This week has been a busy one!

We are writing up our explanation texts on the seven life processes in English, which is part of our enquiry into what all living things have in common. We have learnt so much so far, including just how amazing a plant's respiration is. I can't wait to read the finished pieces!

Mrs Butlin introduced Chaipel to keyboards this week in Music and we are looking forward to learning how to play a short piece in the coming weeks. 

SATs are fast approaching and so on Thursday, the Y6 girls were invited to a 'tea, cake and natter' afternoon with Miss Randle and Mrs Hillman. It was a lovely treat, looking at old photographs and reminiscing about their experiences together, both in and out of school. The Y6 boys will get their opportunity next week. 

The RNLI were in on Friday morning to remind us how to stay safe on the beach and in the water this Summer. We had fun and learnt a great deal at the same time.  Well done to Verity and Max who were our RNLI lifeguard and 'swimmer in distress'!

We were exploring Micro:bits in Computing this afternoon and although some of us are currently in The Learning Pit (Miss Randle and Mrs Clary also) we are excited to see how we will progress over the next few weeks as we build up to measuring and recording temperature, creating spreadsheets and representing findings in a bar chart, pie chart or line graph (depending on the nature of the investigation). 

CONGRATULATIONS to Chaipel's People of the Week, Noah and Max S for showing their Bridge 'excellent' value in their learning this week.

REMEMBER... it's a three day weekend so relax, enjoy and see you all on Tuesday!!

Miss Randle, Mrs Clary and Miss Gilbert.

A busy couple of weeks!

It’s all go with our new topic, ‘Did the Cornish do a Proper Job?’ The children have completed Geography lessons where they located Wadebridge on a map and explored its locality within Cornwall. They then looked at map symbols and used this knowledge to make their own maps of Wadebridge!

This week we have been Historians and explored the history of the railway in our local area. The children learned that Bodmin and Wenford Railway had a branch line that went through Wadebridge and into Padstow. They were shocked to learn that the Camel trail was once a railway, and is now used by over 500,000 cyclists per year! We then learnt all about Tin Mines and the Tin Miners - the children had to find posters dotted around the classroom to add facts to their Tin Min Fact File. 

In PE we have been fortunate enough to have DT Coaching leading our lessons. They have been working on the pupils Striking and Fielding skills. They will spend a few weeks working on catching and throwing skills before being introduced to modified Cricket and Rounders games.

We are nearing the end of our English unit about the story, ‘The Mousehole Cat’. The children have been busy writing their own versions of the story, and adapting characters and settings. They have been using the 'Boxing up' technique for writing and planning each paragraph before writing it. We are so impressed with their use of vocabulary, adjectives, adverbs and sentence structures!

In maths we are learning about time – a tricky concept at this age, but Year 2 are taking on the challenge! It has been wonderful to hear the children tell each other what time it is throughout the school day!

Please keep up with the reading and times table rockstars at home, it really does make a difference.

Thank you,

The Year 2 Team

St Cleer Well Dressing

We were really pleased to be invited by Cornish Heritage to join them in the St Cleer well dressing ceremony.  After last year, we were also pleased that it didn't chuck it down with rain!!

Our class had worked with a local artist to produce a fantastic collage of the well, and we were excited to process through the village to the well.  We took part in a small ceremony, laid flowers on the well wall and watched some traditional Cornish dancing.  We were interested (and a bit confused) that half of the ceremony was conducted in the Cornish language.  We agreed that we'd need a bit of practice before we could understand any of it! 

We'd like to say a big thank you to Cornish Heritage for all of their support in making the day a success.

Learning by questions

This week in maths we have been learning about perimeter and area of 2D shapes.  We learned how to calculate perimeter in different ways, and how we can use information we are given to calculate the length of any sides of the shape where the dimensions are missing.  We applied our understanding to regular shapes and also to rectilinear shapes.

Once we were confident with perimeter, we learned how to calculate the area of different rectangles and rectilinear shapes.  To apply our learning we used an adaptive teaching software called Learning by Questions (LbQ).  The children really loved the different types of questions they were asked and also that they had visual representations of the problems to help them master the concepts of perimeter and area.

We all wanted to use LbQ every day - which Mr H didn't allow!

Lanlivery Primary Academy were deeply saddened to hear the tragic news about one of our pupils, Dexter. He will be remembered as smiley, kind and caring; a great friend to all of his class and the whole school. He loved to play, learn and get creative and it is hard to envisage our school without him.

We will miss him dearly and our thoughts are with his mum, dad, siblings, whole family and wider community. We are working with professionals trained to provide the very best support for pupils, parents and staff at this difficult time.

April has been a short month due to the Easter holidays but we have still managed to pack in lots of learning.

In English we have been learning about stories by the same author, Lauren Child. We have been enjoying her Clarice Bean stories and are currently working on planning our own.

Maths has been all about fractions so far this term. We have learnt how to recognise and find equal groups, recognise and find a half, a quarter and three quarters of a shape and a quantity. 

Our big question this half term is 'Who was Francis Drake and why was he important?'
We have enjoyed finding out about his voyages and learnt some grisly facts about life on the 'Golden Hind'
Most of us have seen his statue in Tavistock so we know he is important locally. We are looking forward to our trip to Buckland Abbey to find out more.

Art has been all about Vincent van Gogh. We have been looking at his paintings and discussing what we notice and like/don't like about them.
We have learnt about tints and shades and have experimented with colours and patterns in his style. Next we will be trying to reproduce his 'Starry Night' painting for our art exhibition at the end of May.

Science has been all about plants. We had fun dissecting seeds and comparing them to bulbs. Then we planted some seeds with varying amounts of light and water and are waiting to see what will happen to them. 

Courage

At the start of our Shining Stars Assembly today, we were treated to hearing music performed by Oscar, Phoebe, Imogen, Hana and Merryn.

The theme this week has been ‘Courage’ and it was fantastic to see the children show this in abundance taking to the stage to play in front of everyone. We look forward to offering this regular slot in our Shining Stars Assembly for children to showcase their skills. I know many of the children are very keen to sign up.

Teachers also recognised other acts of courage this week across the school. It is something we will continue to remind children of and support them with; especially to speak up (politely) for what they believe in or where they see unfairness.

The range and quality of learning around the classes this week has been impressive. I’ve seen amazing letter writing ‘from the trenches’ in Year 6 to Year 3 writing their own version of the Sand Horse story. Equally impressive has been the amazing Modroc artwork in Year 5.

A special well done to our youngest learners in the school (and a huge thank you to the staff) as they began the process of moving classrooms, as we re-purpose our EYFS environment. They have taken these changes in their stride.

Next week, one of the areas I want to explore further is the experience our children have at playtime and lunchtime. It’s such a crucial part of our children’s experience at school that I’m keen to see what is working well and what can be improved. I’ll be following this up with a discussion with the School Council to get their invaluable feedback.

House Points

Congratulations to this week’s winners, Puffins, earning 439 points. Our overall leaders this year so far are Choughs with an impressive 10,301 points!

Donation

We are really grateful to the Padstow Harbour Commissioners for their generous donation of £1000! We will be considering how best to use this for the benefit of our children.

Events next week

Monday 6th May Bank Holiday (School closed)

Tuesday 7th May 14:30-15:15 KS2 Parents/Carers Coffee Afternoon with Mr Wathern (Hall)

Tuesday 7th May 15:25 Year 4 Porthpean Residential Meeting for parents (4B classroom)

Thursday 9th May 08:45-09:30 EYFS/KS1 Parents/Carers Coffee Morning with Mr Wathern (Hall)

Thursday 9th May 14:15-15:00 EYFS/KS1 Parents/Carers Coffee Afternoon with Mr Wathern (Hall)

Friday 10th May Year 3 Alternative Sports Day

Friday 10th May 08:45-09:30 KS2 Parents/Carers Coffee Morning with Mr Wathern


Have a relaxing long weekend and we look forward to seeing everyone back next Tuesday.

Best wishes,

Chris Wathern

w/e 3/5/24

We really enjoyed our Science lesson this week, as we were learning about invertebrates. We went on an invertebrate hunt around the school grounds and found many creatures in their microhabitats. We took photographs, drew them and then classified them! 

We are looking forward to some Scientists joining us later in the term to do more on this topic in more depth!

Thank you so much to Cornwall Heritage Trust for including St Cleer Primary Academy in the St Cleer Well Dressing event this year. On Friday 3rd May in the Cornish sunshine, Year 5 paraded their well dressing art work; Reception presented their posies and Year 4 presented two of their Cornish dances for us all to enjoy. This year’s event is particularly significant as it celebrates the site’s removal from the Heritage at Risk Register in November 2023. Cornwall Heritage Trust CEO, Cathy Woolcock said: “We are absolutely thrilled that our interventions have saved St Cleer Holy Well and Cross from the Heritage at Risk Register, and the Well Dressing Ceremony is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate with the local community. We hope as many people as possible can come along!” Thought to date from the late 15th or early 16th century, St Cleer Holy Well is a Scheduled Monument and also Listed Grade One – a demarcation earned by only 2.5% of listed buildings and marking it out as nationally important.

Summer 1 - Week 3 - Designing and constructing!

English
This week, the children have been completed their extended writing piece for the animated story: Alma. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading the children’s recounts of this rather creepy story. Many of the children have managed to include figurative language, imagery, short, snappy sentences to build tension, descriptions of micro-expressions and ambitious vocabulary. Some children have written a dual narrative; most of their writing has been in 3rd person but a couple of paragraphs have been in 1st person (written from the perspective of the Alma Doll). It’s great to see the children experimenting with the motivations of this character - many children have opted for the doll to be sinister which makes for great reading!

Maths
We started this week by revising arithmetic style questions. The children were responsible for identifying areas they felt less confident in and working through targeted questions. It was fantastic to see so many children finding their weaknesses and turning them into strengths. Towards the end of the week, we worked on reasoning and problem-solving questions. These questions sparked some great discussions and it was interesting to see just how many different methods the children used to tackle the questions.

DT
In our wider curriculum learning, we have continued with our automata toys projects. The children have used hot-glue guns to construct a frame and have experimented with using different cams for the moving component of the toy. The cams didn’t always work straight away and it was wonderful to see children coming up with solutions to the problems they encountered. Finishing touches will be applied to the toys at the beginning of next week.

Reminders
Please keep encouraging your children to work through the CGP books which were sent home before Easter. Children who are not going on the residential should have received a letter informing you of the activities that they will be taking part in from Monday 17th – Wednesday 19th June. Please return the permission slips for the beach trip if you haven’t already. We’re also waiting on a few more permission slips for the school disco on 22nd May.

Enjoy you bank holiday weekend!
Best wishes,
The Year 6 Team

Our new enquiry question is 'Was the Great Fire of London really that great?'.

We have become historians understanding the key event which happened in London in 1666. The class have loved learning about this and in 2 weeks can already impart so much knowledge where they have even applied it within their writing in both English and the curriculum. 

We are going to be linking this in our DT next where we are going to create Tudor houses before recreating the Great Fire ourselves with help from the local fire service.

We have a trip planned to the fire station this half term (date to be confirmed) where we will look at how fire safety has changed from 1666 to now.

Reminders:

PE is on Thursday so please ensure kit is in on this day.
Reading records are also to come in on Thursday ready to be changed over for the following week.

Year 5/6 visit to Looe Community Academy
Year 5 and 6 spent the morning at LCA to take part in science activities. They looked at the process of fireworks in chemistry, burning foods to look at energy in physics and looking through microscopes in biology.

Wedding bells
Cardinham class are learning about how different religions show love through weddings and this week, the children took part in a Christian wedding. We had our bride, groom, best man, bridesmaid and entourage with Haribo rings and confetti. 

The beauty of nature
I had to share this photo that a parent sent in of one of our Year 5's with his newly born bull calf that he helped come into this world. He was able to show the amazing perseverance farmers go through when a cow is in labour (5 days for this cow!) but we loved the updates and it was a time to reflect on the incredible work farmers do!

Calendar dates
Monday 6th May-Bank holiday
Week com. 13th May-Year 6 SATs week
Thursday 16th May-PTFA School Disco
Tuesday 21st May-Bags2School
Friday 24th May-INSET day

We have started back in the summer term with a bang!

School Vision
After some reflection, we have decided to change our school vision to 'Let your light shine before others'. We wanted to encompass our family ethos where we work together to thrive. We have created a firefly display to show that one firefly can light up but if we have a group of fireflies, they shine even brighter. I have been extremely impressed that by the end of our first week, 100% of the children could articulate our new vision and explain what it means.

Cornwall Library Service
The children were thrilled to have a visit on the library van that arrived. Every child was able to choose a book from the van to have in the school to encourage reading for pleasure. Our KS1 children couldn't believe that a van has been transported into a library!

RNLI assembly
We had a visit from two lifeguards who talked to us about beach safety. They were very impressed with the knowledge the children had about being safe whilst on the beach and in the sea.

Super scientists

It's been another full on week in Tregantle Class. KS1 started their new club 'multi-sports' on Tuesday after school. There was huge amounts of energy burned in fast moving games like dragon's treasure, cups and domes and cat and mouse. The hall was filled with fun and laughter!
Tregantle have been busy scientists this week. The Year 1 children have been learning about the parts of a plant. we had some very successful labelled diagrams of 'busy lizzies' (which we all thought was a really funny name) and we have learnt how to identify some flowers like poppies, pansies and buttercups. Our EYFS scientists have been delighted by the changes we've seen in our caterpillars this week. they have all moved to the top of the pot and have begun to make their cocoons. 
In maths the EYFS children have been working really hard all week to show their understanding of teens numbers in different ways. In the photograph you can see one of the children using cubes to represent the number 15 with a block of ten and a block of five. Fantastic! 
We are all super excited for our trip to Porfell Wildlife Park on Friday. Check out our blog next week hear all about it! 

The RNLI visited us this week as part of their Be Safe; Have Fun campaign. The team spoke with children and staff about how to stay safe on our beautiful Cornish beaches. The children learned how to identify the key flags used and what they mean as well as what to do if ever caught in a rip tide. Visit https://rnli.org/safety for more information.