Head's Blog

Upcoming Dates

Dear Parents and Carers,

I'm finding it hard to believe that this is my last ever half term as a teacher/headteacher. It's a daunting prospect after so many years as part of a school community. However, it's looking to be an extra special final few weeks with much to look forward to. Below are some of the events to which you are all warmly invited:

Early Help Team Coffee Morning - Thursday 20th June

We would like to invite you to a coffee morning on Thursday 20th June at 9am to learn about the Early Help Services in our area. Cornwall Council’s Early Help Team includes not only Family Workers and Youth Workers but also Parenting Workers, who deliver a range of courses both face to face and online. The team will be attending the coffee morning to show you what is on offer, from single Bitesize sessions through to full 10 week courses, and how you can access them. You can also talk to them about the wider Early Help team and Early Help Hub Services. Please email Mrs Linsley if you would like to attend senco@brunelprimary.co.uk

BFA Shorts and Shades Day - Friday 21st June

Celebrate summer and wear your favourite hot weather outfits and accessories. Sensible shoes only - no flip flops. Instead of cash donations for this non-uniform day the Brunel Friends Association are asking that you send in items for the Summer Fair 'House Raffle'. If possible, please can your child bring in a prize related to the colour of the house teams, so Red, Blue, Yellow or Green. Please see the attached poster.

BFA Summer Fair - Tuesday 25th June

Always a highlight of the summer term - more details will follow shortly.

Sports Day and Picnic - Tuesday 2nd July

Our sports day for the whole school will take place during the morning of Tuesday 2nd July, weather permitting. All parents and carers are invited to watch from the bank (picnic rug and sunscreen advised). You are then invited to stay for a picnic lunch with your children on the school field. Please book school provided picnic lunches in the usual way. Children whose parents/carers are unable to attend will picnic with their classmates. The children will return to their classrooms at 1.00 pm for afternoon school.

Last day of term for children - Tuesday 23rd July

Please note that to bring Brunel in line with all other Trust schools the last day of term will finish at 1:30pm. Kids Club will be available as usual.

Have a lovely weekend,

Yours sincerely,
Suzanne Cooper

Mental Health Awareness Week

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, your KS2 child will be coming home from school with a copy of My Brilliant Place To Be Me. This is a journal for 8-11 year olds, designed to help them to explore and nurture their well-being. It is full of activities and information, created to encourage the children to:

Become more aware of their emotions, and recognise and name their feelings
Understand that all feelings are OK
Become better able to manage uncomfortable feelings with simple self-soothing strategies and by seeking help
Identify the people in their lives who can help them if needed

Headstart Kernow, creators of the resource, are keen for feedback. Please complete the feedback survey at:- https://www.headstartkernow.org.uk/brilliant-me/brilliant-me-feedback
DfE Guidance says that by the end of primary school pupils should know:

That mental wellbeing is a normal part of daily life, in the same way as physical health.
That there is a normal range of emotions (e.g. happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, nervousness) and scale of emotions that all humans experience in relation to different experiences and situations.
How to recognise and talk about their emotions, including having a varied vocabulary of words to use when talking about their own and others’ feelings.
How to judge whether what they are feeling and how they are behaving is appropriate and proportionate.
The benefits of physical exercise, time outdoors, community participation, voluntary and service-based activity on mental wellbeing and happiness.
Simple self-care techniques, including the importance of rest, time spent with friends and family and the benefits of hobbies and interests.
Isolation and loneliness can affect children and that it is very important for children to discuss their feelings with an adult and seek support.
That bullying (including cyberbullying) has a negative and often lasting impact on mental wellbeing./ where and how to seek support (including recognising the triggers for seeking support), including whom in school they should speak to if they are worried about their own or someone else’s mental wellbeing or ability to control their emotions (including issues arising online).
That it is common for people to experience mental ill health. For many people who do, the problems can be resolved if the right support is made available, especially if accessed early enough.

For more information visit Brilliant Me : Headstart Kernow

Three new Cafes for Brunel families

The KIRFs Cafe will be held at the start of each new half term. Thank you to those parents and children who have come along so far, we hope you found it useful.
What are KIRFs?
KIRFs (Key Instant Recall Facts) are pieces of mathematical knowledge that we want the children to learn off-by-heart or be able to work out very quickly (within 3 seconds).
They are designed to support the development of the mental skills that underpin mathematics.
They are particularly useful when calculating, be it adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing and include facts such as number bonds, counting on, back, times tables, equivalence of units of measure, and square numbers.
Each year group is allocated key facts to focus on throughout the year, in line with age related expectations. These should be practised for rapid recall.Check out the website and class blogs for the newest KIRFs each half term.
Reading Cafe (monthly) Parents, children and siblings are invited in on the following dates to share stories, recommendations and chat about books along with Miss Pentreath and our Reading Pioneers. Tuesday 23^rd April- Year R, 1 and 2 Tuesday 14^th May-Year 3 and 4.Tuesday 18^th June-Year 5 and 6.
At the first of the Parents Cafes, held last week, we welcomed Matt Wilmott, Autism Advisor from the Cornwall Autism Team, to talk about Autism and effective adaptations which can be made both within school and at home. Parents and Carers had the chance to network with other parents, ask questions and look at some of the resources we use to support neurodivergent children

We look forward to welcoming you at cafe events in the future and welcome suggestions for topics.

The penultimate week to the Spring term has been a busy and varied one.
Today, we were delighted to welcome the Minack Theatre back to Brunel to celebrate Shakespeare Week. A group of children (chosen from each class across KS2) enjoyed taking part in a workshop based on 'A Midsummer's Night's Dream'. Which was both great fun and thoroughly inspiring. Miss Pentreath, our English Lead, reported that: 'The children came back 'buzzing' with positivity and excitement and said how 'amazing, fun and, in parts, hilarious' it was. They thought that it had helped to build their confidence and they enjoyed being able to act as different characters and learn Shakespearean language!' The children of Y6 agreed and said that the team were brilliant, really made them laugh and that they'd had the best morning. Many thanks to the Minack team for coming such a long way to visit, educate and entertain us.
Yesterday a group of pupils from Y5 enjoyed taking part in the Bridge Schools Trust Alternative Sports Day. They took part in a variety of new activities, including Street Surfing, Fencing, Mini Segways and Ultimate Frisbee. Please see our Facebook page for photos. We hope to bring some of these events to Brunel in the near future.
Every fortnight we have special 'Reading' assemblies in for EYFS/KS1 and KS2, where we share carefully chosen stories that act as 'mirrors' or 'widows' for the pupils. Books are mirrors when readers see their own lives reflected in the pages. Books are windows when they allow readers a view of lives and stories that are different from their own. The stories up until now have been read by teachers but this week, one of our pupil reading pioneers read the KS2 book. She did an amazing job and we look forward to being treated to stories from other reading pioneers next term. Below are this week’s Achievers and Always Club. Congratulations and well done to all who were chosen.
Please remember that the last day of this term is next Thursday 28th March.

Image Gallery

Documents

Achievers 22.3.24.pdf

Houses of Parliament

70 students in Years 5 and 6 recently had the most incredible opportunity to journey to London to visit the Houses of Parliament.

Despite an early start, spirits were high and the children were extremely eager to explore the sights of Westminster; they visited iconic landmarks such as Big Ben (which is housed in Elizabeth Tower as the children found out), Westminster Abbey, Downing Street, the Cenotaph and crossed Westminster Bridge.

The children were then given a tour of Parliament by the Education guides. Being a Friday, we were able to enter the House of Lords chamber and find out what it’s like to sit on the red seats. We were then lucky enough to sit in the public gallery for part of an adjournment debate being held in the House of Commons. Other notable sights included the Robing Room, where the King would prepare for the ‘Opening of Parliament’ and the Prince’s Chamber (under which Guy Fawkes was found). This was then followed by a workshop entitled ‘Laws and Debating’ where children were taught how a Bill is turned into a law. They particularly enjoyed dressing up and getting in to role!

The latest writing task in our English lessons was to research and produce a persuasive letter, addressed to the Environment Secretary, regarding the state of water quality across the UK and Cornwall in particular. Armed with a bulging envelope full of our finished letters we were able to post them at the House of Commons Post Office, situated within the central lobby: very few people can say they managed to have their post franked by the House of Commons! It really did was the icing on the cake of a truly memorable day. We wait with anticipation for our replies from the Environment Secretary. Many thanks to Mrs Swabey for organising this inspiring trip.

Teaching the teachers!

Brunel teachers had a very enjoyable time at yesterday's staff meeting being taught how to code BBC Micro:bits. A Micro:bit is an award-winning programmable device (mini computer) that allows pupils to become familiar with coding and digital making. These have been provided free of charge to schools (who registered an interest) with 'the ambition that they inspire digital creativity and develop a new generation of tech pioneers.' In a change to the usual classroom dynamics, Y4 Brunel pupils were the ones with the expertise, and they did a brilliant job of teaching the teachers!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas break. The children have returned enthusiastically and ready to learn and I’m pleased to hear that Father Christmas has been very generous and brought lots of presents.

It's been a very short week but already we have been involved in a whole Bridge Schools Trust online event celebrating the Trust's 10th year anniversary. Each school produced a short animated film focussing on the Trust values of Be Creative, Be Determined, Be Responsible, Be Curious and Be Enthusiastic. Brunel's contribution, which featured Brunel himself, consisted of over 240 individual frames which produced a 40 second long clip. Thank you and well done to the ten year 6 children and Mrs McKillop for their hard work. Hopefully the whole 7 minute animation will be available for you to view soon.

If you or anyone you know has a child born between 1st September 2019 and 31st August 2020, the deadline for applying for a place to start school in September 2024 is fast approaching. It is very important that applications are submitted via Cornwall Council’s Parent Portal by Monday 15th January in order to stand a chance of being allocated your first choice. If you would like to look around Brunel before making your decision please join our next 'First Tuesday' of the month tour at 10.00 am on Tuesday 5th January or contact the school office to arrange an alternative appointment.

Christmas

Christmas has well and truly started at Brunel!

We really hope you enjoyed our Hunt the Issy evening; the school looked very festive and we always look forward to this traditional Christmas event. I am so very pleased to let you know that through the course of the evening and the selling of the raffle tickets, the BFA, through your generous contributions, raised an amazing £1206! Thank you so much to all who helped by organising, donating, running stalls, providing refreshments or attending, it is so very much appreciated by all the staff and pupils of Brunel.

The children also visited the Brunel Christmas tree at the Christmas tree festival at St Nicholas and St Faith. There are over 70 tree to admire and as you can imagine the church looks very sparkly and Christmassy. It's well worth a visit if you have time.

I hope you were able to make it to at least one of our Christmas performances this week. As always, the children were delighted to see you and it was lovely to welcome so many of you into school and to St Stephen’s Church. Our very final performances of the season, the Issy’s Nursery Nativity, take place on Monday and Tuesday at 10 am. Thank you for finding the time in your busy Christmas schedules to join us.

Wednesday's Christmas dinner and jumper day was enjoyed by everyone. As usual Jane and the kitchen staff cooked a delicious Christmas lunch and the Christmas crackers were a welcome addition to the festivities.

This evening, the Brunel Choir are joining St Nicholas and St Faith Church Choir for a carol concert amongst the trees of the Christmas tree festival. There is no charge for entry and everyone is welcome to attend.

Have a lovely weekend.

Saltash Christmas Festival

Thank you to everyone who joined us for carol singing and the lantern parade at the weekend.
Brunel was very well represented as usual.

Christmas at Brunel

Dear Parents and Carers,

I'm aware that you have received multiple emails this week as we build up to Christmas so thought it would be useful to list all the dates and events that we're looking forward to until the end of term.

Christmas at Brunel

5th December - First Tuesday Tour

5th December - Hunt the Issy - 4 - 6pm - your chance to admire the Christmas decorations throughout the school and do some last minute Christmas shopping at the BFA stalls in the KS2 hall. In order to make it even more exciting there is a special competition for the children. Hidden amongst the decorations in the various classrooms and corridors are 20 Issy Brunels. Can you find them? All correct entries are put into a draw to win a special Christmas prize. Refreshments(including cips, cheesy chips and sausage rolls) are available in the canteen and the choir will be singing at 5.00 pm.

7th December - Christmas Tree festival visit. Y3,Y5,Y6 will be walking to StNicholas and St Faith to admire the Brunel Christmas tree along with all the others.

8th December - Christmas Tree festival visit R/Y1,Y2,Y4

11th December - It's A Baby! Reception/KS1 Christmas performance 2.00 pm - this performance will be in the KS2 hall

12th December - It's A Baby! Reception/KS1 Christmas performance 9.30 am - this performance will be in the KS2 hall

13th December - Christmas dinner - children may wear Christmas jumpers if they wish. IMPORTANT - please book by Monday 5th at the latest

13th December - KS2 Christingle at St Stephen's Church 6.00pm

18th December -The Nativity Nursery Christmas performance 10.00 am (times may vary slightly)

19th December - The Nativity Nursery Christmas performance 10.00 am (times may vary slightly)

19th December - Last day of term

20th December - 3rd January - Christmas holiday

4th January - Back to school

Sports Bulletin

It's been another busy week of sport at Brunel. All children have now learnt the games Cat and Mouse and Rock, Paper, Scissors Tag. From next week we will start playing them in the playground. The aim is to add more variety to what the children play during their break and lunchtimes and of course, to encourage them to be as active as possible.

Table cricket - We have been really lucky to have several weeks of Table Cricket taught to students from years 4, 5 & 6. The children have been learning to play the game, operating in 2 teams of batters or fielders. Some have even mastered the game so quickly they have also been learning how to umpire. E in year 4 said "table cricket is fun and I like learning a sport that I've never played before". Not sure what table cricket is? Hopefully the photo gives you an idea!