and out and have used tools to break it to investigate what was frozen inside. They have been using words such as frozen, melting and cold.
We have been busy creating winter craft including cotton wool snowmen, penguins and lovely paper plate snowy clouds to hang.

At story time this week we have enjoyed books such as "Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do you hear?", "Foxes in the snow" and "The Smiley Snowman".

In phonics the children have been working hard to identify the number of syllables in words and clapped them out. We have used mirrors to watch how our mouths move when creating different sounds such as "oohh and ahh" and have been trying to describe soiunds that we have heard.

In maths we have been exploring groups of objects and identifying how many and forming numbers to go with these groups.

Enjoy your weekend

Julie and Sarah
 

Welcome Back Landaviddy! 

It has been lovely to see the children back in school, ready for an exciting Spring Term. Already we have had a crazy week -  weather wise! But even with all the disruption, we have enjoyed being back together. 

We concluded our previous enquiry 'What was new about the Stone Age?' by completing a Kahoot quiz and launched our enquiry focus for this half term, 'How far can you travel?'. We came up with lots of questions and ideas about what this could mean. In Computing, we have started a new unit on Data Handling, where we will be exploring the International Space Station (ISS). Our first lesson this week, had us using interactive digital maps to discover their home on the ISS. 

During English, we have been rounding off our work on poetry, where we produced our own shape poetry inspired by a snowflake. We used alliteration and similes, as well as some amazing vocabulary to capture the attention of our reader. We are all really proud of the poems we created. Well done everyone. In Maths, we have been rounding off our unit on Addition and Subtraction by making estimations, using inverse operations and making decisions on the best strategies to use when problem-solving. 

Congratulations to Ella and Finn for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week! 

We hope you have a super weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday.

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Lister and Miss Colton

TALLAND'S BLOG 9.1.26

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! We hope you had a magical Christmas and had a fantastic welcome to the New Year! It's great seeing everybody and hearing about some lovely Christmas stories. Really excitingly, it's also brilliant to welcome our new children: Renley, Taran and Max. They're a great addition to our class and we can't wait to become part of their story.

Here's a breakdown of our week:

Maths:
Year 5 have been solving problems involving CUBED numbers and multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1,000. 
Year 4 have been multiplying by the 7 and 9 times tables... why not quiz your child on those times tables... 

English: 
Talland have written their Myth/Legend story up in best this week and have illustrated their Hero/Heroin's and Villain's. I'm so impressed with their stories; they're so creative!

PSHE: 
This term we're focusing on hopes and dreams so Talland have been thinking about what their hopes and dreams might be for the future and whether or not having money would help them accomplish their dream. 

PE: 
Dance is on a Tuesday with Mrs. Hillman and Tennis is on a Wednesday with Mr. Langley.
Talland have had lots of fun dancing with Mrs. Hillman and I've been playing tennis with them. We learnt about the forehand and how accurate we can be when striking the ball.

SCIENCE: 
Our enquiry question is: ' Who's got the Power?' this term so we are investigating electricity. Today we were thinking about which appliances would require power from electricity and whether they were powered by batteries, mains or both. Question: If you could only have five appliances in your house, what would they be?

CONGRATULATIONS to Riley, Taran and Max for settling in so well this week. We celebrated them in assembly for bringing such great energy, curiosity and kindness to the class. The rest of Talland have been so warm and welcoming - it's been lovely to witness. 

That's all from us in Talland this week. We hope you have a great weekend and can't wait to see everyone next week.

Signing off from Mr. Langley and Mr. Bishop.
 

Welcome back, and Happy New Year to you all. We are delighted to welcome our new families and six new pupils to our school community.

Thank you for your patience and understanding when the school opened later than usual on Tuesday and again yesterday when we closed early as a precaution due to the storm. Our caretaker, Mr Sands, has been checking the school premises and repairing any damage caused by the weather. I am pleased to report that the greenhouse remains intact which means the children will be able to continue growing their own fruit and vegetables as planned when Gardening Club resumes next half term.

Clubs The Girls' Football Club for pupils in Years 3-6 will begin on Tuesday 13th January. Other clubs will start the week commencing Monday, 19th January as follows:
Monday: Lunchtime Mindfulness and Colouring Club (Mrs Wilkie) for all year groups
After School Running Club (Miss Bowden and Mrs Turnbull) for years 3-6. This club is open to anyone who likes running however it will not run when the Cross-Country League races are on - next races 16th January)
Tuesday: Lunchtime Construction Club (Mrs Lister) Reception/Y1/Y2
After school Girls' Football Club (Y3-6) starts 13th January
Thursday: Lunchtime Choir (Mrs Butlin) Y2-6
After school Art Club (Mrs Fitzsimmons) Reception/Y1/Y2 (limited numbers, 1st come 1st served)
After school Football Club (Mr Langley) Y3-Y6

Please inform us by email or phone call, which clubs you wish your child to attend, by midday on Wednesday 14th January. For all clubs, once signed up children will be expected to attend every week unless they have written parental permission not to, or are absent. This applies to both lunchtime and after school clubs. Please note that gardening club will resume after half term.

What I wish my parents or carers knew..': A guide for parents and carers on managing children's digital lives The children's Commission has published a really useful guide 'What I wish my parents or carers knew..': A guide for parents and carers on managing children's digital lives. Written with children's input, it offers practical advice on setting firm, protective boundaries online and supporting children's safety and wellbeing in today's digital world. Click here to access the guide.

These are the main messages for you at the moment as we start back and we will send out further correspondence as needed, with a regular update each Friday. Further information regarding school is available on the Head's Blog and class blogs on our website and information about dates can be found in the Events Diary on this website.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Hillman

What a crazy first week back of this Spring term! Even though we had a late start on Tuesday and an early finish on Thursday, we have managed to learn so much. 

In Maths, we have been adding and subtracting mixed numbers and multiplying fractions by integers. We are really making progress and looking forward to moving onto finding fractions of an amount next week.

In English, we have begun to immerse ourselves in the North American narrative THE MIDNIGHT FOX  by Betsy Byres. We are focusing on writing in character and will eventually re-write the ending through the perspective of the protagonist.

Our enquiry this half term is HOW DOES NORTH AMERICA COMPARE WITH EUROPE? and we have begun to identify the countries in North America and the differences in their climates. For Science we are looking into electricity and have been creating and testing simple circuits. Next week we will learn how to draw circuits using technical diagrams and symbols.

Congratulations to Tristan and Joey for being our People of the Week, demonstrating our school values and to Immy for achieving her 77 Club badge.

That's all from us so have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday!

Miss Randle and Mrs Clary

What a first week back to nursery it has been! From ice and snow to high winds it has certainly been an eventful few days.

We have enjoyed welcoming all of the children back after the Christmas break and have been exploring Winter, what happens in winter, why it is cold and exploring which animals like the cold weather.

The children have been welcoming in the new year by making calendars to take home and creating painted ice skates.

We have enjoyed reading the stories "Snowball" and "The Snow Thief" at story time.

In phonics, the children have been listening to and trying to remember sounds, copying sequences of movement and exploring words that rhyme.
In maths, we are forming and learning to write numbers and creating marks that represent these numbers.

We hope you all enjoy the weekend ahead and will see you Monday.

Hello Everyone,

A happy new year to you all.

We have had a short but busy week.
First of all, we welcome 2 new children into Year 2. Well done Penhallow, you have been very kind and welcoming to your new friends.

We have launched our new class enquiry question; 'What happens in the sky above us?' We have started to learn about the life of Amelia Earhart, the American aviator, who was one of the first women to gain her pilot's licence and fly across the Atlantic. As you can see from the photo, we are in the process of making an aeroplane for our role play area. We have enjoyed checking passports, flying through the air and bringing people their snacks and drinks whilst on board.

This week, we have also enjoyed a science lesson, in which we were able to investigate the flexibility of different materials. We used our skills of measuring accurately to find out how far different objects would stretch. 

Have a lovely weekend!

From The Penhallow Team

As we come to the end of the autumn term, we would like to take a moment to reflect on what a truly special few months it has been for our Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children.

It has been a joy to welcome so many new faces into our school community. The children have settled beautifully into our way of life and it has been lovely to see them grow in confidence day by day. Across all three year groups, the children have demonstrated our school values through their kindness, respect and resilience, alongside a real curiosity, love of learning and enthusiasm for everything they do. They have shown great bravery in taking risks, trying new things and challenging themselves, and as a result have made wonderful progress both socially and academically.

This week has yet again been a very busy one, filled with festive cheer. From decorating amazing crowns ready for our Christmas dinner, to enjoying a special assembly led by Reverend Richard, the children have embraced every moment. Our Christmas craft day was truly magical, with lots of glitter, creativity and goodwill, and we ended the week on a high with our much-anticipated Christmas party.

Thank you so much for organising food to bring in and help make the party extra special. We have also been blown away by your generosity and the incredibly kind and thoughtful gifts we have received - thank you, it really does mean so much to us.

We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. We hope you enjoy making magical memories together and spending some well-deserved family time. We look forward to hearing all about what you get up to in 2026 and welcoming the children back for another exciting term ahead.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of the Penhallow Team

Merry Christmas!

We have made it to the end of a very long Autumn Term! Landaviddy have had a great final week, with crown making on Tuesday. This was lots of fun and got us into the festive spirit, ready for Christmas Gift Shop and Christmas lunch on Wednesday. But the fun did not stop there! On Thursday, we had our annual Christmas Art Day, where we made a bunch of different christmas themed crafts. Needless to say, it has been a busy week at school and we are all feeling ready for Christmas! 

Our final lesson of Art as part of our enquiry 'What was new about the Stone Age?', saw us collaborate to create handprints upon a cave wall. We created negative and positive images of our hands and enjoyed experimenting with colours. In English, we have been working on shape poetry and building up to writing our own versions about a snowflake. We explored similes, alliteration and personification. During Maths, we were finding complements to 100, which required us to apply our knowledge of addition carefully. 

Well done to Iylah for being chosen as Landaviddy's Person of the Week!

Thank you to everyone for your kind gifts and christmas well wishes.  We hope you have a magical Christmas and look forward to welcoming you back into school on Tuesday 6th January 2026. 

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Lister and Miss Colton

TALLAND'S BLOG 19.12.25

And here it is - Talland's last blog for 2025! It's been a magical week kickstarting it with Talland and Chaipel's Christmas Production... WOW! What an incredible job they did! Thank you so much for helping them learn their lines and look the part! We've also had the Christmas fayre, Christmas Jumper Day, Christmas dinner and finished off with a festive movie today - it really has been wonderful! 

CONGRATULATIONS to Harley, Amelia and Benjamin this week for passing their next round in 99 club. WELL DONE to George for being noticed for an outstanding performance in the our Christmas show and fantastic work from Amber for being noticed for her brilliant learning behaviours, kind personality and for being a great member of Talland class.

That's all from us in Talland this YEAR. We wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a  HAPPY NEW YEAR. We can't wait to see you all in 2026!

Signing off from Mr. Langley and Mr. Bishop.

The children have enjoyed a wonderfully busy week, rounding off their enquiries and taking part in a range of festive activities. These included Reverend Richard's Christmas assembly on Tuesday, Christmas Lunch on Wednesday, Christmas Art Day on Thursday, and class parties today. Talland and Chaipel Classes' Christmas performances on Monday were spectacular and provided a fantastic finale to a brilliant series of performances from all of the children.

House Points Our house captains have totalled the house points for this term. House Points are awarded to children who demonstrate our school values: Curious, Creative, Excellent, Responsible, Determined, and Enthusiastic. This half term, our focus has been on being Curious. Congratulations to Oak, who are currently in the lead with 100 points, followed by Willow with 88 points, Ash with 75 points, and Chestnut with 70 points.

Clubs The Girls' Football Club for pupils in Years 3-6 will begin on Tuesday 13th January. We will contact you during the first week of next term with details of other clubs available for the upcoming half term.

Fundraising We are delighted that our Christmas Gift Shop on Monday raised over £250. A huge thank you to FOPS for all of the organising and wrapping. We also raised £67 for Save the Children on Christmas Jumper Day and £139.51 for Cornwall Hospice Care, our School Council's chosen charity, from kind donations after each of the class performances.

Keeping Your Child Safe Online - Parental Controls Guides To help keep children safe online, we encourage parents and carers to set up parental controls on all devices your child uses. Please use this link https://www.internetmatters.org/parental-controls/ to access easy, step-by-step guides showing how to activate parental controls on a wide range of devices, apps and online platforms. These tools can help you manage screen time, privacy settings and the content your child can access, creating a safer online experience. This information is particularly helpful at this time of year, as many children may receive new devices for Christmas such as: smart devices (e.g. TVs, speakers like Alexa); mobile phones (Android or iPhone); games consoles; tablets, laptops, or PCs. Taking a few minutes to set up parental controls can make a big difference in keeping your child safe online.

Dates The new term starts on Tuesday 6th January. Half term will be from Monday 16th February - Friday 20th February with an INSET Day on Friday 13th February. The last day of the Spring term is Thursday 2nd April and the Summer Term starts on Monday 20th April.

A huge thank you for all of your support so far this academic year. The children have worked incredibly hard and all deserve a wonderful Christmas break.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas

Anthea Hillman and all of the staff at Polperro Primary Academy