Weekly Update 8th October 2021
Roman Invasion in Year 4!
Y5 have a Virtual Visit to an Amazon Warehouse
This afternoon our two teams of Year 5’s who are taking part in the FIRST LEGO League competition were treated to a (virtual) VIP tour inside an Amazon Warehouse.
As part of their Cargo Connect challenge for the competition, they are researching more about how goods are shipped around the world and delivered, in order to hopefully find some creative solutions to improve these processes.
As well as being given a tour around the different departments, from ordering & picking to packaging & shipping, the children were given the chance to ask some questions to a trio of Amazon Engineers.
Throughout the tour the students were jotting down questions on some post-it notes and by the end they had amassed quite a collection! Luckily there was plenty of time for the Q+A and lots of our questions got answered.
Here are some of the interesting facts we learnt during the tour:
“I learnt that the items are stored randomly in the warehouses, with robots being used to pick the items” – Ethan
“The SLAM machine that puts the label and address on the packages doesn’t actually touch the package at all – it drops the label on top” – Amelie
“The shortest delivery was done in under 30 minutes and they use satellite images to check addresses and to update their maps when new roads are built.” – Sienna
“They use algorithms to help find and move parcels, with robots following QR codes on the floor” – Caio
Penpol Celebrates European Day of Languages 2021
This week, the whole school celebrated European Day of Languages. With a wealth of languages being spoken along the corridors of our school, from Polish to French, Lithuanian to Portuguese, it was especially important to give all languages the recognition they duly deserve.
Students and staff were invited to dress up in the colours of their favourite country and rose to the call in spectacular fashion; by 9am, the whole school was awash with all the colours of the rainbow!
In the morning, KS1 students were invited to sample a French breakfast in the yurt with Mr Emery and six KS2 volunteers. 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.’
“Miam miam!” Phrase of the day, which translates as ‘yummy’ in French
KS2 students showed off their already fantastic French skills by competing as a whole class on LanguageNut Live, where each student puts their knowledge of their current French topic to the test in real time against their peers. A huge well done to Reuben and Merryn from Year 3 who came top in their year group on animals and colours in French – Bravo!!
All classes in KS2 also competed in the European Day of Languages shirt competition.
This had all students creating a design to best represent European Day of Languages. If proven successful, they will have it printed on the official European Day of Languages T shirt next year and receive 30 T-shirts for them and their class. I have already received some extremely creative designs so far – keep them coming!
Finally, Mr Emery led each of the assemblies to round off a fun European Day of Languages. From the video of students and staff speaking a multitude of different languages, to singing one of the classic “Tu as un animal” (do you have any pets) song, the assembly encouraged students to be adventurous and have a go at speaking in another language. Whether that’s greeting Diane the dinner lady with a ‘Czesc’ (hello), asking how Mrs Bailie is – ‘como você está’ (how are you?) in Portuguese, or asking for a strawberry ice cream on holiday in France(une glace à la fraise s’il vous plaît). Using a language is fun and the students and staff of Penpol proved that again today.
“Today has been the best day ever!” Louis, Class 12
A huge thank you to everyone who made the day such a great success! Check out the photos from the day, as well as the video of students and staff speaking in different languages.
