Year 6 have had a busy few weeks. There is always a lot going on at this time of year: the Summer Fayre, Sports Day, transition days to new secondary schools and SATs results to name a few.

Every-one in the Brunel Family is so incredibly proud of how well the children have done in their SATs. The hard work and dedication they have shown over the past 10 months has really paid off. Collectively, they have exceeded the National Average for results across all of the tests. Another huge thank-you goes out to everyone at home for the support and encouragement that has been in abundance throughout Year 6.

Year 6 have had a busy few weeks. There is always a lot going on at this time of year: the Summer Fayre, Sports Day, transition days to new secondary schools and SATs results to name a few.

Every-one in the Brunel Family is so incredibly proud of how well the children have done in their SATs. The hard work and dedication they have shown over the past 10 months has really paid off. Collectively, they have exceeded the National Average for results across all of the tests. Another huge thank-you goes out to everyone at home for the support and encouragement that has been in abundance throughout Year 6.

In Science, we set up an experiment to see what seeds actually need to grow... Some seeds have light and water, some just water (no light) and the last set of seeds have not water, but they have lots of sun!  We'll update you next week with our results.

Over the past term, Year 3 have been learning all about living things and their habitats alongside their class topic of the rainforest. We were fortunate to be invited to Saltash Library to complete three workshops put on by the Beach Guardians. This is a charity set up in Cornwall to help raise awareness about plastic pollution, the impact it can have on a range of habitats and wildlife plus the need for us to look after our beautiful coastline.

Mousehole Class thoroughly enjoyed creating posters, sifting nurdles of plastic and discovering the various items that get washed up on our shores. We also learnt about how we can play our part in reducing plastic pollution. 

w/e 12.7.24

We had a lovely time over at St Anne's this week - it was the last session for the year and we paraded over with Archie themselves! We popped in and gave the residents from handmade thank you cards, sang 'Trelawny' and said goodbye for the summer. We're so lucky to have this project and grateful that we get to run it again next year!

This week, we also designed some Fruit Kebabs! We have sent our designs off to Lidl in the hope that they will start marketing and producing one of them in time for the summer! Some of our designs are in the photos below! They look so yummy!

We have continued our learning about the Maya civilization and culture. The children worked in small groups to investigate, research and make notes about different aspects of the Maya civilization and how they have influenced our society today: for example, the invention of chocolate; and the playing of team games. They found some amazing facts such as the Maya used hot chocolate as a medicine, albeit, a lot different from the hot chocolate we drink today and  included chilli peppers.

English
This week has included assessment in reading. All of the children have made good progress and are able to infer (read between the lines) in a piece of text. They enjoyed reading the stories in their reading assessments.

Maths
This week has included learning the key vocabulary for converting units of measurement. The children recognise that kilo derives from the Greek language and means a thousand and milli derives from the latin language and means a thousandth. This has helped them to solve simple conversion challenges for grammes and mm, for example. 


best wishes,

Mr Parry, Mrs Swabey and the Talland Class team (Mrs Walters and Ms Rowlands)

This week's jokes:

Where do sharks go on their Summer holidays? Finland.


What's the favourite tree of an English teacher? Poetry. 

This week Tregantle Class has been all about money! Our Year 1 children have been getting to grips with identifying coins and notes. There have been lots of interesting activities to practice using money and finding a total by using different coins. Our tuft tray activity has been a big hit with the children. The challenge has been to make different totals of money using as many or as few coins as possible. The EYFS children have made their own 'Tregantle Shop' in the role play area and have been busy stocking up on healthy fruits and vegetables! The children have been using our play money to pay for items and give change.
We have also been wonderful writers this week. Year 1 have written our class version of the story 'Mr Gumpy's Outing' which we re-named 'Mrs Honey's Outing.' There were some great adjectives and verbs including our spelling patterns for adding suffixes - amazing! The EYFS children have used their sounds and tricky word knowledge brilliantly to write about the animals that stole Handa's fruit in our class story 'Handa's Surprise.' What a busy week it has been! 
 

w/e 5.7.24

Wow! We do love a busy week here at Brunel!

We have enjoyed Sports Day this week - what a great day it was, too! We raced our socks off, supported each other and had a great time! Well done, everyone!

That afternoon, we continued the fun with our DT lesson - we tasted some fruit of the rainforest and voted for our favourites!

Later in the week, we went to the library for 3 workshops all about saving our oceans - we learned loads!

And finally, on Friday afternoon, we enjoyed our class treat of a sweet shop (we had some fake money even!) and a movie!

What a week!

In R.E. this week, the children learnt the story of Jonah and the Whale.  In the story Jonah found it hard to say “sorry” to God at the start. And sometimes saying sorry can be really hard to do.  The class freeze-framed the story - Can you spot God commanding Jonah to go to Nineveh? Or maybe Jonah praying in the whale's mouth? We loved the frame of God repenting and not punishing the people of Nineveh... Perhaps you could ask your child the retell the story of Jonah using the pictures?

Sports' Day was a big event this week. Each child put in his/her best efforts throughout the day. The comradeship, enthusiasm and dedication oozed throughout. Thank you, Talland Class.

English
The children have been learning how to write a book review. The key points they considered were the actions and characteristics of the main characters, for example: responsibility, friendship, perseverance and bravery. They learned a lot about themselves, too, during the writing of the book review.

Maths
The main theme for this week has been the exploration of polygons (many sided 2-D shapes). The children now recognise the criteria for a regular polygon (all sides and angles equal) and an irregular polygon. They had the opportunity to further their protractor and ruler skills by measuring sides to the nearest centimetre and angles to the nearest degree. Well done, Talland Class.


best wishes,

Mr Parry, Mrs Swabey and the Talland Class team (Mrs Walters and Ms Rowlands)

This week's jokes:

What is harder to catch the faster you run?  Your breath.

Why can't Cinderella play football? She keeps running away from the ball.

Sports Day Smiles!

What an incredible sports day we had at the beginning of the week! We started our 'Brunel Olympics' with a parade around the field - we all waved the brilliant flags from all of the countries taking part in the Olympics this year that we made last week. The year 1 children joined up with year 2 to take part in the quoits race - the children carefully balanced a quoit on their head and competed in a relay race. Next it was the EYFS children who did absolutely brilliantly in the sack race. They bounced like kangaroos! Both year groups joined the egg and spoon race which was lots of fun. The sprints were at the end of the event and what fast runners we had! The best thing about all of the events was that all of Tregantle Class took part with great sportsmanship and had smiles on their faces throughout. We finished our sports day with a picnic on the field and a disco. What an incredible day! 

w/e 28.6.24

This week we were visited by the Butterfly Conservation Trust, specifically Victoria. She taught us how to carryout a Bug study on the school grounds. We used umbrellas, sticks, nets and our hands to find the creatures! We found LOADS! Hopefully you can talk about what we found at home!

The Sun has Been Shining...

What a lovely week of sun-shine we've had this week!  Gardening Club have had a great week planting vegetables in our little plot - we are still trying to get rid of weeds! We now need to make sure we water them in the sun! 

In Lantic Class this week, we have been learning a new story during our English lessons - Mr. Gumpy's Outing.  We will be using this to inspire our own stories in the next two weeks.

In Math's we have been learning about the properties of 3D shapes and have been investigating them.

In our wider curriculum lessons, we have been classifying seeds, using directional language to move around maps, writing prayers for forgiveness - and discussing the importance of forgiveness and continuing to build our tractors!  

The children's ability in using different art techniques is amazing. They've practised Batik designs using various patterns, a variety of imaginative colours and wax resist. They applied the wax by using a tjanting tool (see pictures).To complete this term's unit of art study, they have produced an original Batik design based on the Maya cultural traditions. A  lot of thought and imagination has gone into each piece. Thank you, Talland Class.

English
The children have researched and practised several grammar related activities throughout the week. One of the advanced challenges was to use passive voice. Passive voice requires the writer to reorder an active sentence, for example:

James kicked the ball. (Active sentence.)

The ball was kicked by James. (Passive sentence.)

Using this strategy is a challenge, however, enhances the children's written work. A huge effort put in to this by all of the children.

Maths
There's been a lot of fun, together with serious learning, using protractors to measure and draw angles. This can be a complicated activity unless a child is focused and recognises the techniques used to be successful. They are now confident in finding acute and obtuse angles and many relate to the idea that there are 360 degrees around a point. Well done, Talland Class.



best wishes, Mr Parry, Mrs Swabey and the Talland Class team (Mrs Walters and Ms Rowlands) 


This week's jokes:

What did the triangle say to the circle? - You're pointless!

What is a swimmer's favourite part of maths? - Dive - vision!

Year 6 have been enjoying their Maya based topic by completing a range of activities. We’ve been finding out about the various religious practises of this ancient civilisation and how they believe in 9 levels of the under world and 13 layers of heaven.

In DT, we’ve been busy creating beautiful Maya masks using the technique of batik. This involves drawing with hot, melted wax before painting in the unwaxed fabric with ink. The results are stunning, and we are so pleased with how they turned out.