“Penpol pupils are curious, creative and courageous learners. Our school community believes in authenticity as the foundations of deep-rooted learning. Through our rich and relevant curriculum, we nurture community-minded, forward-facing international citizens of the future.”
The Penpol Junior Choir has been busy preparing for this year’s festivities, rehearsing Christmas songs which are to be performed at a number of events throughout December. After working really hard to learn and polish the songs which were performed at the Camborne Music Festival, the choir have got together during a lunch time to record one of their favourite carols, The Sans Day Carol, to help get everyone in the mood. Please listen to the school choir and enjoy, whilst getting into the Christmas Spirit.
Watch out for the amazing Penpol School Junior Choir as they perform throughout December!
On the 15th November 2018, the Penpol Junior Choir participated in this year’s Camborne Music Festival. The children performed two songs, Touch the Sky and I’m Still Singing, with energy and confidence giving a fantastic performance to the adjudicator and the audience. The choir were awarded with 168 marks (out of 200) and were praised for their energy and spirit and their great part singing. The children really enjoyed the experience and we look forward to the next Music festival.
Another fantastic round of photos! It is brilliant to see so many new faces taking part in the Extreme Reading Challenge. Keep sending in your creative ways to read. The competition is heating up, winners will be announced on the 14th of December. Still plenty of time to get your photos in to reading@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk.
Penpol School have once again been recognised for our pupils outstanding ICT and Computing work and have been shortlisted as a finalist for the Edge Awards 2018.
These awards celebrate the very best technology companies, digital content and entrepreneurs in Cornwall, along with the schools and colleges that help inspire and nurture the digital pioneers of tomorrow.
Penpol School have this year been recognised in the category of “Most Inspirational Educational IT / Digital / Multimedia Project” for our work with the 3D printed winter ornaments we’ve made.
The judges loved the fact that this project included the whole of Key Stage 2 and that it gave so many children the chance to use a technology (namely 3D printing) that they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to. They were blown away with the quality and charm of the decorations that our pupils had created.
We were the only primary school in the whole of Cornwall to make the finals and whilst we didn’t come away as the overall winner, we were treated to a fantastic video and some lovely words from the judges about our school:
"Penpol School is one of the leading schools for Computing and ICT in the South West. With forward thinking ideas and passionate teaching staff, their pupils learn to use technology with excitement and enthusiasm and the school gives them the confidence to embrace the technology around them. They believe that teaching both logical and creative skill sets will see the pupils thrive, whatever the future may bring."
This week we’ve started using the fantastic Scratch 3.0 software to build some pretty interesting programs. Starting with a basic idea of animating our names, we developed ideas and explored options to take our projects in different directions.
Within an hour we’d got 28 completely different projects including games, animations, musical performances and some very unusual pieces of abstract art! Everyone in class pushed themselves to try something new and to experiment, without fear of making a mistake. And when mistakes were made we celebrated them, because with Scratch a mistake is just the first step towards understanding how to make something work!
Well done Class 14, you’ve worked incredibly hard here. Take a look below to see what some of the pupils made and what they thought of their Scratch experiments…
“With my project you can press the numbers on the keyboard all the letters will start bouncing around the screen and change colour.You can change the background colour too by pressing the Space bar.Then if you press the up arrow the letters will all glide back to their normal place and be the right way up so you can see my name again” – Theo
“I have made mine in the line and put music on, then all of the letters spread up in different directions and then all go back together again to ask each other questions.I used code to create my own animations.” – Melissa
“I got my letters to spell my name and then I’ve put some code to make them flash all different colours like a rainbow at different times.And then I’ve got this block of code which asks you a question and you can type an answer to speak to the program” – Izzy
“I have used pieces of code block to create my animation of “E, T and H” and all have their own special parts which make them very funny in all sorts of different ways.I like Scratch because you can go out of your comfort zone but if you make a mistake it’s a perfect opportunity to learn on how to do it so you don’t make that mistake again.” – Ethan
What a fantastic start to our Extreme Reading Challenge! You have certainly been very busy over the holidays. It is fantastic to see you all enjoying reading and coming up with creative ideas, from reading upside down to reading on top of roof tops. I cannot wait to see what you come up with next.
Reading on the biggest deck chair
Reading on a motorbike
Reading in a bin
Reading inside a Roman helmet
Reading on top of a roof
Reading whilst sailing
Group reading around the campfire
Poppy the dog enjoying a bed time story
Reading on top of tyre
Reading to a snake
Reading to cows
Reading in a lift
Reading in the leaves
Reading to friends
Reading on top of pumpkins
Reading at the top of Scafell Pike. At 3210ft (978m), the highest point in England.
Reading the newspaper on top of a roof
Reading in the middle of a compass
Reading on stage at Butlins
Reading at the park
Reading to more cows
Reading all of these in the holidays!
Reading to family
Reading in the middle of a maze
Reading at the airport
Keep the pictures coming in! Don’t forget to email them to reading@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk
This half term we’re starting a big 3D printing project in Computing. Each class has been learning all about 3D design and how to create different models and designs using the 3D design software Tinkercad.
Each class have gone through some quick-fire challenges with limited time and blocks to push their creativity and design skills to the limits. We’ve seen some giraffes made of just two shapes, rockets made of 6 and even models of St Michael’s Mount made using just 4 basic shapes.
The children have really embraced the creative side of Computing with this project so far and are now starting to develop their own ideas for their 3D printer Winter Ornament.
Over the next couple of weeks each child in Key Stage 2 will design four different ornaments, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each, pick their favourite and then make refinements to their favourite design. When they’re happy with their finished product, Mr Woolcock and Paul will make sure that all of the designs get printed before the end of term.
Henry has created a very festive talking hat
Jazmin has designed a lovely black cat in a hat
Jade has recreated her favourite teddy bear
Summer has made a very eye-catching winter decoration
Class 4 love Autumn. We celebrated Harvest time this week and were lucky enough to receive our own Harvest gift from Mrs Smart… lots of delicious cooking apples from her tree, so we decided to get cooking. After a class discussion, we decided on apple crumble – yum!
The children had great fun working together, weighing out the ingredients for the crumble mixture and chopping up the apples. Here is how you do it…
Step 1 – Weigh out 400g of plain flour.
First of all you have to put 5 big spoonfuls of flour in the bowl. (Rosie)
We take turns weighing out the flour.
The girls measure out 5 spoonfuls of flour each.
Everyone keeps an eye on the scales.
Me, Suki and Ava were taking turns getting the sugar. You have to weigh how many pounds it is and then put it in the bowl. (Emily)
Good team work everyone.
The boys are great at working as a team.
Whoops, too much sugar. The girls try to get it back in the bag!
I was cutting the butter with Reggie. We put it in the measuring box, then put it in the bowl. My favourite bit was squishing the butter. (Kensa)
The girls carefully weigh out the butter.
We need a bit more!
I was putting my hands in the flour and squish it up. It was exciting and fun. That was my favourite bit! (Lily)
After mixing the dry ingredients and rubbing in the butter to make the crumble mixture, the children had to cut slices of apple and put them in the baking dish.
I was chopping the apples with Scarlett. We put flour in on top of the apples. (Erin)
Once the apples are chopped and placed in the baking dish, sprinkle the crumble mixture on generously, covering all of the apples. Place in the oven to cook for about 45 minutes or until the apple slices are cooked through. Leave to cool and … Ta-Dah, delicious apple crumble! Well done Class 4, great team work!
Class 4 have had an amazing start to the school year and are settling in really well. They are particularly enjoying their maths lessons this week. The topic is ‘counting and sorting’ and the children are trying to find as many different ways to sort the objects as they can. There has been some interesting ideas! Take a look…
Alice and Lola help each other sort out the yellow and blue objects.
Reggie and Bobby start thinking about sums they can do with the bears they have sorted.
Tilly and Kensa enjoy working as a team.
I was working with Zack and we were sorting out the dominoes. We thought that we could put all the dominoes that were 6 on this side. Then Zack had to count the other spots. If it was 7, he put it in his circle. (Anya)
We sorted out the double numbers. We put double 2 on one side and double 4 on the other. (Poppy & Lottie)
The children found lots of different ways to sort the objects. Some chose to sort by colour or size. Others sorted according to length or shape. There were so many great ideas. I loved seeing the classroom buzzing with enthusiasm and listening to the mathematical talk going on.
Over the summer I took part in the Surf Life Saving GB National Championships.I wasn’t the only one from Penpol there either, Zara was there too!
I did the paddle board race and came third because of a really good wave! I also came fifth in the swim and I came fifth in the board relay.In the sprint I got into the semi finals and in the sprint relay I came fourth.
Because of all the people competing there were two big stages, one for board and one for swim, and we’d swap between the arenas.In between there was loads of really good music.
My favourite part of the whole day was my dad buying me a new board to celebrate coming third – it’s pink with stars.
