Change at Looe Primary

We hope that you all had a lovely half term and that the sunshine stayed with you.  Once again, we saw some change over the half term at Looe Primary.  We are delighted to share with you that Miss Bowden got married over the holiday and she became Mrs Miles.  This was a lovely moment because Miss Bowden had to postpone her wedding last year because of the pandemic.  We are all working hard to remember Mrs Miles' new name and I am sure that you will join me in wishing Mr and Mrs Miles lots of happiness for the future.  

We were also excited to welcome Mrs Smerdon back to school following her maternity leave.  Mrs Smerdon is joining us each Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and for the time being, she will be working with groups of children across the school, rather than having a class of her own.  Mrs Smerdon's return means that sadly, Miss White will not be returning to Looe Primary. It has been a little while since we have seen Miss White, but we have kept in touch and we hope very much that we will see her again at some point in the future.  We wish her lots of good luck.

As our Year 1 class has been getting on so well with Miss Alderson and Mrs Lister, they will continue to teach Year 1 until the end of term, rather than Mrs Smerdon, to ensure that there is no disruption to their learning.  It is lovely that Miss Alderson can stay with us for a little longer.  We have loved having Miss Alderson as part of our team, so it is great that she can stay with us until the end of term.

We have and action packed half term to look forward to and we are keeping everything crossed that we can continue to ease on some of our safer distancing rules.  All of the staff at Looe Primary have now had at least one vaccination and many have now had both injections.  We are now a school of two bigger bubbles, rather than lots of smaller bubbles and this has worked very well.  We are now working to move to the point when we can welcome parents back into the building and we are very much hoping that we can have a Sports Day this year and Year 6 are busy practising their drama production of 'The X Factory' in the hope that they can have a 'real' audience!

Hopefully, we will be able to welcome you in to school before the end of the Summer Term.

Remembering Prince Philip

It was lovely to welcome the pupils and staff back to school after what has been a much needed break, with some great weather to help.  The children and staff had worked so hard in the lead up to the holiday, with some great progress with learning.  This meant that we were all ready for a rest.

Although we were all happy to see each other, we also felt that it was appropriate to spend some time together to reflect on the life of Prince Philip. 

It was very poignant in some ways that the winning egg display in our Easter egg competition by one of our Year 4 pupils was an image of the Queen and Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace, titled 'tomorrow will be a better day'.  Sadly this was not to be the case for the Queen and Prince Philip, but the display produced by the Year 4 pupil brought much joy and laughter and now reflection on what we did not know what was to come over the coming weeks.

During the day, each class spent time talking about Prince Philip and the Royal Family and gave thanks for all that the Prince achieved; especially for the work that he championed for young children and adults.  We also took time to look at the Royal Family and carried out some research, or watched video footage research and discuss many aspects, including the family tree of the Royal Family and especially Her majesty the Queen and Prince Philip.  The Year 2/3 class also looked at images of Prince Philip and a portrait of a younger Prince Philip by a Year 3 is shown here.  I am sure you will agree that it is a very good likeness!

Times like these, while sad and revolving around grief, are also perfect for reflecting on the British Values that we hold dear and for thinking about the values that guide the work that we carry out at school.  We also gave thanks for the service of Her Majesty The Queen and Prince Philip.  All that we value can be seen in the work that they both carried out in service for so many years.  We hope that in years to come, some of the children at Looe Primary will be able to benefit from the legacies that Prince Philip leaves behind, not least the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme and the Prince's Trust.







As a school, Looe Primary Academy is partnered with Trenode Primary Academy which is a Church of England school.  We pray often at Looe, but it is a daily routine at Trenode.  Therefore, we would like to share a prayer that was used at Trenode to give thanks for the life of Prince Philip.  It was provided by the Diocese of Truro for the children:

A prayer for the death of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh

God of our lives,
we give thanks for the life of Prince Philip,
for his love of our country,
and for his devotion to duty.
We entrust him now to your love and mercy,
through our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
Amen

 

We continue to be very pleased with the way that the children have settled back into school and their learning.  It is a shame that we are still not back to normal, but we are so used to working in our bubbles, it feels a little like we have always been doing it.

Not being able to be together does not mean that we can't celebrate all that is good about Comic Relief and it gives us a perfect opportunity to have some fun on a Friday!

As well as dressing up as a superhero, or non-uniform, we will also be attempting to climb either Ben Nevis or Mount Everest!  There are some very weird ways of achieving this being planned, so I hope that you will get to see some of them here.

My favourite part?  I get to hear lots of jokes and I might even be able to tell a few of my own.  We are all looking forward to the competition winners.

We have also been spending time this week and next learning about the National Census which takes place on Sunday 21st March.  Parents and carers will have received an email with a letter and activities attached if you would like to have some fun at home. 

I will leave you with a joke provided by Mr Arnold who was a teacher whom many of you will remember with fondness for his jokes.  When he left, Mr Arnold left us with a joke book of his own.  This is my favourite:  What's the best cheese to use to hide a horse? ... Mascarpone!

 

We are so pleased to have everyone back

Although we have had the privilege of still being able to welcome a very small number of children into the school over the lockdown period, it was a very special day to be able to open the school properly again on Monday to all children.  Last week, after everyone had gone, I sat in one of the classrooms for a short time reflecting on all that had happened since we were told that schools would be closed again.  I was so excited to know that the school would soon be back to life, but in that moment it was also sad to know that we had all missed out on so much.  Getting my positivity back, I then reflected that the children will have had many wonderful experiences at the same time, from lovely walks to the beach or the countryside, to trying a new skill, or to simply being given permission to spend more time at home.  When they walked through the door yesterday, it was like they had never been away.  Thank you so much to parents for helping your children to return to school with enthusiasm and excitement; it meant a great deal that they were keen to return and to see each other in 'real life'.

While the school was closed we were very lucky to receive a fantastic gift from Mr Armand Toms, who a very special person in our community and a great friend to the school.  I had been talking to Mr Toms for quite some time about providing additional equipment for the children to use during play at school, but also about providing something that children could use to sit on when they needed a friend to talk to, or when they simply did not want to run around or play games.  Mr Toms then decided that he would make the school a bench and I am sure you will agree, it is just wonderful.  We will now put it on one of the school playgrounds for all of the children to use. With it's motto of 'one friend can change your whole life' we know that it is going to help to continue the tradition of friendship and support that we value so much at school.

The other photos that you can see are of the things that we have been getting up to.  Mr Franklin was busy making cards with his class.  Miss Ainsworth celebrated St. Piran's day by helping some of the children to make badges of the Cornish flag from beads.  The Year 6 pupils had a slightly 'weird' experience visiting Victor Frankenstein's science lab, only to discover that his monster was alive!  These are all the activities that keep our school fun and thriving, so we are very much looking forward to getting back into our old routines and spending time together in learning and play.  All is well with the school when we have everyone back - parents too - it has been great to see you and we missed you too!

World Book day is always one of the biggest and one of our most favourite days of the school calendar; who doesn't like dressing up to read? I think one of the things we will miss most is the reading breakfast in fancy dress - always fun and a great way to start the day.  Perhaps you could send us photos of you reading while you have breakfast in your pyjamas?  We will celebrate it differently on the day this year, but it will be such a shame that we cannot all be together to enjoy the wonderful world of books.  It is so frustrating too that 4th March is so close to all children returning to the classroom.  We will not let that stop us though!

We have invested in new reading books at Looe Primary while most of the children have been away and as well as the amazing reading that children have been doing at home, we are very much looking forward to a key focus on reading as the children return to school.  It is such an important skill and it opens an amazing word for readers to explore, that it cannot be ignored.   As the world and our capacity to explore it in real life has reduced over the last year, the world that we can see through books has been more important than ever, including fiction and non-fiction, fact and imaginative writing.  We know that some children will return to school as much better readers than when they left for remote learning at home, but this will not be the case for all children for so many reasons.  This is why we will not forget World Book Day this year, despite the fact that we cannot all be together.  We are looking forward to sharing all that we do in our pyjamas at school and we hope that you will share all that you get up to at home too.  Please don't forget to check out the Facebook page for the 'Masked Reader' challenge for each key stage.  It was such fun to produce and I have a feeling that some of the staff are going to be hard to identify, even I have not worked out who they all are yet!  Thank to Miss Hearnden for putting them together and for raising lots of smiles and enthusiasm for reading out loud while we were producing them.  I wonder if you can spot me?  As a clue, I am a bit scary in the KS1 story and quite a bit softer in the KS2 story!  I think my northern accent might just have crept in too! 

Look out for all of the wonderful online opportunities that will be available nationally throughout the day and don't forget to download your World Book day vouchers.  Happy reading everyone!

We never thought that we would end up at home yet again and for so long when we came back to school in September.  Even for those children in school, it has been very different with no more than 10 children in each bubble.  In this last week, we have been talking about our feelings and how we manage them, especially when we cannot easily get to meet our friends, other than online.  It doesn't matter whether you are at home, or at school.  Children's Mental Health Week and the Safer Internet Day run one week after the next this year and we felt that the two subjects complimented each other very well this year.  So we are celebrating both at school and hope that all parents and children at home will join in too.

Remote learning is great - if you get it right.  Teachers, Teaching Assistants and staff at school have been talking about how normally we ask you to keep your online life to small amounts and certainly not all day.  Then all of a sudden we are asking you to do exactly that!  Parents have also been telling us that it is hard at home too, to keep going, - home is certainly not school!

So, to extend Children's Mental Health Week into Safer Internet Week (well it's a day normally, but we keep it going for the week), we are going to ask you to do something different.  We would like you all to come online on Wednesday 10th February as normal, or as directed by your teacher and then after a short assembly, we are asking you to turn your technology device off to go and enjoy a day offline - yes a whole day!  We will provide some ideas in case you need any, but all we ask is that you send some pictures and perhaps a few words to show us what you got up to.  Outdoors will be a great place to be if the weather is kind.  What a better thing could you do to take a break from all that time online to have fun and take a mental break from your normal routine.  We will then collect all that we receive together to create a display in school, so that you can find out what everyone did when everyone returns to school.

Teachers will still be available throughout the day, but it's over to you.  Have fun everyone and remember to stay safe when you are online.  We can't wait to see what you all get up to!  Remember too, my favourite word - kindness.  Being kind to someone can be really help your positive mental health and it is just as good for the person receiving your kindness.  Kindness is important online too and we will think about this during the week.

Anyone for curling?

As we fast approach the end of a very busy, but very different term, we have been trying out all sports and activities 'different' too. 

We are beginning a big focus on healthy eating and being active and we have already communicated this a little in our request for healthy lunch boxes after the Christmas break. 

Last week the children participated in a whole school health and well-being day, looking at healthy eating and inclusive sports.  In the morning, some of the pupils took part in an inclusive panathlon sports day where they took part in new age curling games and ten-pin bowling.  All pupils engaged fantastically well in every activity and learnt about how we can adapt sports in such a way that everyone can join in.

We also learnt about the importance of healthy eating and packed lunches, with each class taking a slightly different focus on the subject.  For example, Mr Franklin's and Miss Newcombe's class tried salads, Year 6 enjoyed some fruit platters and Years 2,3 and 4 enjoyed making some Christmas cards using vegetable printing.

We will do more of these types of activities over the coming months and will look forward to the new types of games that we can play.

Outdoor Learning

In amongst the rain showers, we have been blessed with some good weather and we have been making the most of being able to encourage the children to play and learn outdoors.  In Key Stage 1,  play remains one of the most significant elements of effective learning and you may have noticed that the Key Stage 1 outdoor learning space has been taking on more shape since the beginning of term.  The staff and even one of the teacher's parents have been busy sourcing new ways to provide equipment and resources to help the children to play with imagination and physical activity.  Being able to control muscles and developing the fine motor skills required to be able to write is so important in this age group, so we have been working hard to ensure that the children muscular strength and resilience to help them in the more formal classroom environment and when they write.

The children have a mixture of time indoors and outdoors and we have been trying to engage as much as possible outside while we can so that we can be as safe as possible from coronavirus.  It may be noisy and it is definitely messy at times, but it is the perfect environment for the children to explore their learning and understanding through play and role play with their friends.  It also helps them to develop positive relationships and to test their thoughts and feelings in safe environment.

Our final picture here shows the stunning view that our younger children also have at their finger tips. It is sunrise at Looe Primary.  We never take our beautiful environment for granted and some of our youngest children have already been out and about exploring, including a walk to the Wooldown last week on a beautiful afternoon.  The scenery and local sights offer a great resource for the children and they use it to inspire many elements of their learning.  We are so lucky to live and learn where we do and in the current circumstance, we are even more grateful for the amazing environment that we can provide for the children to learn and play.

We are very lucky and although we cannot invite you in at the moment, hopefully these snippets in time help to reassure you that your children are happy as they learn and have a wonderful team of teachers and support staff around them.

Even though our wonderful school had been open all of the way through the initial lockdown period,  we were still not sure how the children would feel and how they would cope with the whole school returned.  I am therefore delighted that almost 4 weeks in, despite some changes of procedure we are doing well and the children have been amazing.  There is less interaction between classes and staff, but we have all adapted to the new bubbles and washing our hands many times a day in order to stay as safe as possible.  With careful thought, many of the activities we would normally include in the curriculum can still carry on and from the lessons we learned throughout the lockdown period, there are also many other opportunities that we have been able to provide.  Class bubbles are well protected and this means that pupils can still interact with each other.  The torchlight reading session in this photograph was taking place with bright light outside and the pupils were very eager to read to each other in a slightly different way.  I am very proud and thankful for all of the support and kind wishes that we have received from parents and members of the community; it helps us to maintain the motivation and determination to provide the best education possible for all of the children in our care.  It may be tough times, but there is also never a better time than now to be a proud leader of a wonderful school.

Many of us are online a lot more at the moment, and while there are many benefits to this method of communication, there are also cautions too. 

Please visit our online safety resources page for tips using various games/platforms.