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
After weeks of excited preparation, the early rounds of this year’s Spelling Bee took place in classrooms, where children worked through a range of common words from across the curriculum. Each pupil started with three lives, diving deep into the word bank until only five super-spellers remained from each class.
These 20 talented finalists stepped nervously into the hall, greeted by the rapturous applause of their peers. The intensity of the competition increased as the difficulty of the words grew, with the added challenge of spelling each word aloud. In the semi-finals, the children’s lives were reset, but with one fewer than before. Among the many impressive performances, the Year 5 pupils stood out, competing confidently against their older peers. After some thrilling moments stretching across two sessions, the final five spellers emerged: Arthur, Atia, Henry, Sorrell, and Evangeline.
The grand finale pushed the competitors to their limits with words of even greater difficulty. Each correct spelling brought gasps of admiration and enthusiastic applause, leading up to the championship word: phenomenon. Evangeline truly lived up to the word, demonstrating incredible skill and lifting the trophy without a single incorrect spelling—a phenomenal 78 words in total!
Congratulations, Evangeline, on your outstanding achievement and well done to all of our Year 5 and 6 pupils, you amazed as much as you do every day!
This year our Year 3’s and Year 6’s have created their own 3D Winter Ornaments using Tinkercad. The Year 3’s have been using the Scribble tool to create unique and personal designs whilst the Year 6’s have been making theirs using the Codeblocks editors. Rather than me talking about how it all works, let’s hear from some of the students instead…
“I made a snowman with a scarf and top hat. It has accessories too, like some coal buttons and a carrot nose. Alongside the snowman, on the right, it has a present with a Santa hat one top and to the left it has a tower of six snowballs.
I used three spheres, increasing by size, to make the body and a cube a cuboid for the hat. The trickiest part was making the buttons for the snowman, making sure they weren’t too far off or too far inside the snowman’s body. It was also tricky making sure the height was equally spaced between each button.
This is probably going to be on the shelf in my bedroom for quite a while – until my dad tells me it’s time to put the Christmas decorations away. But then I’ll look forward to seeing it again each year.”
Tamara
“I made a cat that was inspired by my cat at home (Dotty). I started off with a head shape and tried to make all of the details on the head like the eyes and when I was satisfied with the head I moved onto the body. For this I used a cube but I stretched it out to make it more rectangular and curved the edges.
I’m very pleased with how my cat came out, I will keep it forever! I think the real Dotty will be very pleased to meet her new friend!”
Ivor
“I used Tinkercad Codeblocks to code my cat, which was really fun but quite tricky too! The hardest part was to get the ears at an angle on the head, because I had to figure out how to get them the same angle on opposite sides.
When I take my cat home, I’ll show it to my mum and dad and then put it in the windowsill. I think I’ll keep it out all the time!”
Georgia
“It didn’t take too much of my time, but it was so fun to do that I wanted to work on my design at home as well. I went to show my family what I was making and they were really interested in how I made it, they just kept saying wow when they saw all my code.
I’m probably going to keep my Creeper figure in my bedroom. I like how I designed it on the computer and it’s now stood right in front of me in real life.”
Brody
“I made my Christmas Tree by drawing it on the computer and then went off it by pressing done. Then I pressed the button which made a copy and then I stacked it on top of the other one. Then I did another version with the detail of my tree and changed the colour. I really like the tree I’ve made, and I’ve put it on my shelf at home where we keep special things.”
Elsie
“I chose my design because I thought it would be a nice thing to have a Christmas decoration to look like myself in my favourite colours. It’s cool to think that this is the only one in the whole world that looks like this. I can’t wait to put it on my own Christmas tree when I get home.”
Clementine
“I wanted to make a decoration that was green and black because they’re my two favourite colours. I chose a present to make sure I could use these two colours. It’s probably one of my favourite designs that I’ve ever made in Tinkercad, and it’s going to be really special on my Christmas tree at home.”
Henry
At Penpol, we are all writers. During the Autumn Term, children from EYFS to Year 6 were invited to participate in our Penpol Writing Challenge, giving everyone the opportunity to let their creativity shine! The children could choose between the fiction challenge of writing a story or the non-fiction challenge of writing instructions or a recipe.
Congratulations to all the children who entered! I was so impressed with all of your entries, and you should all be incredibly proud of yourselves:
Please enjoy reading the children’s fantastic entries below. We’re already looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for our next Penpol Writing Challenge:
We can’t wait to see your creativity in action—happy writing!
“At the far end of England, a land of rocks and moorland stretches out into a blue-green sea. Between its high headlands lie tiny, sheltered harbours where fishing boats hide when the winter storms blow.”
Year 1 had a magical adventure to see The Mousehole Cat at The Solomon Browne Hall in Mousehole.
‘The Mousehole Cat tells the heartwarming tale of how the village of Mousehole in West Cornwall was saved from famine by the brave actions of fisherman Tom Bawcock and his faithful cat, Mowzer. Based on a well-known Cornish legend, Antonia Barber’s story of the fearless fisherman and his devoted cat is sure to warm the cockles of your heart—almost as much as an ‘efty portion of stargazy pie!’
First, Year 1 walked through the picturesque streets of Mousehole, admiring the harbour we had previously drawn in class. As we strolled along the cobbled streets, we finally reached The Solomon Browne Hall, where the children watched the performance of The Mousehole Cat in awe. After the show, we walked back to the harbour, where we were treated to the magical lights. It was a truly enchanting experience, and a wonderful way to complete our Moonlit Walk, earning our 360° Curriculum Badge.
The children demonstrated our Penpol Value of Respect throughout the trip and represented Penpol School wonderfully. Thank you so much to Cousin Jack’s Theatre Company for providing us with such a truly amazing experience.
