Head's Blog

Jubilee Week

What a busy Jubilee week we have had. The school has been positively buzzing with activity in all corners of the building. As usual, the children have been magnificent in their enthusiasm and application to the tasks in hand and as a result, we now have our Jubilee scarecrow on the gate ready for the forthcoming village celebrations. The suggestion box revealed lots of fabulous ideas, but the recurring idea of the queen walking one of her corgis seemed appropriate. All the children have contributed with items one way or another so this truly is a collaborative piece of work which we hope will spread joy in the coming weeks.

On Wednesday, we were joined by the fabulous ARENA team for our Health and Wellbeing Day. Again this proved to be a special day, despite the weather, with lots of smiles and laughter mixed with determination and resilience in trying new activities. You can see from the pictures below just what I mean!

We finished the week with our Cream Tea Jubilee Party on Friday afternoon. The children came into school wearing red, blue and white with a donation of £1 towards our allotment fruit tree fund, so the day was off to a colourful start. As always, the school is well supported by our local community so the playground was teeming with chatter, excitement and smiles. The children entertained singing the Queen's Jubilee song and waving their home made flags before tucking into the cakes provided by FOPA. Among the raffle prizes donated, we had Miss Taylor's mum's beautifully crocheted teddies, her grandad's hand-carved wooden boxes and fruit stand and Mrs Charlesworth's hand painted water colour greeting cards. Needless to say, we yet again managed to raise an amazing amount of money £131, to be precise, which I know FOPA will put to good use for the children.

After the half term break, the busy schedule will continue so please keep an eye on your emails and the school calendar. We are back in school on Monday 6th June for a short week as Friday 10th June is INSET, for teacher training.
Have a lovely break.
Mrs W

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Week 16th May

This week, we have noticed a writing bug sweeping through the school. By far the most welcome and friendly bug this year, it has resulted in lots of fantastic writing in the classroom but also independent writing at home and in the playground. I was able to share some lovely poems written by Imogen and Antonia in our celebration assembly on Friday and I have added them to the "wall of fame" in my office. I was also able to share the fantastic news that two children from our school had their poems awarded commended and highly commended by the Fowey Festival Young Writer's panel. Huge congratulations to Hallie in Year 5 and Tegan in Year 3 - we are all very proud of your achievement.

We are looking ahead to a busy final week of this half term:
Monday - photographer is here to take new photos for our website
Tuesday - Tregeagle Class are swimming
Wednesday - Health and Wellbeing day for all. Please make sure your child comes to school wearing their PE kit
Thursday - Scare crow making
Friday - Jubilee Cream Tea party at 2:30 and unveiling of this year's scarecrow.

We have come to the end of SATs week – phew!
The Year 6 children have shown incredible resilience, determination and great maturity. Their learning journey over the past two years has been characterised by turbulence however they have persevered and this week we noticed a real sense of ambition and desire to achieve emanating from all of them – hats off from all the staff!

Next week, we continue with swimming lessons for Tregeagle class and Canute class will take their turn to tend the allotment. With the generous time and help from Mr Sandy, we now have a raised strawberry bed and over the coming weeks, he will be making more raised beds and covering the ground with chipped bark to help save weeding time. Mrs Sandy has again this week donated lots of plants from her garden, so we have been able to plant Cosmos, Morning Glory and Sweet Peas too. We clearly have some budding gardeners as interest and efforts are high among the children, so we should end up with a lovely space where we can all learn and explore growing and the natural world.

I have attached a link to our website taking you to a page from the campaign Tackle Child Abuse – An England wide campaign to help you recognise the signs of child abuse and neglect. Please have a look and let others know so e can work together to tackle this.
https://www.polruanprimary.co.uk/Keeping_Safe/Parent_Downloads

Looking ahead to the last day of term, we are planning a cream tea party to celebrate the Platinum jubilee in collaboration with FOPA. Children can come to school dressed in blue, red and white for a voluntary donation of £1 which we will use to purchase fruit trees for the allotment. More information to follow, please check your emails for updates.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs W

Summer Week 2

Another busy week across the school. Learning is in full swing again and school is reverberating with purpose, determination and tenacity. This week, it was the turn of Canute class to tend to the allotment. They returned to school following a very productive afternoon of weeding, watering and planting. We still have lots of work to do, but are confident we can create a productive and welcoming space for us all to spend time learning about growing and the natural world. We will take turns to go to the allotment, with the classes alternating weekly. Your child's teacher will remind you to send in wellies and a change of clothes.

The weather is now warming up so our attention turns to staying safe in the sun. Please make sure your child has a sunhat, brings in sun lotion to apply before playing outside or has sun lotion applied before coming to school and importantly, they have a re-fillable water bottle.

We have almost completed our programme of events for the summer term. I know Mrs Sandy has been populating the school calendar with the confirmed events so far, so please make sure you keep checking regularly.

Thank you to all of you you completed the parent questionnaires. We have received some very useful feedback and some lovely comments about the school. I will create a document with all the results and share these with you shortly.

We look forward to seeing the Year 6 children a little earlier than usual on Monday morning for their SATs breakfast.

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Wills

Easter Everywhere

We have reached the end of a very turbulent and fairly hectic term and our last week was jam packed with lots of Easter themed activities.

On Wednesday afternoon, we welcomed our lovely Open the Book team back for an afternoon of Easter crafts and sharing of the Easter story. They were also tasked with choosing and announcing the winners of the FOPA's Easter Egg competition. The winner from Canute class was Antonia and Tregeagle class winner was Mischa-Joyce. Both the children received Book Vouchers.

Friday was our Ukraine ShelterBox fundraiser. This is the first time in two years we have been able to invite parents and members of the community into school for an event. We had a fantastic afternoon with the older children selling a variety of Ukranian inspired foods and crafts. Easter is an important event in the Ukranian calendar, and our Ukranian family has been helping us to design and make crafts to reflect this special time. We made spin-off Pysankas, beautifully decorated eggs, and even had some authentic eggs decorated using plants for patterns. The event was well attended and with private donations from staff, The Russell Inn and benefactors from the village, we managed to raise £767.50. This will be added to the funds raised from other Bridge Trust schools and donated to the Cornish charity ShelterBox to support Ukranian families displaced by the war.

The children all went home clutching their FOPA Easter eggs, earned from hunting the school grounds for their personal egg, and an Easter bag filled with goodies donated by a kind local benefactor.

Have a restful break and enjoy friends, family and chocolate
Mrs Wills

Another busy week

ALLOTMENT

The warm sunny weather we have enjoyed over the last week allowed us to finally visit our allotment. On the first visit, Tregeagle class went up to survey the site, gather inspiration and make some initial plans for planting. The children had lots of fabulous ideas and we have been able to pull all of those together in the plan attached. We have had good discussions about which fruit, vegetables and flowers might be best suited to the soil, weather and our gardening abilities and we should be in a position to start planting straight after Easter.

GEOGRAPHICAL FIELDWORK
The children in Canute class have been on an outing too. They went to survey the area around the play park as part of their geography lesson. Their task was to use fieldwork skills and knowledge to complete a map of the area plotting landmarks using a bird's eye perspective, super sophisticated skills for our youngest children. Their maps are brilliant and they are looking forward to sharing these in assembly next week.

UKRAINE FUNDRAISER

Join us at school on Friday afternoon from 2pm for our Ukraine fundraiser. The children will be selling crafts, cakes and Ukraine inspired Easter Eggs. All the money raised will go towards the Bridge schools ShelterBox donation.

Have a lovely weekend
Mrs Wills

Trees

The spring sunshine has brought energy, renewed purpose and lots of smiles which has been most welcome in the past busy weeks.
On Thursday, the whole school joined the rangers at the National Trust site in Lansallos for a tree planting session. It was a great morning learning all about planting saplings, using tools with care and precision and spending time outdoors.
As always, the children were a real credit to the school with their enthusiasm, willingness to learn and exemplary behaviour.

Please look out for emails containing further updates on activities happening over the next couple weeks. On Thursday, we are in St Saviour's for the Mothering Service at 10am and the children will be joined by the Open the Book team Wednesday afternoon to create posies.

World Book Day

What an fantastic effort everyone made to celebrate World Book Day, we had a bear, Harry Potter, Cheshire Cat, Mildred Huble, Lion King, Captain Hook, Matilda and many more inspiring and interesting characters from the children's favorite books. It is always a very special day in school when we get to talk about our favorite books and the characters that inspire us to be the best version of ourselves.

Next week, we have another event planned for Thursday. This time, we are joining the National Trust at Lansallos to plant trees. Please make sure you have signed the consent forms and returned these to school by Tuesday 8th March.

Ukraine conflict

In support of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, the children at Polruan Primary Academy are keen to continue efforts to aid the many people affected by displacement due to the destruction of their homes and lives. You may be aware, that we have a Ukranian family in our school, which brings the events of the conflict much closer to us all. To support our classmate, their family and friends back in Ukraine, the children in Tregegagle class made donation appeal posters for the village shops earlier this week asking for emergency supplies of specific medical items and thanks to your generosity this means we will be able to send a contribution to the collection in St Austell this Saturday – THANK YOU!

We have received a new list of items needed by humanitarian aid groups based in Poland and Ukraine, so we will update our posters to reflect this.
The new list contains:
Plasters, bandages, emergency foil blankets for children, ointment for burns for children, band-aid, nappies, soothers, baby feeding bottles, wet wipes, sterile wipes, milk powder, water, food with a long date, baby food, matches, batteries, torches, Walkie Talkies, power banks.

Any donations are gratefully received at school. The children are also planning a fundraising event here at school and we will provide further information shortly.

Mrs Wills

Half Term

I hope you are all safe.

A turbulent end to a turbulent half term, I think we are all ready for the half term break!
Thank you for the support you have given all staff during a challenging and testing half term. Hopefully we are now heading towards more stable and gentle times.

We have lots of exciting things planned for the next half term so please keep checking your emails and the website calendar for updates.

School opens again to pupils on Tuesday 1st March, Monday is an INSET day. If your child is in Tregeagle, please remember we are swimming on the first Tuesday back.

Have a restful break.
Mrs Wills

Thank you

It has been a challenging few weeks and on behalf of all the staff I would like to say THANK YOU for your support and collaboration, we could not have done it without you. Despite the difficulties, there is something resilient and sturdy about the thirst the children have for learning and it is refreshing to see how they continue on their quest to explore, assimilate and make the most of the daily opportunities coming their way.

We have had a few weeks without our usual visitors to school, but we are hoping to be back to open doors again next week. Next week also sees the return of the annual “Internet Safety Day” on Tuesday 8th February. This year the theme is ‘All fun and games? Exploring respect and relationships online’. The whole school will be involved through a variety of age-related activities and I will email further information, guidance and useful links to all parents so you can continue to support your child to stay safe online at home.