Dear Parents and Carers,
I cannot believe how fast this summer term has gone and suddenly I find myself writing to you for the final time. It has been a real pleasure to work at Brunel for so many years, most recently as a headteacher. I have always felt so thankful that I chose teaching as a career as I've enjoyed every day of coming to 'school'. No two days are ever the same and primary aged children are a constant source of delight and amazement. I am lucky to have worked with such a brilliant team of teachers, TAs and wider school and Bridge Trust staff, but it is obviously your children who really put the joy into this job and make all the hard work worthwhile.
I'd sincerely like to thank all parents/carers for your support, some of you over many years, the Brunel community really is the 'best' and I'm proud of what we've achieved together. 
This morning in assembly we talked about our Brunel/Bridge values; be enthusiastic, be determined, be creative, be excellent, be curious and be responsible. We looked at the varied achievements of T.V. adventurer Ben Fogle who, having been a child who struggled at school and lacked confidence, has displayed many of these characteristics over the course of his career. Ben has recorded a special message for Brunel Primary and Nursery Pupils. The link is http://www.cameo.com/recipient/63d59a93b16880dd2e792dd1 .
I wish the very best in the future for yourselves and your children and know that I leave Brunel in good hands with the fabulous Brunel team and Mr Woolner.
With very best wishes,  Suzanne Cooper  

Just a glimpse down memory lane with these pictures from over the whole year... What a busy year!! We hope you've enjoyed your learning over the year and have made lots of happy memories to take with you on your journey!

Lots of love,  Mrs. Stevens and Miss Sleep xx

End of Year 4!

The children have enjoyed the end of year happenings in Year 4,  including the Y6 Leavers' show, making and eating their fruit kebabs, saving Fred the worm and Brunel's Got Talent, of course!

In amongst all of this, we have been learning about coordinates and translating shapes in maths and finishing our writing in English, with some fabulous end-of-year published writing to show off.

The children ended Geography by learning about our local area and designing their own towns! In RE, we finished by looking at the story of Adam and Eve and how this lesson helps to guide Christians.

On Friday, we draw along with Rob on YouTube to create fantastic self portraits - see the photo below! We also had to have a special Achievers mention to W, as she'd been away on her Achievers week and missed it! So she got a special certificate and to go to the front with Mrs Cooper in assembly!

Whitsand class, you have been fun to teach and I wish you well as you move into Year 5 - you've certainly kept me on my toes and I'm so proud of you all.

We hope that you enjoy the long summer holiday. See you in September!

As the academic year comes to an end, we have taken time to reflect upon the ways in which we've grown and changed. The children of Tregantle class have amazed us with their memories of the past year. We have all experienced so much, from our memorable trip to Smeaton's Tower, (on such a windy day!) to our super sports day! Year 1 have been looking through books, observing how well their work has progressed throughout the year and sharing the work that they are most proud of. EYFS enjoyed looking through their on-line journals to remember all of the amazing work that they have done. We are are so incredibly proud of each and every one of the children and look forward to watching them grow through the school. We wish you all a very happy holiday! 

The final full week as Y5.

The children of Talland Class have managed to round off their learning for this year by completing their Batik designs. They now understand how a wax resist works and recognise the effects of colour blending. Your art work has turned out fabulous, Talland Class. Thank you for all of your hard work.

Talland Class have used this last week to consolidate all of their learning from Y5 which has included: Writing an information piece of text about the Maya civilisation using their own research for the content: practising converting measurements which also involved converting metric to imperial measurement and vice versa; and evaluating their final virtual computer program.

Y5, you have all been amazing this year and have learned so much. Your dedication, resilience and perseverance has helped you achieve your goals. 

best wishes,

Mr Parry, Mrs Swabey and the Talland Class team (Mrs Walters and Ms Rowlands)

This week's jokes:

The seaside resort we visited last summer was so boring that one day the tide went out and never came back.

What did the beach say as the tide came in? Long time no sea.

What did the ocean say to the shore? Nothing it just waved.

Nearly the end... but we're still working hard!

On Tuesday the class did a wonderful performance to their parents and carers.  Year 1 children also came to join in with some of the songs and see what Lantic class had been learning on the drums.  It was a great show and the children have really enjoyed learning different songs and how to play the drums with Mrs Butlin.

During English lessons we have finished our own versions of 'Mr Gumpy's Outing' changing the characters and what they are NOT allowed to do... We have enjoyed coming up with ideas for what they get up to in our new stories.

In Maths, we have been learning about capacity and volume - perhaps over the weekend they could look at things around the home to find the capacity of them?

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Year 6 have had a busy few weeks. There is always a lot going on at this time of year: the Summer Fayre, Sports Day, transition days to new secondary schools and SATs results to name a few.

Every-one in the Brunel Family is so incredibly proud of how well the children have done in their SATs. The hard work and dedication they have shown over the past 10 months has really paid off. Collectively, they have exceeded the National Average for results across all of the tests. Another huge thank-you goes out to everyone at home for the support and encouragement that has been in abundance throughout Year 6.

Year 6 have had a busy few weeks. There is always a lot going on at this time of year: the Summer Fayre, Sports Day, transition days to new secondary schools and SATs results to name a few.

Every-one in the Brunel Family is so incredibly proud of how well the children have done in their SATs. The hard work and dedication they have shown over the past 10 months has really paid off. Collectively, they have exceeded the National Average for results across all of the tests. Another huge thank-you goes out to everyone at home for the support and encouragement that has been in abundance throughout Year 6.

In Science, we set up an experiment to see what seeds actually need to grow... Some seeds have light and water, some just water (no light) and the last set of seeds have not water, but they have lots of sun!  We'll update you next week with our results.

Over the past term, Year 3 have been learning all about living things and their habitats alongside their class topic of the rainforest. We were fortunate to be invited to Saltash Library to complete three workshops put on by the Beach Guardians. This is a charity set up in Cornwall to help raise awareness about plastic pollution, the impact it can have on a range of habitats and wildlife plus the need for us to look after our beautiful coastline.

Mousehole Class thoroughly enjoyed creating posters, sifting nurdles of plastic and discovering the various items that get washed up on our shores. We also learnt about how we can play our part in reducing plastic pollution. 

w/e 12.7.24

We had a lovely time over at St Anne's this week - it was the last session for the year and we paraded over with Archie themselves! We popped in and gave the residents from handmade thank you cards, sang 'Trelawny' and said goodbye for the summer. We're so lucky to have this project and grateful that we get to run it again next year!

This week, we also designed some Fruit Kebabs! We have sent our designs off to Lidl in the hope that they will start marketing and producing one of them in time for the summer! Some of our designs are in the photos below! They look so yummy!

We have continued our learning about the Maya civilization and culture. The children worked in small groups to investigate, research and make notes about different aspects of the Maya civilization and how they have influenced our society today: for example, the invention of chocolate; and the playing of team games. They found some amazing facts such as the Maya used hot chocolate as a medicine, albeit, a lot different from the hot chocolate we drink today and  included chilli peppers.

English
This week has included assessment in reading. All of the children have made good progress and are able to infer (read between the lines) in a piece of text. They enjoyed reading the stories in their reading assessments.

Maths
This week has included learning the key vocabulary for converting units of measurement. The children recognise that kilo derives from the Greek language and means a thousand and milli derives from the latin language and means a thousandth. This has helped them to solve simple conversion challenges for grammes and mm, for example. 


best wishes,

Mr Parry, Mrs Swabey and the Talland Class team (Mrs Walters and Ms Rowlands)

This week's jokes:

Where do sharks go on their Summer holidays? Finland.


What's the favourite tree of an English teacher? Poetry. 

This week Tregantle Class has been all about money! Our Year 1 children have been getting to grips with identifying coins and notes. There have been lots of interesting activities to practice using money and finding a total by using different coins. Our tuft tray activity has been a big hit with the children. The challenge has been to make different totals of money using as many or as few coins as possible. The EYFS children have made their own 'Tregantle Shop' in the role play area and have been busy stocking up on healthy fruits and vegetables! The children have been using our play money to pay for items and give change.
We have also been wonderful writers this week. Year 1 have written our class version of the story 'Mr Gumpy's Outing' which we re-named 'Mrs Honey's Outing.' There were some great adjectives and verbs including our spelling patterns for adding suffixes - amazing! The EYFS children have used their sounds and tricky word knowledge brilliantly to write about the animals that stole Handa's fruit in our class story 'Handa's Surprise.' What a busy week it has been! 
 

w/e 5.7.24

Wow! We do love a busy week here at Brunel!

We have enjoyed Sports Day this week - what a great day it was, too! We raced our socks off, supported each other and had a great time! Well done, everyone!

That afternoon, we continued the fun with our DT lesson - we tasted some fruit of the rainforest and voted for our favourites!

Later in the week, we went to the library for 3 workshops all about saving our oceans - we learned loads!

And finally, on Friday afternoon, we enjoyed our class treat of a sweet shop (we had some fake money even!) and a movie!

What a week!

In R.E. this week, the children learnt the story of Jonah and the Whale.  In the story Jonah found it hard to say “sorry” to God at the start. And sometimes saying sorry can be really hard to do.  The class freeze-framed the story - Can you spot God commanding Jonah to go to Nineveh? Or maybe Jonah praying in the whale's mouth? We loved the frame of God repenting and not punishing the people of Nineveh... Perhaps you could ask your child the retell the story of Jonah using the pictures?

Sports' Day was a big event this week. Each child put in his/her best efforts throughout the day. The comradeship, enthusiasm and dedication oozed throughout. Thank you, Talland Class.

English
The children have been learning how to write a book review. The key points they considered were the actions and characteristics of the main characters, for example: responsibility, friendship, perseverance and bravery. They learned a lot about themselves, too, during the writing of the book review.

Maths
The main theme for this week has been the exploration of polygons (many sided 2-D shapes). The children now recognise the criteria for a regular polygon (all sides and angles equal) and an irregular polygon. They had the opportunity to further their protractor and ruler skills by measuring sides to the nearest centimetre and angles to the nearest degree. Well done, Talland Class.


best wishes,

Mr Parry, Mrs Swabey and the Talland Class team (Mrs Walters and Ms Rowlands)

This week's jokes:

What is harder to catch the faster you run?  Your breath.

Why can't Cinderella play football? She keeps running away from the ball.