Welcome to Gunwalloe Class
Teacher
Amanda Foster
(afoster@stithians.cornwall.sch.uk)
Support Staff
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| Jo Strick | Adele Zschiesche | Lacey Isaacs |
Welcome to Gunwalloe Class.
Information
Our Welcome Pack details all the day-to-day information you may require.
The Photo Gallery is full of helpful images of the Gunwalloe team, members of the school staff, and pictures of the inside and outside facilities.
The school's Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Policy includes:
- The school's vision
- Aims and principles
- Planning and organising the curriculum
- Classroom organisation and resources
- Use of whole school resources
- Induction
- Involving parents
- Language and literacy supporting the reception child
- Assessment and record keeping
- Monitoring and evaluation
The Early Years ELGs and Development Statements introduces parents to the seven areas of learning and development.
A baseline assessment will take place within the first six weeks of entry to school. This information pack is sent out to all parents at the beginning of the year. For more information, see the government website here.
Class information
Every Friday I sneak into a bag in the hopes of joining one of the children for the weekend. I am a great guest as I am snuggly, quiet and will eat almost anything. I am partial to biscuits so it is probably best if you hide them up high in a cupboard. I travel with few possessions, even though Miss Foster has promised to make me some pyjamas. If you would like to add something for the next sleepover, I would be very appreciative (ie a toothbrush)
Termly Newsletters
Click below to read the latest termly newsletter
Newsletter - Autumn Term 1
Yearly Topic webs
Half-termly topic webs for the school year are shown below. Click on the available links to view the topic webs.
| Autumn term | Spring term | Summer term |
| Beep! All Aboard. Animals - from tall to short |
Let's Dig It! Children's Choice |
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Weekly celebration certificates - Autumn Term 1
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10th January 2025 |
POW - Bryn
Virtue - Elias
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| 17th January 2025 |
POW - Ben
Virtue - Mawgan
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24th January 2025 |
POW - Robbie
Virtue - Jai Jai
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31st January 2025 |
POW - Millie Virtue - Ronnie |
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7th February 2025 |
POW - Betony Virtue - Gracie R |
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14th February 2025 |
POW - Gracie Leigh virtue - Arthyen
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28th February 2025 |
POW - Emily
virtue - Gracie L
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6th March 2025 |
POW - Ollie
Virtue - Amelia
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13th March 2025 |
POW-Ronnie
Virtue - Kara
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21st March 2025 |
POW Lowen
Virtue Chari
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Weekly blog
21st March 2025
This week in Gunwalloe we have been learning about looking after pets. The children have all made a pet portrait, describing their own pet, if they have one, or one they would like to own. They have discussed food their pets like to eat, where they live, and what they like to play with. We have watched a fun fact video explaining all the things a pet might need - food, water, shelter, love and medical treatment when necessary. We have created a vet corner in the conservatory where the children can practise their caring skills alongside other role playing activities.
13th March 2025
Science week has been a blast - literally! One of the activities the children have completed is a rocket making and launching experiment. The activity involved using a given set of resources to make a rocket before using our own breath to launch the rocket as high and as far as we could. We also completed two other activities, one of which involved working in groups to make a Curlywurly stretch as far as we could. The children got nice and sticky heating the bar with their hands before manipulating the chocolate and toffee into a long thread. Our final activity of the week was to work in groups to create a poster about animals and their strategies for coping with cold winters.
6th March 2025
This week in Gunwalloe we have continued our theme on underwater animals. We have combined our reading and writing activities with poetry and rhyming texts in the form of stories. The children have had fun listening to, and engaging with, new texts that specifically showcase how rhyming works in order that we could create our own rhyming games. In Maths we have been using the numbers to 8 and, having fun sequencing animals in order of their height using vocabulary such as tall, tallet, tallest and short, shorter and shortest. I was very impressed and excited to see all the costumes worn on World Book Day and the enthusiasm the children had when talking about what they had come as, giving an opportunity for others to learn about characters they may not know much about. In art, we have been recreating animal patterns using paint alongside completing our paper plate sea creatures that are now proudly displayed on our class wall.
28th February 2025
To start our topic 'Animals-from tall to short' we are looking at underwater creatures. This week your child has chosen an animal to create and write about by finding out fun facts from books, the internet and knowledge we they have. We have created a fish maths game using magnetic fishing rods, a creative corner where the children can make small world role play creatures and enjoy telling stories. fresh playdough to make underwater animals and opened a great 'vets' role play in our conservatory. The children have been learning about the number 6, the phoneme ee and all about pandas. What a busy week!
14th February 2025
Our focus this week has been learning about maps and compass points. The children created their pirate ship maps, added grids and the compass points. The next task was to instruct the Captain of our ship, to move in certain directions using North, South, East and West along with the number of grids to jumps. The Captains visited islands with volcanos, caves and treasure, and even found places at sea to visit including shipwrecks, anchors, whales and other boats. All the children have participated in a variety of activities that gave us an opportunity to assess where they are in phonics, reading, writing and maths. What a journey they have been on since September! It was great to see you all at your meeting to discuss your child's progress and their next steps.
7th February 2025
Ahoy landlubbers! This week we have taken a journey through the lives of pirates to understand who they were and what they did. We learnt that there were women pirates too who took on the challenge of being at sea. Grace O'Malley was one such pirate, and through her we learnt about piracy and trading. We created a PE lesson about travelling around the sea and into a galleon using a variety of apparatus - travelling, balancing, swinging, climbing and throwing. All Gunwalloe pirates went on a treasure hunt and collected 53 doubloons. They did this by answering questions on pirate terminology, and pirate facts. For searching for and collecting over 50 doubloons, the children had a snack time pirate feast. To finish our week we have made pirate maps, created a pirate role play area, played pirate games, completed pirate maths and finally had our pirate photos framed with our new pirate name. Finally, your child should have come home with a pirate prize of a certificate, gold doubloon and some choccy. All pirated out now!
31st January 2024
This week in Gunwalloe we have started a mini topic on boats. The children have learnt that boats have different names and are used for different purposes. The children have also used their fine motor skills to draw a boat, naming as many parts as they could. We have used a variety of resources to learn about floating and sinking before we make small boats to use in our sailing race next week. In Maths we have continue our numberwork using numbers to 5 and then at 6 and 7, subitising, counting, partitioning and matching. In Phonics and reading we have been working on the phonemes ch, sh, th, ng. We have read books with these sounds in them. Or writing has been linked to our topic, labeling boats, plus creating phrases/sentences using our weekly phonics book as a starting point to make our writing more descriptive.
24th January 2025
This week we have been learning about 'recycling' and as part of our vehicle topic, this includes a recycling truck. We watched a video about how our rubbish is picked up by trucks with rubbish in black bins and recycling bags. The children then checked out all of our packaging to look for the recycling logo. We discussed what the packaging told us about which things we could recycle and then we had a big clear up, sorting all our rubbish into the correct coloured bags. Next, we learnt about the 3 Rs - reduce, reuse and recycle, before finally looking at how rubbish affects our environment. We did find out that Cornwall converts our non-recyclable rubbish to energy and no landfill is used. In phonics, writing and reading we have now learnt about the phonemes 'th' and 'ng' whilst in Maths we have been sorting and counting 3d shapes and working on subitising and partitioning five. Finally, we have started constructing our vehicles, made from the recycling materials we have collected in school.
17th January 2025
Choo, choo! Our mini weekly topic has been 'trains'. This week we have learnt about Richard Trevithick and the steam locomotive he designed back in 1804. We have watched a video of the replica of the locomotive in action, learnt a song about how the steam locomotive works, drawn pictures of trains and looked at how trains have changed over time. Our home corner is a train station with a ticket office and a platform, where the children are having fun going on a journey. In Maths we have been working with 3d shapes - sorting, matching and building and continuing our number work with looking at one more.
10th January 2025
We have had a wonderful return to school after our Christmas break and all children are excited to get back into our daily routines. We have introduced our termly topic and explained what activities and learning experiences we will have. This week we have completed holiday news, a new phoneme 'ch', maths numbers to 20 on our vehicle numberline, 3d shapes, guided reading and started our DT project - create a model car from junk. We will be adding a pivot, a hinge and a slider to the vehicles as we progress as part of our science coverage.
RESOURCES
Introduction to Phonics - All you need to know about phonics - Pearson (youtube.com)
Letter sounds - Phonics: How to pronounce pure sounds | Oxford Owl (youtube.com)
Letter formation - Learning to Write with Correct Letter Formation full Alphabet (youtube.com)
Bug Club - sequence of learning in Reception
