Road Safety and lots of learning! 

What a great week we have had in Foundation/Year 1.

We were very lucky to have a Road Safety Roadshow that taught us all about how to stay safe when we are out and about. We really enjoyed learning the dance and words to ‘Stop, Look and Listen.’ We were also taught about how important it is to stay close to, or hold hands with our adult when crossing the road. The children really enjoyed learning all things road safety!

In Phonics, Year 1 have been learning their new ‘ie’ sound. We then practised writing this in different words. In Maths, we have also been looking at one more and one less. We have been building towers and finding the correct numbers that are one more and one less!

We have also all been learning about the weather. Every morning we discuss what the weather is like and we’ve been focusing on using amazing adjectives to do this. My favourite ones this week are ‘the sun is golden’ and ‘the sea is sparkly.’ How brilliant! We have also been thinking about the right clothing we need depending on the weather.

On Friday we have our 40th birthday celebration for the school. This is going to be a great day. Please let me know if you will be attending either through email or letting me know during meet/greet.

Thank you!

The Foundation/Year 1 Team

This half term our key question is 'How did we live before metal?'
We will be finding out about the Stone Age through to the Iron Age and exploring life of these people.  Our key text is Stig of the Dump by Clive King and then we'll be writing information texts all about prehistoric times.
In science we will be looking at the different stages of Scientific Enquiry and how experiments are conducted fairly.
We're learning how to say hello and basic greetings in French.
In art we are looking at the different kinds and how to construct collage pieces - and submitting some of these to the Honey Fair for their art competition.
In PE we will be learning how to play a game of football and all the skills needed to control a ball.
We will also be learning the song I've Been to Harlem and learning about the pentatonic scale.

Welcome Back!

We are looking forward to another year of learning here in the ARC. We said our sad goodbye's to Joe and Dawid at the end of last term and we are very happy to welcome Leo, our newest member into the ARC. Leo will be joining us on Tuesdays and Thursdays initially until he can transition into the school full time. 


This term is all about learning new routines. The children have been practicing their independent skills with their new TEACCH stations. TEACCH is a system where the children complete a number of tasks independently. The boys are proud of their independent work and they begin to use these skills at other times in the day.  

In our Literacy, we have been focusing on fairy tales. We have learnt the stories of The Gingerbread Man, Three Billy Goat's Gruff, The Little Red Hen and Little Red Riding Hood. Our cooking sessions have been linked to these stories and we have enjoyed reading and  following  the recipes to create our delicious bakes; so far this month we have made Mr Wolf's Pancakes, cupcakes for granny, gingerbread men and a goat's cheese bridge. Can you guess which stories the recipes have come from? 

We have linked PSHE with art and we have been using sticks and stones to make our families. We have been exploring all the things that make us special. Belonging to our different families ( home and school) helps us to feel special!

This month we have been able to complete lots of our activities as a team. RJ and Jake worked together to create the ARC family picture. Eddie has been extra kind when he sings Freddie's favourite songs. 

In science we are learning about the seasons. Mrs Cansdale combined this with her Geography topic which is about our local environment and following maps. Last week the children had a great walk out to the Tamar Valley Centre. It was great to notice the leaves on the trees, explore the different creatures that were about and Jake loved exploring the wind turbines. 

Swimming
WOW! We had our first swimming lesson last week and children amazed us with their positive attitudes and exemplary behaviour. They represented the school incredibly and we cannot wait for our next sessions.

English

What a fabulous week of story writing! The children have digested all of their learned knowledge and skills so far in Year 3, to produce their first piece of narrative writing. Using their story plans, maps and through imitating The Beasties, the children have created their own version of the story. We’ve had mythical creatures, rewarding dragons and monstrous sheep to name a few! Their challenge was to use suffixes, speech marks and fronted adverbials. Well done, Year 3, for your wonderful efforts!

Maths

We have finished our place value unit by comparing numbers to 1000 and estimating numbers on a number line to 1000. Tricky learning encompassing different counting patterns of 10s, 100s, 5s, 50s and even 40s!

Wider Curriculum

Our learning journey has progressed from Science into Geography. The children have discovered the four layers of the Earth; we learned some incredible facts about each layer too! The children have explored how and where volcanoes are formed, as well as the positive and negative effects of living near a volcano. Did you know that the soil near volcanoes is extremely fertile and the mud can provide benefits to your skin? We continue our learning journey by investigating the causes and impacts of earthquakes.

On Monday, Mrs Goldsmith and I travelled to Sterts theatre with 9 of out students to enjoy Grandma on the Moon written by Belinda Lazenby. “Grandma on the Moon!” is a beautiful, high quality piece of theatre exploring death and bereavement from a child’s perspective. It used movement, music and drama to show the importance of memories, keeping those we have loved alive within our hearts and minds, even though they are no longer with us. This play shows it is ok to have fun, even though someone you love has died. We really enjoyed the performance and being back at Sterts theatre!

Following on from our focus last year on ‘courageous advocacy’ this week we held a whole-school vote to decide upon a school charity for the year. The children learnt about four different charities: Jerimiah’s Journey, the RNLI, Cancer Research UK and ShelterBox. As part of our learning about democracy, we then held a vote where the children selected which charity they would like to support. After a very tense and close count, ShelterBox was announced as our charity for the year. Going forward, the children will learn more about the great work this charity does, and we will explore opportunities where we can support them as a charity.

https://shelterbox.org/

It has been another busy week in Year 2!  In Art, we have continued investigating our enquiry question "How have significant people shaped our world?" by looking at the work of Frida Kahlo.  The children have begun looking at tint, shade and tone; adding white, black and neutral colours to change an original primary or secondary colour.  Next week, we will focus on using these skills in order to create a background for a self-portrait in the style of Frida Kahlo; using bright colours and bold images.

In Maths, we have started looking at counting in tens and relating these to multiplication facts within the ten times tables.  More information about practising these at home will follow but for now, please ensure that your child accesses Numbots regularly throughout the week.  As soon as we have finished teaching the children about multiplication, we will provide you information about practising these using the Times Tables Rock Stars app (TTRS).

A reminder that PE is on Friday and we ask that children come to school in their PE kit.  Unfortunately, already a few children have come into school in clothing that does not follow our school uniform requirements.  Children can only take part in PE lessons if they are dressed appropriately for safety reasons.  If your child does not have a suitable jumper/top for PE, they can wear their normal school jumper.

And finally, we will be collecting for our Harvest Festival throughout the week next week - please see the Events Diary page for details of items which are suitable for donation.  On Thursday, we will be looking at the importance of Harvest Festival as part of our RE unit based upon Creation.

Many thanks for your continued support,
The Year 2 Team

Bodmin Jail: Crime and punishment

This week has seen a continuation of our fantastic violin and cricket sessions.

In English, we have started writing our biographies about Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The children are working hard to apply their skills in varying sentence starts, write using formal language and include an abundance of both fact and opinion.

We have been making our way through Place Value in maths; focussing on ordering and comparing numbers to one million this week. Our KIRFs for this half term are to be able to double and half numbers to 100. Don't forget, there are lots of suggested practice activities on a previous blog post.

Our busy week culminated in an incredibly exciting and informative trip to Bodmin Jail. Our guide, Gemma, took us through the 'Dark Walk' first; an interactive, immersive experience detailing why some of Bodmin Jail's previous inmates were imprisoned. We found out about smugglers, vagrants, murderers and thieves - all part and parcel of Cornwall's history. We then got to experience what jail conditions were like throughout the ages, focussing on the prison reforms of Victorian times. Finally, we had the option of finding out more about how prisoners, who were sentenced to the ultimate fate of hanging, were treated, along with the role of the executioner. Who knew that so much maths was involved in revolutionising hanging!

We've had another busy week in Chaipel. Y6s have been finishing off Place Value and will be moving onto the four operations next week (addition/subtraction/multiplication/division) whilst the Y5s are tackling rounding, compairing and ordering numbers.

We have written and edited our draft newspaper report on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79, adapting our byline names to that of ancient Roman times, such as 'Veritius' , 'Elisius' and 'Maximus'. We will be writintg up our best copy, assessing our writing and creating our first writing target for this year. 

In PE, we have been learing and sequencing a range of yoga positions and techniques, which we will develop over the next few weeks, and in Art, we are looking at atmospheric perspective, using tints and shading to create the illusion of distance.

For PSHE, we have looking at the rights of children and how this differs globally. We have been investigating the cocoa plantations in Ghana and how the lives of the children compare to those of our own. In Geography, we have been exploring earthquakes, how they are measured on the Richter Scale and where the tectonic plate faults are around the world.

A huge WOW goes to Joel, Ava, Max B and Harry for their creations of Mount Vesuivius as part of their homework grid activities. They look amazing and you can see that a lot of work has gone into these.  

Congratulations to Dom for achieving another badge in his 99 Club and to Freddie and Lily for being Chaipel's People of the Week for demonstrating our school values.

Have a lovely weeked and see you all on Monday!

Miss Randle, Mrs Clary and Miss Colton.

During Wider Curriculum sessions this week, we loved refining our shading skills in Art. We practised our detail and shading grip, and recalled the four rules of shading. Can you remember the four rules? In Geography, we used atlases to identify the countries, capitals and seas of the United Kingdom. On Thursday, we conducted a Science experiment to explore how our feet may change as we get older. What pattern did you notice?

In English, we have been writing our character descriptions on Plop, from 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark' by Jill Tomlinson. Next week, we will continue to work on our writing and get these finished. 

We are coming to the end of our Place Value unit in Maths. Everyone has been working so hard and we are looking forward to moving on to addition and subtraction next week.

Year 2 - Minibooks haven't been sent home this week as we will finish off the previous week's spelling rule.

Congratulations to Ida and Oliver for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week! And a big well done to Charlie-Ray and Nevaeh for achieving their 22 club this week. 

We hope you have a brilliant weekend and I look forward to seeing you all on Monday!

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Bowden and Miss Colton

Hello Everyone,

It was lovely to meet those of you who came to our 'meet the teacher' meeting on Wednesday. Please don't hesitate to contact us at any time, via phone, email or in person after school if you have any questions or information that might help us to help your child with their learning.

This week, Year 1 have been busy learning about parts and wholes in mathematics. Well done to Ada, Evie, Casey, Hugh, Martha and Jack, who also received their 11 badge for the 99 club.

During their English lessons, Year 1 have written some fantastic stories, based on the story of 'Stanley's Stick.' We have already seen an improvement in their writing after only a few weeks.

Reception have been busy enjoying the story; 'Oi! Get off our Train' by John Burningham during their English lessons. They have loved joining in with repeating phrases from the story, and using the train set to construct and act out parts of the story.


In Geography, Year 1 went on a tour of the school, to help them to draw a plan of the school. They even managed to include a key. Well done Year 1.

We have all been learning about the story of creation in RE this week. We wondered and discussed how we thought the world was made, and then learnt about the bible's story of creation, which explains what Christians believe. We drew pictures and some children made a 'story wheel' which retold the bible story.

Have a lovely weekend!

From the Penhallow team.

TALLAND'S BLOG 27.924

It's been a fun but icky week in Talland class. Hopefully you were informed all about our delightful digestive system hands on experience!
The children are now in an excellent position to set instructions on how to travel through the digestive system! I'm looking forward to reading them next week!

I wanted to say a huge well done to all the children that have been bringing in their amazing pieces of homework - it was lovely celebrating their work with the school during celebration assembly today!

Well done to Isabelle for achieving her second 99 club badge two weeks in a row... YAY!
Great work from Heidi this week also for being noticed for her excellent attitude towards learning and work ethic - what a fabulous member of the class she is!

Short but sweet this week! I'm looking forward to lots more fun learning next week. But until then, we hope you have a brilliant weekend!

Signing off from Mr. Langley, Mr. Bishop and Miss. Colton.

P.S. Spellings for next week are attached at the bottom.

Spooky School Trip

We ended this week with a spooky tour of Bodmin Jail. The children learnt what the jail was like during Victorian times and had the chance to explore some of the cells and exhibits. They started off with a 'dark walk' through a virtual reality experience which was eerie and exciting. The most fun part was putting each other in the stocks!

In maths this week, we have learnt about factors, multiples and the formal methods for adding and subtracting. The children have taken part in some exciting challenges to explore their skills. Their favourite was the maze 100 from NRich.

In English, we have been continuing with our Brunel Biographies. Seaton class are fantastic at peer editing and giving each other advice. I was so impressed with their collaborative work. 

Have a great weekend!

Miss Burton

This week the children have enjoyed their cricket session with 'Cricket Chris' where they learnt how to throw accurately.

In English, the children all finished their amazing stories based on Paddington called 'Paddington in Saltash'.  The week started with an exciting letter from Paddington who was heading towards Saltash on a 'green train'... He asked the children in KS1 if they could recommend places to visit, so off we went around Fore Street and the surrounding area to see where he should visit.  We had lots of ideas, so then we imagined Paddington had visited Saltash and wrote a story. 

Our first 'scrap book' review was done this week and the children loved hearing why it was on of Z's favourite books.  He even read the book to the class - they loved it!

During Science, children looked for materials using their properties around the school.  The children were really good at suggesting what would be a good (or not so good!) material for a rocket.

Children have been busy in Year 1 and Year 2 Math's classes, both groups have been working on number and place value.

Don't forget our Harvest Festival assembly is coming up on Monday 7th October...
 

Crafts and creativity

This week Tregantle Class have been getting very creative! The children have been inspired by our story of the week 'Little red Riding Hood' and have made lots of things linked to the story using lots of different resources from around the classroom. We have seen a magical forest using the magnetic construction, Grandma's cottage and bed using junk modelling and some tasty treats to put in Little Red Riding Hood's basket all made with play dough! 
Our Year 1 children have thoroughly enjoyed experimenting with 'hot colours' in their art lesson. They carefully mixed red and yellow paint to make orange and used white and black to create different shades of their hot colours. They used their paints to create a 'hot colours' mood board. 
There has been some more fantastic writing form out Tregantle children. EYFS are continuing to work so hard on practicing the correct formation of the new letters that they are learning. Again they have been very resourceful in the classroom using paint, water and chalk to 'keep trying' with their letter formation - just like 'keep trying Kangaroo.' Our fabulous Year 1 children have now completed their own stories of 'Paddington in Saltash.' We had a wonderful walk down to Saltash Fore Street on Monday to gain inspiration for places for Paddington to visit on his trip to Saltash. The children chose Rowes the Bakery, the Leisure Centre, the train station and of course Brunel School! 
Year 1 enjoyed another exciting cricket session with Cricket Chris on Wednesday. He was very impressed with how our throwing and catching skills are developing! I think we are all in need of a restful weekend after a very busy week at school!