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Headteacher
Chris Coyle-Chislett

Email the Office
secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk

Telephone Number
01736 753472

Follow us on Twitter
@PenpolSchool

Our Address
2 St George’s Road, Hayle,
Cornwall, TR27 4AH

“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.”

Making Music With Recorders

The children in Year Two (Classes 5 and 6), have started learning to play the recorder in music lessons on Wednesday with Mr Jones. The recorders arrived last week to fabulously excited children in Year 2 who have been waiting eagerly. The recorder sessions are provided as part of our music curriculum, where the children will be experiencing what it is like to be an instrumentalist. They will be learning how to read music, practise at home and strive to make a ‘sweet’ sound from their instrument.

“I really enjoy recorders, I love the sound it makes” – Liliana

All of the children in class 5 and 6 have been loaned a recorder from school which they can take home to practise.

“I like to play as much as I can” – Jackson

Year 3: Ready To Rock

Children in Year Three (classes 7 and 8), have started a terms worth of sessions, learning how to play guitar. With guitars on loan from Cornwall Music Education Hub (CMEH),the children are able to take the instruments home to practise becoming ‘Guitar Legends’.

“It is great learning to play the guitar! I have been practising every day” –  Fynn

All of the sessions are provided as part of our music curriculum offer with the hope that some of the children will cary on playing  instruments after the lessons have stopped. Children in years 4-6 have also been given the opportunity to join Penpol School’s guitar club, which has seen an immense popularity and all of the 30 spaces filled within a couple of days.

I like to get up early in the morning and practise” – Alex

The children and I look forward to showing off their guitar skills to parents after Easter. 

Penpol visit the BETT Show 2018

Last week myself, Mr Doyle and Paul went on a trip up to London to visit the British Educational Training and Technology (BETT) Show.  Once again the show proved to be incredibly inspiring and our visit has seen us return back to Penpol with loads of exciting new ideas and projects for the term ahead.  To show you just how big and interesting the show is, I’ve made a short video of our trip!        – Mr Woolcock

Penpol lead the way with LEGO Robotics!

At the end of last year LEGO Education got in touch with Penpol to see how we were getting on with our WeDo 2.0 robotics sets. After a lengthy discussion on the phone the LEGO team were incredibly impressed with how well the staff and pupils at Penpol were embracing and learning through their kits.  They asked if they might be able to use the school as a Case Study for a future article and we thought no more of it.  Until, that is, we spotted this article in the January 2018 issue of Education Today.

This magazine is sent out to every school in the country and often features a ‘View From The Classroom‘ section.  I’m delighted to say that this months feature is all about Penpol School and our use of the LEGO Robots!  Alongside an interview with myself there are some photos of Will, Alfie, Lily and Freya are featured showing off their creations!

You can read the whole article here: (Click on the article to make it bigger!)

Click article to view it full size

As well as being featured in the magazine, LEGO Education were kind enough to give our four magazine-stars their own ‘Mini Milo’ LEGO pack!  Here’s a photo of the four enjoying their new found fame and free LEGO!

 

And what exactly does a ‘Mini Milo’ set look like?  I’m glad you asked as they really are quite cute!

Class 3 Have Fun Making Milo

Class 3 have recently started getting to grips with our Lego WeDo 2.0 robotics sets and this week took their skills to a whole new level by building and coding Milo, the explorer robot.  To build this cute little robot the children had to follow a series of building instructions on their iPads, ensuring they worked in a team to locate the pieces required and to build the robot correctly.  Having displayed a great amount of teamwork and excitement, the children then wrote a short program to make their model come to life. By dragging and dropping blocks of code, the children wrote a set of instructions to move the robot forwards and backwards.  Some groups even found a way to have Milo make noises as he moved around.

“I really liked racing the robots, our one didn’t move very much but it was really fun.  The band wasn’t on right on my robot but we fixed it and it worked in the end” – Ada, Amelia, Amelia

“I liked it when our robot was in the race.  I liked it when it made code so it sounded like it was talking .  I liked it when we started building the robot because we had really good teamwork” – Alex, Louis, Ethan M

When each group had built and programmed their model we all went outside to have a quick race.  With plenty of cheering and excitement, all of the Milo robots went head-to-head to see which was the fastest.  This thrilling race has been immortalised on film for everyone to relive and enjoy!

How to Build a Computer with Year 5 + 6

This week our Year 5 and Year 6 classes have all taken it in turns to build their own computers using the assortment of components that they learnt about last week.  Working in small groups (and with the help of Mr Woolcock and Paul) each child learnt where the components went and what they do inside the computer.

Below is a step-by-step to understanding what goes inside a computer, written by our pupils.  Enjoy!

 

Step 1: Motherboard

“This is the thing which everything else plugs into, for example the power cables and processor.  The motherboard is big and it’s covered in circuits and interesting bits.  You need a motherboard in order to build your own computer.” – Harry, Class 13

  

 

Step 2: RAM

“The RAM is a bit like the arms of a computer, it helps the computer to multitask and to juggle lots of things at once.  You need to add the RAM in two slots (which have to be colour matching!) and it must be the right way around.  Push it firmly into place and the clips keep it in.” – Taran, Class 13

 

Step 3: Processor

“The processor is like the brain of the computer, without it the computer wouldn’t work at all!  We had to line the Processor up in its square holder and gently lower it into place.  We then used the clip thing to lock it into place so it doesn’t go anywhere.” – Ben, Class 13

 

Step 4: Graphics Card

“It shows the screen what to display and they can be really expensive!  It was quite easy to push it into the slot on the motherboard.” – Kian, Class 11

 

Step 5: Heatsink

“The heatsink cools the processor down because it gets really hot when it’s working.  It looks like a big fan with a big metal grate on one side.  You had to screw this into the motherboard so it sat firmly on top of the processor otherwise it won’t work.” – Meghan, Class 13

 

Step 6: Hard Drive and CD/DVD Drive

“It’s been really cool because I learnt how to put things into the computer and what everything was called.  The hard drive was interesting because it’s where you save all the work and that means all of the work that we’ve done is saved on one of them.” – Melissa, Class 11

 

Step 7: Cables

“I liked putting together the computer and seeing how it worked.  I found it amazing how everything could fit in a small computer and how the cables link everything together on the motherboard.” – Freya, Class 11

 

 

Step 8: Power Supply

“It’s important to a computer because it helps to run everything.  You have to plug the power cables into the motherboard and the drives and that gives it power.” – Emma, Class 11

 

Step 9: Turn it on!

“When everything is plugged in and safe, we turned the power on and you could hear the fans start to spin up as the computer started working.  It’s magic!” – Freya, Class 13

 

Taking a Look Inside a Computer…

This week in Computing Year 5 and Year 6 have been learning all about the different parts that make up a computer, including the Motherboard, Processor, Hard Drive, RAM, Graphics Card, Heatsink and the Power Supply Unit.  We learnt how all of these parts are useless by themselves, but when they are all connected up together they can make a fully working computer.

“It was really fun, learning how the motherboard had all these bits where you can plug everything in.  It was really interesting because I was surprised how heavy it was compared to how big it was.” – Alex, Year 6

As well as having a chance to investigate these components, the children were also given the opportunity to hold and draw the objects in order to get a greater understanding of them.

“It was great, because we got to know what was inside a computer.” – Holly, Year 6

Next week each of the groups will have the opportunity to assemble these components with Paul to hopefully build their own working computers.  It’ll be a very exciting project for sure, so check back for more photos on the Penpol Times soon!

“It was quite good because we know how it works now.  I just thought that a computer was one little piece inside a screen but actually it’s a whole network of really weird pieces.” – Eva, Year 6