Welcome back to school and Happy New Year! 

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas break. Please see the attached newsletter for an outline of our learning for this half term.

It has been a very busy December in the ARC. We have enjoyed Christmas dinner, role play activities where we dressed as characters from the Nativity. We have made Christmas cakes and cards and enjoyed learning about the Christmas story in RE. We wish you all A Very Merry Christmas!

Welcome back! I hope that you all had a lovely time with your families over the festive period. It was lovely to see all of the children once again this week but I think that I speak for everyone when I say that we were all glad that it was a short week as everyone was a little tired after the holidays.
I want to say a big 'thank you' to pupils from Year 5 who created a lovely animation demonstrating one of the Trust's values of excellence. The animations were then shared this afternoon via a Teams meeting with all of the other Trust schools- what a lovely event.
Today marks the last day before Miss Hambly officially starts her maternity leave. I know that you will join me in wishing her the very best. I thought that you might like to see a picture of her and her leaving gifts (which we shared with her on the last day of term.) Have great weekend - see you all next week. The half termly newsletter will be sent to you next week.

December has been a very busy month, with lots of time taken up working on our 'Twinkly Nativity'.
Despite some last minute nerves, (mostly mine!), the children performed brilliantly. They spoke with very loud, clear voices and their singing was amazing, they made us very proud.

We have also been working on the story 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' in literacy and wrote some wonderful stories.
In maths we have been learning all about money and how to recognise and add coins. We also learnt to make the same amount in different ways.

Finally we really enjoyed our Christmas theatre trip to watch Raymond Briggs 'Father Christmas'. We even got a signed copy of the book!

Merry Christmas and have a wonderful break with your families!

It's been a very Christmas filled week at both bases. On Wednesday the children enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch- thank you to all who cooked and helped serve and clear up! Friday evening saw a fantastic Design Technology exhibition. It showcased fabulous work from all year groups. Over 60 parents with their children attended the event and enjoyed viewing the exhibition, buying some of the lovely Christmas crafts that the children had made and enjoying games, pizza and other refreshments. Thank you to all of the staff who gave up their time to run the event and to the Friends of Delaware and Gunnislake for running refreshments, games and the raffle.

What a fantastic couple of weeks we have had at both bases. On Tuesday 28th November the Year 3/Year 4 girls' football team played their final match of the league and came from 0-0 at half time to beat Bishop Cornish, who are a much more experienced team, 2-0! Well done girls and Mrs Hannaford. We are all really proud of you and look forward to the next tournament. 
It has been lovely to see all of you at the book fair during this week- thank you for supporting the school by purchasing some of the beautiful books on display.
Our Year 1 and Year 2 classes gave two fantastic performances of 'A Twinkly Nativity' to families on Thursday 7th December. The singing was superb and those with speaking parts were loud and clear. The evening performance was so well attended that it was 'standing room only'. Thank you to all of the staff who worked so hard to make it a success and to the Friends for providing refreshments.
The Y2 children enjoyed a fabulous day at the theatre watching a production of Raymond Brigg's "Father Christmas". Miss Evans reported back that the children thought it was 'magical'!
As we enter our final full week of term, here is a reminder of some of the upcoming events.
Wednesday 13th December- Christmas lunch - wear Christmas jumpers!
Friday 15th December- Design Technology Exhibition- 6pm at the Delaware base.
Tuesday 19th December - Carol Service and Christingle 1.30pm at the Delaware base.
Tuesday 19th December- End of term.
Have a great weekend!

We’ve had a busy and fun-filled November with lots of celebrations and events to enjoy. We started the month with our Diwali celebrations and used multi-sensory activities to help our understanding. We used small parts and 2D shapes to make rangoli patterns and used pipecleaners for threading. At snack time we tried some new foods and played with our ‘Spice Station’  smelling fragrant spices.

We remembered our fallen heroes for Remembrance Day and decorated poppies with rose petals and leaves.

Next up was Anti-bullying  week and we discussed what makes a good friend and how we can be kind. This was quickly followed by Children in Need where we made our own Pudsey ears, Pudsey Bears with playdough and used tweezers to post pompoms through Pudsey’s bandana.

November has been a fun filled month. 

In art we have been experimenting with different watercolour techniques.
Then we learnt about Guy Fawkes in history and created some beautiful wax resist watercolour firework pictures.

In literacy we have been learning the poem 'Tell Me a Dragon' which was very exciting because we found a real dragon egg in our classroom!
After some discussion about the best way to look after it, we wrote some instructions. After a few days we were amazed to find that it had hatched and the dragon had escaped! 
We are still hunting for it and there have been many potential sightings. We have imagined what it might look like and written some amazing poems.

We have also learnt about the Hindu festival Diwali and made 'mango lassi' in DT. We have also been designing and making some beautiful diva lamps out of clay ready for our exhibition.

In geography we have been exploring our lovely new atlases and also learning a new song to help us learn the name of the continents and oceans. 

In maths we have been mainly focussing on developing our addition and subtraction skills this month.

This month we have been focusing on addition, subtraction and shapes in maths. The children have enjoyed lots of practical activities to deepen their knowledge and understanding of common 2D and 3D shapes. We have introduced the number bonds to 10 this month. We will continue to practise and recall these as they are such an important step to being able to complete so many calculations throughout school and beyond.

We concluded our materials unit with an investigation 'Which material will you choose to build a house for the three little pigs?'. They children choose materials and made homes then the big bad wolf (AKA Mrs Tomkins' hairdryer) came to try to blow them down. 

In our sketch books we have been practising drawing from observation and drawing from imagination. 

We have introduced two new literacy activities to our weekly timetable. We now do something called 'Talk through stories' each day. This is a set time each day when we read the same story over a week and learn to use some of the most interesting vocabulary from it. The children loves the 'Click clack moo' story and have enjoyed making cow faces in the craft area and using the vocabulary 'I demand...'.

In history we have compared old and modern toys. We watched a film about Victorian toys and then sorted images of Victorian toys into ones we still make and play with today and ones that are no longer seen.

In November we marked anti-bullying week with a number of activities including creating a kindness tree with a class kindness pledge. 

We are just one week away from the Key Stage One Christmas performance so have been very busy practising lines, songs and actions ready to show the other children in the school and our families. 

This month we have been working hard to prepare for the DT fair.  We are linking our topic question of 'What are volcanoes?' to this and intend to create volcano style hats.  We've been learning how to greet each other in French and in PSHE been talking lots about bullying and how we can be positive bystanders by helping those around us.  In Science we've been learning not only about volcanoes but about the soil beneath our feet and in RE we've been finding out about the five pillars of Islam.  In Geography we've been finding out where in the world volcanoes are and seeing how topographers draw things of different heights on maps.

 November

This has been another busy month. We  celebrated Bonfire Night at the beginning of the month and created fantastic firework pictures. We have also celebrated Anti-Bullying week. The children learnt about what bullying is. They thought about how they could help a friend that might be bullied; Joe suggested being extra kind to them. David said that they should tell someone. We created odd sock designs, wore odd socks and made odd socks biscuits. They tasted delicious. 

This term we have been learning about writing letters. The children have written letters to fairy tale characters, marked letters saying what could be improved. Jake read 'Dear Dinosaur' and has been exchanging letters with his own Stegasaurus. 

This month we celebrated David's birthday. He is now 11! The boys all posed together so that we could get a photo of nearly all of them together. 

Another packed week at both bases. I was privileged to watch our girl's football team play on Tuesday. They were one player short and put up a fantastic defensive performance against Callington. They didn't let up the whole match and I was super proud to watch them. Thank you once again to Mrs Hannaford for coaching them and parents who transported and supported them. On Thursday Mrs Hannaford and I took 2 teams of 6 Year 5 and Year 6 pupils to a Trust wide handball tournament which was held at Callywith College in Bodmin.All of the children were amazingly sporting and they worked really well as a team. They were brilliant ambassadors for the schools. Thank you Kody, Bettsie, Sam, Elsie, Josh, Eleanor, Lowri, Karena, Isabelle, Mikey, Freddie and Alfie!

Lots of learning in October.  We took part in the Tesco Halloween drawing competition.  Have learned how to count in French.  Have been thinking about being kind to one another and how to feel included.  We've continued with our magnet work and made magnetic board games.  We've also played and sang a short song using an ostinato...
Phew...things are busy in Year 3!

The past few weeks have been as busy as ever in school. On Friday 10th November we had lovely assemblies at both bases where we wore poppies and thought about the people and animals who lost their lives in wars over the years. At 11 o'clock we observed a 2 minute silence and all of the children were really thoughtful and respectful.
This week we have been celebrating anti- bullying week- thinking about how we are all different and how we can celebrate these differences. One of the key messages has been that no-one should be teased or bullied for being different to others- a powerful message to carry through into adulthood.

On Tuesday of this week Mrs Hannaford took our first ever girl's football team to a tournament held at Callington College. Mrs Hannaford reported that they played with determination, spirit and great resilience. Even though they didn't win their matches on this occasion, they grew in confidence throughout the games. Well done girls and a huge thank you to Mrs Hannford for organising and accompanying the team.
On Friday we wore pyjamas/spots and raised money for Children in Need. Thank you for supporting us with your donations.
This week also saw the first signs of Christmas with the arrival of Christmas trees in both bases. Thank you to Mole Valley in Tavistock for donating 3 trees and to Mr Symons for collecting them. The children were extremely excited to see their arrival! Have a lovely weekend.
 

October was a short month in school with half term at the end but well deserved after all our hard work.

In science we were learning all about materials and why some are better suited to certain jobs. We had fun exploring different materials to see which we could bend, stretch, twist and squash. We also built houses made from different materials to see which was the strongest. We decided Lego was strongest but had the best fun making dens from sticks in our outdoor learning area.

In music we have been learning to sing in rounds and we have also learnt a few different songs about the Great Fire of London. We then chose our favourite song and appraised it, listening to see which instrument we could hear, drawing pictures that we imagine when listening to it and discussing how the music makes us feel.

We enjoyed coming to school dressed up on 'Big Me Day' and thinking about what we would like to be when we grow up.

In computing we have been using a drawing programme to learn how to use different sized brushes and tools and also different colours. Then we used what we had learnt to try and draw a picture of a Tudor house.

The highlight  of this month was a visit from Callington fire brigade who brought in their fire engine to teach us about fire safety. They showed us around the appliance and taught us what all the different equipment is for. We even had a go at using the hose, it was brilliant!

Finally on the last day we gathered with our friends and families for our annual Harvest assembly.

Thank you to all of the families who joined us for our Harvest Festival just before half term. I was delighted to be able to drop off several bags of donations for the Callington Foodbank. I hope that you enjoyed out assembly. The children really enjoyed singing all of the Harvest songs, I hope that you enjoyed listening to them. 
Half term went by in the blink of an eye and it has been another packed week since we have returned. It was great fun to see all of the children in their Halloween costumes on Tuesday- we had very excited children all day. We were pleased to be able to stay open during storm Ciaran in Thursday and were pleased that everyone was safe.I hope that you all received an email with a copy of the latest school newsletter- there are also paper copies in the foyer.
Have a good weekend.