Headteacher
Chris Coyle-Chislett
Email the Office
secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk
Telephone Number
01736 753472
Our Address
2 St George’s Road, Hayle,
Cornwall, TR27 4AH
Rebecca Best 
On Tuesday 4th March, we were absolutely thrilled to welcome the incredibly talented Maia Walczak, an award-winning children’s book illustrator, author and artist from Cornwall. Every child at Penpol had the fantastic opportunity to take part in a workshop that truly sparked their creative writing.
Before Maia’s visit, each class explored Maia’s work and created their own vibrant portraits in her distinctive style! Maia was absolutely blown away by the children’s’ incredible creativity and effort!
Maia captivated the children as she shared the fascinating journey behind her books. She revealed what inspired her to write her stories, walked through the planning process and showed them the beautiful final products of her hard work. Her visit not only brought her books to life but also perfectly complemented the writing process we teach here at Penpol. The children were inspired and their imaginations soared as they took part in a fun and engaging hands-on activity.
We were so inspired by Maia’s books that we’ve created a wordless book section in our school library to celebrate her work! A big thank you to Maia for sharing her incredible talent with us – it was truly an unforgettable experience.
Click here to see Maia’s website if you would like to have a look at her books.
In Year 1, we’ve been working hard to understand place value up to 50. We’ve been using a variety of manipulatives, including base ten, to help us visualise how many tens and ones are in different numbers. This hands-on approach has made learning about numbers both fun and engaging!
We’ve enjoyed working with our partners, which not only helped us with our place value understanding but also allowed us to develop our Penpol Value of Friendship. By collaborating and discussing our ideas, we’ve been able to improve our Oracy skills, explaining our thinking and listening to others.
It’s been wonderful to see the children excited to share their discoveries and we’re looking forward to continuing to build our mathematical and communication skills together!
This term in PSHE, Year 1 children have been learning all about staying healthy. To bring their learning to life, they took part in an exciting Design and Technology lesson where they designed and made their own fruit kebabs!
The lesson began with the children designing their perfect fruit kebabs. They explored different types of fruit and discussed which ones would make a tasty and healthy treat. Once the designs were complete, the children got to work preparing and assembling their fruit kebabs, carefully selecting the fruit before threading it onto skewers.
After all the hard work, the children were able to enjoy the fruits of their labor by tasting their delicious creations. They loved evaluating which fruits they liked or disliked and shared their thoughts with their classmates.
The children thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on experience, and the highlight of the lesson was, of course, eating the tasty and nutritious fruit kebabs they had created! It was a fun and educational way to learn about healthy eating.
This week, Year 1 have been busy crafting some truly roarsome stories in English! Inspired by Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, the children wrote their own adventure: We’re Going on a Dinosaur Hunt! Their imaginations soared as they journeyed through yummy crumbly sausage rolls, cheesy pepperoni pizza, and even slippery smelly bananas, all in search of dinosaurs!
The children have really embraced the Penpol Values of Creativity, thinking up wild and wonderful ideas to make their stories come alive. We are especially proud of how they’ve shown the Penpol Value of Resilience by writing a whole story from start to finish. What a fantastic achievement!
The excitement reached new heights when a dinosaur visited the classroom, making the stories feel even more alive and thrilling!
Well done, Year 1! You’ve all proven yourselves to be fantastic writers with dino-sized imaginations!
Year 1 have been having a dino-mite time developing their art skills, and this term, we’ve been learning about printing! Using bubble wrap, we created fantastic textured prints to make dinosaur scales—how cool is that? The bubble wrap gave our dinosaurs a scaly effect, bringing them to life in a whole new way.
This activity was the perfect way to showcase our Penpol Value of Creativity, as we explored new techniques and unleashed our imagination. What a fun and creative way to bring dinosaurs to life on paper!
The Key Question Year 1 are exploring in RE this term is: “Who is Jewish and how do they live?”
This term, we’ve had a lot of fun learning about the dreidel, a traditional Jewish game. Jewish people play dreidel during the festival of Hanukkah, which celebrates the Festival of Lights. We’ve also been singing the dreidel song:
I have a little dreidel,
I made it out of clay.
And when it’s dry and ready,
Oh dreidel, I shall play!
