It is with much frustration this week that we have had to postpone the Harvest Festival planned for this Friday.  The children were very excited to plan the worship session as it was to be the first time that their parents were to be able to come into their classrooms.  Given the current situation again with Covid-19, we decided that we would postpone until after half term, when hopefully, we can try again.

Mrs Butlin, our music teacher has helped the children to learn some new Harvest songs and along with the songs we love, we have enjoyed singling loudly and in rounds - a delight that we will be able to share.

Our School Council is up and running again now and we have met a few times now this term.  Much of our focus this half term has been about Harvest and the plans and preparations for the worship session.  One of the things the children achieved was a prayer for worship.  I would like to share it here:

Dear Lord,
Thank you for the harvest. 
Thank you for the farmers.
Thank you for the crops in the fields.
Help us to help others who have less than us.
Help us to be thankful for the food we have.
Thank you for the family who prepare our meals.
Let us pray for families who do not have any food to eat or water to drink.
Amen

We have decided that Harvest is helping us to flourish at the same time as enabling us to be courageous advocates.

Happy half term everyone.

As we continue to investigate all of the ways that we can flourish at school and in our lives, we looked at our wider curriculum with the children.  Topic work and the wider curriculum is investigated through our 'big questions'.  This half term in Cardinham we are asking, 'Why we went to war' and in Kilminorth, we are investigating, 'Why Paddington Bear didn't come to Looe!' 

In this picture, the children from both classes are talking about each of the wider curriculum areas such as music, design technology, history etc. to think about how these subjects can help them to flourish.  It was a wonderful conversation and the children came up with some very inspiring thoughts.  This included the idea that music helps us to reflect and enjoy, that geography helps us to learn about the wider world and to encourage us to explore etc.

We then carried on this theme in worship, by understanding the power of music or silence to help us to remember that quiet can be a very important part of helping us to flourish and thrive.  We reflected that we often do not take time to stop and do nothing more than sit and think, or listen to the sounds around us.  Everyone in the room agreed that it was something that we like to do and that we would like to do more, at school, as well as at home.  The overwhelming response was that the piano music we listened to was beautiful and helped us to relax more than the silence that we also tried.  What amazing thinkers we are!

We have been working very hard to think about how we can help each other to 'flourish' over the last week.  We have been continuing to think about our full motto:  'Growing in faith; flourishing through hope and aspiration; reaching out in love and community.'

Our everyday phrase to help to remember is 'flourishing through faith, hope and aspiration.'  Today, through worship, we realised that although you can flourish as an individual and there are times when working indepenedently are important, the majortity of things we achieve at school and in life are far better when we receive nad accept help.  Today we imagined that mint sweets were people and thought about what would happen if just one 'person' (sweet) was put in a bottle of coke.  We got a great reaction with one sweet (person), but when we put lots of sweets (people) in the bottle, the result was amazing!  It was like a volcano errupting!

The children were great at thinking of their own examples of times when they have flourished with the help of others and times when they have helped others to flourish.  Mrs David has been running two miles per day through September and she shared that although she was running alone, she could not have done it without the support of her family and some help to look after her children when she was running.  We celebrated this achievement with Mrs David.

In our refection we gave thanks for the community in which we live and our wonderful school community.  Our prayer asked for support in helping us to grow and to flourish in every way.  We are very proud of our school motto and its link to our parable, The Good Samaritan.

It has been wonderful to begin to return to an routine that is almost the same as we enjoyed prior to the pandemic. Two periods of school closure were hard to bear and although we had amazing online learning experiences, it was not the same as being all together.  When we did return to school we had to work as bubbles, so we missed all of those opportunties to be together as a school family.

This term is different.  We can be together, we can work, worship and play together and we are definitely enjoying the chance to begin to do all of the things that make this school so special.  We have especially been enjoying our outdoor environement with the beautiful weather we have experienced.



We have started the term by welcoming three new pupils and we have also said goodbye to a few too.  We have also been thinking together about how we can flourish as a community and honour our new school motto, 'flourishing through faith, hope and aspiration'.  Linked to this we will continue to consider how our school parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke), helps us to flourish and our school value for this half term is friendship.  We have been praying for Mrs Burrows, who is not able to be with us at the moment and we have given thanks for Mrs Askew who has been able to help in her absence.  Everyone has come back to school, or started their new school experience in a happy and positve way and we are very excited for all that is to come.

It was a searing 28 degrees, but just look at the effort the children put in to having their sports day.  Hot, hot, hot and no shade.  Practice in the morning was much shorter than normal and the children were encouraged to drink lots and store all of their energy for later.

There were the usual traditional track and field events and a few alternative activities available so that all children could participate.  We were very sad that parents could not come along, but there were plenty of pictures and a few videos to send home.  

We are very much hoping that next year will be the big event with lots of extra things to enjoy.

Well done Cardinham and Kilminorth.  Pupils took part in 3 teams, Seaton (yellow), Looe (blue) and Fowey (green).  At the end of the day, Fowey were the worthy winners.  Not to worry though as all of the children were happy when they were given their much deserved ice pops to enjoy after all of their efforts. 

As part of their big question, looking at history along with other subjects, Kilminorth class have been looking at the history of Trenode Primary School/Academy.  It has certainly grown over the years and it is still not that big today, although it does have amazing field spaces and the most wonderful views!

The Early Years, Year 1 and Year 2 children invited one of the older members of the community, Mrs Chudleigh to come to talk to them about her time as a pupil at the school.  She also worked at the school for over 30 years and left only recently.  It was such a pleasure to be finally able to welcome her back into the building with a friend, who had also attended.  The children were fascinated when she told them how the school had changed and how it had been for her as a pupil compared to what they experience now.

Miss Pittas also found some very old pictures.  Mrs Chudleigh was not in this one because it was taken as early as 1911, 110 years ago!  One thing that was really fascinating was how many children there are in this photograph - exactly the same number of children as there are at Trenode Primary Academy now!  The children were very pleased that they did not have to dress like this any more and they thought too, that they were a little happier to be at school than some of the children look in this picture.  We wonder what the school and the children might look like in another 110 years time!

I am leaving it to one of our wonderful pupils to explain what Healthy Movers Day at Trenode Primary was all about!

We are very lucky!

We never forget that we are very lucky to live in such a beautiful natural environment and as well as the stunning view of the valley that we get from school, and we work hard to ensure that the children appreciate it an understand how to be safe and protective of where they live.

After what started out as a day forecast to be drizzle and grey, we were blessed when the sun shone for a visit to the beach for a day.  The whole school spent the day on Seaton beach with the Arena sports coaches and the staff from Trenode.  The activities included a variety of beach sports, parachute games, art in the sand and camp fire building to learn how to treat a campfire with respect and in a safe way.

The smiles on the faces of the children said it all - to be free of the classroom for a change of environment and then to be able to learn some new skills was just lovely.  Of course, there was time juts to simply be together.

Marshmallows and ice cream completed the day and we had children and staff who slept very well on Friday night!  As for Mrs David's feet - a perfect sun tan 'V' from her flip flops - she wasn't expecting that one at the beginning of the day in the rain!

All of our school values were in action and a prayer or two to be thankful for the blessings of an amazing environment in which to live.  We certainly saw children being able to flourish in hope and aspiration.

Brave enough to try?

We have been working so hard, we decided it was time to have some fun and look at some of our school values in a different way.  Friendship was definitely needed as well as perseverance and resilience in bucket fulls.  What did we do?  We invited the circus to come to school for a Circus Day!

Both classes had a 45 minute 'masterclass'and then had the opportunity to give all of the circus activities a try.

Kilminorth started their day by learning how to use flower sticks for tricks; they rolled them up and down their arms, learned how to toss them to a partner and to do kick-ups with them.  They were very brave and courageous when they learned to spin plates and to try some tight-rope walking.  They also got the chance to try some foot bikes and as you can see they look like they got the hang of it all!

Cardinham had the hard task of giving 'poi' a try.  This bean bag balls with long pieces of stretchy material attached which the children spun around to carry our tricks called the butterfly and the helicopter.  They also tried to hula hoop.  This was great fun and at the end of the day even Mrs David said that she was off to buy her own hula hoop.  We can't wait to see how she gets on!

In their second session, the children had a more free session with a chance to try using stilts, unicycles, a tight-rope (balance beam), ribbons, flower sticks, low balls, pedal-goes and pogo sticks.

At the end of the day the two classes came together to show what they learned.  It was brilliant - so much so that we think it might become an annual event!  The best bit - the children (and staff) didn't even realise that they were learning!

If you have not had the pleasure of visiting Trenode Primary Academy before, you will not know that the school is set in beautiful countryside on the edge of the valley with stunning views.  It has therefore been lovely to welcome back some of our external providers over the last few weeks to help us to us and celebrate and use the amazing space that we have.

Yesterday, we had an Alternative Sports Day to give the children the opportunity to try out some new sports and activities that they might not get to try otherwise.  Throughout the session they played lacrosse, archery, seated volleyball and crazy catch.  Once they had exhausted themselves playing all these games, they finished the session off with a whole school game of capture the flag; a game they all love to play.

As you can see, the sun was shining and the conditions were perfect.  It was the ideal opportunity to think about our values of friendship and teamwork.  The children had a lovely time and while we will be able to have a sports day with a difference this year, it was also great to be able to do the same with activities that we might not otherwise try.

Smiles all round!