December 2025

December saw Year 5 participate in several online lessons with the Royal Ballet and Opera. We learnt about the art of opera singing and how to build soundscapes using only our voices. We learnt about staging and the art of prop making. Alongside staff from the Royal Ballet and Opera, we built prototype props used in the ballets: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Magic Flute. Finally, we learnt about how dancers tell stories on stage.
We've had lots of festive fun in keyboard lessons with Mr Jane, learning Jingle Bells, The Carol of the Bells and even venturing into using a sharp note (F#) in We Wish You a Merry Christmas! This linked in with our English unit this month, in which we read the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and learnt about its structure, rhyme and use of figurative language. 
In DT, we have been designing gingerbread people hanging decorations. We completed online research about the history and popularity of gingerbread people at Christmastime. Our gingerbread people had to meet certain size, shape and decorative criteria, then we had to use correct tools appropriately to create them. Finally, we had to evaluate our final decoration and what we had learnt throughout the whole project.
On the very last day, we had some fun playing a whole class Snowman Drive! A game which required rolling certain numbers on a dice, in a certain order, to build a snowman.
Merry Christmas everyone!

Termly Round Up

Girls' Football Team

The girls football team represented the school really brilliantly this half term. Although they only played 3 out of their four matches (as one team did not turn up!!) they showed amazing fighting spirit, resilience and great teamwork. Thank you to Mrs Hannaford for training the team.

Eco Council News

Our eco council have been very busy this half term. Not only have they completed an audit to identify areas for improvement, but they have started an energy-saving mission in school. They encouraged families to take part in 'Cut your carbon month' in November and started a 'soft plastics' recycling scheme in school. At the end of November they carried out a 'litter pick' on Foster's field in Gunnislake. I look forward to what they will implement in the Spring term and beyond.

Staff Departures (and arrivals)

We are sad to say goodbye to Mrs Sam Gates, from the nursery and Miss Ellie Cunningham, from breakfast club and Year 6. Both are valued and well-respected members of our Copper Valley family and both will be sadly missed. Sam and Ellie are leaving to take up positions in our neighbouring school of Copper Fields. I am sure that you join me in wishing them the very best for the future. We hope that they will visit us often.

I am pleased to welcome Mrs Emma Deacon to Copper Valley. She will be joining us in the Nursery as Mrs Gate's replacement. I know that you will welcome her warmly to the school. She is no stranger as she is also a parent. Mrs Birkenshaw will be the year 6 teaching assistant, certainly for the immediate future.

Christmas Activities

It has, once again, been an incredibly busy build up to the Christmas holidays. Out Year 1 and Year 2 classes delighted audiences with two brilliant performances of 'Shine star, shine'. The Year 1 class also enjoyed a festive outing to the theatre to see Father Christmas.

A huge audience of families and locals were entertained at the Rifle Volunteer by some amazing singing from the pupils. They treated the audience to a selection of carols and Christmas songs. Thank you to Miss Owen for rehearsing them and to Mrs Trapp for conducting them on the day.

Many families enjoyed 'Breakfast with Santa' on Sunday 14^th December. A big thank you to all staff who helped to make this such a happy and successful event, particularly Mrs Wright who coordinated the whole thing. Of course, thanks to Santa himself for giving up his Sunday morning at his busiest time of the year.

The fun continued during the last week of term with an excellent rendition of 'Wiggly Nativity' by the Reception children. Families attending really enjoyed it and the 'wriggling' raised many laughs.

Christmas jumper and dinner day was a great success. Thank you to Bex, our cook, who was ably assisted by Jaye to create a delicious lunch- some children went back for thirds! Thank you also to Mrs Wood and Mrs Penhorwood who gave up a few hours of their retirement time to help out.

Finally, we rounded off the term with a beautiful Christingle. Thank you to all of you who attended, what a magical way to finish!

 

Finally, I would like to thank you all for your continued support of the school. It is a pleasure to work with your wonderful children and watch them grow and develop. I also want to thank the amazing team of dedicated people who teach and care for all the pupils. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you a very happy 2026.

 

 

 

November/December 2025

We have had another busy month and a bit in Year 4. During November and December, in Geography we have been looking into the question 'What impact did travel during the time of the Tudors have on the world as we know it?' The children have really enjoyed investigating the things travellers during the Tudor period found and how they impacted people then and now. They researched Sir Francis Drake and his circumnavigations, thinking about his discoveries and their impact on us today. The children also explored maps and atlases, in particular focusing on maps created back during the Tudor times and then comparing them to maps from today. They researched the tools that used to be used to draw and plot maps and thought about the reliability of them compared to the technology used today. The children learnt about the Mercator Projection and the distortions between a globe and a map. They then began to research some of the other travellers of the Tudor period and how their discoveries impacted the world as we know it as well as trade that happened between certain countries and how some of those trade links are still used today. The children came up with some brilliant ideas about the discoveries made and the affects of them since.

In Maths we have been continuing with our NCETM Mastering Number at Key Stage 2 work alongside our Whiterose unit of Multiplication.4

In PE we have been learning the skills and techniques needed to play a game of Basketball. The children have thoroughly enjoyed this unit. 

We completed two English units, one was a narrative unit on Mrs Stink which involved us learning about the story, the characters and the authors writing style before planning, writing and editing our own chapter for the story. The other was a non-fiction unit, we recapped previous knowledge on Volcanoes and Mountains and then learnt about the different features of explanation texts before planning, writing and editing our own on Mount St Helen's. 

November 2025

In November, Year 5 have been learning about materials. We have tested the properties of materials, such as magnetism, electrical and heat conductivity and their transparency. We have looked at many different mixtures and solutions and thought about if, and how, they could be separated. We have learnt about the changes in materials some reversible (can be changed back again) and some irreversible (cannot be changed back, new products have been made).
In RE, following on from our History unit last half term (WWII), we have been learning about Judaism and the importance of the Torah to the Jewish community. 

Weeks ending 14th November 2025

The weeks continue to fly by in the hectic run up to Christmas. Here is a round up of what we have been doing in school!

Bag2School
Thank you to all of you who donated unwanted clothing to the school. We raised £54 for school funds which is a brilliant amount. we will be repeating this collection in the New Year  as many people have a 'spring clean' after the festive period!

Baby News!
Mrs Trudi Stephens, who is a Teaching Assistant in the ARC, gave birth to a little boy, Richard, on 24th October. He came very early (31 weeks) and was tiny but her is now doing really well. I know that you will join me in sending her and her husband huge congratulations.

Anti Bullying Week
This year anti bullying week ran from 10th - 14th November. All pupils learnt about strategies to combat any bullying behaviours that they may encounter and how to ensure that they themselves do not engage in these behaviours.

EYFS Open Evening
On 12th November we held an open evening for prospective parents  for our Reception class from September 2026. It was lovely to meet these parents and 'show off' the school to them and explain the great opportunities which their children will experience when they attend Copper Valley.


Children In Need
On Friday 14th November the pupils dressed in pyjamas/spots/mufti for Children in Need. Thank you for supporting this great cause for disadvantaged young people. You will be pleased to know that we raised £128 for the charity.

October 2025

We have had another busy month in Year 4. We finished off our Geography topic on Climate Change by completing a piece of work which aimed to answer our question 'What is climate change and what can we do about it?' The children have really enjoyed learning about ways in which we can all do our bit to help reduce the effects of climate change. Many of them have worked with some of our school Eco-council to suggest ways in which we, as a school, can have a positive impact on the environment and the future of our planet.

In Science we completed our work on different habitats that are being affected by climate change and finished off the unit by designing our own conservation areas. The children researched the animals/species they would like to help protect and then thought carefully about all of the features their conservation area would need in order to be successful. 

In Literacy we read the book 'I can Save the Earth' and the children completed lots of work on persuasive texts before they wrote their own persuasive text to try and persuade people to help curb climate change. They also completed  poetry unit of work which saw them learn about simile and metaphor poems before creating their own.

In Maths we continued our work on times table whilst completing an addition and subtraction unit. In particular we focused on column addition and subtraction methods.

In Art we studied the comic book artist Dav Pilkey and the children created their own comic book strips in the style of him. They practiced lots of cartoon style drawing techniques before editing and refining their own work. 

PE this month saw the children completing lots of circuit activities before working as a class to create their own circuit training which they all thoroughly enjoyed taking part in. 

October 2025

October has been a busy month in Year 5!
We have launched into our WWII topic fully, learning about when WWII happened, why it started and what it would have been like living through WWII. We have especially focused on the life of Anne Frank in our unit on diary recounts. Year 5 have found the experiences of Anne Frank fascinating. They have been really intrigued about her time in the annex and what was happening in Europe at the time which meant the Franks needed to hide. As part of our history learning, we have been discussing whether the information we read about WWII is reliable or unreliable.
In PE, we have just finished our dance unit. Year 5 thought really carefully about how to express certain events through dance and produced some fantastic pieces in lessons. And in music, we have been learning to play notes on a keyboard using the correct five finger position and how to play simple pieces as a group and individually. We are very lucky to be joined by Mr Jane on a Friday to teach us!
In between all of that... Year 5 have found time to consider World Mental Health Day. We made 'Chatterboxes' to help us talk about ways to keep positive mental health. We also have been celebrating Black History Month by reading stories by black authors and learning about some of the incredible campaigners throughout history who stood up for equal rights for ALL people. Finally, we were very lucky to have Alice's mum visit us and talk about her faith and the celebration of Diwali which happened at the end of this month. WOW!

Week ending 17th October 2025

Mufti
Thank you very much for donating so many lovely items for the tombola and supporting this at the Harvest festival. We are going to put the proceeds of the tombola towards buying a gift for each child for Christmas.

Eco Council
You may have noticed this on our Facebook page, but we now have an Eco Council representing both schools. The aim of this council is to encourage everyone to reduce energy use and carbon emissions at a school level. We are also concerned with ensuring that the school environment is tidy and eco- friendly.  Look out on here and Facebook for updates.

Harvest Festival
We held our annual Harvest Festival at the Infant and Nursery school on Thursday afternoon. It was a great celebration filled with lovey Harvest songs and beautiful poems, courtesy of the Year 6 pupils.There were lots of family members who were able to join us and we were delighted ablout that. We are grateful for all of the generous donations of food that you sent into the schools. These have now been delivered to the Callington Foodbank and will provide valuable provisions for families in need.

Honey Fair Art Competition

Although Storm Amy prevented the choir from singing at Callington Honey Fair, the children still submitted art for the competition. I am delighted to tell you that we won 3rd prize overall. We received at £50 cheque and we are going to be presented with a goodie hamper on Monday during celebration assembly. We done to everyone who created lovely art work.

September 2025

We have had a busy first month in Year 4. They children have settled in and are getting used to the new routines and work load. This month we have been looking into Climate Change. This has run through our Literacy, Geography and Science work. The children have researched and recapped what climate change is and its affect on the planet and more specifically, in Science, different habitats within the various climate zones.
We read the book 'The bear in the stars' in Literacy and the children completed lots of work on word clauses and the structures of stories. They then re-wrote the story in their own words and wrote their own endings. After investigating the different climate zones the children picked an animal from three different zones and completed work on how climate change was affecting those animals and their habitats. 

In Maths we have started our daily times table work this month as well as completing our place value unit. We have covered number lines, rounding and roman numerals. The children particularly enjoyed learning our roman numerals song.

In Art, the children have completed lots of work on Climate change, creating art work that represents the planet both with climate change and what the planet would look like if we were able to slow the rate of it down. The children also created multimedia posters to help encourage and persuade people to help curb climate change.

In Music they have investigated what pitch, tempo, dynamics and rhythm mean and listened to lots of different styles of music to better understand the instruments involved. The children also listened to the 'Carnival of the Animals' and made notes about the animals they believed the music was representing, they then sketched these in the sketchbooks whilst re-listening to the music.

Week ending 3rd October 2025

Year 3 Half Marathon

The weeks continue to fly by. This week the Year 3 children have been running laps of the field during their break and lunchtimes. They ran enough lengths to complete a half marathon. Thank you to those of you who sponsored them in this endeavour. All sponsorship raised has raised money to pay for their upcoming trip to Wildwood. 

Bag 2 School

In the next week or so we will be sending home some Bag 2 School bags for you to fill with your unwanted items of clothing, shoes, towels, handbags etc. These bags need to be returned to school by first thing on 6th November. Thank you, in advance , for your support with this.

Honey Fair

Sadly, the choir's scheduled performance at Honey Fair on Saturday was cancelled, due to the weather conditions. Thank you to Miss Owen for preparing them - what a shame they were not able to perform.

Individual Photographs

The school photographer will be visiting the Infant and Nursery School on 16th October  to take individual and sibling photographs. If you would like younger siblings included in these photographs then you can bring them into school from 8.15am. These photographs will then be returned in time for Christmas as they make excellent presents!

Mufti

This Friday (10th October) is a Mufti day. Children can come to school in non-school uniform. We ask for a donation of a prize for either an adult or a children's tombola. Thank you.

September 2025

Year 5 have made a fantastic start to the year! We have built on our Maths learning about place value; using and applying what we have learnt in previous years to larger numbers - up to 6 digits. Rounding has proven a bit challenging, but we have persevered and definitely got better at it. In English, we began the year revising the eight main word classes and how three of them can be used to create noun phrases and expanded noun phrases. We have also been reminded how to accurately punctuate direct speech and have been using this in our narrative writing.

Art has been a big focus for the first couple weeks of term as we have been preparing our pieces for the Honey Fair art competition. The theme for Year 5 and 6 this year is Big Cats so we have been experimenting with different materials to create big cat fur patterns. Alongside art, we have been learning about how to use search engines and how to identify reliable sources of information on the internet. And in French, we have been learning how to introduce ourselves, ask and explain how we are feeling and what our name is.

Week ending 12th September 2025

We have made it through the first full week back at school.
It has been so lovely to see all of your lovely children again- haven't lots of them shot up during the summer!
They have all settled very well into their new classes and are getting to know the routines of the classrooms and their new teachers and teaching assistants.

Meet the teacher
Thank you to those of you who were able to visit your child's class on Wednesday. The beginning of the school year is always a great opportunity to find out what the children will be learning and to visit their classrooms. I hope that those who came found it useful.

Y3 Bake Sale
Year 3 raised over £120 in the bake sale on Friday to help to lower the cost of their upcoming trip. The children had great fun with Mrs Speare and Mrs Birkenshaw baking a whole range of delicious delights- they even made an apple cake with apples picked from the Reception class garden. Thank you to all parents who also donated cakes and supported the event.

Newsletter
You should have all received a copy of the latest school newsletter, via email last week. This gives you important dates coming up at school, including all term times and INSET days. There are paper copies available in the foyer of the school.

Holiday Requests/Absence
A reminder that you need to complete a holiday request form if you wish to take your child out of school during term time. Time off during term time is only authorised for exceptional circumstances and if you do take your child out of school this will be an unauthorised absence, If your child is absent for a period of 10 or more sessions/5 days within any rolling 10 school week period then a penalty notice can be issued. Unauthorised absences are also recorded for a child when a parent does not provide the school with a reason as to why the child is absent. There are leaflets in the school foyer with more details about penalty notices.

Mufti
The next mufti day is on Friday 10th October. Pupils do not need to wear school uniform on this day. We ask, in return, that they bring a tombola prize which would be suitable for either an adult or a child.