Happy New Year!

This week, we welcome Mrs Lister to Penhallow class. She will be working with us every Friday. She also teaches at Trenode school and has experience at teaching all Primary age groups, and brings with her lots of experience and enthusiasm. Please feel free to come in and meet her, or to ask any questions that you might have. 

This week, we have launched our new enquiry question: ‘Why aren’t space ship’s made of jelly?’ The focus of the topic, is based around different materials and their properties. 

This week, we explored the story of The Three Little Pigs during our English lessons. We learnt the story and practiced reciting our own version of the story with actions. We also sequenced the story with pictures, and built models of the pig’s houses in our construction area. We practiced our phonics writing skills by drawing plans, writing lists and labelling our models. 

In art, Year 1 began to learn about the sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. We watched videos about how he creates his work, and found out about the natural materials and techniques that he uses. We sketched the shapes that his sculptures make, so that next week, we can create our own designs and sculptures outside, using natural materials. Reception enjoyed making collages of the three pig’s houses, mixing colours to paint pig masks, and using junk modelling to build models of the houses. 

Have a lovely weekend!

From the Penhallow team

Happy New Year

Welcome back everyone. It has been nice to see all of the children return to nursery this week and we had some new children start with us so we have enjoyed welcoming them into the nursery. We hope you all had a lovely Christmas break.

We have come back this week to some very cold wintery weather which goes perfectly with our enquiry question "Why is it cold in winter?"
The children have been exploring our snowy themed road on the tuft tray and have made some lovely handprint calendars to take home.
They have made handprint birds in the snow and we have started creating lolly stick snowmen.

At story time, we have been enjoying the book "The Gruffalo's child" and in phonics we have been talking about hospitals. The children have been clapping to a beat, matching hospital sounds to different instruments and trying to match objects to there initial sounds.

On the maths table, we have been making comparisons and looking at more than, fewer than or the same. The children are been encouraged to mark make and have a go at forming numbers 1-3 or beyond.

Have a lovely weekend

The Nursery Team 

Hello Everyone!

There has been plenty of fun and festive activity in Penhallow this week.

Our Christmas Art Day took place on Tuesday, where we worked with our school house groups to make Christmas cards, crowns for our Christmas dinner, Christmas decorations and bags. We have also made some of our own decorations and cards in Penhallow this week, during our art and design technology lessons.

During our Christmas party on Friday, we enjoyed playing some old fashioned party games such as musical statues, musical chairs and pin the nose on Rudolph. Thank you so much for the party food that was supplied. Great fun was had by all.

As well as all the festive fun this week, we have also been busy writing some amazing stories, based on the story of 'The Snowman' by Raymond Briggs. Reception have enjoyed sequencing the story, and retelling the events, while Year 1 have really shown off their learning this term, by including some fantastic vocabulary and sentences in writing their own version on the stories. Well done everybody!

We hope you all have a lovely Christmas.  We will see you on Tuesday 7th January.

From The Penhallow Team.

Merry Christmas!

We've had a very festive week in Landaviddy class!

On Tuesday, we had Christmas Art Day, which was lots of fun. We made a variety of different decorations, cards, crowns and bags. 

Our Christmas party was on Friday. We started the day playing a team building game, where we used only candy canes to build a marshmallow snowman. This was a challenge but so much fun! The fastest team was Amber and Nevaeh! Well done! We completed a 'Grinch Run', danced and played some musical statues too, finishing off the morning with a christmas film and snacks. 

During DT this week, we also made our Egyptian collars and practised sewing fabric together. This was a challenge for sure, so we needed to use our growth mindsets! But everyone persevered extremely well and didn't give up. 

Congratulations to Oliver, Nevaeh and Darragh for being Landaviddy's People of the Week. And a big well done for all those who achieved their 99 club. 

We hope you all have a magical Christmas and look forward to seeing you back at school on Tuesday 7th January 2025!

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Bowden and Miss Colton

IT'S A CHRISTMAS WRAP!

What a lovely last week of term we have had! Christmas Art Day was a huge success and the school came together to create their own crowns, decorations, cards and bags/tags. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves!

We have completed our Expressive Art investigation into 'Making our voice heard through expressive art', combining street art and Mayan symbolism with chiaroscuro and the results are amazing. They have been put up in the Library/Entrance Hall so that everyone visiting the school can enjoy seeing our work.

Chaipel finished the week with a Christmas party on Friday morning. We really are an amazing class and have produced some incredible work to be proud of this term. The celebration was well deserved!

All that is left for me to say is MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

See you all back on Tuesday 7th January!

Miss Randle, Mrs Clary, Mrs Hodge and Miss Colton.

Merry Christmas 

We have had a busy week of finishing up all of the Christmas craft that we have been carrying out. Our Christmas door competition ended on Monday and we thank everyone for taking part, the doors all looked great.Mrs Hillman chose a winner, so well done to Eliza for her glittery Christmas door entry.
On Wednesday the children enjoyed Christmas dinner, we were feeling very festive with the Christmas music playing and the food was delicious!
Today (Friday) we have had our Christmas party. The children have enjoyed party games and a party lunch.

We look forward to the holidays now and we would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and we can't wait to see everyone in the new year.

The nursery team

Hello Everyone!

We hope you enjoyed our Christmas performance of 'It's a baby!' this week. We gave three performances this week, and (although perhaps a little tired by the time we reached the final performance), we acted and sang our hearts out. Well done to all of Penhallow, particularly to those who stepped into a new role due to their friend being absent. Thank you also to parents, who helped with the learning of lines at home. 

In our Maths learning this week, Year 1 have been busy using a number line to 20. We have ordered and placed numbers on a number line, and have been using our problem solving skills to estimate which numbers could be hiding in different positions. 
Reception have been using their skills in continuous provision, to create and name different shapes. There have been plenty of maths involved in our Christmas continuous provision activities, and we have been impressed at how some children have been able to explain their own learning.

In design technology, Year 1 have been sewing Christmas stockings as a Christmas decoration. We will decorate these next week, so that they will be ready to hang on your Christmas tree.

In computing, we have all been using our skills of coding, either to program a beebot, or to create our own character on the scratch junior app.

This week, we have also put the finishing touches to our Andy Warhol inspired printing creations during our art lesson. Well done everyone!

Reminders for this week:
Monday 16th December is the Christmas Gift Room. Gifts will be £2 each (max 2 gifts per child). Be sure to bring in your money if you would like to purchase any gifts for Christmas.

Friday 20th December will be our class Christmas party. You can wear Christmas MUFTI or party clothes (warm enough to play outside at breaktimes) and you are welcome to bring in some party food to share with the class.

Friday 20th December is a 1:30 finish.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

From the Penhallow Team

We are The Fleece Force!

Landaviddy class did a fantastic job performing our play, The Fleece Force! We are so proud of you all for working so hard during rehearsals and doing your absolute best. Well done everyone! Thank you parents/carers for all the support you gave the children in the lead up to the performances.

In History, we have continued to explore Ancient Egypt, delving into what Egyptians believed about the afterlife by describing the mummification process. We had lots of fun re-enacting this!

In Geography, we created a fact file about the country Egypt which was fascinating! Can you recall what language they speak in Egypt? Or the total population of the country?

Design & Technology involved practising sewing. This was a challenge and we need our growth mindsets. However, we persevered and many of us managed to stitch. We completed designs for our own Egyptian collars, which we are hopeful to construct next week.

During PE today, we continued to develop our ball skills when throwing and catching a tennis ball. We found that to catch the ball successfully, we needs to watch and track the ball as it moves through the air, as well as have our hands ready in a cupping position. 

Congratulations to Brody, Lowen H and Reuben for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week! And a big well done to those who achieved their 99 club badges - Evie, Benjamin, George and Frankie.

Polite Reminders
Monday 16th December is the Christmas Gift Room. Gifts will be £2 each (max 2 gifts per child). Be sure to bring in your money if you would like to purchase any gifts for Christmas.

Friday 20th December will be our class Christmas party. You can wear Christmas MUFTI or party clothes (warm enough to play outside at breaktimes) and you are welcome to bring in some party food to share with the class.

We hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday for our final week of school before Christmas!

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Bowden and Miss Colton

Christmas in a primary school really is a special time. Last week it was great to see so many of you enjoying the children’s Christmas plays. Landaviddy’s Fleece Force performances were so enjoyable with super singing and acting. Very well done also to Penhallow who delivered two wonderful performances of It’s A Baby, remembering their lines and the songs brilliantly, and also to Talland and Chaipel Classes whose brilliant What Christmas Means to Me made everyone laugh out loud. Look out for photos from the performances on the class blogs.

This week, the children have all enjoyed a busy week rounding off their enquiries as well as enjoying Reverend Richard’s Christmas assembly on Monday, Christmas Art Day on Tuesday, Christmas Lunch on Wednesday and parties today. Our choir visited Atlantis Care Home yesterday and sang Christmas songs and carols beautifully.

FOPS Fundraising We are delighted that our Christmas Fayre raised over £600 which included the sale of snowmen, kindly donated by The Lookout café in Looe. The Wreath making workshop raised over £270 and our Christmas Gift Shop raised £280. A huge thank you to FOPS and everyone who helped to organise these events. We will keep you posted about more fundraising events and how we plan to spend the income to help the children in our school.

RSPCA and Cancer Research Campaign The School Council is delighted to have raised a generous £117 at the Christmas performances from your donations to their chosen charities: Cancer Research and the RSPCA. We also raised £62 for Save the Children on our Christmas Jumper Day.

Online Safety
• Keeping your Child Safe Online.  Attached to this blog is a leaflet which contains many important links to help you keep your child safe online, particularly at this time of year. The leaflet contains important safety points to consider at this time of year if your child is likely to receive a SMART device (TV, Speaker—Alexa, Google); new mobile phone (Android/iPhone); games console; tablet PC or laptop for Christmas.
• Swiped – Channel 4 Many of you will have watched the Emma and Matt Willis programme ‘Swiped’ which is about a school that has banned smartphones. It’s definitely worth a watch to find out more about the impact that smart phones can have on children.

Family Worker Drop-Ins, Thursday 6th February, 9-11 am 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.

Parenting Workshops January Please find attached leaflets about free parenting courses run by Cornwall Council, Together for Families.

Dates The new term starts on Tuesday 7th January. Half term will be from Monday 17th February – Friday 21st February with an INSET Day on Friday 14th February. The last day of the Spring term is Friday 4th April and the Summer Term starts on Tuesday 22nd April.

A huge thank you for all of your support so far this academic year – the children have worked incredibly hard and all deserve a wonderful Christmas break.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas

Anthea Hillman and all of the staff at Polperro Primary Academy

We have had another busy week in Chaipel Class. 

ENGLISH
Our Circulatory System explanation texts are now complete and everybody has done a fabulous job. I will be reading them over the weekend and can't wait! Verity and Max B worked with a couple of Year 3 children on their best copy writing, showing them how to present their work as a double-page spread. The results are amazing and the children can't wait to come back and work with the Y6s again.

MATHS
Fractions: comparing, ordering and converting - you name it, we have done it this week! 

WIDER CURRICULUM
We have been investigating the ageing process and gestation stages of human life in Science. Most of the afternoons have been spent practising for our play which we performed, three times, on Thursday. Everyone was absolutely amazing and the parents and carers said it was the best they had ever seen!

CONGRATULATIONS to our People of the Week, Verity and Max S for showing our School Values and being super role models for their peers.

POLITE REMINDER
Christmas Art Day is on Tuesday, Christmas lunch on Wednesday and our Christmas party on Friday morning! 

Have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday!

Miss Randle, Mrs Clary, Mrs Hodge and Miss Colton.

TALLAND'S BLOG 13.12.24

What an incredible week! The Christmas performance was incredible and our trip to Eden today was fantastic. Talland class represented themselves and the school brilliantly and we all had so much fun! We might have a few budding ice skaters in our ranks now!

That's about all the talking I'm going to do... I think you would prefer a photo off load...

Christmas is well under way here in nursery. The children have been super busy creating lots of lovely artwork and some lovely things to take home with them. They have been busy cutting, sticking and wrapping "presents" on the tuft tray ready to put under our Christmas tree and have been doing a super job of writing and forming recognisable letters to create name snowman.

At story time, we have enjoyed the books "Hurry Santa!" and "Through the North Pole snow".
In phonics we have tried to recreate sounds that we have heard with instruments and have been naming them. The children have been learning more about rhyming words and have been thinking of words that rhyme with pen, cat and dog.

In maths we have been exploring and building with shapes and the children have been completing inset puzzles.

Today (Friday) we have all been wearing our Christmas jumpers. Thank you for your kind donations for Save the Children.
This afternoon we had our nursery nativity. Thank you to everyone that came. The children all did such a great job and we were so proud of them.
We look forward to next week where we will enjoy Christmas dinner on Wednesday and our nursery party on Friday 12-1.15pm.

Just a reminder that Friday is our last day before the holidays and we finish at 1.30pm.

See you next week
The Nursery Team

We have been eagerly practising our Christmas play this week! We can't wait to share this with you! The children have been working so hard, learning their lines and rehearsing songs. 

In Maths, Year 2 have started a new unit on Shape, looking at recognising 2-D and 3-D shapes, as well as counting the sides of 2-D shapes. Year 3 have continued work on Multiplication and Division, by multiplying and dividing by 3. 

In History, we have been looking at what the ancient Egyptians use to believe and researched different Gods and Goddesses. In Computing, we continued exploring algorithms by using Google, Quick Draw and using Lego block models to inspire writing of our own algorithms. 

We have our Christmas Play performances of The Fleece Force on Wednesday 11th December at 2pm and 6pm. Please can you ensure you bring in your costume/props by Monday 9th December at the latest. Any questions, please do let Mrs Wilkie know.

Congratulations to Finn and Emma for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week! And a big well done to all those who achieved their 99 club badges! 

We hope you enjoy a relaxing weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday!

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Bowden and Miss Colton

What a fun-filled, action-packed week we have had in Chaipel. Many of our Y6s have been doing their Level 2 Bike Ability and have braved some challenging weather to learn about road safety/awareness when riding. They all did extremely well and enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

Our Christmas play is in full swing and we are now script free! Thursday is our big performance day, one at 2pm and then a final perfomance at 6pm.

ENGLISH
We are writing up our explanation text, following on from editing and improving our draft version. We have chosen to produce a double-page spread and it is looking really good so far. I look forward, very much, to reading them.

MATHS
Fractions, fractions and more fractions. We have been finding equivalents, simplifying and plotting and interpretting number lines this week.

WIDER CURRICULUM
Practising our play has taken priority, this week, but we have been learing about how to keep healthy (in Science) as part of our investigation into the Circulatory System.

CHRISTMAS FAYRE
Our Y5s and Y6s worked really hard to produce and run the Christmas games at the fayre. We raised a lot of well-needed money for the school and had a lot of fun along the way. Thank you, parents and carers, for allowing them to help out and supporting the school.

That's all from me, so have a lovely weekend, albeit a windy one, and see you all on Monday!

Miss Randle, Mrs Clary, Mrs Hodge and Miss Colton. 




 

The school is looking and feeling very Christmassy at the moment thanks to the generous donation of a beautiful Christmas tree by React Scaffolding Ltd. The tree, which is in the school hall, has been decorated beautifully by our Breakfast Club pupils.

Performances We are looking forward to seeing you at the Christmas performances next week; the children have been very busy rehearsing. If your child is in the Landaviddy Class play or the Talland and Chaipel Class play, they will be required to come back for the evening performance at 5:30pm in order to be ready for 6pm. All performance times and dates are in the Events Diary on this website. 

Clubs Reminder that for the final 2 weeks of term (9th Dec – 20th Dec) there will be no clubs except for afterschool wraparound club and Breakfast Club which will continue as usual. Clubs will restart in January and we will send a letter out after the Christmas break about which ones will be running.

Book Fair – New Books for School Thanks to your generous support of our recent book fair, we now have £190 to spend on books for the school.

Poppy Appeal Year 6 raised £117.65 for the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal this year; thank you for your donations.

Local Events Attached to this blog is information for events that are happening in the local area over the next few weeks.

Diary Dates Reminder that our Christmas Jumper day is next Friday, one day after National Christmas Jumper Day so that the children can all enjoy wearing their jumpers after the Christmas performances are over. We ask for a £1.00 donation for Save the Children. Children should wear their Christmas jumper instead of their usual school jumper. The last day of term is on Friday 20th December and school will finish at 1:30pm. Monday 6th January is an INSET day, therefore the first day of the Spring term for the children is Tuesday, 7th January.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Hillman

Hello Everyone,

It’s looking very Christmassy in Penhallow this week.

We have been enjoying our Christmas role play area, where we have been learning about shape, size, and length, by wrapping presents, and we have been practicing our writing, by making Christmas cards. 

We have been learning about the nativity story by practicing our Christmas play. Every day, we have found out about the role of a different character in the Christmas story, by gradually building our Christmas nativity set. We tried to imagine how Mary and the shepherds might have felt, when they saw an angel. 

In art this week, we have been printing with different objects, and have been recreating artwork in the style of Andy Warhol. Next week, we will be making improvements and adding different colours to our prints. 

In English this week, we have been exploring non-fiction texts about castles and have been using adjectives to describe different kinds of castles. 

During our maths lessons, we have been learning about place value to 20, and have enjoyed using the story; ‘One is a snail, ten is a crab’ in order to investigate making 20 in different ways.

In science, we have continued our learning about different animals including humans. We used different fact files to find out which animals are carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.

We are looking forward to performing our Christmas nativity next Tuesday, and look forward to seeing you at one of our performances.

Have a lovely weekend!

From the Penhallow team.

TALLAND'S BLOG 6.12.24

An acting packed  week (da dum...cha) in Talland this week as the children have been honing in on their performance skills. The Christmas Play is all starting to come together now!

Maths:
Year 4 have been multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100.
Year 5 have been multiplying a 4-digit number by a 2-digit number. 

English:
We have been using persuasive techniques to help exaggerate our writing. Ask your child what a 'superlative adjective' is... can they remember?


Design and Technology:
Children have designed and built their chassis for their Greek toy (a chariot). I'm looking forward to seeing how these turn out. They could be a great Christmas gift for someone!

Science:
We've dived into the ear and explored the different parts and functions of it.  

Well done to Heidi for being celebrated for her fantastic efforts this week and a huge thank you to everyone who has been helping their child to learn their lines. It's starting to sound great now!

Short and sweet this week... so that's all from us. We hope you have an amazing weekend.

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

P.S Year 5 will continue to learn their statutory words.

This week we have gone all Christmassy! The tree is up and the sparkles are out!
The children had a great time decorating our nursey tree, making it all very pretty to go in our role play area. In the tuft tray, we have been decorating Christmas trees with lots of different materials which will go on our Christmas display.
In cooking on Thursday this week, the children helped to make mince pies that they could take home and share. They scooped, rolled and identified the shape they were using.

Our book corner this week is Santa themed and we are enjoying the story "Father Christmas needs a wee" and "Alien's love Panta Claus"
In phonics this week, we have been using musical instruments to create different sounds such as stomping giant footsteps. We have been identifying words that start with a "P" or a "B" sound and listening to sounds in our indoor and outdoor environment.

In maths, we are exploring shapes and how we can contruct and make arrangements with them. The children have been naming numbers that they see and ordering numbers on the math table.

Just a couple of reminders that next Friday is Christmas Jumper Day and also our nursery nativity at 2.45pm.

Have a good weekend

The nursery team.

Hello Everyone!

It has been a lovely week of learning in Penhallow.

Reception have been very creative in their play this week and have built numerous castles using different materials. We went outside on the hill in nursery, used sand in the outside play area, and also perfected other designs using different construction materials in the classroom.

We have all been busy learning songs for our Christmas play. The singing sounds amazing! A few of the children have lines to practice, so thank you if you have been practicing at home. The fun starts next week, when we begin to practice the whole play, complete with acting.

There were some really interesting show and tell items this week, that got us thinking. Thank you so much for your pictures and artefacts. Next week, the theme is; a book from the past. If you would prefer, a picture of a book would be fine. Particularly if you would rather not send in a special book. Show and tell is on a Friday afternoon.

We enjoyed a lovely whole school lantern making experience on Monday. It was lovely to see the older children helping Penhallow, and supporting them so well. Thank you Chaipel, Talland and Landaviddy. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us on Saturday for the lantern parade.

Have a lovely weekend!

From the Penhallow team.

Thank you to everyone for coming in Christmas Mufti  and with gifts for the Christmas Gift Shop in a few weeks time. We were lucky to have some elves with us today too (Photo pending)!

This week, Landaviddy class went on a class trip to The Royal Cornwall Museum and Truro Museum. We had the most amazing time learning about the mummification process, exploring the Egyptian section of the museum and digging for clues to match to Egyptian artefacts. In the afternoon, we went to Truro Cathedral, which was fantastic! We were mesmerised by how big it was! See the photos below from the day!

Throughout the rest of the week, in English we have been working hard on our Egyptian traditional tales, inspired by Little Red Riding Hood. In Maths, Year 2 have finished their unit on addition and subtraction and will be starting work on Shape. Year 3 have continued Multiplication and Division this week, recapping multiples of 2, 5 and 10. 

Congratulations to Alfie and Lowen H for being chosen as Landaviddy's People of the Week. And a big well done to all the children who achieved their 99 club this week!

We have been working hard on our Christmas play this week. Please help support your child at home, by practising their lines. We will be continuing play practise next week. A letter has also gone home today about costumes for the play. I have attached this below for your information. We are asking for any costumes to be brought in a named bag by Friday 6th December. 

Please keep practising the songs at home. I have also attached the song lyrics for the songs we have covered so far.

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

Mrs Wilkie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Bowden and Miss Colton