A largely sunny and dry week following the half term break has been just the tonic for the children and staff as we returned to work this week. Due to other commitments, I haven't been able to do the morning meet and greet as often as I would like, but whenever I have seen the children around the school they have been so enthusiastic, cheerful and polite; it has been a real pleasure to spend time with them.

This week, Class 1 started their gymnastics programme at Copper Valley Junior School. The excitement was barely containable when Abi Flashman opened up all the climbing frames and got the gym equipment out. I will try and post some photographs in the future to share this opportunity which just isn't possible at Harrowbarrow.

Our Year 5 and 6 football team competed in the first matches of their tournament on Tuesday. Despite losing 2-1 and 2-0 against Sir Robert Geffery and Bishop Cornish schools respectively, the children were great. Like the Year 3 and 4 team before them, many of the children were playing their first ever match. Well done to Poppy, Belle, Caleb, Leo, Noah, Archie, Talan, Rioch, Eli, Jayden and Josh.

In September, we made some changes to our English curriculum. There has been a renewed focus on using high quality texts as the starting point for children's writing and improving their spelling and handwriting. At this halfway point of the year, we are already seeing significant improvements. This has been recognised by some of our professional partners who visit the school regularly to see lessons, talk to the children and look at their books. Here are a few examples of the impressive work we are seeing across the school:

Class 2 children have published their work in this brilliant book, with extracts shown from Penny and Jasper's stories. A copy of this book has been put in the library for other children to read.



Class 4 have been writing some mystery thrillers and I was particularly impressed by this piece from Leo.


Like a phoenix from the flames, our polytunnel is being resurrected after Storm Unis flattened it a couple of years ago. Thanks to the Tesco Community Grant Abi Flashman secured, damaged parts have been replaced and caretaker Mark Cocking has been rebuilding it. We expect a new plastic cover to go on in the next couple of weeks, ready for children to start growing plants as part of their science curriculum. At the same time, we have a new forest school shed we will be erecting to provide some storage and protection from adverse weather during forest school sessions.



Dates for you diary

4.3.25: St Pirans performance for Year 3 and 4 parents/carers at Cotehele
7.3.25: Final cross-country league race
10.3.25: Harrowbarrow World Book Day celebrations
12.3.25: Harrowbarrow team competing in First Lego League county championship at RNAS Culdrose
19.3.25: Class 3 trip to Cornwall Farm & Country day at Wadebridge showground
21.3.25: Harrowbarrow Comic Relief fundraising day (details to follow)

Advance Notice Reminder
Please note, all Bridge MAT schools finish at 1.30pm on the last pupil day of each full term. This is to give school staff time to organise and prepare for the term ahead. Harrowbarrow hasn't previously adopted this policy, although many schools now do it. To align Harrowbarrow with our partner schools within the Trust, we will be adopting this practice at the end of this term, on the last pupil day before the Easter holiday (Friday 4th April). We will send a reminder nearer the time.

Class 3 consists of children from Years 6 and 5. The class is taught by Mr Hodgins with support from Mrs Campbell.

Learning in Spring 1

We learnt about the history of our local area with a focus on Mining. We set out to answer the questions "why is mining important to Cornish people and what impact has mining had on Cornwall?" The pupils demonstrated their curiosity while learning about out local area and as a celebration of all the work, we all took a trip to Minions! We met Iain Rowe - an expert guide for mining around the area and he took us all around the Phoenix United mine. He was so knowledgeable about the sites, jobs and local history and he even enabled us to see the house of the mine owner and explain the process of bidding for pitches in the mines.

After touring the mine site - we stopped for a pasty on Minions village green before heading down the old mining railway track and heading home. We just had enough time for a photo opportunity at Trethevy Quoit before heading back to school. We walked a long way - but it was a great day out! Big thank you to Will from Ginsters who helped us make out pasties, and Iain from Cornwall Heritage Trust for all their help in making this trip possible!

We were lucky enough to participle in a Book Trust Represent's virtual author visit with Benjamin Dean, author of The Boy Who Fell From The Sky. Benjamin discussed his motivations for being a writer and his creative process which led to really interesting conversations within the class. His book recommendations also spurred on our reading! 

In English we took part in an international poetry competition called "Flyku" where we composed our own Haiku's designed our own paper planes - which we also had a go a flying!  

In art we have developed our portrait skills using a range of materials. 


The fantastic class even managed to squeeze some time in the snow between their learning. 

Who made these footprints? 

We have had a lovely first week back in Foundation / Year 1.

We have begun our learning on our new big question which is: ‘Who made these footprints?’ We have set up a palaeontology lab for our role play and we have been working as fossil hunters! We have been brushing fossils and using magnifying glasses to take a closer look.
In our big question this term Year 1 will look at the idea of ‘footprints’ as who has had an impact and made significant change in society. In History, we will focus on the first plane and the Wright Brothers as well as looking at Neil Armstrong and the moon landings.

In Maths, Foundation have been combining two groups to make number. They have used lego bricks to help them. Year 1 have started their new unit: Addition and Subtraction to 20. We have begun our learning by using base ten and numicon to add together numbers within 20.

In English, our new learning journey is focused on Jack and the Beanstalk. We have started our learning journey by learning the story through actions. We have also begun to sequence the story and write key words or sentences linked to the pictures!

Some messages:
Our PE days are still Tuesday and Wednesday for this half term.

Please remember to order lunches on a Thursday for the next week.

Please make sure your child has their book bag/book on a Friday for book changes.

Thank you!

Foundation / Year 1 Team

w/e 26.2.25 - End of Half term!

Wow—what a fantastic end to this half term! The children have worked incredibly hard and had so much fun with their learning.

In English, we’ve been preparing for our poetry writing by exploring noun phrases and prepositions to create vivid descriptions. The children also practiced performing poetry aloud, building their confidence and expression—there are certainly some budding poets in the class!

Maths has been full of excitement as we continued our times tables challenges and tackled multiplication and division with larger numbers. The children have shown great perseverance and problem-solving skills, and we are so proud of their progress.

In History, we wrapped up our fascinating topic on the Stone Age to Iron Age by comparing different periods and reflecting on how life changed over time. The class had some brilliant discussions, showing how much they’ve learned.

This week, we were also lucky to have an exciting visit from an author and illustrator! The children loved engaging in creative activities inspired by their work, and many took the chance to get a signed book—a wonderful way to celebrate reading and storytelling.

Thank you for all your support this half term. We hope you have a wonderful and restful break, and we look forward to another exciting half term of learning ahead!

In February we continued learning...

--> How to use texture in art.
--> How magnets could be different strengths.
--> How to use a compass.
--> How Muslims celebrated Ramadan.
--> The features of a river, and where those are in the River Tamar.
--> How to divide a 2-digit number with remainders.
--> To design a garden for someone with a need.
--> To use TurtleLogo to create a sign, and Tinkercad to create a 3D model of a garden.

A wonderful day on the Moor

As a celebration of all the work we have done about Mining in our local area - we all took a trip to Minions!  We met Iain Rowe - an expert guide for mining around the area and he took us all around the Phoenix United mine.  He was so knowledgeable about the sites, jobs and local history and he even enabled us to see the house of the mine owner and explain the process of bidding for pitches in the mines.

After touring the mine site - we stopped for a pasty on Minions village green before heading down the old mining railway track and heading home.  We just had enough time for a photo opportunity at Trethevy Quoit before heading back to school.  We walked a long way - but it was a great day out!  Big thank you to Will from Ginsters who helped us make out pasties, and Iain from Cornwall Heritage Trust for all their help  in making this trip possible!

Flyku

As part of a national event to celebrate short-form poetry, our class took part in a Flyku competition.

The challenge was simple - to create an original and inspiring Haiku poem and then present it in the form of a paper aeroplane.

The winning entries will get the chance to take their winning Flyku onto a plane and to fly their paper planes at altitude!  What a great prize!!

We really enjoyed the creativity of writing the Haiku poems - and we followed the instructions carefully to create our paper aeroplanes.  Most of all - we loved testing them when we were finished!

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Welcome back to the second half of the Spring Term. We have six weeks of fun learning to look forward to with Science Week in the middle when we will be having a visit from Space Lab to help us learn more about our solar system. We also have the Cornwall Plastic Pollution Coalition coming to visit and teach us about marine litter and how we can help reduce the impact on our environment. 
Below is our learning web for this half term which provides more details about each subject area. 
Also attached is our English Learning Journey for the next 3 weeks.

Hello Everyone!

We have enjoyed a great final week of learning based around our enquiry question; ‘Why aren’t Space Ships made of jelly?’

In science, we have enjoyed investigating and sorting magnetic and non-magnetic materials. 

We have been developing our speaking and listening skills in our space rocket role play area, after listening to conversations held by astronauts and technicians at NASA. Using our weekly ‘I see, I think, I wonder’ activity, we have also discussed the surface of the moon.

In maths this week, reception have been comparing weight and mass, while Year 1 have been busy refining their place value skills,  by representing numbers in different ways. 

Our art topic finished with some amazing outside sculptures using different natural materials. We used the knowledge, ideas and techniques of Andy Goldsworthy that we have built up throughout this half term. The results were both amazing and unique. The children thoroughly enjoyed their time in the school garden, collaborating with each other to collect, sort and present the natural materials that they found. Well done everybody. It was lovely to see such brilliant collaboration and creativity. 

We hope you have a lovely half term.

From The Penhallow Team.

January was an exciting month with our trip to Ferry Farm.
We got to meet the animals and find out how they are looked after and how farming can co-exist in harmony with wildlife.
We also had fun in the woods collecting treasures and hunting for animal habitats.
When we got back to school we were able to look very closely at our treasures under our new microscopes that Mrs Cox bought us.
We also explored eggs that we collected from the farm. We boiled some and compared them to raw eggs which was a very smelly but fun and interesting session. This linked to our work on lifecycles. We looked at lifecycles of humans, frogs and butterflies and we can all explain what the word 'metamorphosis' means!

In history we have been learning about Amelia Earhart. We wrote down questions we wanted to find out the answers to and then we learnt about her life and her achievements. We looked at early attempts to fly and compared the Wright brothers glider to a modern aeroplane.
We also managed to sequence flying machines throughout the ages.

In DT we have designed our own aeroplanes to make using recycled materials. We are looking forward to finishing them but it will take a while with all the different stages we need to work through.

 

Mapwork skills

This week included comparing the Alpine region with the local area: Saltash. The children had lots of fun generating ideas concerning the leisure facilities within the area, these included the swimming pool in the Leisure Centre; the ambience of the Waterfront; and the children's parks. With the use of a local map, the children were able to annotate the map with Ordinance Survey Symbols to represent parks, swimming pools and parking areas, for instance.

The children's tailoring skills are now amazing. They use the blanket stitch effectively and are able to sew additions on to their soft toys, buttons, for example.

Due to the dedication the children have shown in their presentation, their written methods for division are clear and precise. The use of the four operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication and division - has finally started to make sense to them. Many can now use this knowledge and apply it to challenging problem solving questions.

Talland Class have used this week to research facts about the Alps to deepen their knowledge and understanding of the area. Through this research, they have been able to write a non-chronological report about the Alps to provide a well thought through and informative piece of text.

All the children have worked extremely hard this half term and deserve a well earned rest next week. Have a safe, restful and enjoyable half term break, Talland Class. We look forward to seeing the children again for the second half of the Spring Term.

Best wishes, Mrs Swabey, Mr Parry, Mrs Walters, Mrs Payne and Miss Rowlands.