Welcome to my weekly headteacher blog. This replaces the fortnightly newsletter and is an opportunity for me to celebrate and share some of the wonderful learning experiences enjoyed by children at Harrowbarrow Primary Academy. I will also share information about future events for us all to look forward to.

Please also look at the class blogs, which teachers will add to weekly to share information directly relating to their own classes.

If parents/carers need to contact me about their child or anything related to the school, this can be done through the school office on 01579 350576 or via email: head@harrowbarrowprimary.co.uk

Andrew Hunt
Headteacher

Christmas Performance



This year's Christmas performance was magical. Our children lit up the stage with their talent, confidence, and passion, delivering a show that left everyone beaming with pride. From the heartfelt singing to the excellent acting and stunning costumes, everything reflected the hard work, joy and creativity that make our school community what it is. What a wonderful way to end the term and celebrate the festive season.

Attendance
You may have seen media coverage of flu and sickness bugs sweeping through schools, causing some to close. Although we're not at that level, we have seen very high absence rates this last week or so. Sickness cannot be helped and is a justifiable reason for children not to attend school. If your child is ill, please remember to report each day of absence first thing in the morning so we can record the reason for their absence. Fingers crossed we have a healthier time next week so the children can enjoy the end of term festivities.

Final week festivities
Monday 15th December - PSA film night from 3.30pm
Wednesday 17th December - Christmas dinner
Friday 19th December - Christmas party day. Children may wear party clothes/Christmas jumpers and bring a game to play (no electrical devices please). They will also need a party picnic - thank you.

A reminder that we finish at 1.30pm on Friday 19th, the last day of term.

Here's what has been going on at Harrowbarrow this week:



Speak Out. Stay Safe.
Following their assembly and workshop on the theme of speaking out to stay safe, Class 4 children created eye catching posters which will be put up around the school to signpost children to Childline should they ever need to talk to someone. I ran the workshop with Class 4 and was really impressed with the maturity they displayed during discussions about the types of abuse young people can suffer and how to keep themselves safe.



Infant Theatre Trip
This week, I had the pleasure of accompanying the infants to Sterts to see a performance of The Ugly Duckling, which was brilliant and, judging by the looks on the children's faces, thoroughly enjoyed by all of them. For children to see stories brought to life through drama is such a powerful thing.

Design Technology
Thank you to those parents who were able to attend the exhibition of soft toys made by Class 4. Weren't they good? Next up, Class 3 are continuing work on their model pavilions. If we have time, we will be inviting parents and carers to come and see the finished work in another after school exhibition.

Father Christmas
In a change to our usual routine, Father Christmas won't be visiting Harrowbarrow before the end of term but don't worry, he is still planning to visit everyone on Christmas Eve! Instead of supporting Santa's visit with a gift for the children, the Parent Staff Association will be sponsoring a special event at the school in the spring term - watch this space!

Contacting the School Office
Please note, Amy Souch works in the school office from 8.30-1.30pm Monday to Friday. At all other times, the office will be unattended. However, we have staff listening for the doorbell and answer phones messages will be picked up by Lesley Connell, who gets an alert on her iPad when one is left.

Where possible, we try to promote local events and activities that are beneficial to our school community. Here are a few things you may be interested in:

Holly Jolly Christmas Fair - always popular with our families



Kelliwik Mini-Kickers - a football opportunity for reception and Year 1 boys and girls



Barnardos Young Carers



Plymouth Argyle - their first team might be having a terrible season, but the club are still running a number of community opportunities!



Flu Immunisation - Cornwall NHS are seeing a spike in flue cases this year. Immunisation rates have been low so, if your child missed out, you can access this through a community clinic:



For more information: 01872 221105 or email kernowhealthcic.schoolimmunisation@nhs.net 

As we approach the last few weeks of the autumn term, our focus moves to Christmas. However, there is still lots of non-Christmas related activity taking place across the school to share with you.

Multi-sports at Callington College
Yesterday, Class 3 took part in a multi-sports event at Callington College. Originally planned as a tag rugby event, the organisers had to change this due to the weather. Throughout the afternoon the children engaged in a series of activities led by sport leaders from the college. These students introduced games the children could play where they competed against each other. The afternoon concluded with a dodgeball competition. The children were brilliant throughout, participating with enthusiasm and appearing to have lots of fun.



Cross Country
Well done to all our runners who took part in the race last Friday. It is great to have so many children wanting to race. I must give a special mention to Jacob Bloye, who finished second. This is highest position a Harrowbarrow runner has achieved in over a decade, so well done to Jacob. Will we see a first by the end of the league season?

Rocksteady
Joe Spurrell from Rocksteady has been doing some brilliant work with our young musicians. Fortunately, they are keeping the volume low so the rest of the school are able to carry on working without feeling the need to spontaneously get out of their seats and start dancing!



Class 4 Parent Carer Invite
Class 4 have completed their sewing in DT lessons. On Tuesday 2nd we invite Class 4 parents and carers to an exhibition of their children's work immediately after school. The children will be very proud to show you their finished soft toy and the journey they have been on to learn about the different stages of designing and making in textiles.



Knitted Nativity
Today, Judith McQuillin from the local community presented a knitted nativity set to the school in our weekly assembly. Last year, at the church Christmas tree festival, Judith's work was on display and I commented on how lovely it was. Picking up on this comment, Judith has kindly knitted an entire nativity scene and given it to the school. This is very generous and we shall treasure it for years to come. It will now have pride of place near our  Christmas Tree in the corridor outside classes two and four.



Staffing Update
Just a reminder that our new school administrator Amy Souch starts in the school office on Monday. Amy comes from working in a secondary school office so joins us with lots of valuable experience.

Dog Fouling
Thank you to those parents who drew my attention to the recent spate of dog fouling on the pavement in front of the school. I have put a sign up to encourage dog owners to be responsible but, if this issue persists, please let me know and I will think about further action we can take.

Early finish
A reminder that, in line with other Bridge schools, we finish at 1.30pm on Friday 19th December. The spring term starts again on Tuesday 6th January.

There has been a definite change in the weather this week with a flurry of snow yesterday and a notable nip in the air. Fortunately, the adverse weather conditions weren't extreme enough to force a school closure. If we are ever in a position where we need to close the school due to the weather, we will contact families as early as possible through a Showbie notification and an Arbor email. We will only close the school if we are unable to provide safe staffing levels or it would be unsafe to open. We may also consider later opening to allow staff extra time to complete their journey to work.

Garland
Year 5 pupils participated in the annual Cotehele House flower garland workshop this week. During the summer term, children grew, cut and dried flowers which they used to decorate the garland. The children's garland will appear in the restaurant over the festive period. Whilst there, the children were invited to see the main garland in the great hall, which was being constructed during our visit; it has over 32,000 flowers on it! Both garlands are stunning and well worth a visit if you get the chance. Thank you to volunteer Julie Marples for joining me, ensuring we had enough adults.



Sports Coaching
The coaches from Pro20 have been providing some great afterschool and lunchtime clubs this term. They also teach a PE lesson to each class. Here are some wonderful action shots from Class 4, who have been developing hockey skills this half term.



Staffing Update
Our new school administrator, Amy Souch, will be starting in Monday 1st December. We look forward to welcoming her to the team. Amy will be in the office from 8.30am to 1.30pm daily. 

Online Safety
Some children have been overheard talking about the latest version of Grand Theft Auto which was released recently. This game is rated 18+ as it involves alcohol and drug use, coarse and offensive language, nudity, violence and use of weaponry. We don't know if the same children have accessed the game outside of school via friends, older siblings or unauthorised access, but want to flag this to all parents and carers. Please check you have the necessary safeguards in place at home to ensure underage children don't have access to this game. Thank you.

Road Closure
We have been made aware the road  down through the village (past the Old Post Office) will be shut for roadworks for the whole of next week. If driving, please allow extra time for the school run as the alternative routes may be slower and busy with detour traffic.

This week has been another busy one across the school. On Wednesday, Class 4 competed in a netball tournament at Callington College against Calstock, Callington and Stoke Climsland schools. Rather than take a team of experienced players like the other schools, we gave all our children the opportunity to take part in a competitive team sport by fielding three teams. We may not have won the most games but the children were brilliant in their efforts and sporting conduct, which is reflected in the action photos below.


Callington College Transition Visit
To support transition to secondary school, two Callington College staff members visited Class 4 this week to talk about the college and answer children's questions. There will be a further visit in the spring term before Year 6 pupils visits to the college in the summer term.

Children In Need
The non-uniform day today raised £97.62 for the Children In Need appeal. Thank you for your support.

SPACE Parenting Programme
The NHS Mental Health Support Team are running a SPACE programme for parents and carers. Please see the poster below advertising the next session, starting in January 2026.

This programme is designed for parents/carers to better understand and support their children's emotions. The programme will help with understanding and managing emotions, it will offer practical approaches to support children and cover some coping strategies.

Design Technology
I just want to share a few more photos from Class 4 who are designing and making their own soft toys. This week they were learning to use running and cross stitches to add decoration. The children really impressed me with their ability to do this almost entirely independently without adult intervention. This demonstrates a high level of skill which I am sure the children could put to good use darning socks and doing other clothes repairs at home!


Next week we take on blanket stitching and stuffing.

Date Correction
In a change from my last blog post, please note the Christmas performance dates are 9th, 10th and 12th December, not the 11th as stated.

Welcome back for the second half of the autumn term. It was lovely to see so many of you today at the rearranged autumn/harvest assembly. Thank you to all those who were able to attend for a parent consultation this week and hopefully Class 1 parents have signed up to an appointment time for next Wednesday. We have reduced the length of these sessions for the first consultation of the year and narrowed the focus to talking about how the children have settled into the new school year and to discus their learning attitudes and behaviours. To complement this, we want to share children's learning progress through further opportunities for you to come into the classroom to see what your children have been learning. We did this last half term with our maths morning and art exhibition and are planning further opportunities in the weeks ahead.

Design Technology
This half term, we have design technology lessons in all classes. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to teach this subject to both junior classes, which also provides me with some lovely photographs for my blog!



Class 4 are designing and making stuffed toys. For the first week, they came up with a design and made a template they used to cut out the fabric. These photos show Rudy's strawberry design.



Class 3 are learning about 'pavilions' and used the first week to make structures through a trial and error approach using match sticks and plasticine. Lowenna and Joey worked together to create the first design and Penny and Madeleine made the second. They are both very elaborate and required a lot of teamwork. I look forward to sharing more in the weeks ahead and hopefully we will be inviting you to an exhibition of children's work before the end of term.

Rocksteady Bands
Our Rocksteady bands started this week with music teacher Joe Spurrell. Once he set up his equipment in the library, which looked like a recording study with everything he had, the children were very excited to join Joe for this first session.

As always, there are lots of exciting learning opportunities in the weeks ahead, culminating in our festive events at the end of term. This year, in a change with tradition, we are planning a whole school Christmas performance at the village hall. Further details will be shared nearer the time, but for those needing to take time off work to attend, here are the dates and performance times:

It has been another very busy week at Harrowbarrow with lots of exciting events.



Diwali
On Monday, we collapsed our curriculum to focus on the Hindu festival of Diwali. I am sure you have heard all about it from your children, but the day started with an assembly with a journalist from India joining us on a Teams video link. She talked about what was happening there as part of the Diwali celebrations and was dressed in her traditional clothes in preparation for the evening festivities. During the morning, the children rotated around classes to learn about the origins of Diwali and some of the associated traditions. In the photo above, Class 1 children were using a programmable device to make Rangoli patterns.


Art Exhibition
Thank you to all those who joined us for the art exhibition after school on Wednesday. We hope you enjoyed seeing the range of children's art on show. We had lots of lovely feedback, which suggests it went down well. We will be planning more of these events.

PSA Halloween Disco & Bake Sale
Thank you to the PSA who do a brilliant job of providing these school community events. Thank you also to all those who supported both the disco and the bake sale. As ever, the bakes looked incredible and I feel sure we have a few parent carers who could compete on The Great British Bake Off!

Harvest/Autumn Assembly
Apologies for having to cancel this today. As it turned out, the weather wasn't as bad as the forecast and we may have been able to do it. However, we couldn't run the risk of cancelling at the last minute. We have set a new date of 9am on Friday 7th November and are hoping to book the village hall for this. We will confirm after half term but please join us if you can.

Staffing Update
Thank you for all your generous contributions to Elaine Moyle's leaving gifts. Today, we presented Elaine with some flowers, a hotel voucher, a figurine and some fizz to thank her for all she has contributed to the school over the last 36 years. We have recruited Elaine's replacement, who will start on 1st December, once all pre-employment checks have been completed. I will share further details before they start. In the meantime, Lesley Connell will step back into the school office in the afternoons and we will be joined by Sarah Spence and Tracey Snell from the Bridge Central Office team for a couple of mornings each week. I will share office contact details after half term.

Parent Consultations
A reminder that if you haven't already done so, there are still slots available for you to book an appointment with your child's teacher after half term.

I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable half term and look forward to seeing you and your families again on 3rd November.

Summer Reading Challenge
Today we were joined by Christine from Callington Library, who presented certificates to all those children who completed the summer reading challenge. Well done to all the participants.

Cross Country
At our weekly celebration assembly last Friday, I challenged the cross county runners, who were gearing up for their first race, to see if we could secure a top ten finish. Abi Flashman reported that all those who competed in the Great Trethew race did incredibly well but gave a special mention to Jacob Bloye who finished 4th. Next time, I shall challenge someone to win a race and see if this works again! Well done to all the runners and thank you to the parent carers for taking their children.

Morning Maths
Thank you to all those who attended our morning maths sessions this week. We hope this gave you a little insight into the work we do across the school at the start of the day. I'm sure your children enjoyed showing you what they do. I have had a lot of positive feedback so we will look for further opportunities for you to experience your children's learning in the future.

Art Exhibition
Just a reminder to join us for an exhibition of your children's art work on Wednesday 22nd October at 3.20pm in classes. If you have children in multiple classes, please visit each room.

Training Day and Half Term
Just a reminder that Friday 24th October is a staff training day so the school is closed to pupils. This will mean an early start to the half term holidays for the children!

Charity Haircut
Sophia Vinson is currently growing her hair to have it cut in aid of the Little Princess Trust. For further information and to find out how you can support Sophia, please see her poster below: