The Penpol Times

South West Title for Super Gymnast

29th November 202220th October 2022 by Nic Stanlake

Penpol School now has an Under 11 South West Gymnastics champion amongst its sporting stars. She has, for many years now, been featuring on the Penpol times but this is her biggest accommodate to date.

Travelling all the way to the Welsh Institute of Sport, she undertook 4 individual events which culminated in an overall 1st place. This wonderful young lady placed first in the uneven bars, which is her favourite event. 1st place in the beam (which is only 1o cm wide!!) and 3rd place in both the floor and vault.

This remarkable young lady shows a great commitment to her sport by training up to 16 hours a week at Penryn Gymnastic Club! Keep it up, the hard work is certainly paying off!

A Giant Adventure for Year 2!

29th November 202218th October 2022 by Michael Pearson

On Wednesday 12^th and Thursday 13^th October, Year 2 enjoyed two truly incredible trips to St Michael’s Mount as part of this term’s topic, ‘Who’s the King of the Castle?’

They were lucky enough to travel by boat from Marazion beach across to the Mount, which made the journey that bit more magical. Upon arrival, pupils were fascinated to stand in the footprint casts of royalty, including the late Queen Elizabeth II.

On the short but steep hike up the Mount, pupils discovered both the Giant’s Well and the Giant’s Heart. They particularly enjoyed looking out from the battlements and imagining defending the castle with canons!

Various tour guides supported their learning about the historic castle, as pupils undertook a treasure quest and discovered fascinating artefacts throughout the building – including the story of a 7ft giant, whose skeleton was discovered in one of the chambers! The children were absolutely immersed in the history of the castle and applied all of their wonderful learning about castles from topic lessons this term.

After lunch, pupils enjoyed a leisurely walk back to the mainland along the cobblestone causeway. The day was topped off with some fantastic sand castle building – with a spectacular view of St Michael’s Mount in the background for inspiration.

Behind the Scenes of Maths Mania in Scratch

29th November 202211th October 2022 by Jacob Woolcock

Scratch is a great program that lets us build our own games, animations and tools. Using brightly coloured blocks of code we can control individual objects (called Sprites) as well as being able to combine multiple elements into more complex programs. However my favourite thing about Scratch is that you can make just about anything you like if you use your imagination.

That’s exactly what happened last week when I heard this…

“Mr Woolcock, can I show you this game I’ve been making at home?”

Below is a video of that particular game, complete with play-by-play commentary!

I can’t overstate how much creativity, problem solving and complex logical thinking are involved in bringing a project like this to life – it’s absolutely ace.

If you’d like to have a play of this game (or the prequel – Grammar Castle) you can use the buttons below.

Netball Festival at Hayle Academy

29th November 20227th October 2022 by Bethany Waters

On Thursday, twenty Year 6’s went up to Hayle Academy to participate in a Netball Festival against several other local schools. Penpol’s teams both played their hearts out and really enjoyed their afternoon up at the academy.

Everyone showed great sportsmanship, respect and integrity throughout, cheering the other team at the end of each game and congratulating each team in the tournament. Well done Year Sixes you represented the school brilliantly!

Celebrating the European Day of Languages at Penpol

29th November 20225th October 2022 by Jack Emery

Wednesday 5^th October marked a special day where Penpol celebrated European Day of Languages. To mark the occasion at Penpol, children came to school dressed in the colours of their favourite flag and were excited to share their knowledge of languages from all over the world. From Polish to French, Lithuanian to Portuguese, it was especially important to give all languages the recognition they duly deserve.

In the morning, KS2 students were invited to sample a French breakfast in Class 9 with Mr Emery and his year 4 group. Each class enjoyed singing in French and were then able to order from KS2 students, learning the basics such as ‘Bonjour’, ‘s’il vous plaît’ and ‘merci.’

Following this, each KS2 class demonstrated their knowledge of French by serving their KS1 reading buddies pastries and teaching their younger peers how to order in French, which generated huge waves of excitement in each year group. In addition, Atene, Emilija and Hana all taught key phrases in Lithuanian and Polish and were fantastic language ambassadors throughout the day.

Finally, at the end of the day, Mr Jones and Mr Emery led a European singalong which culminated in a whopping 7 languages being sung in one song, all of which have been heard in the corridors at Penpol from our own multicultural students. This rounded off a fantastic day which marked an important day in the school calendar.

“Today has been the best day ever!” Isla, Class 9

A huge thank you to everyone who made the day such a great success! Check out the photos from the day, showcasing the multitude of colours and students and staff speaking in different languages.

Andrew Clover reminds us that Reading and Writing is Magic!

29th November 202227th September 2022 by Rebecca Best

We’ve had a very exciting day at Penpol today, kicking off our Reading and Writing is Magic Festival with a visit from the famous author, Andrew Clover! Andrew has written lots of books as part of the Rory Branagan Detective series.

The children in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 were both treated to an inspirational assembly this morning, where Mr Clover shared the Seven Secrets of Storytelling. Along the way he showed the children how important it is to have fun with writing and to let our imaginations run wild!

After this some of the classes went to do some hands-on workshops to learn even more about storytelling with our special guest.

At the end of the day we all came back together again in the hall to share the stories we’d written and to celebrate everything that makes reading and writing so wonderful. There were even free books for some of the stories!

It’s been such an exciting start to the Reading and Writing is Magic Festival – we can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings!

Daya Visits Penpol School

29th November 202222nd September 2022 by Rebecca Best

Class 6 loved our workshop with Daya, in which we looked at the life of someone who follows the religion of Islam, including the Five Pillars of Islam, Islamic prayer practices and the role of a mosque in Islamic culture. Daya taught us how Muslims pray and that they pray 5 times a day, in the direction of Mecca. All pupils then had the chance to dress in some traditional Indian clothing and learn some wonderful Indian dance!

Both Year 5 classes had the opportunity to work with Daya. She introduced our key question, ‘What is it like to be a Muslim in Britain today?’

The children had the chance to discus different faiths and how they differ from each other. There was a particular focus on the pillars of Islam, before having the chance to dress in traditional muslim attire and have a go at some Indian dancing.

Gorsedh Kernow at Penpol School

29th November 202212th September 2022 by Chris Chislett

As a part of the Gorsedh Kernow celebrations, we were joined by Go Cornish’s Will Coleman during the summer holidays to help us get to grips with the Cornish language.

Children, parents and visitors alike had a great time learning some key words and phrases. We look forward to continuing our journey with Go Cornish this year.

You can practise some Cornish at home too by following the links below:

Go Cornish

Golden Tree Cornwall on YouTube

Proud to be Penpol

29th November 202225th July 2022 by Rebecca Best

Many children grow up wondering where they fit in the world. This is especially the case for those subjected to misunderstanding or prejudice because of who they are. During our Free To Be Me day, the children of Penpol did something amazing in celebrating the uniqueness in all of us. Every child has the right to grow up feeling proud of who they are and who their family is and our pupils demonstrated this today by creating a humungous rainbow on the school field, sharing songs, flying flags about themselves and enjoying some activities on the theme in class.

We are very grateful to be joined by Eliot and Eliot from Cornwall Pride who talked about the work they do in supporting everyone in Cornwall to be proud of who they are. What an incredible day – well done and thank you to all involved!

Surf’s Up

21st July 202220th July 2022 by Amanda Aspden

The reception class spent a glorious summers day on the Bluff beach in Hayle.

Ben taught us all about beach safety in the Surf Life Saving Club. We learnt where to swim and surf safely, what the different coloured flags mean, what to do if we find ourselves in trouble in the sea and what kit the lifeguards have to help them do their job.

We went to the lifeguard hut next to catch up with some lifeguards on duty. They showed us some of their kit and told us some interesting stories about rescues they’ve had to do this summer.

We were also really lucky and excited to sit on the lifeguards jet ski and quad bike.

After lunch and more suncream, we played a few beach games then the surf was up.

The conditions were perfect and the children loved surfing. Lots of waves were caught. We had a few attempts at standing up and a couple of wipe outs.

We would like to say a massive thank you to Ben and the lifeguards for giving us such a fun day out at the beach.

Roman Invasion in Year 4!

“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.”