I sit here writing this just before the February half-term and look back upon a busy January and early February.  The children have been learning lots in their classes and I have added pictures of some of what they have been up to at the end of this report.

Since the last edition, we have had whole school workshops on personal, social and health education (PSHE).  We have also learnt together in assembly about Holocaust Memorial Day in an age-appropriate way. The children also enjoyed their first school disco since before the Coronavirus pandemic! 

Mentioning assemblies, we listen to music as we come in to and leave assemblies and have been focusing this month on Baroque composers.  We have listened to music such as ‘Winter’ by Vivaldi and Handel’s ‘Messiah’ trying to listen for certain instruments such as trumpets and harpsichords.

As I write this, we are in Children’s Mental Health Week and I wanted to share with you how we educate the children about positive mental health and wellbeing.  Poor mental health in children has been of increasing concern since the pandemic and promoting good mental health is something we are very proud of at the school.  We have a Mental Health Leader in Miss Moore, who works with children on interventions to support their wellbeing after talking to their parents and were one of the first schools in Cornwall to get a designated NHS Mental Health Professional attached to us to work with children and their parents to support positive mental health.

We talk about the ‘Five Ways of Wellbeing,’ to promote healthy habits of mental health and we have trained and recruited Mental Health Buddies from the pupil body.  These ‘buddies’ can listen to other pupils and know which problems need to be shared with adults and which problems can be helped by a friendly ‘Worry Worm,’ a crocheted creature kindly fashioned by one of our grandparents, which can ‘listen’ to children’s worries!  We also have worry boxes where children can ask for help or share their worries with staff without having to tell them face to face.

By the time this article reaches you, we will be in March and the evenings will be starting to draw out once more.  We have lots of things planned for the month of March including our celebration of Saint Piran’s Day, parents’ evenings, a Year One and Two trip to the beach at Summerleaze to take part in beach clean workshops and a Year Three and Four trip to the county showground at Wadebridge for a Farm and Country day.  In late February (long after this has been written) Year Five and Six will be visiting Wildwood at Escott in east Devon to learn about the Anglo-Saxons.  I look forward to reporting on much of this in upcoming editions of the Village News.

Michael Watson

Head Teacher