Governor Recruitment

We are currently seeking new governors to join our Governing Body and would be delighted if parents/carers at our school, or local residents would like to join us.

What is a school governor?
School governors have a varied and important role, in helping our school run effectively. They have 3 core functions:

· Planning the strategic direction of the school.
· Overseeing financial performance of the school and ensuring money is well spent.
· Holding the school leadership to account.

The governor role is strategic rather than operational. Governors don’t get involved with the day to day running of a school, instead supporting and challenging the school’s leadership team to drive school improvement. They champion the work the school does.

Our Governing Body
This year we have joined together with four other schools within the Bridge Trust (Polruan, Duloe, Trenode and Polperro) to form one collaborative Governing Body. We meet all together every term, sometimes in person and sometimes via Microsoft Teams. Our governors are parents and people in our local community and in their role they:

· Get to know the school, including visiting the school during school hours to gain a good understanding of the school’s strengths and areas of development, and completing monitoring documentation.
· Attend induction training and regular relevant training and development events.
· Attend meetings (full governing board meetings and meetings with the Head of School) and read documentation before the meetings. · Act in the best interests of all the pupils of the school.
· Behave in a professional manner, as set down in the governing board’s code of conduct, including acting in strict confidence.

Being a school governor is a commitment and a responsibility, but offers you the chance to see first-hand the impact you can make in improving education for children in our community.

Do I need to have certain qualifications?
No special qualifications are needed and the most important thing is to have a keen interest in the school and be prepared to play an active part in the governing body’s work.

How do I get involved?
Please make an appointment to meet with me, via the school office  secretary@pelyntprimary.co.uk.

If it’s something you might be interested in, we hope you’ll apply. We are really keen to have more local community voice within our school.

Kind regards,
Abigail Rich

Head of School

The Under the Sea Garden Renovation Project

We are incredibly lucky to have such varied and extensive outdoor areas for our children at Pelynt. One of these is our Under the Sea Garden, to the left of the playground. This is in need of some love, to turn it back into a magical outdoor learning space. FOPS have very kindly volunteered to clear this area on Saturday 4th February between 9.30am and 12pm, but they need your help! Once this has been cleared, we will be looking for volunteers for the next stage of painting and planting renovations. Please catch Rachel Rowe, or myself, at the school gate, or send an email to head@pelyntprimary.co.uk if you can help. A huge thank you to FOPS for organising this!

New high quality books

Part of our school development this year has included looking at the books that the children have the opportunity to be immersed in through our English lessons, library and Reading for Pleasure daily sessions. Through FOPS fundraising, and the generosity of our families, we are in the process of buying lots of wonderful new books. These have been carefully selected to include ‘old but gold’ classics and ‘new and bold’ contemporary authors, from an extensive range of genres. These will make a huge difference to the learning opportunities available to our children, so thank you!

Cornish Art

It is really important to us that the children in our school have a deep understanding of Cornwall, including inspirational people who have made Cornwall their home. We have been very lucky to secure some funding for a local artist, Sean Hewitt, to come into school to create art with groups of children in February. He will be teaching them about inspirational Cornish art and using this to create a collaborative piece with them, to display and treasure in our school entrance.

Class Celebration Assemblies

We would like to invite our families to our Class Celebration Assemblies at the end of this half term. These will follow the same format as last time, with a whole class celebration of learning in the hall (in the classroom for Class 1) then time together with your child to enjoy their books more closely. Please come to the school office to be signed in.

Class 1: Monday 6th February 2.30-3.15pm

Class 2: Tuesday 7th February 2.30-3.15pm

Class 3: Wednesday 8th February 9-9.45am

Class 4: Thursday 9th February 2.30-3.15pm


Kind regards,

Ms Abigail Rich

Head of School

Merry Christmas!

It has been a magical end to the Autumn Term at Pelynt. We started our Christmas celebrations with our Christmas Fayre, organised by our wonderful children, staff and FOPS. The children made all sorts of delicious treats, Christmas crafts to sell/make and games for families to play. A huge thank you to FOPS for all their hard work with the refreshments, a raffle with some of the best prizes that we have ever seen, a tombola and for organising a wonderful range of stalls run by local crafts people and businesses. A phenomenal £900 was raised!

This week started with a very icy Monday. I’m so grateful to all staff for braving the weather to get to school, so that we could open for any children able to get to us. We then had two fantastic performances of our whole school, Strictly Come Dancing themed Nativity, ‘Lights, Camel, Action.’ We’re so proud of all of the children for their singing and acting energy. A special well done to James, for his particularly enthusiastic delivery and for stepping in at the last minute to say additional lines when someone was away. Tess and Claudia need to watch out! Thank you to our families for helping with costumes and for being a fabulous audience.

On Wednesday, the children had a delicious Christmas dinner. The atmosphere of everyone enjoying their lunch together was wonderful. A big thank you to our cook Jackie and all Pelynt staff for their hard work serving the lunch.

On Thursday the children had their Christmas parties, followed by a very special visit from Father Christmas, who was very impressed with the impeccable manners of our children. In our final Celebration Assembly, Green Team reached a fantastic 1198 house points! We also announced the winners for our Christmas jumper artwork and our 100% attendance raffle. It was great to see so many children receive a certificate for being here every day of the term. Congratulations to George for winning the raffle prize!

Our week finished at church with a Christmas celebration of readings, carols and some favourite Christmas songs by candlelight. Thank you to Reverend Allen for making this so special and Mrs Allen for organising our music.

The first term of a new school year is always a busy one, with new initiatives and some new staff this year, including me! I am so proud of the team that we have at Pelynt, who work so hard and always with a smile on their faces, to provide the very best care for our children.

We know that this time of year can be difficult for some families for many reasons, with many of you feeling the financial strain. Mrs Thompson has sent home the codes from Cornwall Council for our families who are entitled to extra support financially this winter. If you are struggling, please do get in touch with us.

From everyone at Pelynt, we hope that you have a happy and healthy Christmas and will see you again on Tuesday 3rd January 2023 for an exciting new term of learning opportunities!

Ms Abigail Rich
Head of School

Autumn Term 2 Week 5

We have lots of exciting events coming up over the last two weeks of term.  Please see below for more details!

 Nativity performances Monday 12th December at 2pm and Tuesday 13th December at 6pm

We still have a few tickets available, please contact Mrs Thompson with requests for additional tickets. 

Christmas Jumper day

Just a reminder that Christmas jumper and Christmas party day is on Thursday 15^th December. Christmas Jumper day is a fundraising event for Save the Children.  We know that this is an expensive time of year for everyone, so if you are able to contribute £1, this is not expected, but very much appreciated.  We would be grateful if you could provide a small contribution of party food to be shared with your child’s class at the party. For example, small cakes, biscuits or crisps. Any leftover sealed packages will be donated to the food bank via the church.   Please give to your child to bring to their classroom in the morning.  Due to potential allergies, no nuts please.

Christmas Celebration at the church

This is on Friday 16^th December at 2.30pm.  Come along and hear some of our songs from the whole school Nativity and join in with some favourite carols and Christmas songs.  All welcome! 

Football Club and Art Club

There will be no football or art club for the rest of the term, due to them clashing with Christmas events. There will also be no family Friday on the last day of term.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in contact with me or Mrs Thompson.  We look forward to seeing you at our events!

Kind regards,
Ms Abigail Rich
Head of School

Carnglaze Caverns

Last week, we took a group of children from years 2-6 to Carnglaze Caverns for our Bridge Trust Arts Festival, where the children sang two songs from the musical Mary Poppins.  We were incredibly proud of their dedication to learn their words and confidence to perform in front of such a large audience.  They certainly all deserved their ‘Excellent Eagle’ awards in Celebration Assembly.

Attendance and House Points Winners

Congratulations to Class 3 for winning the Otis (On Time In School) superhero mascot for week 4 and to Class 4, who are proving very hard to beat, for winning Edna (Every Day Never Away) award for the highest attendance (96.3%).  Thank you to our families for ensuring that your children are in school on time to be able to access every learning opportunity available to them. We are getting close to our end of term attendance raffle, where children with 100% attendance can win a prize! Finally, a big well done to Green House for achieving the most house points, with a total so far this term of 706!

Nativity and Carols

All families have been sent a letter today regarding tickets for ‘Lights, Camel, Action’, our Strictly Come Dancing themed Nativity, which the whole school will be performing on Monday 12^th December at 2pm and Tuesday 13^th December at 6pm.  Please email your ticket preferences to secretary@pelyntprimary.co.uk by Friday 25^th November.  We will also be inviting families to our whole school Christmas Carols at church on Friday 16^th December at 2.30pm, which isn’t a ticketed event.

Christmas Fayre

Next Monday, 5^th December is our Christmas Fayre, where every class will be making things to sell.  There will also be games to play, delicious refreshments hosted by FOPS, and stalls from local businesses.  You will also be able to see the beautiful Christmas tree decorations that the children are busy making this week.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Kind regards,
Abigail Rich

Head of School

I can’t quite believe that am now half-way through my first term at Pelynt. I have thoroughly loved my time here already. We have the most amazing children, extremely supportive families and a wonderfully dedicated staff.  It’s really important to us that the whole school community is aware of what is going on behind the scenes to move the school forward, so I’m going to outline some key developments that we are working on this year.

A key focus of my first term is to monitor the many things that are going well already at our school, and also explore opportunities to make things better, creating a School Improvement Plan, which outlines what we will be developing and changing, to provide the best possible experience for our children and families from Pre-School to Year 6.

I have started to introduce some new ideas based on the latest educational research. This includes breaking teaching across the curriculum into manageable learning chunks, to minimise cognitive overload, and developing the use of learning journey progression maps, where the children can clearly see the direction that their learning will take them across a topic or enquiry question. Key knowledge is regularly recapped to promote security in long term memory. We are developing the use of learning walls in our classrooms, to make these even more effective learning tools for children to be able to refer to, promoting independence when tackling a challenge. We are strengthening the concept of having a growth mindset and when learning is tough, to say “I can’t do it…yet” rather than giving up. We are teaching the children that mistakes are a good thing and necessary for deep learning to take place.

Reading is a key focus this year. We are working closely with the Bridge Trust English lead to introduce ‘Reciprocal Reading’ in our Guided Reading sessions. The children are learning to take on one of the ‘Fab Four’ Reading roles (clarifier, questioner, predictor and summariser). Reading for pleasure is timetabled in daily and every child is read to at the end of the day. We will also be working with our fundraising team on FOPS (Friends Of Pelynt School) to develop the range of books in school.  Oracy, and the use of high level vocabulary, are also a priority this year. We are introducing new ideas such as weekly vocabulary lessons and ‘I see, I think, I wonder’ assemblies.

Staff work very closely with subject leaders across the trust, with expertise regularly being utilised to drive curriculum development. This has included staff visiting other schools to see best practice and visits into school from professionals across the trust to model effective teaching strategies.

Early Years is where the foundations in learning are made, and are therefore a crucial part of our school. I have been reviewing the provision and practice in Pre-School and Class 1, developing the use of ‘Explore and Learn Time’ (continuous provision), the teaching of phonics and oracy. We are also improving the use of Tapestry, our online learning journals.

Our SENDCO is in school each week and has been working hard with myself, the children and families to ensure that children with additional needs are identified and the provision needed for their individual developments is in place. She has also completed staff training about the effects of trauma on children and the role school plays in supporting these individuals and their families.

We are also trying hard to get parents more involved in school life and to ensure that they are more aware of their child’s progress. This has included Family Friday sessions every week in Class 1, face to face parent consultations and our Class Celebration Assemblies in the last week before the holiday, where the individual successes of each child in each class were celebrated.

On the INSET day before the holiday, teachers went to another school in our trust, Looe Primary Academy, to focus on exciting developments in other Bridge schools. This had a particular focus on reading, maths, EYFS and Science and we have already planned how we can utilise these ideas at Pelynt.

We have six key values as a trust, which are promoted in all Bridge schools. Discussions about the behaviour characteristics of different animals in our new House Team Assemblies (where children across the school now come together with others in their house each week) have linked creatures to our values. These are: excellent eagle, determined salmon, creative chameleon, responsible penguin, enthusiastic dog and curious meerkat. These will be at the heart of our celebration assemblies each week, along with a focus on being kind.

We celebrated Arts Week earlier in the term, where children across the school explored art, music and drama centred around the wonderful world of Roald Dahl. Some of the artistic creations from this week can be seen in our school hall.

We are also promoting the importance of attendance. Being in school every day, from when we open at 8.40am, is important to your child’s achievement, wellbeing, and their wider development. Analysis of national assessment data when children are in Year 6 (SATS) and GCSE results consistently shows the positive impact of good attendance and punctuality. I meet with Mrs Thompson fortnightly to review lateness and absence, writing to/meeting with those parents where there is a concern. We will be starting various whole school initiatives including attendance superhero mascots for classes to look after if they have the highest percentage of children in school and on time. These are EDNA the superhero cat (Every Day Never Away) and OTIS the superhero dog (On Time In School). There will be awards at the end of each half term for children with the highest attendance and for being on time every day.   We are also reviewing the names of the school houses with the children, to make these more meaningful to them.

As well as continuing whole school improvement, we have an exciting second half of the term to come, with a musical performance at Carnglaze Caverns and a whole school Strictly Come Dancing themed Nativity! We are really looking forward to sharing these events with our families.

I hope this has given you an insight into just some of the ways that we are improving our school this year. Thank you to everyone in our school community for their support this term. I have been made to feel so welcome by everyone and the drive from our school team to embrace the developments that we are making has been fantastic.

Abigail Rich

Head of School

Roald Dahl Arts Week
This week we have all had a gigantius of a razztwizzler week celebrating the lickswishy world of Roald Dahl in our ‘Arts Week’, through art, music and drama. There has been lots of churgling and a huge dollop of ringbellering!

Class 1 were inspired by 'James and the Giant Peach'. Their learning included using a range of mediums and techniques to create a wonderful whole class piece of art. Class 2 based their learning around the stories ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ and ‘The Enormous Crocodile’. Their artwork included making an enormous collage crocodile as a class, and their own Roly-Poly birds. They also wrote character descriptions of the enormous crocodile and warning posters, as he eats children and is exceptionally good at disguising himself! Class 3 focused on ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ and created collage masks of animals from the story and Andy Warhol inspired fox art. They also created wanted posters for Mr. Fox. Class 4 focused their learning and artwork on ‘The Twits’. After listening to the original story, the children observed, and smelt some examples of the items in Mr. Twit’s beard and used this as inspiration to create a descriptive piece of writing. They enjoyed making mini riddles of new items that could be in the beard, challenging others to guess what they had described. Their artwork was based on the Roly-Poly Bird from the Twits. They created their own versions of the colourful bird using collage. Their favourite part was learning how to draw realistic bird eyes. The children also created the Roly-Poly Bird out of clay. We all loved learning songs from Matilda and look forward to showing you our learning at our Class Celebration events at the end of term!

Parent Consultations
All parents and carers have been emailed about the Parent Consultation afternoons/evenings next week. Please make your appointment via the school office. We really look forward to talking with you about how your child has settled into their new year of learning, areas to celebrate and skills/knowledge that need further development