It has been a busy and exciting week as the children have settled in wonderfully.

A huge thank you to our dedicated staff for preparing such engaging and high-quality learning environments for our students. We hope you enjoyed attending the Meet the Teacher meetings that took place this week—please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions. It was also lovely to meet so many of you at the Meet the Headteacher Coffee Morning, which we will continue to host monthly.

This week at Brunel, we have been focusing on one of the key British Values: Democracy.

As part of this, we held elections for our School Council, allowing students to experience the democratic process first hand. The School Council plays a vital role in our school community, representing the voices of their peers and helping to shape school policies and initiatives. They work together to bring forward ideas, organise events, and make Brunel an even better place to learn and grow.

Every child across the whole school participated by writing their own manifesto, explaining why they would make a great school councillor. After a secret ballot, our new school councillors were announced during a special Achiever's Assembly. Mr. Woolner will be meeting regularly with the School Council members as they work hard to make positive changes and contribute to the continued success of Brunel. 

Our School Councillors are:
Tregantle Class - James and Mia
Lantic Class - Emily and Lunar
Daymer Class - Alice and Lottie
Marazion Class - Isabella and Payton
Talland Class - Vinnie and Khai
Seaton Class - Louis and Daisy

Meet the Teacher
This week, Lantic, Marazion and Daymer classes held their Meet the Teacher Meetings.
We hope you found these sessions helpful and they gave you an insight into what the children will be learning this term. Don't forget to also check out our website blogs each week to keep up to date with each classes latest news. You can find the blogs on our website by following the link: https://www.brunelprimary.co.uk/classes

Next week, we look forward to welcoming Tregantle, Talland and Seaton parents. These will take place at 3:15pm on the following dates: 

Tuesday 10th September 2024 at 3:15pmSeaton and Tregantle Classes
Wednesday 11th September 2024 at 3:15pm Talland Class

Thank you for a wonderful first week at Brunel Primary and Nursery Academy.

Have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to seeing you all back safe and sound on Monday morning.

The children have only been in for three days but have settled brilliantly. Our theme this week was ‘Super Start’ – and what a fantastic start it has been. We also heard in the summer break that we achieved EcoSchools Green Flag status and ‘Gold’ for our School Games Mark application. Congratulations to Mrs Harrison and our Eco Council, and Mr O’Dwyer and our Sports Leaders for all their hard work.

Coffee Morning – Next Friday 13th September 08:45 (Hall)
I’m looking forward to our first coffee morning of the year – everyone is welcome. I’ll be sharing some of our plans for the year. One change already introduced is the new play and lunchtime arrangements. Despite the difficulties with the canteen oven (a big thank you to the team for managing this setback) having all children eating and socialising in the Hall has been wonderful. If you can’t make the coffee morning, I’ll be sharing the slides via email/website. We will be holding coffee mornings approximately every fortnight throughout the year as well as many new opportunities for parents to get involved. More on this next Friday. 

FOWPA BIG UNIFORM SALE ALERT
Back to school and need some bigger or spare uniform bits? FOWPA is having a second hand uniform sale outside on Thursday 12th September after school and Friday 13th September in the Hall at the Coffee Morning. Items are £1 each with all proceeds helping FOWPA support our school. We welcome any clean, good condition uniform that you would like to donate. Please drop them into the box in the main entrance.

Thank you for your support!
From the FOWPA Team



Music Lessons
Music lessons with our external teachers begin next week. Don’t forget your instruments!

School Crossing Patrol
We’ve been informed by Cormac that from today there will be no patroller on Gonvena Hill, until further notice. If you know of anyone who may be interested in this important role, please contact the School Crossing Patrol Coordinator: schoolcrossingpatrol@cormacltd.co.uk


Meet the Teacher
An opportunity to meet your child’s class teacher, talk to other parents in the class and learn more about the year ahead.

Tuesday 10th September – Class 3W only
15:20-15:40

Wednesday 11th September – All other Classes (not Class 3W)
15:10 – 15:30 Reception, Year 1 and Year 2
15:30 – 15:50 Year 3-6
15:50 – 16:10 Year 3-6 (repeated session)

Bridge Kids and Nursery Vacancies
We are currently recruiting for Bridge Kids After School Club Assistants. Please see the Vacancies page on our website for more information.
Additionally, we have two vacancies to join our existing Nursery team. These positions will be advertised on Monday on our Vacancies page.

Extra-Curricular Activities (ECAs)
Next week we will be sharing details on how to sign up for our teacher-led Term 1 ECAs for Y1-6 (running from Monday 23rd September-Friday 6th December). We also have a number of external providers offering paid ECAs (Pro20, DT Sports and Dance) who organise these separately directly with parents. As soon as we have information from them, we will pass on. You should have received an email about Pro20, which starts on Monday.

Coming up next week:

Monday 9th September
09:30 & 10:30 Nursery Stay and Play

Tuesday 10th September
Nursery begins
15:20 – 15:40 Meet the Teacher (Class 3W only)


Wednesday 11th September
Meet the Teacher (All other classes - not Class 3W):
15:10 – 15:30 Reception, Year 1 and Year 2
15:30 – 15:50 Year 3-6
15:50 – 16:10 Year 3-6 (repeated session)

Thursday 12th September
15:00 FOWPA Uniform Sale (Outside)

Friday 13th September
08:45-09:15 Coffee Morning and FOWPA Uniform Sale (Hall)

Wishing you a fantastic weekend.

A big welcome back!

It has been great to see all of our returning children to nursery and we have enjoyed welcoming some new faces to our nursery family.

This week has been all about settling the children back into nursery life and the nursery routine and we will be beginning to explore our enquiry question which is "Who am i?"

We have enjoyed some sunshine over the last 3 days so have been making the most of this time to play and explore outside. We have enjoyed lots of discussions about the children's summer holidays and it was lovely to hear about what you all been up to.

We look forward to sending book folders home again from Monday and we are sure the children will enjoy taking these home to share with you all.
We have a new helper in nursery from today. Jade will be in nursery helping us on a Monday and Friday morning and is looking forward to getting stuck in!

Have a lovely weekend

Julie and Sarah

Welcome back to school from all the staff at Polperro Primary Academy and a particularly warm welcome to those joining us for the first time. The children have settled extremely well. Please see the Class blogs for a flavour of the week’s learning and for information regarding your child’s class. Class Blogs and the Head’s Blog are updated after school on Fridays.

Communication I will continue to send a weekly update out on Fridays rather than send several emails out per week, so that all the information you need is together in one place. Information from this update will also be posted on this Blog each Friday along with photos. We are going to relaunch our Facebook page shortly which we will use to update you on everything to do with school, whether it’s news about the children’s learning, upcoming events or useful reminders.

Parent Survey Thank you for the many very positive and helpful comments which we received in our Parent Survey in the summer term. As always, we strive to improve and this year we will again be organising trips to enhance our curriculum, alongside valuable local visits. We will also be organising more fundraising events to build on the success of FOPS (Friends of Polperro School) events last year. Please watch this space as we will be asking for your support with this shortly.

We will be continuing our garden project: growing fruit and vegetables in our greenhouse for the school kitchen to prepare for the children. Mr and Mrs Peters have kindly looked after the garden over the summer break and there are crops ready to pick including some amazing bunches of grapes.

Achievement Assemblies We will resume our special Wednesday assemblies the week starting 16th September. In these assemblies, we celebrate the children’s achievements in Reading, Writing or Maths. If your child is to be awarded a certificate, their class teacher will ring to invite you to attend the assembly which will be held at 2:50pm (please arrive at 2:45pm). We look forward to sharing the children’s successes with you.

Swimming The pool is still open so in the hope that there is still some warm weather to come, please ensure your child’s kit is in every day.

Clubs The school is again providing after school and lunchtime clubs and we would like to get these up and running as soon as possible. The clubs and days are listed below and if your child would like to attend, please email the office secretary@polperroprimary.co.uk by Friday 13th September. All clubs will start from Monday 16th September. Clubs will run from 3.15pm until 4.15 pm after school and from 12:30-1pm at lunchtime. Please note that year groups for our clubs may change half termly to give everyone an opportunity to try them out. We will introduce other clubs as the year progresses such as creative clubs and we will incorporate our School Council’s suggestions where possible.

Monday: After School Football Club (Mr Langley) for years 3, 4, 5 and 6
Tuesday: After School Dance Club (Mrs Phillips) for years 1, 2 and 3
Thursday: After School Gardening Club (Miss Randle and Mrs Wilkie) for years 1-6. We will have to limit numbers in this very popular club on a first come first served basis in the first instance.
Friday: Lunchtime Music and Singing Club (Mrs Fitzsimmons) for years R, 1 and 2
After School Running Club (Mr Langley and Mrs Turnbull) years 3-6. This club will not run when the Cross Country League races are on. The club is open to anyone who likes running. Pupils who attend do not have to race in these events.

Arbor You will have received a communication from the Trust about completing the permissions for photos, trips, medications etc. on Arbor. It is really important that these are completed soon as they allow staff to plan in more detail. Even if nothing has changed since last year, please re-complete the forms so we have the most up to date information. If you are having trouble logging in, please contact the office for help.

Guitar lessons will start next Thursday, 12th September.

Wishing you a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hillman 

Welcome Chaipel Class!

We have had a lovely first few days back and what a fabulous class Chaipel is this year!

We have chosen our class monitors and they are already helping the school day run smoothly. Welcome to our new class member, Elsie, who has settled in very well to life in Chaipel. 

Our enquiry is all about the Romans this half term and we have already been learning about where Rome is and how historians believe it was built/founded. We are also exploring extreme Earth in Geography and have been investigating areas of extreme temperatures. We will move onto learning about tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes etc. which the children are already excited to learn about. FYI, Knowledge Webs, KIRFs and Homework Grids will be attached to the blog next week.

Congratulations to Elsie and Dom for being our first People of the Week this school year for their fabulous learning attitudes and how well they have settled into our class.

Have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday!

Miss Randle, Mrs Clary and Mrs Hodge.

 The first few days...

What a wonderful first few days... The children in Lantic class have all settled in really well and myself and Miss Sleep are so proud of them!

They have voted for their new School Councillor - they really thought about what it takes to be a great leader.  They came up with having good manners, following the rules, being sensible and making good choices, someone who listens, is helpful and kind but most importantly that they are a good role model to others and a good person.  I don't know how they decided!!

They have settled into their Maths lessons and new RWI/spelling groups.

We all think that this year is going to be the best! #Brunelisbest

Our School Councillors

After a hotly debated discussion and several rounds of voting, Class 2 have selected their school councillors. They are all looking forward to working with Mr Whipps and the councillors from Class 1 to make a real difference to the school. 

For the first time this year we are able to share with you the curriculum map that we use to plan the wider curriculum content and learning for each half term. The wider curriculum is all subjects except English and maths. We use the National Curriculum for our teaching decisions and this is based on the knowledge that we want children to gain. We hope that you find these maps helpful and when we start a new one, we will send it to you. It would be great if you could talk to your child about what they are learning from time to time and now you know what they are learning. There is a question that guides the work and we make sure that they get a good share of all subjects over the year, so some boxes may have less in them for one term or half term than other subjects. In maths we are also introducing some new language in maths called KIRFS. This stands for Key Instant Recall Facts. These are being introduced to the children and Mrs Davies, our maths lead will email a letter home by the end of the week to explain a little more and to suggest how you can help at home. You will receive a class blog at least once per week now, so please help us by updating your permissions on Arbor so that we can blog pictures of your child and share their learning with you more.

If you have any questions about the curriculum map, please let me know and I will help as much as possible.

Welcome back Year 6!

We've had a lovely first day back and it has been great to start to get to know the class. We have discussed our topic for the wider curriculum this term which will be The World Wars. We also looked at our story that will provide the focus for our writing over the next few weeks which will be Letters from the Lighthouse. The story is an historical fiction text about evacuation, the Blitz and includes elements of a mystery. It's a great book and we can't wait to get to understand it better!

PE days for year 6 this year will be Tuesday and Thursday. As with previous years, children can wear their PE kits to school on that day. A reminder that PE kits should be a plain white t-shirt, black or navy blue shorts and suitable footwear (trainers).

We hope you have all enjoyed the summer break and are looking forward to a great year with this cohort.