Jacob Woolcock

Code Club off to a flying start

14th May 201822nd November 2016 by Jacob Woolcock

Last week some of our Year 6’s launched our very first Code Club, here at Penpol School. With support from Mr Woolcock, the team of Year 6 boys have been sharing their coding knowledge with over SEVENTY children who’ve been enjoying Code Club.

Harry, Connor, Morgan and Zak have taken on the responsibility of running the club over multiple lunchtimes, in order to ensure that everyone who wants to has the opportunity to spend half an hour being creative on the computers. Already they’ve had to turn children away though as the queues to get in have been out the door!

“It’s been great fun teaching the juniors coding, particularly the Year 4’s because they are very new to coding.” – Harry, Y6

In Code Club the children are allowed to use Scratch, MicroBits and sometimes even Xcode to create whatever they can imagine. Whether it be a game, a puzzle, a character or even an interactive quiz, our Juniors are showing that there really is no limit to what they can do on the computers.

“It’s been great fun so far, because it’s teaching the younger ones to code and helping me with my own coding skills.” – Connor, Y6

If you’d like to come along to code club then please check the poster below to see which day your year group are invited to.

Micro:Bits have arrived at Penpol!

14th May 201812th November 2016 by Jacob Woolcock

This term we’ve bought a whole classes worth of BBC Micro:Bits to use with Year 5 and 6!

These tiny computers are incredibly clever and already we’ve had classes using them to make compasses, thermometers and little pocket-sized games. These Micro:Bits have proved such a hit in the last few days that we’re going to make sure everyone in Key Stage 2 gets the chance to learn to code with them this year, starting with Year 5 and 6.

While the children are used to coding using Scratch on the computers, being able to make programs which run on these little devices is even more exciting as they can be taken outdoors and used just about anywhere. Over the year we’ll be using our Micro:Bits for science experiments, music lessons and more. We’ll also make sure they’re available to use at lunchtime Code Club incase anybody wants to try making their own ideas into reality using the Micro:Bits.

Class 12 make Photoshop Collages

14th May 201825th January 2016 by Jacob Woolcock

Over the past couple of weeks the Year 6’s have been making digital collages using scanned in artwork and Photoshop. By creating these works of art the children have been learning about the lasso selection tool, the move tool, layer styles, blending modes, hue+saturation adjustments, the filter gallery and the liquify tool. We’re incredibly pleased with how their artworks have come out, below are just a few examples to give you a flavour of their excellent work.