What a fantastic week it has been at Brunel Primary and Nursery Academy!

Our children have been immersed in a variety of wonderful learning experiences, making every day an exciting adventure of discovery and growth. It’s always a joy to see their enthusiasm and dedication shine through in everything they do. We’re thrilled to announce that our extra-curricular clubs have started again, offering even more opportunities for our children to explore their interests and talents. A huge thank you to our dedicated staff for going above and beyond to make these clubs possible. Their hard work and commitment mean so much to our school community, and we are incredibly grateful.

We’d also like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all our parents and carers for your continued support with attendance. Thanks to you, our attendance over the last two weeks has been the highest of the academic year so far—a fantastic achievement! Let’s keep this momentum going as we work together to give our children the best possible start.

Don’t forget to stay up to date with all the latest happenings by regularly checking the events diary on our website. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and explore the Class Blogs for a closer look at the wonderful activities happening in school.

We hope you enjoy this week’s edition of the Brunel Bulletin, filled with all the latest news from our amazing school. Thank you for being such a vital part of our community, and we wish you all a wonderful weekend! 

We had a brilliant launch day for our topic: What is life like in the alps? The children came to school dressed in clothes for surviving on a mountain. 

In English, we looked at photos and videos of the Alps and used this to help us think of descriptive language to use in our Hansel and Gretel story. We were all amazed at how breathtaking some of the views are and I think we all have the Alps on our list of places to visit now. 

In geography, we recalled our sticky knowledge by completing a jigsaw of the countries the Alps pass through. Then we researched human and physical features of the different mountains. We found out that the tallest mountain was Mont Blanc, which means white mountain in French. During our research, we discovered all the different tourist attractions and activities that are available. Some thought the skiing and snowboarding looked particularly exciting; others preferred the idea of the wooden cabins and hot tubs. 

To finish the day off, we toasted some marshmallows which were delicious!

A Busy First Week Back!

This week, Talland have been developing their oracy skills within lessons. This is to enable them to speak and communicate clearly and confidently.

In science, we have started a new topic 'Living Things and their Habitats'. We were introduced to the classification of living things. We practised creating classification keys using liquorice allsorts, then had a go at classifying some Alpine animals (linking in to our new Big Question). I would like to say that no liquorice allsorts were harmed during this lesson...but I cannot!

In English, we have begun studying the traditional tale of Hansel and Gretel. After story-mapping it and analysing the features of traditional tales, the children were tasked with getting into the role of some of the main characters. During our 'hot seating' lesson they had to put themselves into their character's shoes and answer questions, that the rest of the class made up, in role. The children really got into the challenge and spoke with great thought and clarity. There are definitely some future theatre stars within Talland class!

w/e 10.1.25

Welcome back, Daymer class! We were thrilled to try some cave art to introduce our topic (see last blog post) and were 'wowed' by our toilet roll timeline to demonstrate prehistory and how long ago this was!

We have started our new English sequence of learning around 'Stone Age Boy' and the children can retell the story really well whilst using tier 2 vocabulary from the book.

Year 3 have started to work with multiplication and division and Year 4 continue to do so.

In PE, we started our dance unit with the theme of weather. We did our wind section and the children were wonderfully creative with their ideas and performances.

In science, we learned about the water cycle and have made mini ‘worlds’ to watch the process in action! 


Homework:
New maths homework is now on Anton.

Reading 5x a week and Reading Records to be signed each time as we give out rewards and take note for our KS2-wide book trail.

Please rehearse times tables weekly. 

Terrific Tregantle 

What an exciting start to the spring term we’ve had! It has been absolutely wonderful to welcome the children back into school and see them settle back into routines so quickly. Our EYFS children are getting stuck into their learning about cold weather. They have done a brilliant job learning an extract from the story, ‘The Gruffalo’s Child’ and adding their own actions to tell the story. We have all embraced the colder weather and enjoyed investigating the ice that has formed in our garden. The children were brilliant scientists when trying to find ways to melt the ice or try and keep the ice. Our new ‘clothes shop’ role play area has been a massive hit. It has been great to see the children using their maths and phonics skills in here: counting out the correct number of items for each area and making and signs and receipts for the shop floor!
The Year 1 children have been very enthused by their new topic – ‘What was school like in the past?’ They have been finding out about the many differences between how school is now and how it was at different points in history. They have decided that they are very lucky to be going to school now and not a long time ago! The new Year 1 English story is ‘Harry and the Bucket Full of dinosaurs.’ Tregantle Class absolutely loved using our story sack to find out more about the story and use real objects to explore the characters’ feelings. We are all developing our speaking and listening skills with our whole school oracy focus. The children are getting used to standing and speaking ‘loud and proud’ during class discussions. A great start to 2025!

This week the children were introduced to a new story in English - Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs.  I thought a cleaner had left a bag of rubbish in the class but it was clues to the story...

In Science, the class sorted living, dead and never alive objects - this led to lots of interesting discussion about how 'never alive' some items were.  We are trying to improve out oracy skills as a school so this was a great chance to use some sentence stems to support our discussions.

This has been a fantastic week in Seaton for oracy. We started off by using our story maps of Hansel and Gretel to practise retelling the story. We used sentence stems to help structure our sentences. Please ask your child to retell the story at home.

Following this, we worked in groups to practise asking and answering questions from other students based on the characters from the story. This helped us when we were put into the hotseat and pretended to be the actual characters. The masks helped us get into character and we found the lesson a lot of fun. 

Next week we will be starting to write our own versions of the story but with a twist...it will be set in the alps with a house made of cheese and a yeti instead of a witch. 

In maths, we have been learning about percentages and how they link to decimals and fractions. 

In DT, we have started to design stuffed toys based on animals that can be found in the Alps.I was impressed with the sketches and templates I have seen so far. Next week, we will be learning blanket stitch which will help us to sew the fabric together and assemble to toy. 

In PE, we started our gymnastics unit by creating a sequence of partner balances using apparatus. The children enjoyed filming their sequences on the IPads to help them improve their tension and timing. 

What a busy week we have had, enjoy the weekend!

Miss Burton

Marazion class have had a super first week back after the Christmas break!

They were thrilled to try some cave art to introduce our topic (see last blog post) and were 'wowed' by our toilet roll timeline to demonstrate prehistory and how long ago this was!

We have started our new English sequence of learning around 'Stone Age Boy' and the children can retell the story really well whilst using tier 2 vocabulary from the book.

Year 3 have started to work with multiplication and division and Year 4 continue to do so.

In PE, we started our dance unit with the theme of weather. We did our wind section and the children were wonderfully creative with their ideas and performances.

Homework:
New maths homework is now on Anton.

Reading 5x a week and Reading Records to be signed each time as we give out rewards and take note for our KS2-wide book trail.

Please rehearse times tables weekly

Happy New Year 2025. We have an action packed term planned ahead of us titled: What is life like in the Alps? We will use this topic to explore the peaks of this mountainous region and expand our knowledge of the geographical features of the area.

We will be writing a traditional tale based on Hansel and Gretel. However, we are changing the setting so that the children climb a mountain in The Alps and find a house made of cheese. Inside, they will be captured by an evil yeti who they will have to defeat!

In DT, we will designing and creating stuffed animals using blanket stitch. I am looking forward to researching animals found in The Alps and seeing the stuffed toys they produce. 

Please find the knowledge web below for more information on each subject.

I hope you all have a lovely week back, 

Miss Burton

Happy New Year! 

Welcome back!

We hope you all are ready to come back and meet all your Nursery friends again!

The Nursery adults are looking forward to seeing you all again, and we look forward to welcoming the new children who are starting this week.

We are settling back by revisiting our last story - The Gingerbread Man, and then we will be looking at a new focus story, which is Goldilocks and the 3 bears.

Have you got this story at home?

if you have, perhaps you can share a photo of yourself and the book on Tapestry so we can put it on our Tapestry display board?

Welcome to Tregantle class 2025! We are all very excited to jump into the new term and get started on some exciting learning! Our EYFS classroom is looking spectacular with a new clothes shop in our role play area and a new story area to become immersed in our EYFS book 'The Gruffalo's Child.' Our overview for learning for Year 1 is attached. We are really looking forward to finding out more about what schools were like in the past. See you all tomorrow! 

Happy New Year 2025. We have an action packed term planned ahead of us titled: What is life like in the Alps? We will use this topic to explore the peaks of this mountainous region and expand our knowledge of the geographical features of the area. 

Please note, on Monday 13th January, at 3.15pm, there will be a meet the teacher session with Mr Parry. It will be an informal meeting to discuss the curriculum for the rest of the term and to meet Mr Parry. 

Below, you will find a copy of the 'knowledge web' which will cover the topics of this term.

Best wishes, Mrs Swabey, Mr Parry, Mrs Walters, Mrs Payne and Miss Rowlands.

We do hope that you have enjoyed the Christmas Nativity this week!

The children have remembered some very tricky Christmas songs, as well as some very easy ones, too, and have enjoyed singing them to you in our play.

We are overwhelmed with the positive feedback, gifts and good wishes; the Nursery staff wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

What a Fantastic autumn term we've had in Tregantle Class! This week has been wonderful as we have been enjoying the celebrations of Christmas together. We have had a super festive time wearing our Christmas jumpers and enjoying our legendary Brunel Christmas lunch. We finished the term with carols around the Christmas tree in an assembly led by Reverend Parkman.
Merry Christmas one and all from Team Tregantle!