The Penpol Times

Class 4 recreate the Great Fire of London

15th June 20185th June 2018 by Penpol School

Class 4 have been learning all about the Great Fire of London this term. To mark the end of their exciting project, the class gathered outside with their handmade London houses to understand just how quickly the fire spread through the city.

Alan started a small fire at one end of the row of houses and before long it had spread to the next house, then the next and then before long the whole of London was on fire!

Check out the video of what happened here:

00:00

Please remember that fire is incredibly dangerous and you should NEVER play with fire yourself.

Internet Legends Assembly with Google

24th May 201822nd May 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

This afternoon we had a very special assembly from Jenny and Daniel who came to visit us from Google. They came down to Cornwall to visit a couple of schools and Penpol were one of the lucky ones chosen.

The assembly itself was linked to our recent work on how to stay safe online and in particular the Be Internet Legends program. The assembly was a chance for the children to celebrate completing their lessons on e-safety and also a chance to experience the various characters and worlds from Interland come to life in the school hall.

Jenny and Daniel bought a whole host of exciting things with them for the assembly, including special hands for everybody to hold up and participate in the assembly with. The hands were green on one side and red on the other, letting us answer yes or no to a number of tricky questions! They also built a massive display in the hall to really get everyone in the mood to learn about e-safety. Giant banners and flags lined every wall in the hall, surrounding us with the colourful characters from Interland.

Audience participation was very much key to this assembly and we all had a chance to get involved and shout out answers at the right times. Daniel and Jenny guided us through the islands of Interland and this proved to be a fun and friendly look at some serious topics including cyberbullying, password hacking, identifying fake information online and sharing sensitive information on the internet.

Speaking to our visitors from Google before the assembly, it was clear that they were very impressed with our Computing lessons at Penpol – particularly the work we’ve all been doing recently on E-Safety. Mr Woolcock and the special guests spoke at length about the animation project we’re working on with the Year 5s and 6s which links to Interland and they are both very excited to see the finished films in the next few weeks.

To complete an already fantastic afternoon, Jenny and Daniel also gave out certificates to every child to confirm that they are now Internet Legends!

Thomas in Class 7 enjoyed the assembly so much he went straight home and created these lovely posters featuring characters from Interland. Well done Thomas, they are lovely!

Penpol have Sporting Stars in Gymnastics!

15th June 201822nd May 2018 by Nic Stanlake

This week we’ve had some excellent news from Kiki, Myla, Zannah and Maizy who have all competed and won prizes in gymnastics. Here they are talking about their wins in their own words…

Kiki (Class 7)

“I definitely didn’t think that I would win, but I was really proud when I did.” Kiki came first in her Gymnastics with her tumbling routine.

Myla (Class 3), Zannah (Class 10) and Maizy (Class 10)

“There was a gymnastics competition and we had to learn three runs and we had to do them and the judges judged us. There was sixth, fifth, fourth, third, second and first places. We came fourth, fifth and sixth overall and have these lovely rosettes to show how well we did. There were 14 people taking part so we were really excited to be in the top six.”

From the Computer Screen to the Real World

18th May 201818th May 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

Over the past few weeks Taran has been helping run Computing Club along with some friends on a Thursday lunchtime. Whilst there he’s been using his extra computing time to design and create a plastic storage unit for his tent on a program called Tinkercad.

When I first opened my tent I saw a very handy hook right in the centre. I thought “that could have a hanging basket on it” but instead of designing one hanging basket I designed four and had them 3D printed out in the same colour they were on the computer. I’m going to use my invention for general storage in my tent and I think it will be very useful. – Taran, Y6

He has measured, designed and refined his digital model to the point where he was ready to get it 3D printed. It took nearly 14 hours to print all four parts of the model, but now it’s finished he’s delighted with the result. He now has his very own, unique, storage solution for his tent. Well done Taran, an amazing project.

Penpol School are sharing their ‘Internet Legends’ status!

17th May 201817th May 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

Here at Penpol we’ve been working really hard to learn all about staying safe online and how to look after each other in the digital world. We’ve been one of the first schools to use the exciting and innovative Be Internet Legends program from Google and ParentZone, which has involved a series of five fun and immersive lessons for Key Stage 2.

We were contacted by ParentZone, the company who are helping Google introduce this program into schools in the UK and they were so impressed by what we’ve been doing here at Penpol that they’ve written a blog post about us for their website! Not only that, but they emailed the story out to every school in the country, to share our best practice with e-safety. The feedback from ParentZone on our implementation of the Be Internet Legends program has been overwhelmingly positive and hopefully we can help share these skills with other schools through this blog.

You can read the blog here.

We’re expecting a visit from Google next week to give a special assembly to our Key Stage 2 children, so keep an eye out for photos from that soon.

Mr Woolcock

Super Students Attend STEM Program

12th May 201811th May 2018 by Nic Stanlake

Kian and Max (both Class 11) have both regularly taking part in an event called ‘Super Saturdays’ at Camborne School. From this there stills were recognised and they were invited to attend the Nexus STEM camp in the Easter Holidays. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, during this camp the boys had lots of fun.

The week consisted of building boats, marshmallow bridges, mixing chemicals and all things that go bang.

I had an amazing week learning about and doing things I wouldn’t get to do in Primary school- Max

Nexus was a really good experience and I recommend Camborne School Super Saturdays to anyone who loves science and maths- Kian

Reception Show they have the ‘F(rançais)’ Factor

12th May 20188th May 2018 by Jack Emery

This term, Reception have been learning about food and drink in preparation for their French café lesson this week.

The children were brilliant at recalling different foods in French, saying which colour they were in French and also singing a song about food. They also acted out the classic ‘le Bonhomme de Pain d’Épice'(The Gingerbread Man), with both classes joining in with the rhyme:

Cours,cours aussi vite que tu le peux. (Run, run, as fast fast as you can.)

Tu ne m’attrapas pas! (You can’t catch me!)

Je suis le bonhomme de pain d’épice. (I’m the Gingerbread Man.)

Classes 1 and 2 watched also got a taste of this week’s French café lesson. They watched a short video of Classes 9 + 10 ordering food and drink in French and enjoyed the song so much they wanted to sing along.

Check out their efforts in singing the French song below…

Class 1 French song

Class 2 French song

Year 1 are Movie Music Makers

3rd May 2018 by Colin Jones

The children in Year One have been creating soundtracks for a clip of the classic cartoon Tom and Jerry. After watching the short 1 minute clip, they discussed what sounds they could make for each of the different elements. We focused on dynamics, discussing where it would be appropriate for loud and soft noises and timbre, developing a mix of sounds for the different elements.

I loved it, it was really funny – Ted Class 4

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[KGVID]http://www.penpolschool.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Class-3-Soundtrack.mp4[/KGVID]

Penpol Represented at National SLS Finals

12th May 20183rd May 2018 by Nic Stanlake

Last weekend Zara from Class 11 and Tess from Class 8 travelled to Cardiff to compete at the National Surf Lifesaving Competition. Both are members of Hayle Surf lifesaving club who they represented in the Welsh Capital.

I loved the experience and enjoyed swimming in a 50 metre pool. Hopefully I can knock time off again next year!- Zara

In an extremely competitive event, Zara was delighted to have knocked 10 seconds off her pb to finish inside the top 40 for board in the 11 age group.

I had a great time and raced in lots of races, my favourite was the relay – Tess

Surf lifesaving is a fantastic team event which many of the children at school take part in. The SLSC at Hayle is a fantastic organisation and if your interested or want to find out more. Please click here.

Year 6 become experts of the heart!

6th June 20182nd May 2018 by Mark Pollard

Last week, the Year 6 children were very fortunate as they were visited by three cardiologists, all experts when it came to matters of the heart. Eva Pring’s Dad was kind enough to support Mr Wise and Mr Pollard, who have been focussing on the human body in Science this term.
To support the class, a pig’s heart and an oxen’s heart were brought into class to see the similarities and differences between them, as well as seeing if there were similarities with our own hearts. The class looked at the different areas of the heart, as well as recognising what the aorta does and how blood flows through the heart from chamber to chamber.
It was a fascinating lesson and the children and the teachers were all very thankful to Mr Pring and his colleagues for coming in and sharing their knowledge.

At first it looked disgusting, but once we started I found it really interesting – Darwynn

The cardiologists were all really nice people and they let us touch the hearts so that we could understand what the most important muscle in our bodies feels like – Lola