Autumn Term Newsletter 1

Head of School Welcome

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to our half termly newsletter for the first half of the autumn term. We want to provide you with a vibrant summary of what's been happening across all our classes, together with some useful general school information.

Our return to school in September was positive and productive, and the children have been working hard since then in their learning across all areas of the curriculum. A huge well done to all of our new starters - we have had children join in nursery, our new Reception class and a number of new arrivals across the school. We hope that our school will continue to grow this year, so please share our 'Good' news and what we do here widely within your communities.

We are grateful to have enjoyed some really exciting opportunities this term, through a range of educational visits and welcoming visitors in to enhance the learning in the school.

Thank you to all parents for all your support this half term.

Kind regards,
Mrs Humberstone

Diary Dates

Autumn Term Dates 2023
Thursday 19th October - FOTLA Halloween disco
Monday 23rd - Friday 27th October - Half term
Thursday 2nd November - FOTLA meeting at TLA 2-3pm
Monday 6th November - Individual and school sibling photos with Harlequin
Tuesday 14th & Wednesday 15th November - Parent consultations
Friday 17th November - Children in Need day
Monday 20th November - ASONE proms performance trip - Year 2-6
Monday 27th November - National Child Measurement programme (Reception and Year 6)
Thursday 7th December - FOTLA meeting at TLA 2-3pm
Thursday 7th December - Christmas jumper day for Save the Children
Friday 8th December - FOTLA Christmas Fayre
Tuesday 12th December - Years 1-6 Peter Pan at the Hall for Cornwall, Foundation Stage treat in school
Wednesday 13th December - Christmas lunch
Wednesday 13th December - KS1 Nativity Performance (am and pm)
Thursday 14th December - Rocksteady concert in the hall (am)
Friday 15th December - KS2 Christmas performance (pm)
Monday 18th December - Christmas parties
Tuesday 19th December 1pm - Children break up for Christmas holidays

Diary Dates

Spring Term Dates 2024
Thursday 4th January - First day of Spring term
Friday 9th February - School closed INSET day
Monday 12th - Friday 16th February - Half term
Thursday 28th March - Children break up for Easter holidays
Summer Term Dates 2024
Monday 15th April - First day of Summer term
Monday 6th May - School closed Bank holiday
Monday 27th May - Friday 31st May - Half term
Monday 22nd July - Children break up for Summer holidays

Nursery

Over the past half term the nursery children have been forming new friendships, adjusting to new routines and exploring the nursery environment. They have also been busy exploring the outdoors and creating a friendship rainbow to display in nursery. They have enjoyed numerous craft activities and exploring our resources.
They have all settled in so well and we look forward to watching them develop and thrive in the coming term.

Reception

Reception have had a flying start to school! Our topic this half term was 'All About Me!' We started by learning to play nicely in all of the areas of our classroom, and settled into school routines. In Communication and Language, we have been reading and discussing our focus texts and using new vocabulary to discuss our feelings, friends and families in detail. In Personal, Social and Emotional Development, we have been learning why it is important to follow rules at school, and how to be a kind friend to others. We even made a book about being a kind friend, with each child drawing one page of the book. In Physical Development, we have been getting used to the balance bikes, and have been learning to move in a variety of ways with control. In Literacy, we have been learning the Set 1 sounds in phonics, and are learning to read simple words. We have also learnt how to write letters and simple words, culminating in us writing our own versions of the rhyme 'Twinkle, Twinkle.' In Maths, we have been learning to match, sort and compare objects. In Understanding the World, we have been discussing times when we have experienced certain feelings, experiences with our families and similarities and differences between people. Finally in Expressive Arts and Design, we have been making our own colour monsters, family portraits, feelings biscuits, friendship bracelets and cakes for a stay and play with our families. Phew! What a busy half term it has been!

Year 1

Year 1 have been learning about our five senses in science. We did some different activities to find out how our senses work. We used our sense of sight to look carefully at shells with a magnifying glass and we felt different objects inside bags to use our sense of touch. We tasted different fruits and we smelled different spices. We also listened to different sounds to use our sense of hearing.
We have been learning about Grace Darling in history and her heroic actions when she rescued 9 survivors of a shipwreck. We looked at pictures of Grace's rescue and discussed what we noticed.
To top all of that off we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the RNLI lifeboat station in Falmouth.

Year 2

In Year 2, our learning has come to life through our topic, ‘Wriggle and Crawl’.
As writers, we have learnt the story ‘The Crunching Munching Caterpillar’, innovated it to include different characters and then written a diary from the caterpillar’s perspective. We are now learning about non-chronological reports and are writing about minibeasts.
As biologists, we nurtured our very own ‘crunching and munching’ caterpillars into beautiful butterflies and are sure they are now at home in our school’s many bushes and trees. While we were careful not to disturb our insects during their life cycle stages, we did relish the chance to hold lots of other minibeasts during a visit from Mark’s Ark.
As mathematicians, we have been focusing on multiples of ten and still enjoy learning through games with our friends, especially in ‘Race to 100’.
As geographers, we have learnt all about the continents and the oceans. We can now name all seven continents and the five oceans. We have located them on maps, learnt where we live and explored human and physical features around the world.
In RE, we have been exploring the gospel. We have learnt about forgiveness, peace and friendship.
We are now enjoying designing and making minibeasts mansions in DT to finish off the half term!

Year 3

Year 3 have had a fantastic first half term. The children have settled well into the Key Stage 2 routine and are already showing resilience and maturity. Keep it up Year 3!
Our learning this term has focused on science where we have been looking at different predators and food chains as well as human and animal skeletons. The children also wrote super non-chronological reports about predators. We even had an exciting visit from Mark's Ark where the children had a fantastic hands-on experience with real predators. In maths, the children have loved their weekly Friday Fluency with Miss Laity! As artists, we have been practising our sketching techniques using our new sketching pencils. I have been really impressed with the children's homework contributions where they have shown real creativity and aspiration to complete high-quality work.

Year 4

Year 4 have settled well and have had a great start to the academic year. We began the term with a visit to the Hall for Cornwall where the children were able to perform their innovated ‘Song of the Witches’ poems to their parents. All the children did an amazing job and it was lovely to see so many parents there supporting them.
In our science learning, the children have carried out an experiment to determine the best temperature for melting chocolate, have learned about the the particles in solids, liquids and gases and the states of matter and processes involved in changing them. Our river topic in geography has encouraged the children to think about the uses of rivers and the impact that humans can have on them. They have produced some fabulous pieces of homework to accompany their learning.