Early Islamic Art

Our focus for the first part of this term is the Early Islamic Empire and the influences that came from this fascinating period of history. We have looked at how Early Islamic art used geometric shapes and repeated patterns to create vibrant and interesting art work that can be adapted and used in carvings, wall hangings, fabrics and tiled areas. 

The children used step by step instructions to draw detailed shapes and imagery linked to the Early Islamic style. These designs will now be used as a basis to make soap carvings and stained glass windows.

Lots of learning and fun!

The Spring Term has well and truly started. Please enjoy 4 photographs that tell the story for these first couple of weeks of 2025.
We have enjoyed a visit from the Dog's Trust, taken part in a Stone Age DT/Forest School project 'living in the stone age' where the children planned and made a stone age meal and used different early caveman survival skills. We have had The Royal Cornwall Show come and deliver a workshop all about where our food comes from. Finally, on Monday 20th January, we went to Kents Cavern to link our history projects from Autumn to Spring Terms.

What a great start to the year. Please do ask your children about the things they have taken part in. 

Any questions about the term ahead, please do email.

Miss Pittas

Dear all

We have had a lovely week all around!  Last Friday, we began our Basketball unit where the children played various warm-up games and then practised some Basketball skills.  The children practised dribbling the ball and tried to get past their partner!

We continued our Art unit by drawing a sketch of a "Cubist Tree".  The children used rectangles, triangles, ovals, circles and various other shapes to create beautiful designs.  We will be working in groups next week to extend this idea further.

In English, the children have planned their own versions of their Jungle Book Story.  I am hoping that by the end of next week, they will have finished and published their books that will come home when they are ready!

In French, we have learned the names for the different rooms in a house!  The children remembered lots from the previous lesson so I hope that they have shared this with their parents!

We also had some lovely activities on Monday including a workshop from The Royal Cornwall show, music (playing Ukeles with Mrs Butlin) and decorating biscuits with chocolate spread and sweets for our maths lesson!

The children have also been learning a "street dance" in class which they are enjoying - and so are the adults!

Take care all!

Mrs Brewer, Miss Masters and Mrs Collings

22nd January – Royal Cornwall Workshop!

We were very lucky to have the Royal Cornwall Workshops this week. We learnt all about seafood and where it comes from. We then explored lots of activities all about farming and how to use the land. We filled in puzzles, dressed up as farmyard animals, looked at the life cycle of a flower, talked about healthy eating and lots more! We had so much fun.

In our learning, we have continued finding out about Emperor Penguins. Foundation have been exploring penguins in their choosing time. They have labelled penguins, talked about where they live and made penguins on our playground out of chalk! Year 1 have started writing their non-chronological reports about Emperor penguins. We have gathered our facts together and now we have started writing our sentences. We are going to share our information with Foundation at the end of the week.

In Computing, we have been learning more about algorithms. We were talking about bugs in algorithms this week and how with a bug, our algorithm won’t work properly! We have explored this through a dice game making monsters and seeing what happens when we roll the same number. Lots of our monsters ended up with two heads or four arms! We then talked about the importance of getting our algorithms right.

Well done Foundation / Year 1, another great week!

Foundation / Year 1 Team

Staying safe & being flexible!

Year 6 have come back to school in 2025 and hit the ground running!

In Science, we are learning about 'Living Things & their Habitats'. So far, we have learned about classification, MRS GREN and we have researched a variety of living things from all of the different Kingdoms.

In History, we have been learning about Bias and how to decide how reliable information presented to us about the past may or may not be in relation to a local History study about Cornwall.

In French, we have linked our unit to Science, learning all about Habitats.

Our English this half term is a revision unit, helping us to prepare for SATs, but using the first Harry Potter book, 'Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone' and in Maths, we have just completed a unit about Ratio & Proportion.

In Computing, we are learning all about online safety and we have had a visit from the NSPCC, talking about how to keep ourselves safe both online and in real life. The children know how to talk to a safe adult and that they can also contact Childline: 08001111 - 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.

In PE, we have been revising our use of balance, using the apparatus and in PSHE, our unit is helping us to discuss our future dreams and goals.

Our topic this half-term is ' A Healthy me'

Welcome back everyone. This half term our topic is 'A Healthy me'! 

We are very excited as this week  we will making smoothies, we have all spoken about different fruits we'd like to try.  So far we have also spoken about the importance of eating five fruits and vegetables a day.  The children the have said ....

"If I eat lots of strawberries, blue ones, bananas. and grapes, and I like apples that makes me healthy and I grow!' - L

R said ' Eating broccoli is very good for you and sweet corn, but I like fruit on my breakfast'.

We have been really enjoying, our Kixx sessions with Coach James every Monday afternoon. We have had snowball's that we counted and also buckets!!

In maths, we are learning to recognise number 1-10 and counting objects out to 5! The children are really enjoying adding this into their play. They have found 5 pencils, 5 pieces of play fruit, 3 books, 2 buckets and 4 dinosaurs!  Maybe you could try this at home? If you do please pop a picture on Seesaw for us to share.

In singing with Mrs Harris on a Wednesday we are learning the song 'Cornwall my home' - I have sent a seesaw message out about this! 

Our nursery rhyme of the week is - https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/articles/zvt8gwx - Five little apples. 

If you have any fizzy bottles you no longer need we would love a few for our junk modelling area please!  Come back next week to see how our smoothies turn out.  Also, please don't forget we LOVE to see what you get up to over the week. Please pop pictures on seesaw for your child to share with their friend. This helps develop memory, confidence and speaking skills! 

Miss Whitty, Miss Ronald and Miss Selby :)

How are we already at the end of our second week back!  The children have been getting stuck into their learning this week.

In Drawing Club our reception children have been sharing the story of 'The pea and the Princess'.  They have come up with some amazing ideas to try to convince the Princess that the bed is comfortable!  Year 1's and 2's have been starting to create their plot points based on the story of 'George and the Dragon'.  Their imaginations have been running wild and they have been using some fantastic adjectives, alliteration, onomatopoeia and similes in their sentences. 

In maths reception have been continuing to focus on numbers 0-5 and have been introduced to the concepts of 1 more and 1 less.  Year 1 have been continuing their place value work, focusing on the teen numbers.  Year 2 have begun their unit of work all about money.  They have been recognising the denominations of the different coins and notes, adding and comparing quantities.  There has been a lot of problem solving and questioning going on this week.  We also had our first week of 99 club for the spring term and we could see great leaps of improvements in scores, the children are always so determined to beat their last score.

In art this week the children made some amazing dragon sculptures with Mirs Fernie, made from clay, thinking about the different joining techniques and modelling skills needed to make a successful sculpture.

We are very lucky to have Mrs Butlin back in working with us for music and we spent some time creating rhythms with the drums and new songs.

In our history work we watched the coronation of Queen Victoria and King Charles lll and discussed the differences and similarities.  We learnt about the four main parts of a coronation and then held our own. Our reception children looked at photos from when they were babies and discussed how they are different now and how we can use photos from the past to help us remember what things were like in the past.

We had a visit from 'Smarter smiles' this week, explaining the importance of good oral hygiene and the children all got sent home with a good bag.  This builds on the work we are doing in school with our supervised teeth brushing and opportunity for fluoride treatment.  Our next visit will be in the summer term.

Another busy week ahead next week and we can't wait to fill you in on all that we have done.

Mrs Andrew, Mrs Fernie, Mrs Hicks, Miss Talbot

Happy New Year and welcome back to a brand new term!

The spring term is always so busy and full of exciting things.  The children have all come back to school eager and ready to learn.

This week in our English Year 1 and 2 have been introduced to the story of George and the Dragon and have worked extremely hard to create a story map to enable them to re-tell the story.  

Math this week has seen our reception children start their unit of work 'Alive in 5', where they are embedding their knowledge of numbers 0-5.  The year 1's have started a new unit on place value, focusing on the numbers up to and including 20.  This builds upon the place value unit which they covered at the beginning of the year.  They are looking at the numerals, words and how the numbers can be represented in different ways.  Year 2's have been consolidating and completing their unit of work on shape, looking at the properties of both 2D and 3D shapes.

Our enquiry question this half term is 'Who can be royal?' and you with seen the medium term plan of activities on seesaw.  We started our history unit of work this week exploring the question 'What is a monarch?'.  We discussed who our monarch is today and the roles and responsibilities they have.

We can't wait to continue exploring these questions over the next few weeks.

As always, if you have any concerns or questions please don't hesitate to contact one of us.

Mrs Andrew, Mrs Fernie, Mrs Hicks, Miss Talbot
 

Wonderful Writing, Reflective Surfaces and Buzzing Bees!

We've had another week full of lots of learning! On Monday, we considered how our words have an impact and were inspired to promote kindness to others by giving each other compliments. In Science, we consolidated our understanding of light and dark, and conducted a whole class experiment, investigating reflective materials. Can you recall which material was the most reflective? In Geography, we began a new unit on the Conservation of Bees, where we learnt the differences between bumblebees and honeybees. In PE, we have continued to develop our skills when playing net and wall games. We had lots of fun!

In English, we finished writing up our neat copies of our Little Egyptian Red Riding Hood stories. We used our best handwriting and had a go at using pen for the first time this year. We also started our new unit, focused on explanation texts, where we will be writing our own about how bees make honey. We have read and identified the main features and used our VIPERS knowledge to answer questions. Today, we learnt about the process of how bees make honey and then used drama to act this out. 

In Maths, Year 2 are coming to the end of their topic on Shape, where they have been sorting 2-D and 3-D shapes, as well as making repeating patterns. Year 3 have been working hard on dividing and multiplying by 2, 4 and 8, exploring the relationships between these times tables.

I have included the KIRFS for this half term below, along with the Knowledge Web and Homework grid. Please remember to continue reading your colour banded book at home and practising your times tables. Library books will continue to be changed on Thursday's, so make sure you bring these in if you would like a new book. Of course, should you have any questions, just let me know. 

Congratulations to Jemima, Amber and April for being Landaviddy's People of the Week. 

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

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Bowden and Miss Colton

TALLAND'S CLASS BLOG 17.1.25

A busy week in Talland. The children found out about our new enquiry: Do all living things need a home? They have lots of fun things in store. It's been great getting started!

Maths:
Year 4 have just started area. This is always fun and the children love it!
Year 5 have just begun fractions and are getting their heads around equivalent fractions.

Writing:
Talland have completed their persuasive letters and written it up in top copy. They look and sound fabulous!

Science: 
We have delved into the role of a naturalist scientist, where we have discovered what this kind of scientist does and possible job opportunities within this field! Some of the jobs sound like so much fun!

PE: 
Talland have continued to learn some awesome dance moves and begun using the forehand swing in tennis. Some potential, soon to be, Wimbledon players in the making!

Well Done to Flora (last week) for getting her 88 badge in 99 club. Also great work from Frankie (last week) for being noticed as an amazing student. This week, well done to Skye. Her writing has thoroughly impressed the teachers and her overall ability to show all of Polperro's values.

That's all from Talland this week. We hope you have a brilliant weekend!

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

It was lovely to be able to visit St Anne's again after the Christmas break.

We took some of our library books to share with the residents which sparked lots of conversations about favourite stories.

The play dollies also enjoyed having a story read to them!

What a fun and busy week!

This week the children in Lantic class have been so busy!  We have been exploring characters feelings in English lessons, comparing schools from the past with now, understanding that Jesus is 'Good News' for Christian's by being forgiving AND making rabbit sliders in our DT lessons...  We've shared our favourite books and worked really hard on using sentence stems to support our oracy skills in EVERY lesson!  Thank goodness it's the weekend - we need a rest!  Remember to keep reading at home and don't forget to look at your Maths homework on Anton.

I wonder what we'll be doing next week...
  

Ready for Reading!

We've had another amazing week in Tregantle, full of new experiences, learning and fun! 
Our Year 1 children were super scientists at the beginning of the week when they began learning about animals and their habitats. It was so much fun collecting up all of our toy animals and sorting them into the right habitats. We continued the animal theme in P.E where we learnt a dance to the music 'The Pink Panther.' We all had to work hard to move in time to the music and combine fast and slow movements. The whole team have been blown away with Tregantle's maths skills this week. The Year 1 children have been superb at using a number line effectively including adding missing numbers and our EYFS children have been amazing at adding numbers to 5. We got very creative when we made pictures to go with our class story 'The Gruffalo's Child.' The children used different shades of cold colours to create a background and then added black silhouettes of characters from the story. They all look fabulous on our display board! We ended the week with an exciting trip to Saltash Library. This really helped to develop our love of reading as there were so many fantastic books on offer. They children really enjoyed browsing though the books and especially loved picking a book to take home for the week. There was much excitement when it was time to scan our books in the borrowing machine! Enjoy your books Tregantle Class! 

Our clubs have been up and running this week and really well attended. There are still spaces in our Tuesday after school club for years 3-6 with Mrs Phillips. We have spoken to the children about what they would like to do in this club. It will now be an Alternative Sports Club which will include, dance, gymnastics, yoga and other activities that the children want to try out. Please email school if your child would like to attend.

Children’s Mental Health Week We will be taking part in Children’s Mental Health Week which is taking place from 3-9 February. The week’s focus is Know Yourself, Grow Yourself, with the aim to encourage children and young people across the UK to embrace self-awareness and explore what it means to them. 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 Friday 7th February when all staff and pupils will take part in the Big Schools’ Birdwatch and other outdoor wellbeing activities. Further details to follow.

Family Worker Drop-Ins, Thursday 6th February, 9-11 am Reminder that the Early Help Hub will be holding Family Worker Drop-In Sessions in our school from 9-11 am on 6th February 2025. If you would like to be able to talk in confidence, just pop along, they will be here to help and support you. They will be happy to discuss and advise on issues concerning your family for example, how to better understand your child’s needs & behaviours; positive parenting and how to keep your child safe; how to better understand the importance of routines for your family. To book a 30-minute slot, contact the school on secretary@polperroprimary.co.uk or call on 01503 272249.

Online Supporting Autism Course Please find attached details of an online course to guide parents and carers in supporting a family member or friend on the autism spectrum. The course will offer practical advice on topics including communication, behaviour and education, strategies of support, legal rights, how to engage in services and accessing further information.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hillman

What a fabulous week of learning we have had. We have begun our new enquiry into our country's natural resources. We have investigated the main sectors of our economy and how ingredients that make a simple chocolate cake have been on an epic journey from the countries where they began as raw materials to the countries that turned them into manufactured products.

ENGLISH
We have edited, improved and begun to write up our persuasive letters in best copy. I am so proud of the effort that Chaipel have put into this piece of writing and look forward to reading each and every one of them. 

MATHS
We have completed our Fractions unit and we have come so far. We can compare, order, simplify, convert, add and subtract. For Y6s, it's Ratio next and for Y5s it is Multiplication and Division. 

WIDER CURRICULUM
Our investigation into Bhangra dance is coming on with us creating sequences using a range of motifs and travel steps. Tennis is also on the PE timetable for this half term with Mrs Hillman. We have learnt about bridge construction beam styles in DT and tested out our beams for strength using a range of weights and measures. In Science, we have located the reproductive features of a plant and will move our learning on next week to look at asexual plant reproduction.

Congratulations to Verity and Ashton for being our People of the Week, recognised for displaying our school values and to Dom and Elsie for achieving their next badge in their 99 Club.

Have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday.

Miss Randle, Mrs Clary and Miss Hodge.

It’s been a very busy and productive couple of weeks since the start of term. Alongside the children starting their new learning journeys, we have been holding Pupil Progress Meetings to review all children’s progress and next steps. We will be holding our next round of Parent Teacher Consultations after the half term break. However, in the meantime, should you have any questions about your child, please don’t hesitate in contacting your child’s teacher.

Attached to the email coming home today, you’ll find your child’s fortnightly Year Group News, which highlights some of the teaching and learning from the last couple of weeks and what’s coming up next. Do take a look to see what’s been happening. A copy can also be found on the class pages of our website.

KS2 Cross Country
On Monday, the weather was kind and over 40 of our KS2 pupils represented Wadebridge Primary in the second Wadebridge Area School Cross Country event of the year. All WPA pupils ran with smiles on their faces and enjoyed themselves. Some good results and personal bests recorded. Well done to all!

Year 4 Stay and Learn – Friday 24th January 08:45-09:45 (Hall)
A reminder that all Year 4 parents are invited to join their children in Year 4 at our next Stay and Learn on Friday 24th January. Come and join your child to explore some maths problem solving together. No need to sign up – we look forward to seeing you there.

Coffee Morning & Maths Workshop – Monday 27th January 08:45-09:15
Mr O’Dwyer will be hosting an informal maths workshop and coffee morning after drop off on Monday 27th January. During the workshop, we will be will be sharing some information about what maths looks like at WPA and the approach we take to ensure pupils develop 'KIRFs' (Key Instant Recall Facts). You will also have the chance to have a go at resources such as Times Table Rockstars to aid with home learning. We look forward to seeing you there. 

Uniform
Thanks for rummaging through the lost property and collecting items. Any remaining clothing has been passed on to FOWPA for their nearly new uniform sales or a local clothes bank.

There’s a lot in the media about schools enforcing their uniform policies with detentions and the like. We don’t follow this path, but instead ask for your support in sending your child in wearing the correct uniform. Thank you for supporting our uniform policy, as on the whole, the children come to school in the right clothing. From time to time, we do need to remind children about certain accessories and footwear. A copy of our uniform list has been emailed home today; a copy can also be found on our website. We have amended the wording slightly by removing the “don’t wear this, etc.” so it’s clear (hopefully) what the uniform is, rather than what it isn’t.

As always, should you need any support with uniform, please don’t hesitate in speaking with a member of staff. Likewise, should your child need any reasonable adjustments to their uniform, please speak with your child’s teacher or our SENDCo, Mr Smith.

Volunteers
Would you like to help out at our school, maybe on a trip, hearing readers, gardening or something else you could offer? Keep a look out for a separate message next week with further details on how to register your interest.

House Points
Congratulations to this week’s winners, Swans. Overall, Swans maintain the lead:

Swans – 4063
Choughs – 3933
Cormorants – 3597
Puffins – 3473

Dates coming up this month:

Monday 20th January
(pm) Year 6 Secondary Transition PE Session
Year 6 Bikeability runs until Thursday 13th February

Friday 24th January
08:45-09:45 Year 4 Stay & Learn

Monday 27th January
08:45 Coffee Morning & Maths Workshop with Luke O’Dwyer

Thursday 30th January
09:00 Year 5 Assembly

Friday 31st January
Space Odyssey workshop for Y5 and Y6

With very best wishes,
Chris Wathern