We’ve had a busy September in nursery getting to know our new children and making new friends. We started the month talking about ourselves and our likes and dislikes and made collages that reflected our individual personalities.

We introduced the season of Autumn and discussed what we already know and what we’d like to learn. To help extend our understanding we have decorated and sent home Autumn treasure bags so we can collect items and return to nursery to show our friends.

We promoted our British values by using a voting system to choose our children’s interest role play area – the most votes went to a Fire station.

We introduced tooth brushing in nursery to promote good oral health and the children have done a great job keeping their teeth clean.

What a brilliant start to Y2 the children have made!

We started by discussing the rules every day in the first week so that we are really clear on what is expected of us.
Lots of us are already earning certificates for showing our school values in different ways.

In our English work, we have been looking at 'The Diary of a Wombat' and picking out the features of diaries.
We linked this to our 'Great Fire of London' topic and finished the unit by writing a diary of 'Maureen' the rat, who was an eye witness in the Great Fire. 

Maths has been mainly about place value, reading, writing and comparing numbers. We have started each lesson with daily counting in twos, fives and tens.

In History, we have learnt about the events of the Great Fire, why and how it happened. We have compared fire fighting equipment, past and present and also tried to place events on a timeline. We are very much looking forward to the fire brigade visiting us in a couple of weeks so that we can learn about how fires are dealt with nowadays.

What a fantastic start the school year. The children in Year One are settling in so well and are showing so many of our school values through their work and play.
Our first 'Big Question' is 'Where on Earth are we?'. We have been learning to find the United Kingdom on maps and globes and have been learning some key facts about the four countries that make it up. We have also learnt about the county that we live in and how to find it on a map of the UK.

In the last week we have begun 'The Big Brush Club'. This is an NHS initiative to help improve children's oral health. The children have really enjoyed having a brush-along to Hey Duggee or Danny Go's tooth-brushing songs. They are getting used to the routines and know how to keep their toothbrushes clean.

In art, the children have been using their sketchbooks to try out drawing different kinds of line. They have looked at the work of Maurice Sendak (author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are) and have thought about how he uses different kinds of line to show the texture of hair, scales, teeth and claws. The children also did some printing with autumnal colours in order to enter the art competition at Callington Honey Fair.

We have been learning about materials in science and have been learning some of the more scientific vocabulary we can use to describe their properties such as transparent, opaque, absorbent, flexible and rigid.

The children have continued to love our daily Drawing Club sessions. These magical sessions allow the children to enjoy wonderful stories, learn some new vocabulary and write number and sentences codes in order to bring aspects of their drawings to life. It is so much fun and the children are wonderful code-creators.

In maths we have thoroughly explored numbers to 10. Through out 'Mastering Number' sessions we have practised subitising and partitioning skills and through our mathematics sessions we have learnt to read, write, order, compare and draw numbers on the number line. This is an excellent foundation for our next step into addition and subtraction.

In our COOL time (Choose Our Own Learning), many of the children have particularly enjoyed creating their own wonderful settings using the wooden blocks. The have created homes for the Wizard from one of our stories and many different animal homes. Their verbal explanations have been so detailed and so much thought has gone into the way they have been built. It has been great to watch the children work so cooperatively and communicate so well to share their ideas for moving the models forwards.

Welcome Back!

We are looking forward to another year of learning here in the ARC. We said our sad goodbye's to Joe and Dawid at the end of last term and we are very happy to welcome Leo, our newest member into the ARC. Leo will be joining us on Tuesdays and Thursdays initially until he can transition into the school full time. 


This term is all about learning new routines. The children have been practicing their independent skills with their new TEACCH stations. TEACCH is a system where the children complete a number of tasks independently. The boys are proud of their independent work and they begin to use these skills at other times in the day.  

In our Literacy, we have been focusing on fairy tales. We have learnt the stories of The Gingerbread Man, Three Billy Goat's Gruff, The Little Red Hen and Little Red Riding Hood. Our cooking sessions have been linked to these stories and we have enjoyed reading and  following  the recipes to create our delicious bakes; so far this month we have made Mr Wolf's Pancakes, cupcakes for granny, gingerbread men and a goat's cheese bridge. Can you guess which stories the recipes have come from? 

We have linked PSHE with art and we have been using sticks and stones to make our families. We have been exploring all the things that make us special. Belonging to our different families ( home and school) helps us to feel special!

This month we have been able to complete lots of our activities as a team. RJ and Jake worked together to create the ARC family picture. Eddie has been extra kind when he sings Freddie's favourite songs. 

In science we are learning about the seasons. Mrs Cansdale combined this with her Geography topic which is about our local environment and following maps. Last week the children had a great walk out to the Tamar Valley Centre. It was great to notice the leaves on the trees, explore the different creatures that were about and Jake loved exploring the wind turbines. 

A warm welcome back to those of you who were with us last year and a huge 'hello' to our new children.
Everyone has settled well into the Nursery and our key workers are getting to know their children. Please see below for the latest newsletter!

Mrs Miller, Mrs Symons and Mrs Gates.

   As ever it has been a busy couple of weeks back in school. Thank you to those of you who came to the 'Meet the Teacher' events at the Infant and Junior bases. The partnership that the schools have with parents is very important to us and to your child's wellbeing and development.
After a few teething troubles during the transition from Delaware and Gunnislake to Copper Valley, I am delighted to let you know that the Seesaw platform is now fully up and running. For those parents who are new to Seesaw, it is a brilliant tool where you can view your child's learning and communicate with staff. Staff will sometimes post messages and important reminders on Seesaw and, because these come straight through to your mobiles and tablets, they are easily accessible.
I am also pleased to let you know that the school websites are, in the main, complete! If you head to the learning tab and look under maths, I have added some resources so that you can use to support your child with their current learning.
I want to apologise to you all for my  absence at the school entrance in the morning. Some of you will know but I am taking children to the Junior school base in Gunnislake so that we don't need to run 3 mini buses. I am enjoying chatting to the children as we head down the hill. We have named the morning service 'Cox's cabs'- could be a new career! I miss speaking to the other children and parents as they come in but I hope that you will understand why I'm not on the step first thing!
If you haven't had a chance then please look at our new Copper Valley Primary Academies Facebook page. We currently have 80 followers and we want to build on this.
Over the next few weeks we are going to work on a celebration event to mark the schools' name change. Look out for more information to follow. Enjoy the weekend when it arrives!

We've had a lovely start to the new term. All the children have settled in brilliantly and have been having lots of fun making new friends. You will find a newsletter giving you important information about this term below. 

Welcome to Year 2

A warm welcome to Year 2.

It has been lovely to see all the children back in school, happy and smiling and ready to learn.

Please see the attached newsletter for all the information you need about our class.