Here is an example of some excellent maths work from Belle who has been rounding to the nearest 10,000. 


We've had a wonderfully busy week in class, diving into a range of exciting learning activities! In science, we've been exploring how light is reflected and designing our own experiments to investigate this fascinating topic. In English, we've been crafting stories that include a moral and using personification to bring our characters and settings to life. Meanwhile, in maths, we've been sharpening our number skills by rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, and 1,000. The class has shown fantastic focus and enthusiasm, working hard across all these areas-well done, everyone!

The spellings for this week are words with the suffixes ing/er/est: lightening, lighter, lightest, hunted, hunter,  prouder, proudest, yawned, yawning, sprinted

Here are the KIRFs questions for this week to work on:

A busy start to this year's art lessons

Over the past few weeks, we have enjoyed the first few lessons of our 'Inspired by Flora and Fauna' unit. 

Our Year 1's started by enjoying the work of Henri Rousseau, Jan van Kessel and the late local writer and illustrator, David McKee. We responded with our own drawings (ink on watercolour) and then added colour using pastels. 

Our new reception children loved joining in too, with a few stray wild animals and Lilo (no Stitch).

What a creative start to the school year!

What an awesome week and 2 days we have had after our long, hot summer break! Out first full week back had been jam-packed with oodles of learning and fun outside.

In Maths, we have started our fist unit of work on Place Values. This week, we have been using our part-whole models and place value mats to split numbers into tens and ones. We have also been working really hard on our number formation, focusing on forming number 3 the right way round. In Class 2, we do this by making sure our pencil is on the LEFT hand side of the square and then using a following rhyme to remember how to write the number: "Around the tree, around the tree, that's the way to make a three!"

In Literacy, we are learning how to write a report. This week, we have practiced writing 2A sentences and using conjunctions to add more details. We have also begun collecting facts about a new animal for our own reports.

In History, we have begun a new unit that will help us answer the question, "How was school different in the past?" This week, we had some very heated debates about how schools might have changed. We are so lucky that at Harrowbarrow we have such a rich collection of photos and artefacts that document our school over the years. We spent an afternoon looking at these photos and artefacts. We finished our session by talking about what similarities and differences we could see in the the way children learned at Harrowbarrow in the past compared to our school today.  

In Music, this term we are exploring pulse and rhythmic patterns. This week, we had a very lively session of composing call-and-echo movement sequences for our friends to follow.

Art this term is all about exploring and drawing. This week, we investigated the concept of artists as explorers and collectors - exploring the world and ideas and collecting artifacts from nature and all around them to inspire their art.

We watched a video about Andy Goldsworthy, a British Sculptor who has become know for making art from things he finds in the landscape. In the video, he shared how he takes ice and rocks from the landscape and lets it make a "drawing" as it thaws in his studio. Inspired by this, we went outside to look for colours in nature and experimented with creating colours with our found natural things.

During my morning 'meet and greet', I think I have managed to see most parents and carers since the start of the new academic year. If not, welcome back and I look forward to catching up with you next week. A special welcome to our new children and their families; we hope you have been made to feel welcome and the children have enjoyed the start to their primary education. Within days of our new reception children starting, I began to give tours of the school for prospective new families for September 2026. If you know of anyone looking for a school place for next September, please feel free to share my contact information so they can book a school viewing if interested: head@harrowbarrowprimary.co.uk

We start all new school years with a period of settling the children back into routines and setting expectations. After a six week break, I am always surprised at how quickly the children settle into the rhythm of school life. This year has seen an especially good start across the school, with smiley, happy children bounding into class, enthusiastic to learn at the start of the day. We look forward to celebrating the children's successes and achievements at our weekly celebration assemblies on Fridays. Please look out for praise certificates and ask your child to explain why they were awarded them.

We welcomed new teaching assistant and lunchtime supervisor Sarah Marley to our team last week. Whilst there are no other new members of staff, some staff are working in different roles. A reminder of the staff organisation for this year:

Class 1: Teachers - Tom Ottewell-Taylor, Abi Flashman & Jo Walker (Wednesday afternoons). Teaching Assistants - Angela Bushell, Stacy Vinson, Sarah Marley
Class 2: Teachers - Ati Charlesworth & Jo Walker (Tuesday afternoons). Teaching Assistant - Lesley Connell
Class 3: Teachers - Sam Watts & Andrew Hunt (Thursday afternoons). Teaching Assistants - Jo Cocking, Sarah Marley, Jo Walker, Brendan Thomas
Class 4: Teachers - Melissa Pinfield & Andrew Hunt (Monday & Tuesday afternoons). Teaching Assistants - Heather Thomson, Brendan Thomas

Lesley Connell is no longer working in the school office but remains as Breakfast Club and After School Club lead. For all office queries/communication, please now direct emails to Elaine Moyle: emoyle@harrowbarrowprimary.co.uk

Elaine does not work in the office on Fridays, so if your query or communication can wait until another day, please avoid calling into the office. I will be covering the office on Fridays but am also often involved in meetings or cover teaching.

In my role, I am fortunate enough to work with all the classes. This week, I particularly enjoyed teaching an art lesson to Class 3. The theme for their work this half term is 'drawing stories', with the aim of illustrating a piece of text at the end of the unit. The children started by looking at a tableaux and imagined it as a scene from a story. Here are some examples of their charcoal and chalk sketches:




We have lots of exciting learning opportunities planned for the term ahead and look forward to sharing these with you in the weeks to come. One of our new developments this year is the work we plan to do through our climate action plan. A copy of this can be found in the information tab on this website: www.harrowbarrowprimary.co.uk/Information/Climate_Action_Plan
If you feel you might be able to contribute to our work in this area, please contact us as we want to involve our whole school community.
I look forward to sharing more of the children's learning achievements in the coming weeks.

What a lovely start it has been to the term.  It has been great to welcome back the Year 6 and to see the new Year 5 get settled into the class. 

The spellings for this week are silent letters.  They are: gnarl, gnash, gnome, knead, knight, knuckle, knock, knot, know

The KIRFs below to practise with your child

Class 2 is a Year 2 group of 18 children. The class is taught by Mrs Ati Charlesworth, along with Miss Jo Walker and Miss Leslie Connell. Miss Jo Walker covers Mrs Charlesworth's PPA on a Tuesday afternoon. If you ever need to get in touch, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Charlesworth at acharlesworth@harrowbarrowprimary.co.uk or ask to speak to her via the school reception on 01579 350576.

Please find above the Curriculum overview for the Spring term 2026. You can also download this as a PDF document by clicking the PDF icon below. You can also find a copy of the KIRF focus for Spring term 1 below. 

Here is a copy of the timetable

On Saturday 12th July, we held an open morning to show off our fantastic Early Years provision to prospective families. Over the two hours we were visited by multiple families whose children had the opportunity to explore the many wonderful delights of the classroom and outdoor area with their parents and carers. We were thrilled with the turnout and hope we will see all these families join Harrowbarrow in the future. A huge thank you to the Class 1 team for efforts in putting on this event and thank you to the PSA members who provided refreshments.





Music
Well done to all our junior children for their end of year performance last week. They had a lot to learn in a very short space of time and did an amazing job at learning words for the songs, the script and then all the dance and actions. Thank you to families who helped with costumes and, of course, thank you to Rachel Lane for her efforts to put the show together - it is a huge job. As you know, Rachel will be leaving at the end of term. It is fair to say, when we reflect on what she does for the children, Rachel is irreplaceable. Several parents have asked what is happening with music provision at the school next year. Abi Flashman will be the subject leader for music and we will continue to provide peripatetic music lessons through Harvey (guitars), Julie (brass) and Josh (piano). If you are interested in your child learning to play an instrument, please contact the school office. We also hope to continue the relationship Rachel has established with the Cornwall Music Service, who provided flute lessons to all our junior children this term through teacher Sally Butlin. These lessons culminated in Class 3 and 4 performing brilliantly to their parents and carers on Friday morning. Rachel has also had a teaching commitment which we have covered from September. I will be teaching both Class 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Ati Charlesworth will become fulltime, teaching Class 2 on Wednesday afternoons. Other provision delivered by Rachel will be considered in September, once we have had time to reflect on our capacity to deliver some of these things.

Staffing
Rachel Lane has been a feature of Harrowbarrow School for a long time and we will miss all she contributes. She has built a reputation for music provision at the school, which you would be hard to find in many similarly sized schools in Cornwall. We thank Rachel for many years of dedicated and passionate music teaching on top of all the other things she has done during her time at the school. We wish Rachel all the very best for the future.
Next year, we are able to increase our support staff provision across the school, which is always welcomed as teaching assistants play a vital role working with all children as well as those who require additional support. I am delighted to announce the appointment of Sarah Marley to the posts of teaching assistant and lunchtime supervisor from September. As a qualified teacher, with a background in STEM and environmental projects, Sarah's appointment will add a lot of additional expertise and we welcome her to the team. She will mostly work in Class 3 and Class 1.

Pupil Progress
Whilst academic outcomes in maths and English are only one way of measuring the impact a school has on children's education, they are an important indicator. This year, the children have risen to the high expectations of staff and performed strongly in many areas. I am pleased to share some of the highlights below.

EYFS: percentage of children securing a Good Level of Development - above the national average
Year 1 Phonic Screening Check: percentage of children passing this check - above the national average
Year 2 Writing: percentage achieving the expected level - above the national average
Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check: the average score for the cohort was above the national average
Year 6 Reading: percentage achieving the expected level - above the national average

Thank you to all the staff and children in achieving these fantastic results.

As we edge towards the end of term there are still some exciting events to look forward to:

14 - 18.7.25: Year 6 residential to Brecon Beacons
14.7.25: Choir to sing to Harrowbarrow Luncheon Club
21.7.25: Infants to sing to parents/carers in the covered playground (we will using this occasion to say a final farewell to Rachel Lane and present her with some gifts so please feel free to join us)
21.7.25: Year 6 leavers presentation in Class 4
22.7.25: Last day of term for pupils - please note school finishes at 1.30pm

The week started with transition day when all Year 1s came together in Class 2 while Year 2s went to join Class 3. It was fun for both year groups to get a taste of what it will be like in the next academic year. Our class did not need any introductions as we have all been working together for many of the lessons this year. But it was nice to pretend to be Year 2s for a day and to welcome Mrs Connell into our class family.

The highlight of the week, however, has to be the amazing trip to Hannafore beach for a spot of rock pooling. Thanks to Heather Buttivant from the Looe Marine Conservation Society, we had a really fun and educative day. An award winning writer, conservationist and marine biologist, Heather's wealth of knowledge about the marine life in Cornwall helped fuel the children's enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge. Some wow moments were finding a velvet swimming crab and the many limpet shells with welk holes!  

Besides exciting adventures in the sun, Class 2 have been winding up on our Maths learning with final hot tasks completed, while in Literacy we continued with boxing up our story.

Apologies for the very muddy / dusty uniforms on Friday pick-up. It was a VERY hot day and so we all sought the coolest area in the school - the forest school - where we spend a large part of the day going on scavenger hunts and concocting many delectable treats for everyone.

This week we have been busy rehearsing the play ready for the performances next week.  The class have been brilliant at learning their lines and practising their singing. Mrs Lane wanted to say a special thank you for today's dress rehearsal in front of the infants.  She says she appreciate all the effort that you have put in.  There have been some amazing performances and some wonderful singing.  I am sure that you are looking forward to seeing the performances next week on Tuesday and Wednesday.  

Year 6s are off to Callington on Monday.  If they catch the public bus, such as the 79, then they will need to pay for a ticket each way.  This will be £3.  If they catch the school bus, then I have printed out passes for Monday.  Please email if you do not have one of these as I can forward it on ready for their first transition day.  I know that they are very excited to be starting a new chapter of their life in school.  On Monday, Year 4 will come up for a transition day in Class 4.  We will have a chance to start the new work for September and get to work again with different pupils. 

In the afternoon on Monday, Mrs Lane will take choir down to perform to the luncheon club in the village hall.  There will be PE activities for pupils not taking part in this.

What a wonderful week we've had! Busy, sporty and full of learning experiences!

Everyone in Class 2 agree that the best thing about the week was our AMAZING Sports Day on Thursday. We had an entire day of working with out teams to try out a variety of challenges before coming together in the evening with our families to compete in a series of track and field events. Everyone did so well in all the sporting events throughout the day. Further, all the adults in attendance agree that they were very impressed with the superb sportsmanship exhibited by every child throughout the day. Well done everyone!

Alongside all sporting fun, we have also engaged with a variety of learning opportunities. In Literacy, we have completed our persuasive letters. I have had a lot of fun reading all the letters and have been thoroughly impressed by the variety of language skills used in all of them. On the left is a picture of the introduction to one of these letters written by a Year 2. 

In Maths, both Year 1 and Year 2 have completed their unit of work and completed their Hot Tasks. Next week, Year 1s will move on to Place Values within 100, while Year 2s will start a  fun unit on Position and Direction.

In Geography this week, Class 2 completed our first task using our new online learning tool - Showbie. We learned about the physical features of a coast and used Showbie to label a picture of a coast using both captions and voice memos. In DT we had a lot of fun cutting and juicing a variety of fruits as we begin to identify key skills we will use to make our smoothie.  

This week we had our sports day.  This year it was an all day event.  It start in the morning with pupils taking part in different activities with their houses.  Mr Watts led a football skills workshop; Mrs Flashman had children taking part in javelin and shot put; Mrs Charlesworth was getting children to do target practice with beanbags and I did some shooting and passing skills for netball.  The Year 5 and 6s were incredible at working with the other children and supporting them.  In particular Lexi, Holly and Leo stood out for the support and encouragement that they gave the younger children.  In the afternoon, we went outside to practice the tug of war and to do some games.  We finished the day with banner making ready for the evening. 

When 5 pm rolled by, it was time to process up onto the field and take part in the race.  Again, the Year 5 and 6 were great at encouraging the others in their team and supporting each other.  It was a win last night for yellow team with green team being nominated for being the most sporting.  Year 6 seems to enjoy the waiter race the most although there was a lot of water spilt by the end.  

Next week, there will be no more swimming.  Instead, six Year 6 children will be heading out on Monday to watch the cricket.  We have play rehearsals at the end of the week ready for the performance the following week.  

Here are the KIRFs for the week

Class 2 have been busy (yet again!) having oodles of fun learning and doing and creating.

In Literacy, we have begun drafting our persuasive letters and we have used some amazing vocabulary to persuade rockpool visitors to be more careful while enjoying our delicate habitats. In Maths, while Year 1s explore Fractions, year 2s continue their exploration of statistics. Beside this, our class "Morning Snack Shop" is running really well, with all the children "paying" for their snacks, with the help of Year 2 shopkeepers keeping track of payments.

In Geography, we have been able to locate the main bodies of water that surround the United Kingdom. We have also explored a variety of coasts and begun to identify distinguishing features of a coast.  

In Science, we continued our investigation into the microhabitats in our forest school area. This week, we went on a mini beast hunt and made note of the different animals we could find in the many microhabitats in our amazing forest school space. We found tons of earthworms, slugs and snails. There were far too many ants and woodlice (or cheesy bugs as some of us like to call them) to count.

On Thursday, we also set up our next Science investigation . Years 1 and 2 have marked out a 'Square of Life' in a corner of the forest school area. We spend a peaceful afternoon sketching the many things we could see in the square. Our 5 minute sketching during Art lessons really helped us make some amazing variety of life drawings in our Science books. In the next few weeks, we will keep visiting our 'Square of Life' to make note of how it changes over time.

Please find below a gallery of images from last week's Music Lesson where the class worked with dot notations. Mrs Lane is so very impressed with the progress everyone has made in Music this term. Mrs Lane said, "We were introducing dot notation with 2 notes and they worked so well together. I can honestly say it was one of the most enjoyable afternoons I've had in school in a while!"

What a busy week we have had.  Today we have been practising for our sports day next week.  There are a couple of new events such as the long distance race and the tug of war which are proving very popular with pupils.  Mrs Lane has been working with groups getting ready for the end of year performance. 

Next week, we will have the last swimming session at Mount Kelly pool.  Tuesday, weather permitting, will be a day of sports with activities such as football skills, shot put and netball skills in the morning and activities such as banner making and team building in the afternoon.  On Thursday,  Year 6 will have an event at Callington College where they will get to meet the Year 7 mentors and play rounders and cricket with them.  

There will be no spellings homework set for the next couple of weeks as the mornings are being changed with the different events going on so there will be no RWI spellings groups.  

The KIRFs format has changed slightly so that we are focusing on some key areas of maths.  

Last week our children competed in the Bridge School Games. This annual event involves children trying to score as many points as they can in several events based around a theme. The theme this year was Wimbledon. Scores are then submitted to see which school has the highest overall score. Our children have been competing in activities such Racquet Run, Tennis Side Step Shuttles, Ball Kid Bedlam, Tennis Toss and Game, Set, Catch. Congratulations to Trenode, the overall winners this year. I would like to make a special mention of Harrowbarrow Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 who came first in the Racquet Run, Tennis Toss and Tennis Side Step Shuffles respectively across the Bridge Schools. To find out more about the activities, please ask your children or watch this video of the opening ceremony:

Opening Ceremony of Bridge School Games 2024-25


Tomorrow, we look forward to welcoming you all to watch the children compete at our annual summer sports evening. Postponed from Tuesday due to the weather, we are optimistic the weather will be favourable tomorrow. Races start at 5pm so please ensure your child is delivered to the covered playground for 4.50pm, ready for teams to process to the school field. After the competition, the PSA has organised a summer fete, with plenty of refreshments and activities.



This year, instead of raising money for the school, we will be supporting one of our families as they attempt to fund important medical treatment. For further information or to make a direct donation, please follow this link: www.gofundme.com/f/help-give-my-auntie-a-chance-life-saving-cancer-treatment?attribution_id=sl:6a3829e3-89a3-4c8c-8cab-01abf6ef1922&lang=en_GB&ts=1747720989&utm_campaign=pd_ss_icons&utm_content=amp13_t1-amp14_t2&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=messenger&v=amp14_t2

A huge thank you to the PSA, who have been working tirelessly to organise this event and the recent colour run, which proved a huge success both in terms of money raised and enjoyment for those watching and the children taking part. Here is just one of the amazing photographs from the event.




Overall, you raised in the region of £1,700 for school funds, which is simply staggering. Thank you to all those who made donations and supported their children to secure sponsors. We look forward to sharing with you how the money has been spent for the benefit of the children.

Some dates for your diary:

Thursday 26th June: Reserve sports evening
Wednesday 2nd July: Orchestra to perform to their parents at 3.30pm

This week we have been practising for our sports day event on 24th June.  We have been working on running relays as well as working on the tug of war.  The children also had an amazing afternoon on Tuesday doing the colour run which was brilliantly run by Mrs Flashman and the PSA.

We have also been writing up our discussion texts.  Here is sample from Imogen 

Should we ban Fortnight?

In this discussion, we will discover some of the pros and cons of Fortnite.  Fortnite has been played for years from one person to a quarter of the world.  See what you think after reading this.  Some say no; others think we should.  After reading this, you many want to take away all non-educational video games away from your child.  The first video game was created in the year 1958 where as Fortnite was created in 2017. 

The spellings for this week are from the 100 words that Year 5 and 6 children should know.  They are: correspond, recommend, amateur, attached, community and available. 

Here are the KIRFs for this week:

The first week, a short week, but an action-packed week! This is the only way I can describe learning in Class 2 this past week.

In Literacy, we started by completing our neat copies of the information texts. We have some seriously brilliant pieces of work and can't wait to show them to you all. Then, we started our new unit of work. This half term, we are learning all about persuasive language. We will be using this to write persuasive letters later in the term.

In Maths, Year 1s continued learning more about multiplication and division by exploring arrays and dividing by sharing. In the meantime, Year 2s have continued exploring fractions.  

This half term, in Science, we continue our investigation into habitats. This week, we have started our journey into the mini world of microhabitats. We spend most of Monday afternoon in our forest school area, exploring the different microhabitats we could find there. It was quite an exciting afternoon of turning over logs and stones, and exploring hidden corners of the area to find some amazing hidden worlds. We also found a variety of minibeasts in these miniworlds. 

In DT, we started our new unit on cooking and nutrition. This week, we explored the difference between fruits and vegetables with Mrs Lane. We will continue learning more about how they are grown and learn how to prep them. We are really looking forward to using some of these fruits to make our own smoothies later in the term!

In Geography, we have started a new unit by the end of which we hope to answer the question: What is it like to live by the coast? We will be exploring the seas and oceans surrounding the UK, exploring the coastal landscape and diving deeper into the physical features of the Jurassic Coast.

On the left is a small snapshot of what we have been learning in Music this term. Last half term, we began exploring Pitch and Melody with Mrs Lane. We have all had fantastic fun learning about octobass and piccolo, and using a variety of instruments. We also learned to describe pitch and timbre.

This week, we put our skills to the test by writing graphic notations and creating voice to match them. Needless to say, Mrs Lane is super proud of what they have achieved so far.

Mrs Lane wrote, "The children have been using graphic notation and their voices to explore pitch and create a piece of vocal music - they all worked so well yesterday and very proudly shared their compositions - they have really grown in confidence which is lovely!"

This week we have been writing up our discussion texts.  We are nearly ready to publish some on the blog as we have written the first draft.  There have been some pretty heated debates about a wide range of subjects from firearms to animal testing.

We had our first swimming session at Mount Kelly.  The groups could use both the 25 metre pool and the 50 metre pool for the session.  The class worked hard during this time.

We had a visit from Mr Davey at Callington College to talk to the Year 6 about their transition to secondary school.  He was very informative and the pupils had plenty of opportunities to ask questions before they visit in July. 

This week's spellings are homophones so make sure that you know the meaning:  practice, practise, guessed, guest, allowed, aloud and lead. 

This term we are consolidating KIRFs from the previous term.  Here are some questions to work on