It has been another busy period across the school, with children engaging in a range of exciting learning opportunities.

Class 3 Trip
Class 3 visited the Immersive Dome in Plymouth to learn about the rainforest. Sam Watts was really impressed by the children's enthusiasm for the subject, even when enormous and scary spiders were projected on to the dome. 

Class 4 Viking Day
In support of their history theme, learning about the Vikings, Melissa Pinfield invited Adrian Chapman from Blast from the Past to run a Viking workshop. Children explored all manner of historical facts through artefacts and resources including the significance of figureheads on Viking longboats and the board games they played:

   


Year 3/4 Football Tournament
Congratulations to the football team, who are going from strength to strength. This week they battled to a brilliant 2-1 win over Sir Robert Geffery's School, followed by a scintillating 6-3 win over Stoke Climsland. 


Bridge MAT Dodgeball Tournament
We participated in our first tournament exclusively for Bridge MAT schools this week. A Year 3 and 4 team of Abigail, Lowenna, Edith, Jack, Seth V and Jacob competed in 6 dodgeball matches. Although they were unable to get through to the finals, it was great to see them having a fun time and learning to deal with the highs and lows of winning and losing. Thank you to volunteer Rebecca Vincent for helping make this happen.



Finally,  a reminder of future dates for your diary:


10.2.25: Year 6 Brecon Beacon parent/carer briefing at 3.25pm in Class 4
13.2.25: Last pupil day before half term
14.2.25: Bridge MAT training day - school closed to pupils
24.2.25: First pupil day after half term
27.2.25: First gymnastics lesson for Class 1 at Copper Valley Junior School
28.2.25: PINS Parent engagement session from 2pm in school staffroom

Advance Notice Reminder
Please note, all Bridge MAT schools finish at 1.30pm on the last pupil day of each full term. This is to give school staff time to organise and prepare for the term ahead. Harrowbarrow hasn't previously adopted this policy, although many schools now do it. To align Harrowbarrow with our partner schools within the Trust, we will be adopting this practice at the end of this term, on the last pupil day before the Easter holiday (Friday 4th April). We will send a reminder nearer the time.

As we speed towards half term here are some of the exciting things that have been happening at Harrowbarrow:

Year 3/4 Multi-skills Tournament
Last Thursday, children in Class 3 joined classes from Calstock, Callington and Copper Valley at Callington Community College to participate in a range of sporting challenges. These activities were designed and run by the GCSE sport leaders. Children had to work with pupils from the other schools to undertake challenges using a range of different equipment. It was great to see children having so much fun and, after some initial hesitation, start to engage with young people from the other schools.

Year 3/4 Football Tournament
Well done to our footballers, who secured their first victory last week. Following an 8-3 thumping at the hands of Menheniot Primary School, you might forgive the team for feeling a bit despondent going into the second match. However, their attitude was tremendously positive and as a result they bounced back to beat Copper Valley 5-1. Well done to all the players.

Bikeability
Class 4 children have been participating in Bikeability sessions, a road safety programme for cyclists. The sessions involve learning how to maintain a safe bike, how to keep yourself safe on a bike and how to ride safely on the roads.

Our curriculum continues to evolve and a new programme for art is producing some very exciting outcomes. The children are enjoying learning about different techniques and how they have been applied by a variety of artists. Below are some examples from across the school. 

Our gallery of creative art

The infant art explores simple print making using their hands and everyday objects. This week they have been pressing objects into plasticine and using the plasticine to print with.

Class 3 are exploring a unit called 'Painting with Scissors'. This is all about collage and is inspired by the art of Henri Matisse and Claire Willberg.

Class 4 will be making monotype prints, after exploring the work of Syrian artist Kevork Mourad and how to make a range of different marks. At the end of the unit they will create a visual poetry zine.

We look forward to sharing more of the children's amazing outcomes with you later in the term.

If you would like to know more about the exciting units of work your children will be exploring, here is an overview of our two year rolling programme created by art subject leader Tom Ottewell-Taylor:

 

Finally, here are some dates for your diary:

4.2.25: Next round of matches at Callington College for the Year 3/4 football team
4.2.25: Vision screening for reception children
6.2.25: Viking workshop in Class 4
6.2.25: Bridge MAT dodgeball tournament for a Year 3/4 team (details to follow)
7.2.25: Next cross-country race after school (details to follow)
10.2.25: Year 6 Brecon Beacon parent/carer briefing at 3.25pm in Class 4
13.2.25: Last pupil day before half term
14.2.25: Bridge MAT training day - school closed to pupils

Advance Notice
Please note, all Bridge MAT schools finish at 1.30pm on the last pupil day of each full term. This is to give school staff time to organise and prepare for the term ahead. Harrowbarrow hasn't previously adopted this policy, although many schools now do it. To align Harrowbarrow with our partner schools within the Trust, we will be adopting this practice at the end of this term, on the last pupil day before the Easter holiday (Friday 4th April). We will send a reminder nearer the time.

Happy New Year and welcome back after the festive period; it already feels like it happened months ago! This weekly blog post will replace the newsletters, sharing information about all the wonderful learning experienced by the children and highlighting future events.
In addition to my weekly blog, teachers will complete a blog relating to their classes. They will also use these to share relevant class information. Please try to check these blogs once a week but, to begin with, we will email you a notification and link to new posts.

At the end of last term I had hoped to share this image of the Cotehele flower garland but ran out of time. Last year, we worked with Cotehele gardener Hannah Milburn to plant flowers at Harrowbarrow, which were then dried and used by some of our Year 6 pupils to make the amazing garland you see on the left. This was hung in the restaurant at Cotehele over the holiday period.

It was lovely to welcome the children back last week and I have been really impressed by the way they settled seamlessly back into their lessons; perhaps, like me, they needed some order and routine after the festive period. We have a very busy term ahead with some things having already started. This week a Year 3/4 football team played two matches as part of a five week tournament against other schools at Callington College. Despite clawing two goals back to draw level with Bishop Cornish, the team eventually lost the first game 5-2. By the second game, against Copper Valley, they really started to find their feet and managed an excellent 2-2 draw. Well done to Jack, Archie, Spencer, Abigail, Max, Sophia, Seth V and Jacob.

Securing funding for resources that enhance teaching and inspire young people has become increasingly challenging in recent years. However, I am delighted to share some exciting news on successful grant applications that are going to enhance our curriculum offer. Sam Watts, as science and computing lead, has secured funding through the Enthuse Partnership at Cornwall Spaceport for science equipment to support investigations and also funding from our local Community Chest to purchase a class set of programmable Bee-Bots (below) and a Sphero Indi. In addition, Abi Flashman secured support through Tesco's community fund to resurrect the polytunnel after Storm Unis flattened it. There will also be a new forest school storage space and covered area to support our outdoor learning provision.  

We have lots of exciting opportunities to look forward to in the term ahead:

- Class 4 have a Viking day planned with a visiting historian.
- Class 3 are visiting the Immersive Dome in Plymouth.
- Members of the choir will be participating in Songfest.
- Bikeability road safety lessons will be held for older junior children.
- Class 3 are competing in a multi-skills sporting event at Callington College.
- Cross country league races continue for junior children.
- Class 4 and then, after half term, Class 1 will be having gymnastics lessons at Copper Valley Junior School.
- The Lego club will be competing at the First Lego League county final at RNAS Culdrose.
- Class 3 are participating in a Farm & Country day at Cornwall County Showground.

There will be other activities shared as plans are finalised but it will, as always, be a busy and exciting term.

Finally, I would like to share an exciting accolade secured by Rachel Lane, our music lead. Harrowbarrow Primary Academy has secured a Music Mark accreditation. This recognises all the high quality music education at Harrowbarrow, including weekly lessons, singing and instrument clubs, peripatetic music lessons and performance opportunities. Well done to Rachel.