Harvest is one of our favourite times of the year in school.  It celebrates all of our values in so many ways.  We have been collecting food to donate to the Liskeard Food Bank which also serves Looe and we have worked hard to understand all of the reasons why we do this, From history, to music, to thinking about others, to showing kindness to those who may need help more than we do and learning to share with others when we have enough.

To celebrate this year, we invited parents to two assemblies, Key Stage 1 in the morning and Key stage 2 in the afternoon.  Each class had prepared songs, poems, prayers and art to share with their parents.  We were so pleased that so many parents were able to join us.
We were also thrilled with the donations of food that we received.  The photo is of the volunteers from the Liskeard Food Bank who came to take the food back to their storage facility.  As you can see, their van is rather full of produce!

Harvest is colourful, vibrant , thoughtful, kind and helpful with so many other wonderful qualities to share the positive things in life when we all work together and to give thanks for the food that we eat and the people who grow and make it for us.  Thank you to all those families who donated so generously.

Primary School days are meant to be memorable. but I have a feeling that the residential visit to London for many of our Year 6 pupils last week was one of their most memorable experiences ever and hopefully one that will last forever.  With huge thanks to Mrs Davies for organising the experience and for all of the adults attending, including one of our governors, I think it is safe to say that they all had a wonderful time.  With over 29,000 walking steps on one day in particular, the visit was packed full of new things to enjoy and experience.  The main reason for the trip at this time of year was tickets to visit the Houses of Parliament and because it is the party conference season, the children were allowed to enter the Houses of Commons and Lords as there were no sessions on the day that they were there.  It meant that they could experience being in the chambers, rather than observing debates and questions from the viewing galleries.

They stayed very close to St.Paul's Cathedral and saw the outside art in the grounds, walked to the Tate Modern via the Millenium Bridge, went to the Tower of London and saw The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre as well as their visit to the Houses of Parliament.  They walked and experienced the London Underground and they saw many of the other London sights on foot, such as the Embankment, Tower Hill and Paddington Station.  I am sure you will agree that it was an action packed few days!  They were all exhausted when they returned, but all smiling and very excited to share their time away with their families.  All adults reported how well the children coped and they were hard to miss in their brightly coloured group hats.  I think we all wished that we had been with them!

You helped us to raise £2,374

What a wonderful afternoon we had at our 40th birthday celebration event.  Looe Primary Academy moved from its old site down in West Looe to its new site 40 years ago in November.  We could not resist the opportunity to celebrate the event.  It was a bit of an impromptu reunion for some of the previous staff including Mr Trethowan who was the Headteacher at the time that the school moved and Mr Wardle who was the Headteacher here not too long ago.  We wanted as many organisations in town to join us as possible and we we so pleased that we had so many join us - far too many to mention here!  We were very lucky with the weather and although it got a little cold towards the end, we all enjoyed everything that was on offer.  We are raising money for some new play equipment for both of our play areas and we have made a very good start to add to the money that we have already raised.  Thank you to everyone who made the day successful.  The children raised over £670 with their social enterprise projects, so thank you to them all too.  It was certainly a day to feel proud!

We started our new academic year by remembering the important British Value of respect.  We are so very polite and respectful to each other throughout the day at school, but do we really value and understand respect as the British Value of Mutual Respect and how this affects everything we do; not just open doors for each other, saying thank you and generally being polite?  

We came up with so many examples of mutual respect in action at school and in our community.  Some of the things we thought about were how we respect each other when adults are not looking, showing kindness, helping each other, disagreeing in a friendly and polite way, respecting the feelings of others, looking after things and animals, following the school rules etc.  We had so much to talk about and we are now working on some sentences that we can display around the school to remind us that mutual respect is such an important value and one that can help us to have safe and happy lives.

We can't wait to see what we come up with!

A year ahead to celebrate!

Welcome back to all of our children and families for the new academic year, with a special welcome to all of our new children and their parents or carers.

In November, our school celebrates 40 years since its move from its old site in West Looe to its current beautiful site on East Looe hill. 

To make this a year to remember, as well as welcoming all of our new pupils to school, we will be celebrating all things family.  We will start the proceedings with our '40 Years of Looe Primary Academy' celebration event.  An afternoon of fund-raising, song, music, performance, fun, food and games and stalls run by the children and a variety of local enterprises.  Our fund-raising effort this year is to provide new significant play equipment for both or our playgrounds.  We have been overwhelmed by the generosity and promise of funding from some of our local organisations and with grants as well as money already raised, we are well on the way to more than £20,000 to support this project already.  This event is open to all of our local community and all are very welcome - we pray for good weather!

Our aim this year is also to provide more and more opportunities for parents and families to join us at school to have fun and to learn together.  Towards the end of the Autumn Term we will begin to provide a number of learning opportunities for parents, both with and without their children and we hope that we will be able to welcome more and more people to join us in our learning and activities throughout the year.  A lot of these activities will be in partnership with local providers and the local authority, so please do join us as often as you can.

We cannot wait to throw open our doors to all who wish to join us as we mark this special time for this amazing school.  We are a happy bunch - why not come and see for yourself?

The residential and day trip season has well and truly arrived at Looe Primary!  Our Year 6 pupils enjoyed 3 nights and 4 days at Hendra near Newquay last week, supported by Kernow Sports and Leisure, one of our sports providers.  As you can see, they got up to all sorts of activities, including segway, body boarding, adventure challenges and a day trip to Camel Creek.  Even the staff got in on the act at the silent disco with evidence of Mrs Higgins dancing away with the instructors!  The staff were very proud of the children and hopefully they will have some lovely memories of their last few weeks at Looe Primary School.

Our Year 5 children will enjoy their residential this week and the Year 4 children recently enjoyed a visit to Longleat for 2 nights and a trip to Cheddar Gorge on the way home.  For the other year groups it has been a season of some wonderful visits to local venues, including the beaches in and around Looe, Plymouth University, the Sardine Factory/Heritage Centre etc.

We are now all eagerly anticipating the Year 6 drama production in the next few weeks - before we know it, it will be the end of the school year.  Where did all that time go?