Wonderful work, amazing art and great gardening!

Dear parents & carers, it's been a busy and productive couple of weeks since I last contacted you. Our children have been working incredibly hard and are producing some fantastic learning. I have seen some wonderful writing across the school as we write about our dream park in year 1 and 2 and in KS2 pupils are completing their non-chronological reports which are looking amazing. Well done everyone!

Gardening Greatness
This week has seen the recommencement of Gardening club, expertly and kindly run and organised by Miss Birkinshaw and Mrs Speare. The children worked hard on watering all our plants, weeding the raised beds and tidying the garden area after the summer holidays. Next week we are planting potatoes, and spring bulbs. Well done to you all. If you think your child would enjoy taking part in Gardening Club just pop into school or let your child’s class teacher know.

Assembling for Assembly!
It was great to see so many parents, grandparents and friends come along to celebrate with their children and grandchildren at our celebration assembly last week. We look forward to welcoming you all into school over the course of the term and year.
Autumn Assembly
Just a reminder that our Autumn Assembly takes place on Friday 16th October at 9am at the Infant site, everyone is welcome.

Being a Buddy!
A number, in fact the majority of children in Year 4, have been talking to me about being a 'Playground Buddy'. Following discussions with Mrs Owen and Mrs Speare our Playground Buddies are now up and running! Each day our playground buddies are on the playground to help, support, talk to and play with children from across all year groups. Well done and thank you to you all.

Callington Honey Fair – Saturday 3rd October
As many of you will know, Callington Honey Fair is being held on Saturday. Copper Valley have been asked to be part of the event. Pupils from each year group have entered an art related competition and members from our school choir will be in attendance singing a few of their favourite songs. If you can come along, it would be great to see you.

Thank you for your continued support, Mr Arnold and the Copper Valley Team.

In Year 1 & 2 we have been busy designing, making and testing bridges!

We explored different bridge designs and worked together to build our own using a variety of materials such as wooden lollipop sticks, card, paper, string and masking tape. We then tested our bridges to see how many weights they could hold before collapsing. We discussed what the strongest bridges had in common and discovered that bridges made with lots of lollipop sticks and plenty of masking tape were the strongest. We had lots of fun being engineers, testing our ideas and learning from our results!

What a fantastic start to the new school year we have had in Year 1 and Year 2!

Our Year 1 children have settled into their new classes and routines so well, showing enthusiasm, confidence and excitement as they begin their next chapter of learning. Our Year 2 children have been wonderful role models, demonstrating a fantastic level of maturity, independence and responsibility as they embrace their new challenges.

We have also been loving our brand-new Curiosity Club! The children have been busy working hard to uncover clues and discover the identities of our mysterious club leaders, Detective Deb and Explorer Errol. Each day, they leave us exciting challenges to solve and complete, encouraging us to think creatively, work together and use our problem-solving skills.

The children were thrilled to receive their very own Curiosity Club certificate once they had shown they were ready to become official members. We can't wait to see what adventures, discoveries and challenges lie ahead!

We are so proud of how brilliantly everyone has started the year and are looking forward to all the wonderful learning and fun still to come!

In Year 1 & 2 we have been busy designing, making and testing bridges!

We explored different bridge designs and worked together to build our own using a variety of materials such as wooden lollipop sticks, card, paper, string and masking tape. We then tested our bridges to see how many weights they could hold before collapsing. We discussed what the strongest bridges had in common and discovered that bridges made with lots of lollipop sticks and plenty of masking tape were the strongest. We had lots of fun being engineers, testing our ideas and learning from our results!

What a fantastic start to the new school year we have had in Year 1 and Year 2! Our Year 1 children have settled into their new classes and routines so well, showing enthusiasm, confidence and excitement as they begin their next chapter of learning. Our Year 2 children have been wonderful role models, demonstrating a fantastic level of maturity, independence and responsibility as they embrace their new challenges.

We have also been loving our brand-new Curiosity Club! The children have been busy working hard to uncover clues and discover the identities of our mysterious club leaders, Detective Deb and Explorer Errol. Each day, they leave us exciting challenges to solve and complete, encouraging us to think creatively, work together and use our problem-solving skills.

The children were thrilled to receive their very own Curiosity Club certificate once they had shown they were ready to become official members. We can't wait to see what adventures, discoveries and challenges lie ahead!

We are so proud of how brilliantly everyone has started the year and are looking forward to all the wonderful learning and fun still to come!

Welcome Back

Welcome back to a new school year! We trust that you enjoyed a delightful summer filled with warm, sunny days.

Our return has been bustling, and we are excited to welcome Freddie as the newest member of our ARC team. He has quickly adapted to our environment, and it’s heartening to see his lovely smile each morning.

This term, we are implementing a new therapeutic program called RISE. This program is structured around four key stages, emphasizing sensory regulation, communication, and emotional safety. Children are encouraged to engage through invitations; with adults actively participating in stimulating activities, we naturally draw the children's curiosity and they naturally become involved and engaged. Often these sessions have a habit of becoming very messy!

R – Regulation  

I – Invitation  

S – Shared Experience

E – Ending  

Our sensory stories are now part of our daily routine, and the children are really enjoying joining in as a group. They love exploring the stories using all of their senses and getting involved in the different activities.

Hall time has also started this term, and the children are enjoying taking part in the group sessions. They are developing their core strength as they climb, run, pull themselves along the equipment and practise their balance.

This term, Eddie is exploring the topic of chocolate. So far, he has been learning about the origins of the cocoa bean. The Mayans were among the first to create a bitter drink using cocoa beans, as they believed it had healing properties. Later, the Aztecs also created a luxurious chocolate drink, which was served in golden goblets and was enjoyed mainly by the wealthiest and most important people.

A fun packed start to our term. We are excited to continue exploring and expanding our learning during this Autumn term.

What a Wonderful week!

Dear Parents and Carers, just wanted to write to let you all know how wonderful your children are!
Our Nursery and Reception children have settled in beautifully and are accessing all the exciting learning opportunities that surround them.

I’ve seen children in all year groups enjoying their learning and socialising with their friends, it’s been a great start to the school year.
Thank you for all you’ve done in ensuring that your children have been ready and raring to go each morning. I have had a very busy, but very rewarding first couple of weeks at Copper Valley, thank you for continuing to make me feel so welcome.

Assembly Invitation
As you’ll probably know, your children attend a Celebration/Achievement assembly each Friday. This is an opportunity for us, as a school, to recognise some of the excellent learning, that has been happening throughout the week and also let us congratulate those children (of which there are many) that show the Trust and school values in school each day.
We’d like to invite you into our Celebration Assemblies as of next week. Therefore, if your child will be receiving a certificate on Friday your child’s class teacher will let you know via Seesaw, or email on Wednesday evening. The Celebration assembly is held in the hall at the Infants site at 9am on a Friday morning and will finish by approximately 9:20am. You can enter school through the main door in the morning. At the Junior site our celebration assembly starts at 2:30 in the hall and ends at approximately 2:50pm. It would be lovely to see as many of you as possible.

ECO Council
Congratulations to our Eco council for securing the Green Flag award.

After all their hard work last academic year Copper Valley Academies have been awarded the Green flag Award. We managed to obtain this through showing our green credentials including, litter picking, establishing gardening clubs, creating bug hotels, buying and installing bird feeders and collaborating with Tavi Task force who tided and cleaned up our pond area. We also attended an Eco Summit at another Bridge Trust school and ensured through assemblies that the rest of the school knew about the benefits of being ecofriendly. Well done to everyone involved and huge thanks to Mrs Wright for supporting and overseeing this project.

Eco council elections will be taking place in the coming days, with our first meeting of the school year on Monday 5th October.

School Meal Menu and introducing our new chef!
If you’d like to view the menu choices for this term, there are copies of the school menus in the reception area of both sites and it is available on the school website. Just click information and school meals. Unhelpfully, it is still titled Spring/Summer menu, however the dates down the side do refer to this term. Also, I wanted to let you know that Katy Upton, our new school chef, joined us at the beginning of this term, it’s been great to welcome her to the team.

Hope you all have a great weekend, and we look forward to seeing you back at Copper Valley on Monday. Mr Arnold and the Copper Valley Team.

It's been lovely welcoming all the children to Reception. They have all settled in brilliantly and are enjoying exploring their new environment and making new friends. I've been so impressed with how well they listen and follow instructions. We've been learning what it means to be kind and they are all trying hard to share and take turns. It's been such a lovely start to the year!

What a fantastic month we have had in Year 2!

In History, we continued learning about Sir Francis Drake. We ordered the main events of his life onto a timeline and developed our understanding of his achievements and adventures. We also enjoyed a brilliant trip to Drake's home, Buckland Abbey, where we explored what life was like during Tudor times. We learned about the similarities and differences between life then and now and enjoyed discovering more about Sir Francis Drake's home.

In Art, we worked carefully through several stages to create our beautiful Van Gogh-inspired sunflower paintings. We practised different techniques and paid close attention to colour and detail. We were incredibly proud to display our finished artwork in our art exhibition, and the results were stunning!

In RE, we have been thinking about what makes some places special to believers. We began by discussing places that are special to us and why they are important. We then explored churches and mosques, learning about their features and considering the similarities and differences between them.

In Science, we continued our learning about plants. We set up an investigation using cress seeds to find out what plants need to grow successfully. We also planted broad bean seeds and have loved watching them grow. There has been lots of excitement as we compare our plants and see whose is growing the tallest!
On 8th May, we celebrated Sir David Attenborough's birthday by exploring all things animal! We particularly enjoyed using microscopes to observe bugs preserved in resin and learning more about the fascinating world of insects. We also made Sir David a birthday card and had the exciting opportunity to meet Luna the tortoise. We discovered what she needs to survive and learned more about how to care for animals.

It has been a busy and enjoyable month full of exciting learning experiences. We are looking forward to seeing what June brings!

We have had a very arty month this month!
We completed our learning about the designer Orla Kiely by creating our own Orla Kiely inspired prints. We also learned how we can bend, spiral and cut paper to create 3D art. We displayed our 3D tree sculptures in the school art exhibition. The art exhibition was a great success and we enjoyed looking at the work displayed by the other classes.
We've made the most of the beautiful sunny weather that we have been having and have been out in the woods pond dipping and also hunting for minibeasts. We were lucky enough to have fine weather for our class trip to Burrator Reservoir too. We learnt lots about the history, geography and flora and fauna of the area. 
We celebrated David Attenborough's 100th birthday with a special guest appearance from a tortoise. It was so lovely to see such an interesting animal up close. We also created birthday cards for David and thought carefully about the messages we wrote within them.
In maths we have been learning about volume and capacity and have been practising counting in steps of 2, 5 and 10.

With Spring beginning, a lot of our learning this month has been centered around plants. We have searched for wild flowers in our school environment and we have learnt about how plants grow. We have planted and cared for seeds.
In Geography we have been thinking about the difference between human and physical features. We have spotted both in our local area.
For PE we have been enjoying athletics out on the school field.
We have had lots of lovely practical maths sessions recently as we have been learning to measure length and weight.
In RE we have been learning about a sense of belonging. We brought uniforms and other items in to show the teams and clubs we belong to outside of school.

What an exciting month March has been!
Right at the start of the month we marked World Book Day. It was great fun to dress up as characters from our favourite books and our costumes sparked lots of conversations about what we like to read. 
Over the month we have observed and looked after some tadpole, finally releasing them into the school pond where they can thrive in a lovely environment.
In science we have been exploring our senses. We have used out sense of smell to guess the contents of some mystery pots. We have used out sense of taste to describe the flavours of foods. We have used our sense of touch to create textured Easter egg 'feely' pictures.
This month we concluded out learning about what the weather is like in the UK by observing and recording the weather for five days. We used a thermometer, rain gauge and weather vane to give us data.
We have been learning to weave. We used our weaving skills to make woven Easter baskets. This required lots of focus and the results are just lovely. Now we are waiting for the Easter bunny to come and fill them!

April/May

We hope you had a lovely Easster and enjoyed the half term with the sunny weather. 

In the ARC we use a 'Totally Communication System'. This involves using visuals, symbols, Makaton, AAC devices, sound buttons, photographs and objects of reference. This enables the childreun to have the use and means of communtication in many different ways. 

During activities we play games where the child needs to choose between a few items pointing to the correct visual/symbol of their choice. Once this is established, the child and adult plays with the choosen item (making a choice). When the game is coming to a natural end there are symbols for 'more or finished'. We use these and makaton to investigate whether the child is ready to finish or do more.

When we engage the children in group activities such as 'Fun with Food', the children have visuals to help explore their senses. This encourages the children to look, touch and if they want to taste the item of food. At the end of the session the children can both sign and point to the correct symbol to indicate whether the 'liked or didn't like' the food.

Our morning routine starts with a song to encourage and invite the children to come and sit down. At this point we using symbols and the AAC device to find out the day, weather and the season we are in. We also look at who is packed lunch/school dinners and how the children are feeling. Here the children can put their picture up onto a appropiate visual. 

The children enjoy using different means of communication and this enables them and the adults that work with them to have a better understanding of their wants and needs. 

We've been learning about honey bees and why they're important. We've also found out how and why they make honey. As we found out that they need flowers we decided to plant some sunflowers. We also did lots of bee activities including making bee models, bee puppets and painting pictures of bees and flowers. We then used our phonic skills to write sentences about bees.

A few months ago we had a visit from some residents who live in a local care home and they kindly invited us to their home. We went and sang them some songs and nursery rhymes. They children and residents really enjoyed the visit. It was lovely to see some of the residents joining in with the singing. 

April has been a shorter month in school because of the Easter holidays, but we have still made a fantastic start to our new learning!

In our topic work, we began exploring the life of Sir Francis Drake. We thought carefully about what we would like to learn and created our own questions. We then watched videos and discovered lots of interesting facts about his life. Using this information, we wrote our own fact files and created timelines to show the key events in his life.

In art, we have started learning about the artist Vincent van Gogh. We looked closely at a range of his paintings and shared our ideas about them. Everyone chose their favourite piece to sketch, and we are now beginning to create our own versions of his famous sunflower painting, ready for our upcoming art exhibition.

In science, we are learning about plants. We started by exploring the difference between seeds and bulbs. We carefully chopped up a bulb and dissected a seed, then used microscopes to observe them closely. We learned new vocabulary to describe what we saw and created detailed labelled drawings.

In literacy, we have been enjoying the poem The Magic Box by Kit Wright. We used it as inspiration to write our own imaginative poems filled with creative ideas.

In maths, we have been learning about fractions. We can now recognise halves and quarters of shapes and are beginning to find halves and quarters of different quantities.

It has been a busy and exciting start to the term, and we are looking forward to continuing our learning next month!

This month in Year 2, we have been very busy with lots of exciting learning across our subjects!

In RE, we explored the question: Why does Easter matter to Christians?
We learnt the Easter story and spent time thinking about the different emotions people might have felt at each part.
We also discussed what the word saviour means and why it is important to Christians. To finish our topic, we looked at different ways Christians celebrate Easter around the world.

In Geography, we investigated - Why is our world wonderful?
We examined maps and aerial photographs of our local area and compared what we could see.
We learnt the countries and capitals of the United Kingdom and identified key landmarks. We also sorted physical and human features.
As part of our learning, we went on a local walk where we carried out traffic surveys and enjoyed some time at the park.

In Art, we focused on developing our sketching skills. We practised drawing different types of lines and patterns, and explored techniques such as hatching, cross-hatching and stippling. We added detail to our line drawings and learnt how to shade effectively.
At the end of the unit, we created a final piece showing the view from our school using all the skills we had learnt.

In PSHE, our topic was Healthy Me.
We learnt about healthy and unhealthy foods, how medicines can help us, and what makes us feel stressed or relaxed.
We especially enjoyed making our own fruit kebabs!

In Music, we have been learning to play the glockenspiel. We practised playing the tune Hot Cross Buns and worked hard to keep in time with the music.

Well done Year 2 for your fantastic effort this month!