This week we have been supporting the Save a Heart campaign and learning how to use CPR if we ever needed to. The children practised thier skills using teddies, cushions and jumpers. We looked at the DR ABC approach - Danger, Response, Airways, Breathing, CPR.
If you want to explore this further at home or for yourself do take a look at: https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/how-to-do-cpr/learn-cpr-in-15-minutes 

We've had a busy and exciting start to the school year! In English, we've been diving into Stig of the Dump by Clive King. The children have loved exploring the adventures of Stig and Barney and even wrote their own creative chapters about a brand-new adventure the two characters might have. In Maths, we've been sharpening our place value skills and stretching our understanding of numbers up to 1000. It's been great to see everyone's confidence growing! Our History focus has been the big question: How did we survive before metal? We've travelled back in time to the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages, learning about early homes, tools, weapons, and how people used nature to live. The children really enjoyed creating their own triorama Stone Age homes. In RE, we've been learning how Christians follow God through stories and messages in the Old Testament. In French, we've started with the basics-greeting each other with a friendly "Bonjour!" PE has been all about football, developing our control, teamwork, and ball skills. And in DT, we looked at seasonal foods, then rolled up our sleeves to bake delicious treats for our Bake Sale! It's been a great month-well done, everyone!

Preschool is taught by Natalie and Sam along with Teighan our Nursery Apprentice.

What are the aims of our Pre-School?

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage** (EYFS) Principles from birth to age five.

In doing this we aim:

• To have happy, fulfilled and motivated children.

• To provide a stimulating environment for children to explore with their play and to learn from their experiences.

• Supporting Learning

• Transition to School

• Play and Exploration

What is the Early Years Foundation Stage? This is how the Government and Early Years professionals describe the time in your child's life between birth and age 5. This very important stage in your child's development helps them get ready for school, as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. 

From when your child is born up until the age of 5, their early years' experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure and support their development, care and learning needs

You can download a copy of the Parents' Guide to the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework at

https://foundationyears.org.uk/2021/09/updated-guidance-to-support-the-eyfs/

Our school council are organising a community event to raise money for one of our chosen charities this year, the RSPCA.

We want families to create their own scarecrow and all scarecrows will be placed throughout Widegates. This is the perfect chance to do something creative and fun as a family whilst raising money for an amazing cause!

Deadline for entries: 20th October.

We have 8 new EYFS children join our Trenode family and they have settled wonderfully. The focus over the first few weeks is establishing routines and building relationships with their new peers. 

In maths, we are focusing on place value and understanding each number's worth.

Our curriculum learning is "Why didn't Paddington come to Looe?" so the children have been busy in the role play bakery. They have been learning and performing the story of Paddington and we even went on the same adventure tasting food from the bakery, writing our name on mirrors and drawing a map in Peru in shaving foam. We are currently learning about eating healthy in DT and will be preparing a healthy meal for our teddy bear's picnic.

We have also started with a weekly forest school session each week with Kelly. She has been looking at team building in different outdoor games and the children have loved exploring our amazing grounds. A reminder to parents that children require old clothes every Friday during this half term.

You may have seen us in the news and this is because Looe Shedders kindly created a playhouse for our outdoor learning area. The playhouse has been a hit with the children enjoying imaginative and creative play to support language development. We love that we have a space outside to take part in role play.

We have launched Showbie (our online learning platform) to EYFS parents. Please make sure you have signed up to see what your child gets up to with their learning. For Year 1 and 2 parents, you will be receiving the codes for Showbie in the next couple of weeks.

Key date: Wednesday 1st October-We are inviting family members in to have a teddy bear's picnic to taste the healthy food we are making in DT.

A welcome back to our pre-school blog!

The children have all settled back into pre-school well for the start of autumn term.  We have also welcomed some new little faces to the pre-school, and it has been lovely to start to get to know them.  We have also welcomed Mrs Barrett as a Pre-School TA on a Friday, Mrs Barrett is an experienced TA who also works at Duloe Pre-School and is a wonderful addition to our team.

This half term our enquiry question, "Who am I?" leads us to lots of wonderful ways to learn about ourselves and each other.  From self-portraits to all about me collages, family pictures and talks about siblings or pets at home. Lots of Grand Conversations happen with the children to build up their self-identity and understanding of who they are.

We have also been discovering changes to the season with stories and songs about Autumn and what we can see around us.  The children will be bringing home a special bag to collect some autumn items to bring into pre-school.  We will build up a display table to let the children explore and learn about these items.  So, any crunchy colourful leaves, acorns, conkers and pinecones or any other natural autumn object the children would like to bring in.

The children have been enjoying joining in with some of Lantic's afternoon activities such as music with Mrs Butlin and PE.  They are showing great listening skills and follow instructions from the teachers.

Next week on Wednesday 8^th October at 2pm we will be joining the whole school for their harvest festival celebration in St Nun Church.  If you would like to bring any donations of tinned or dried foods that we can add to the collection for Liskeard and Looe food bank , that would be very much appreciated.

We will be enjoying some baking next week with the children so do make sure we are up to date with any known allergies.

Below are some pictures of our first few weeks back at pre-school, also attached is the most recent pre-school newsletter incase you have not received one. 

The Pre-School Team.

The reception and year 1 children went to Gunwen chapel to take part in the tradition of crying the neck. This is a Cornish tradition that is about celebrating the harvest. The children joined in with the Cornish chants where they had the opportunity to hold the neck of corn and lead the chant. We then went into the chapel and joined in with some harvest songs and learnt a bit more about how the tradition started. We then finished off in the chapel hall doing some crafts. As a group we made a field of corn out of our hands which we made with paper and a collage owl. 

Year 3 News!

We have had a busy week in Year 3!  We have continued with our Egyptian topic where all children made a Cartouche of their name!  They really enjoyed this and we have displayed them on our Working Wall.  In art, the children are experimenting with different patterns and textures and will be creating their own Egyptian Scroll next week.

In science, the children are learning about nutrition and food labels.  They made a giant food plate outdoors which separated the various foods into food groups!  

In English, the children are beginning to write their own version of "The Egyptian Cinderella" story which by the end of next week, they will have published and shared with the other classes.

In PE, the children have been learning invasion and team building games.  All which involve lots of strategic thinking!  

In French, the children will be learning all of the names of fruits!

For guided reading, the children are continuing with our Roald Dahl unit - please ensure their reading log is in school every day so that you can see when your child has read in school :)

I hope that the weather stays nice for many more outdoor activities next week! 

Mrs Brewer, Mrs Miller and Mr Liddement

Another busy week has flown by in Chaipel. We have had Sian - the charity's vice president - in from Plymouth and Devon Cancer Trust to collect the monies that we raised for them in July. She was amazed to collect a 'cheque' for £451.45! The children collectively ran/biked/scooted a marathon around the school grounds and thoroughly enjoyed raising the money for such a worthy charity.

In Maths, we have been learning about decimal place value and on our Friday Shape lesson, revisiting the properties of a 2D shape. For English, we are writing up our 'newly discovered planet' description, using some incredible vivid sensory detail and figurative language. Tristan has really done himself proud - especially with...
AS THE MOON'S DIVINE BEAM FLOODS THE MOUNTAIN, THE STARS RAPIDLY GET THEIR SPOTLIGHT - wow Tristan, very atmospheric!

In our Wider Curriculum, we have been creating space nubulas and star clusters in art, experimenting with creating background. Next week, we will move onto the foreground and then design and develop ideas for our final piece. It was National Fitness Day on Wednesday and we took part in a series of activities designed to improve our fitness. We have all written an activity pledge which will hopefully devlop our fitness levels further. In Computing, we have been on a web quest, identifying websites which offer reliable content and those which are not completely trustworthy!

We explored the origin of chocolate in PSHE, comparing our lives to the life of a Ghanaian child on a cocoa plantation. It was very insightful and shows just what we take for granted. In Science, we researched what makes Earth the perfect planet to live on. Ask us what the Goldilocks zone is within our solar system!

CONGRATULATIONS to Imogen and Skye for being our People of the Week, displaying our school values and being excellent role models to their peers. 

That's all from us so have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday.

MISS RANDLE AND MRS CLARY