Year 6 have been absolute troopers this week. They have successfully completed their final lessons of revision before the SATS begin on Monday. Everyone has focused, worked hard and had some fun along the way.

It’s not all been revision though. Aryton did a super job of leading this week’s Reading Assembly to the whole of Key Stage 2, the bowling team have started their journey towards world domination in the filed of lawn bowls and Mrs Williamson has been teaching Year 6 the finer points of rounders ready for several matches between Pendower and Seaton in the final few weeks of term.

We have also made a great start on our new topic ‘Why should we remember the Maya?’. Keep reading the blog for regular updates on our voyage of discovery into the Central America region that was home to this fascinating civilisation.

To finish off our week, we had a visit from Peter the Paramedic and his ambulance. We had a tour of this unique vehicle and the equipment carried within it. The children also had the opportunity to stretcher two of their classmates a short distance. This was a task involving teamwork and a lot of trust. Needless to say, they rose to the challenge admirably. We look forward to welcoming Peter back to Brunel in the coming weeks to deliver first aid training to the Year 6s.

Key information:

·       SATs begin on Monday 13^th May and conclude on Thursday 16^th May.

·       All Year 6s are encouraged to attend Breakfast Club on these days so they are in school and settled in advance of the tests. There is no charge for this facility.

·       For those children not going to Okehampton, a letter will be coming out next week detailing the activities they will be enjoying week commencing 20^th May. Feel free to email Mrs Morris for more information or to discuss any queries you may have jmorris@brunelprimary.co.uk

Year 6 have been absolute troopers this week. They have successfully completed their final lessons of revision before the SATS begin on Monday. Everyone has focused, worked hard and had some fun along the way.

It’s not all been revision though. Aryton did a super job of leading this week’s Reading Assembly to the whole of Key Stage 2, the bowling team have started their journey towards world domination in the filed of lawn bowls and Mrs Williamson has been teaching Year 6 the finer points of rounders ready for several matches between Pendower and Seaton in the final few weeks of term.

We have also made a great start on our new topic ‘Why should we remember the Maya?’. Keep reading the blog for regular updates on our voyage of discovery into the Central America region that was home to this fascinating civilisation.

To finish off our week, we had a visit from Peter the Paramedic and his ambulance. We had a tour of this unique vehicle and the equipment carried within it. The children also had the opportunity to stretcher two of their classmates a short distance. This was a task involving teamwork and a lot of trust. Needless to say, they rose to the challenge admirably. We look forward to welcoming Peter back to Brunel in the coming weeks to deliver first aid training to the Year 6s.

Key information:

·       SATs begin on Monday 13^th May and conclude on Thursday 16^th May.

·       All Year 6s are encouraged to attend Breakfast Club on these days so they are in school and settled in advance of the tests. There is no charge for this facility.

·       For those children not going to Okehampton, a letter will be coming out next week detailing the activities they will be enjoying week commencing 20^th May. Feel free to email Mrs Morris for more information or to discuss any queries you may have jmorris@brunelprimary.co.uk

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This week we enjoyed a visit from a paramedic and ambulance. We learnt about the different bags carried in the ambulance which could be needed in different emergencies, tried out the different stretchers, looked inside and heard how loud that siren is! The children also had a chance to ask some questions. 

Our trip to Porfell wildlife Park

What an amazing trip we had to Porfell Wildlife Park last Friday! The day began with the excitement of getting on a very big coach which took us all the way to Porfell. We split into smaller groups to explore the park with some groups first visiting the children's farm and others the exotic animals. The children were very excited to meet meet the real life 'Christopher Nibbles' who had a very large enclosure with lots of his other Guinee-pig friends! The beautiful grey rabbits were very popular too! Feeding the sheep, goats and donkeys was such good fun and the children were very brave to feed them. 
There were so many animals to see in the exotic animals enclosures; Emu, zebra, wallabies to name but a few. Our absolute favourites though were the lemurs and the meerkats. We all spent ages watching them move around in their own unique ways. 
The reptile enclosure was very exciting - we learnt about the natural habitats of the snakes, lizards and tortoises. 
We all enjoyed our picnic together in the sun - whilst fending off some enthusiastic ducks and chickens who very much wanted to be involved in our picnic! We finished with a play in the park followed by a much quieter coach trip back to school! 

Our Wonderful Porfell Trip!

Last Friday, KS1 and EYFS went to Porfell Wildlife Park to look at the farm animals in particular, but we also loved looking at all the other exotic animals that live there!

We loved watching the meerkats!  And all the other animals and birds... It was an amazing day! We learnt a lot about Porfell and how it was started over 35 years ago!!

A glorious start to May.

The children of Talland Class have been involved in several interesting activities this week which included researching and creating a timeline for the Maya civilisation. During this research, they were able to produce some amazing open questions about the civilisation: What was a typical meal for the Maya? How did the Maya protect their land? We will use these questions, and more, to help the children learn about the influences the Maya has had on contemporary society.

The children have loved digging into some horticultural work. They have managed to start planting crops in shallow beds, sowed some flower and vegetable seeds and spruced up the borders with a couple of shrubs. Who'd have known Talland Class had such 'green fingers'?  Well done, all!

English
Our English study has further developed the children's sentence structure. They are continuing to recognise complex sentences and beginning to use them confidently: for example, As the sun began to set, the children strolled towards the beach. 

Maths
The children have secured knowledge and understanding of decimals to thousandths. They used this knowledge to investigate percentages. They all recognise that percentages are shown by using the % sign.

best wishes,

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

This week's jokes:

Knock, Knock!
Who’s there?
Lettuce.
Lettuce who?
Lettuce in and you’ll find out.

What kind of bean never grows in a garden?
A jelly bean!

We have started our learning about our new focus story book 'We're going on a bear hunt' and when we went to St Anne's we listened to the story together before creating some bear faces.

The bear faces had to have one wet, shiny nose, two big, furry ears, two big goggly eyes; we're not scared!!

Fortunately, the Grannies and Grandads at St Anne's weren't scared either!

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We really enjoyed our Science lesson this week, as we were learning about invertebrates. We went on an invertebrate hunt around the school grounds and found many creatures in their microhabitats. We took photographs, drew them and then classified them! 

We are looking forward to some Scientists joining us later in the term to do more on this topic in more depth!

Super scientists

It's been another full on week in Tregantle Class. KS1 started their new club 'multi-sports' on Tuesday after school. There was huge amounts of energy burned in fast moving games like dragon's treasure, cups and domes and cat and mouse. The hall was filled with fun and laughter!
Tregantle have been busy scientists this week. The Year 1 children have been learning about the parts of a plant. we had some very successful labelled diagrams of 'busy lizzies' (which we all thought was a really funny name) and we have learnt how to identify some flowers like poppies, pansies and buttercups. Our EYFS scientists have been delighted by the changes we've seen in our caterpillars this week. they have all moved to the top of the pot and have begun to make their cocoons. 
In maths the EYFS children have been working really hard all week to show their understanding of teens numbers in different ways. In the photograph you can see one of the children using cubes to represent the number 15 with a block of ten and a block of five. Fantastic! 
We are all super excited for our trip to Porfell Wildlife Park on Friday. Check out our blog next week hear all about it! 

We have reached the end of our latest topic, ‘What’s so special about clouds’. We have focussed on a range of themes including erosion, human impact on the coast, how clouds are formed, their influence on the weather and how to read maps. We finished this week by completing some personal research into questions we still had on the topic. We recorded our findings in our books and on a few clouds too! 

We have reached the end of our latest topic, ‘What’s so special about clouds’. We have focussed on a range of themes including erosion, human impact on the coast, how clouds are formed, their influence on the weather and how to read maps. We finished this week by completing some personal research into questions we still had on the topic. We recorded our findings in our books and on a few clouds too! 

This has been another exciting week for Talland Class. They particularly enjoyed discussing, exploring and making decisions about respect. This was based on our RE topic and how all faiths are accepted in society, more especially in Cornwall. The children's ideas were in abundance and this highlighted further questions to answer. Two pertinent ideas the children explored were: What does respect look like? (A smile, taking a bow to the King, a hand shake, etc.) and What does it sound like? (Singing Happy Birthday, etc.)

English
Talland have been focusing on English grammar this week. This will enhance their understanding of the text they read and will promote their writing skills. For example, the children explored the use of relative clauses. A relative clause is used for extra information in a sentence relating to the subject of the sentence. (Mr Parry, who teaches Talland Class, walked into the classroom. In this sentence, 'who teaches Talland Class' is the relative clause.)

Maths
The children have further developed their understanding of decimals. They can now relate decimals to fractions and are beginning to grasp the relevance and importance of place value. We have now covered decimals up to thousandths: 

O . t  h th
2 . 1  4  5             
for example.


best wishes,

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

This week's jokes:

What word becomes shorter if you add two letters to it? Shorter

What do you call a train carrying bubble gum? A chew-chew train.

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On Thursday, we visited Saltash library for an exciting Live Lesson from the aquarium. We enjoyed seeing and learning about the different marine life and loved the fun facts shared!

We also took a look at the books in the library - lots of the children would love their library cards, so please do pay them a visit! You can even apply online and reserve your favourite books! https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/libraries-museums-and-archives/libraries/join-the-library/ 

More photos below!

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.

Wonderful Tregantle

What a hard-working week we’ve had! Our Year 1 children have been writing the class version of the story Christopher Nibble. We have changed the character to Fluffy Nibble and the place to ‘Carrotville!’ They have worked so hard to increase their stamina for writing. In maths the children have a new tuft tray with a weekly maths challenge. This week they have been showing their knowledge of doubling and halving. The EYFS children have been exploring in the garden this week. The BFA have kindly bought us some new resources for our mud kitchen which we have enjoyed using. We have seen some wonderful writing this week; all of the hard work in phonics is paying off as we can see from the wonderful ‘have a go’ writing! We all enjoyed another music lesson from the specialist music teacher Mrs Butlin this week. We worked on creating rhythms and identifying loud and soft, fast and slow music.