Blog Time Line

Canute Week Ending 19.4.24

Posted 23/04/2024
by Louise Westacott

It was wonderful to welcome Canute class back after the Easter holidays, it sounds like the children had a lovely break with lots of chocolatey treats!

We enjoyed some very much needed spring sunshine this week and made the most of it by taking our learning outside as much as possible.

In English Year 1 & 2 are reading Little Red Riding hood, we all went to forest school on Wednesday and the children took it in turns to wear the red cape and describe the sights, sounds and smells that our heroine would have experienced walking through the woods.

In maths yr 1 & 2 did very well in their end of unit assessments. Year 2 were outside using the meter rulers to measure some of the objects in our playground, year 1 were comparing the capacity of different containers and reception have been building their understanding of doubles and odd & even numbers.

We have started a new unit in ICT on data handling. The children did their own data analysis on hair and eye colour in Canute Class. We discussed what is important to Muslims in RE and explored different types of family structures in PSHE, how all families and relationships are important even though they may look different to our own. In PE we are looking at team work and the children really enjoyed working as a pair to move an object from one side of the playground to the other – without using their hands!

We finished the week with a fun and very important Assembly with the RNLI. The children had lots of fun trying on the RNLI equipment but took away the serious messages of how to stay safe in the sea. Huge thanks to the RNLI for their visit.

We hope you have had a lovely weekend.

Best wishes from all of the Canute Class Team

Tregeagle

Posted 19/04/2024
by Jane Wills

Summer 1

We have returned from the Easter break to wind up our enquiry “What is life like in a City?”. It proved a perfect chance for the children to retrieve their learning and apply this knowledge in the final geography lessons. We went on a fieldwork walk around the village following a rote the children had traced on maps beforehand. Along the way, we looked for landmarks and discussed how we could show these on the map using symbols. Back in the classroom, the children sketched their own maps, adding a key to explain the landmarks.

In English, we are at the end of the sentence stacking and next week, the children will start planning their own stories and move on to writing and editing before sharing them with Canute class.

In PE, we continue swimming on Wednesdays and on Thursdays we have started Outdoor Adventurous Activities – OAA which provided a mixture of teambuilding, orienteering and forest school skills. Don’t forget to look at the fantastic learning on your child’s SeeSaw.

Have a lovely weekend
Mrs W

Head's Blog

Posted 19/04/2024
by Jane Wills

This afternoon, we had a visit from RNLI to share the work the institution does and how the children can keep themselves safe in and around the water. The children showed keen interest and asked some brilliant questions, chipping in with their knowledge of the local area and learning from previous visits from the Harbour Master and Morwagh.

Both classes have been out and abut in the village, Canute class to look at plants in the National Trust Field for their science lessons and Tregeagle class for Geographical field work to sketch maps of the local area.

Next week, Canute are off to visit Nancarrow Farm on Tuesday. We look forward to hearing all about their trip.

Have a lovely weekend, Mrs W

Head's Blog

Posted 28/03/2024
by Jane Wills

Easter is here

We have arrived at the end of a very busy term, upholding the tradition of Spring term being one of the busier terms of the year. This year however, I think Summer term might take the top spot.

Since the beginning of the school year, we have been working with the Fowey Port User Group to find ways of working together to encourage young people and children in our local area to get in and on the water. So far, we have welcomed The Harbour Master, Captain Paul Thomas, into school to talk to the children about what happens on our river and lifting the lid on how to run a working port. In addition, we had the crew from Morvargh spend a morning with us to share their experiences, discuss water safety and study at sea charts in and around our local area.

Behind the scenes, Mrs Hughes has been busy creating a 6-week water sports programme for Tregeagle class working with Fowey Harbour Commissioners, Fowey Gallants Sailing Club and Paddle Cornwall. In these sessions, 7- to 11-year-olds will start to build knowledge and understanding of water safety, specifically on and around our river. They will have the opportunity to take part in Paddleboarding, Kayaking, Sailing and Motorboating. As always when we are looking at providing extracurricular activities to the children, we reach out to our amazingly generous community and yet again we have been able to secure funding to dismantle any potential barriers so all the children in KS2 can have this fantastic experience.

We are incredibly grateful to:

Polruan Regatta Committee
The Nathaniel Symington Trust
The Polruan Ferry for transport

Thank you for all you are doing to ensure the children are given the very best opportunities to thrive in their environment.

Going forward, we plan to provide this as an annual offer to our Key Stage 2 class, something we are working with Fowey Harbour Commissioners to hopefully facilitate. Ideally, we would like to offer river-based opportunities to all children throughout the school so we are looking at ways to include the younger children going forward.

Tuesday was one very special day for the children in Canute class as they received a letter from Kensington Palace from The Prince and Princess of Wales. Before Christmas, the children wrote letters to the Prince and Princess telling them about life and learning in Polruan Primary Academy, walked to the post office to buy stamps and posted the letters in the postbox on the quay. The children were beyond proud to receive the royal letter and we have given it pride of place in the entrance hall of the school.

Achievement Assembly

Mathematician of the week:

Rylie for showing independence and resilience

Robbie for brilliant understanding of multiplication and division

Stars of the Week:

Liam for being a fantastic role model to younger pupils

Mya for her increased confidence to speak out in class

We finished the Spring term with the Easter service at St Saviour’s - thank you to those of you who braved the weather to join us.

We return to school after the Easter break on Monday 15th April.

Hope you have a lovely Easter break in our special corner of Cornwall.

Jane Wills

Tregeagle

Posted 28/03/2024
by Jane Wills

Easter

It is the end of a very busy Spring term and we have been spending the last few days finishing off projects, writing and maths. We can now honestly say that we deserve a break.

We will carry on with our current enquiry the first week back after Easter. This will provide a perfect opportunity for the children to retrieve and link back to knowledge gathered during Spring term. We are hoping the weather will be just a little kinder so we can complete our Geography fieldtrip; creating a map of our local area to compare with the map from Plymouth.

This morning we managed to dodge the showers so the children could complete their easter egg hunt. Remarkably, none of the clues blew away so everyone successfully completed the hunt and claimed their chocolate easter bunny kindly donated by FOPA. Photos attached below.

It was lovely to see you for our Easter Service and we thank Mrs Butlin for providing the expert guidance for the singing performance.

Have a lovely easter break, we look forward to welcoming the children back again on Monday 15th April.

Mrs Wills and Mr Twaite

Canute week ending 22.3.23

Posted 23/03/2024
by Louise Westacott

Canute class have had a great week of learning, a few of the highlights…

In English year one and two completed a comprehensive set of instructions on how to make a “cool den”, this followed on from the fabulous Den Building day they had with the National Trust. We also put our bird feeders high up on the fence in the hope of attracting some feathered friends. Reception have been enjoying the book The Tiger Came to Tea

In maths year 1 completed their unit of heavier and lighter, reception are doing brilliantly at finding different compositions of 9 and 10 and we have been so impressed at how well the year 2s have been storming their way through the multiplication and division unit and they easily recited their 10 times table on Friday

In Geography we have been looking at the differences between a village, a town and a city and how the UK is made up of 4 countries. In PSHE we discussed how medicines can help us when we are poorly and how important it is to follow the instructions, the children were able to look at boxes of different types of medicine and explain what it was for and how it should be taken. They all confirmed that only grown ups should administer medicine.

We have all been enjoying the spring weather, the children had excellent ball skills in PE this week and our pre-school and reception children made a fantastic assault course for the older children .

We hope you all have a lovely weekend with abit of sunshine!

Best wishes from the Canute Class Team

Head's Blog

Posted 22/03/2024
by Jane Wills

Penultimate week of spring term

It has been a busy week across the school, with lots of enhanced learning experiences both inside and out of school, I think Tregeagle class have spent more time learning away from their classroom than in it this week. It is great to be able to enhance learning with offsite experiences. This does require added planning and preparation for the staff involved but the benefits to the children far outweigh this and the children’s enthusiasm and pleasure of these experiences more than makes up for it.

Head over to the class pages to read about your child’s week in their class.

Next week is our final week of the Spring term. We will finish the term with the Easter service at St Savour’s at 12:30pm. We hope that many of you can join us for some Easter stories and singing. As this is the final day of term, we will finish at 1:30pm.

Tregeagle

Posted 22/03/2024
by Jane Wills

Penultimate week of term

It has been a super busy week with lots of fantastic experiences for the children.

Monday
The Year 5 and 6 children went to Fowey Rover Academy for sports. They learnt about football skills and had the chance to interact with children from other primary schools. Tuesday
The whole class went on a geography field trip to Plymouth and the Box. We parked in the historic Barbican area to give the children to chance to see the buildings and landmarks of historical importance to Plymouth’s history and to get a sense of place in terms of the geographical placement of Plymouth as a settlement. From our previous enquiry about the stone age, the children have good knowledge and understanding of settlements and topography, so we used this knowledge as a springboard to examine land use and explore how human features interact with physical features in a city. Inside the Box, we found evidence of the reasons behind the settlement and delved into Plymouth prehistoric climate and populations.
Wednesday
Swimming continues and the children are developing their skills with commitment. Living in a coastal village, the importance of water confidence is essential and it is a real pleasure to watch how the children embrace the learning on offer knowing this will make a positive difference to their summer time on the beach.
Thursday
Half the class went to Looe for Sports and the other half had an experience day at school. The children arrived back from Looe tired but full of enthusiasm from the new experiences they’d had with fencing, segway, street surfing among many. Sounds like a resounding success. Back at school, we continued the class project of building a city using the Burgess model of layout. We split the day with science experiments, investigating chemistry with magic milk and glow lamps, baking a cake and a trip to the park to test the effects of gravity on slides and swings.
Friday
A day in the classroom with quiet focus on learning to end the week.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mrs W

Tregeagle

Posted 16/03/2024
by Jane Wills

Spring 2

To complement our City life enquiry, we joined the National Trust for den building on Tuesday. This gave the children the opportunity to make meaningful links between their learning in Geography and History. We discussed how settlements have evolved over time locally and the importance of choosing these according to natural resources available. We will build on this further next week with our trip to Plymouth and The Box.

Swimming lessons are proving super popular. It has been great to watch how confidence and skills are developing. Many of the children are setting personal targets and work towards achieving these in their lessons; being able to float like a starfish, swim across the pool without flotation devices, improve leg action for greater speed.

Next week is busy. Monday afternoon Year 5-6 are at Fowey River Academy for football skills. Tuesday we are at The Box in Plymouth, Wednesday is swimming and Thursday some of the children are at Looe for a whole Trust Sports day.

Canute Week ending 8.3.23

Posted 14/03/2024
by Louise Westacott

As well as some great learning in Canute class this week we have enjoyed celebrating some special events, here is a brief overview of what we have been up to !

In maths, year 2 have been continuing with multiplication and division, year 1 place value up to 50 and reception have been enjoying comparing length, height and time, they have particularly enjoyed comparing heights of their classmates to see who is the “tallest” and who is “taller” than who!

In year 1 & 2 English we have started a new unit looking at writing instructions. We followed a set of instructions on how to make a bird feeder. The children made fantastic tasty treats for the birds and were able to identify the key features of instructional writing. Reception have been enjoying a new writing scheme called Drawing Club and have been exploring the book “The Three Little Pigs”

We were super impressed by the effort that everyone went to to come as their favourite character on World Book Day. We shared some of our favourite books and did an online session of “meet the author and illustrator” of the lovely book “One Goose, two moose” the children enjoyed hearing the author read the book and drew some characters from the book guided by the illustrator.

We were so proud of how well the children in Canute class behaved and performed in the Church on Wednesday afternoon in celebration of Mothers day, the singing and poetry reading was fantastic. We were very lucky to have some lovely ladies from the community come in and help the children make their spring posies. We hope you had a restful Mothers Day and liked your flowers and cards.

Best wishes from The Canute Class team

Head's Blog

Posted 07/03/2024
by Jane Wills

World Book Day

Great seeing the children arriving this morning in a variety of fantastic costumes ready to celebrate World Book Day. We started the day with an assembly, sharing favorite books, characters and finding out what a reader is - it turns out we are all readers!
Canute class joined Kael Tudor and Nicola Slater talking about their book One Goose Two Moose and learning how to draw the characters. In Tregeagle class, we joined the BBC live lesson to help make book suggestions for a pop-up library. We also managed to read 3 chapters of our class read: Bill's New frock by Anne Fine

Reading for pleasure is high on our list of priorities at school and with events like World Book Day, we have the perfect excuse to celebrate books and reading. I think our Borrow Box library subscription will be busy tonight with children finding their new best read inspired by today's events.

Head's Blog

Posted 06/03/2024
by Jane Wills

Mother's Day Service

We had a lovely afternoon in St Saviour's celebrating people who are special to us. Lots of preparation; practicing songs and poems and Open the Book team arriving in school this morning with flowers and greenery for the children to make posies meant we were set and ready to celebrate in style. The children sang their anthems supported skillfully by Mrs Butlin, read their poems aloud with clear voices and dictation and finally shared their posies with their special person. Just one of those moments that are so special to share with the children in primary school.

Canute Friday 1st March

Posted 06/03/2024
by Amy Fernie

Friday 1st March

What an exciting week it has been in our classroom!

Here's a snapshot of the fantastic activities and achievements:

Mathematics:

• Year 2: Successfully wrapped up our Money unit! Well done to all the Year 2 students for mastering the concepts.

• Year 1: Completed Addition and Subtraction within 20. It's amazing to see the progress each student has made!

• Reception: Delved into the world of length and height. Keep up the great work, Reception!

English:

• The children showcased their creativity by writing incredible stories inspired by "The Crow's Tale." It's wonderful to see their imaginations at work!

Art

Collaborative Collage: We all worked together on a beach-themed collage, which will be submitted to the Fowey Festival Young Artists Competition. What a fantastic opportunity to showcase our artistic talents!

It's been a week filled with learning, creativity, and collaboration. I'm incredibly proud of each and every one of you. Let's keep up the fantastic work!

Remember, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Mrs Fernie, Mrs Westacott, Miss Taylor & Miss Talbot

Tregeagle

Posted 04/03/2024
by Jane Wills

Spring

We have completed our Roman enquiry, just putting the final touches to the writing. Some of the children are writing a letter home from the perspective of a Roman soldier, asking for seeds to be sent so they can grow food in Britannica, others are writing a speech as Boudicca, to inspire the Celts to take up arms and protect their land against the Roma invaders. I am looking forward to reading the finished pieces.

Our next enquiry is "What is it like to live in a city?". We will explore the concept of settlements, making links to our Stone Age enquiry and find out how cities are different from villages and towns. The children will study human and physical geography and carry out field work as geographers; mapping our local area and comparing/contrasting this with Plymouth. We will visit Plymouth to look at land use, roads and buildings including a visit to the Box to find ou more about Plymouth's city history.

We had a fantastic day with Shaun Hewitt and the children have produced some brilliant pieces of art, many of which they will enter into the Fowey festival. This week, we are also writing poetry about the beach, so the children can chose whether to enter their art or writing for the competition.

We continue swimming on Wednesday mornings and our second PE lesson is Thursday afternoon.

Hope to see many of you in the church for Mother's Day service on Wednesday at 2pm.

Canute week ending 23.2.24

Posted 28/02/2024
by Louise Westacott

Canute class have had a brilliant week back after half term, our new topic What does your house and school look like ? has been a great hit and the children are really enjoying the “site office” role play area and construction zone, especially our pre-school and reception children.

In maths all years are coming to the end of their current unit and it has been great to see how their mathematical confidence has grown over the weeks, they are now flying through their “flash back four” questions at the beginning of each lesson. Yr 2 are finishing the unit on money, yr 1 addition and subtraction to 20 and reception growing 6,7 and 8.

In English yr 1 & 2 have been enhancing sentences from our book The Crows Tale, in particular using adjectives, question marks, speech marks and alliteration. Reception have completed their unit on Where the wild things are ? and have been discussing and describing their favourite “wild thing”

In PSHE we have started a great new unit on Healthy Me looking at how we can all make good choices to make our bodies and minds feel good and healthy, many of these choices are really easy and simple. In RE we are looking at what it means to be Jewish, we looked at how a family celebrates Shabbat. In Geography we will be investigating Where in the world is our school ?, we started off by making a “messy map” of our classroom using classroom objects to demarcate the layout of our room and discussed what an aerial view means.

We hope you have all had a lovely weekend.
Best wishes from The Canute Class Team

Tregeagle

Posted 09/02/2024
by Jane Wills

Final Flurry

It has been a super busy final week trying to complete several projects before the break.
Enquiry
We are almost at the end of our study of the Roman Empire, building on our subject knowledge of this period of European and British history alongside our disciplinary knowledge of what makes a historian a historian. We have learnt how to follow orders in Latin, how the Romans brought rabbits to Britain as these were 'fast Food' for a marching army and how Britain benefitted from Roman's incredible building techniques and knowledge.
Maths
The children continue to find new and better ways to record their understanding of maths using SeeSaw. It is great to see how they all benefit from having these alternative recording methods which allows them to record themselves explaining an concept or taking a photo of how they have used concrete resources or drawn models. They have a greater sense of independence and their confidence in articulating maths concepts grows.
PE
Swimming starts after half term. Please see emails from Mrs Hughes regarding kit list and timings. We will have another PE lesson each week in addition to swimming on Thursdays so please continue to send your child to school wearing their PE kit on these days.
Borrow Box
The children have all been given a digital library card so they can access Borrow Box from Cornwall Library. We spent time Thursday afternoon logging in and navigating the system. It was brilliant to see the children's enthusiasm and delight at realising how Borrow Box give them access to a huge selection of books to read at their leisure and for their pleasure. We will give the children time at school to read for pleasure and I have provided the class with a list of recommended books suitable for their age and stage of reading skills. If you would like more information about these recommended books, please let me know.

Head's Blog

Posted 09/02/2024
by Jane Wills

It has been a whirlwind of a short half term characterised by snow, rain and wind outside and lots of learning inside the building. Spring term is usually one of our most productive terms, with the children well settled in their classes, and this first half term has been no exception.

On Tuesday, we joined the rest of the country in celebrating Safer Internet Day with a shared assembly and different activities in class to support the children safely navigating the ever-changing landscape of the our online world. If you have any concerns or questions about internet safety, please contact school as we acess to a wealth of guidance to support different aspects of online safety.

Canute class went to visit one of the the local shops to find out more about which skills and knowledge is needed to run a shop. The enjoyed finding out how their maths skills are useful outside the classroom and on their return to class, set about creating jam sandwiches with their bought ingredients.

For Tregeagle class, swimming starts again on Wednesday 21st February. Mrs Hughes has sent out reminders about kit, timings and logistics today. Please make sure you let us know if you need support with this.

We will be holding Parent Consultations in the week commencing 26th February, boking forms will be sent home in the week after half term. We are continuing with face to face meetings so you have the chance to se your child’s work in discussion with their teacher.

After half term, it will be Canute’s turn to work with our Mental Health Practitioner o learn all about managing emotions and feelings through the Decider Skills. This will help develop a shared language to use across the school for children and staff to support strategies for managing “The Fizz”.

A huge THANK YOU to Christine for filling our planters with colourful plants which make us all smile whenever we round the corner.

We finished half term with a visit from Reverend Richard, who taught us how to make pancakes for Pancake day and the significance of Shrove Tuesday in the Christian calendar.

Achievement Assembly
Writer of the Week:
Tegan for accepting the challenge to write with Liam and producing some fantastic work to show her understanding of the power of words.
Robbie for taking time and care using all the learning in her independent writing.

Stars of the Week:
Ailla for showing responsibility in her interactions with peers
Indi for taking responsibility and showing great independence

I hope you all have a welcome break and we look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Monday 19th February at 8:45am.

Canute Week ending 2nd Feb 2024

Posted 03/02/2024
by Louise Westacott

A great week of fun and learning in Canute class.

On Tuesday the children had a wonderful day at the Box museum in Plymouth with Mrs Fernie and Mrs Chasey, the exhibits answered many questions that we have been looking at in our History sessions Did Dinosaurs really exist ? . Through the fossils found in caves sites around Devon they were able to discover more about the creatures that inhabited the South West and of course the woolly mammoth exhibit was a particular highlight!

On Wednesday we had a special visit from Fowey Harbour Master Captain Paul Thomas. Captain Thomas gave the children are outline of what his job entailed and how to keep save on and in the water. The children listened attentively and asked the Captain some fantastic questions about the day to day aspects of his job and how he became a Harbour Master.

Back in the classroom Canute have been exploring the life of Mary Anning, born in 1799. This weeks question was why was Mary Anning famous ? The children have really enjoyed researching her life and concluded that although she came from humble beginnings she became one of the most famous female fossil hunters. They have made their own fossils from salt dough and the excitement continues as we have dug out three more fossils from our own fossil dig, our pre-school children have particularly enjoyed these activities.

In maths Yr R have started looking at the composition of the numbers 6,7,8, Yr 1 have been looking at their number bonds to 20 and Yr 2 have been continuing looking at money using the language of greater than and less than.

In English Yr R have started a new book "Where the wild things are" and have enjoyed re-telling the story using stick figures of the characters. Yr 1 & 2 have started the book The Crows Tale, and have been writing their own dramatic story openers.

The children have worked really hard this week, we hope you all have a lovely & restful weekend.

From the Canute Class Team

Canute Friday 26th January

Posted 02/02/2024
by Amy Fernie

Friday 26th January

We hope this blog post finds you well! Last week was nothing short of spectacular here in Canute Class. Laughter, learning, and creativity filled our classroom, making it a truly happy week for everyone. Let's take a closer look at some of the exciting activities that took place across different year groups.

Maths
In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), our little mathematicians dived into the world of capacity. From pouring water into different containers to exploring the concept of "full" and "empty," our EYFS students had a blast while developing their understanding of this important mathematical concept. Meanwhile, Year 1 students put the finishing touches on their place value journey, reaching the milestone of understanding numbers up to 20. Through engaging activities and games, they solidified their grasp of units, tens, and the importance of each digit in a number. Over in Year 2, the focus was on money matters. Our Year 2 students delved into the world of currency, learning about different coins, their values, and how to make simple transactions. The practical and hands-on approach to teaching money management left our students excited and confident in their newfound skills.

English
In the realm of English, the children took a journey back in time to the era of the Great Fire of London. Each child crafted a fantastic diary entry, vividly describing the events of that historical period. The creativity and attention to detail displayed in their writing showcased the incredible progress our students have made in honing their English language skills.

Art
Art was a true delight as we continued our exploration of sculpture. This time, our young artists brought nature into the classroom by creating stunning tree sculptures through the manipulation of paper. The tactile experience of shaping and molding paper allowed our students to express their creativity while developing their fine motor skills.

The week was

a harmonious blend of academic growth and artistic expression, leaving us with smiles and a sense of accomplishment. We're proud of our students for their enthusiasm, dedication, and the positive energy they brought into every lesson. As we look forward to the weeks ahead, we're excited about our trip to the box museum next week with our special visitor!

We hope you have had a restful weekend. Mrs Fernie, Mrs Westacott, Miss Taylor and Miss Talbot.