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Chris Coyle-Chislett

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secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk

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01736 753472

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“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.”
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Aboriginal Art

For our topic of Weather Around The World, Class 8 have visited Australia. We found out about the climate there and studied some of the Aboriginal culture: Dream stories and artwork. Inspired by some of the pieces that we had studied, the children set about designing and drafting their own animal based picture in the aboriginal style.

I loved looking at all the different pieces of aboriginal art. I especially liked finding Australian animals. – Harry

We then painstakingly completed our final pieces with acrylic on paper, dot by dot by dot!  The animal designs were made first using paint on black paper. We then used white paper to make our backgrounds. We had to choose colours that complemented our animal designs so they stood out. To create our dots, we used cotton wool buds liberally loaded with paint and carefully applied onto the paper.

I really enjoyed making the background – Tess

Our finished products will be on display in our classroom.

 

 

Year 6 create books for World Book Day

 

 


World Book Day may have been disrupted by the snow a few weeks ago, but that has not stopped Penpol celebrating the event, just a little later than expected.

The Year 6 children have been creating their own books to take down to the Year 1 classes to read to them. They have reworked some traditional tales, created their own illustrations to support their writing, as well as front covers to make their books look attractive. Well done Year 6!

I really enjoyed creating pictures to support our writing – Sammy 

All aboard The Titanic!

Year 2 having been learning all about the Titanic, investigating and researching the questions:

  • What happened?
  • Who did and didn’t survive?
  • Where were they going?
  • Why did it happen?
  • How could the disaster have been avoided?

They have really enjoyed compiling facts, colouring pictures, watching clips on the internet, discussing events, compiling a timeline of events and as you can see making some marvellous models at home!

It took me a couple of weeks to make and my dad helped me. The Grand staircase was very special but my favourite bit was when it sank! – Remy – Class 5

My mum helped me, it was tricky sticking the sticks in and I enjoyed painting on the lighted windows – Agnes – Class 5

My model moves. It crashes into the iceberg because I’ve used a magnet    Austin

Space Day For Our Budding Year 5 Scientists

This week the children (and teachers)  in Year 5 have celebrated their learning within science this term by taking part in a Science themed Space day. The day was split into three activities including rocket building, space themed art and movie making.

Working in pairs, the children created an iMovie film sharing what they had learnt over the term. This involved collating facts, pictures and pieces of work before organising them into a short two minute film. The movies included their own music, headings and direction.

 

I loved using the iPads to make movies, I’m definitely downloading the app on my iPad at home! – Emi – Class 12

Whilst some of the children were busy planing and directing their own short movie, the rest were designing and building working rockets, which are set to be launched next week. Using lots of recycled bottles, tubes and pieces of cardboard, the children ‘junk modelled’ rockets which will be powered by water and air pressure.

I tried to make my rocket as streamlined as possible so it had the least amount of air resistance possible, and it worked! – Sam – Class 11

What was particularly pleasing was the effort children put into making their rockets aerodynamic to limit the amount of air resistance, something they had learnt about in their previous science topic on forces.

Due to poor weather, the launching of the children rockets has been postponed until next week where hopefully the conditions will be more favourable.

The third task for our Space Day required the children to ‘Space themselves up’ by adding their photos to a space scene; either in the form of an astronaut on a space walk, or steering a rocket to space. Some examples can be seen in the below.

We rounded off the day with a ‘space walk’ of their very own, down the catwalk as we held Penpol’s first space themed fashion show for the children (and adults) to show off their costumes.

 

 

 

 

Poppy’s Christmas card sent to No.10

In November, Poppy H in Year 5, entered the George Eustice MP Christmas Card competition. Many children from schools take part and the winning design becomes George Eustice MP’s Christmas card that he sends to his colleagues, including the Prime Minister Theresa May.

Poppy’s design, although not the winner, was runner up and her Christmas card features on the back of the card sent out. Mr Penhaligon, on behalf of George Eustice MP, came to school to congratulate Poppy and give her a copy of the card, a personal letter and a special present.

Congratulations Poppy! Your design will be sat over the roaring fire on the mantelpiece at No.10 Downing Street.

Merry Christmas!

3D Decorations by Key Stage 2

This term every child in Key Stage 2 has made their own 3D printed winter decoration.

To explain how they did it, we’ve created a short video for you to enjoy.

 

It’s been such a fun process helping each child design and make their decorations and Paul and I have really enjoyed seeing their designs come to life.   It’s taken nearly five weeks to print them all and while we were waiting we’ve compiled some statistics from the project. – Mr Woolcock.

If you’re interested, you can read lots more about the project here:

And here they are, all 200 decorations!

What’s that noise coming from the Mac Suite?

Since the beginning of November I’ve been asked the same question time and time again: “What’s that noise coming from the Mac Suite, Mr Woolcock?”

It’s a very valid question as there has indeed been a pretty irritating noise coming from the Mac Suite for the last few weeks.  The machine making the annoying noise isn’t finished yet though, in fact it’s likely to be making that same, annoying noise for a few more weeks yet.

So what is it doing??

Well, the machine is our Makerbot 3D Printer and it’s currently undertaking the biggest print-run of its life – printing out 200 unique and individual winter decorations which have been designed by the children in Key Stage 2.

 

Each child in the Juniors has been using an online program called Tinkercad to imagine, design and construct their own decoration, based on any theme they wish.

To get their creative juices flowing I showed each child how they could make a unique and beautiful Snowflake design, which a lot of children actually ended up choosing as their final decoration.  However, each child could also design their own decoration with their own choice of colours too.

Since then, myself and Paul have been busy making sure that all 200 decorations get printed.  It might seem like a simple task, but in reality it’s far from it!  Each 3D model takes around 50 minutes to print and as they all use two colours we also have to stop the printer to change the coloured plastic mid-way through each print.  Sometimes it’s a little easier, for example when five children have all chosen a red base and a white top layer, as all five can be printed at once during a morning.  But for the most part it’s been a case of setting countless alarms, reminding teachers to pause the printers, scrambling under the table to find the next colour plastic and hoping that the 3D printer doesn’t jam after 4 hours of printing (thus ruining the prints!).


Plenty of late nights and early mornings have been spent coming back into the Mac Suite to set more prints off in the dark, but we’re finally getting towards the end.  We’ve now printed over 120 decorations and they are looking INCREDIBLE.

When all the decorations are printed we’ll be giving the children a chance to bring in a small donation of 50p to cover the cost of the plastic filament in return for taking their decoration home to keep forever.  The children are already excited about this!

As to what the decorations actually look like?  Well, you’ll just have to wait until December to find out.  It’d ruin the surprise to share all the photos of them now, but as soon as we’ve got all 200 ready to go we’ll update the Penpol Times so you can see how great they look!

In the meantime, back to the printer for me!

– Mr Woolcock

Art from Tehidy by Class 5

Autumn patterns

Class 5 ventured into Tehidy woods to experience the seasonal changes of Autumn and to do some sketching for their art topic ‘Mother Nature’.

Back at school the children used a view finder to choose an area of their sketches which had lots of detail. They then drew what was in the finder and coloured it in.

The children then had to arrange the images to make a pattern.

The results speak for themselves!

I liked the sketching in the woods. I thought I couldn’t do it but then I saw the yellow bits and I could then match them up yo make my pattern – Remy

 

It was a bit difficult to make a pattern but I like my finished work especially the flower bit – Ruby

Jacques a dit…on va dehors!

This week, students have been enjoying the dry weather by learning French outside. Classes 3, 4,  7 and 8 were involved in a series of activities and competitions which tested their understanding of instructions and knowledge of body parts in French, which is the current topic they are learning about with Mr Emery.

At the start of each lesson, students followed Mr Emery around the school via instructions in French, until reaching the playground area. Out in the fresh air, students began by doing a number of fun warm-up  activities in French, from star jumps to the Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (tête, épaule, genou, pied) song. Following the warm-up activities, students then moved on to the more challenging competitions, such as “la souris contre le chat” (very similar to duck duck goose) and “Jacques a dit” (Simon says).

From class 3, Hazel held her nerve and won the Simon says competition, showing an excellent understanding of body parts in French.

It was really fun learning French outside.  I really like winning too! – Hazel – Class 3 – Year 1

Upon returning to the classroom, students were able to recap what they had learnt about body parts in French by drawing and labelling their own monsters.  With all classes having sung a French colour song with Michèle in the Harvest assembly, they were also keen to add plenty of colours to their monsters.

Alex, from Class 3, also enjoyed counting the number of heads in French on his monster, going all the way up to “quinze”, (15, pronounced ‘cans’).

When asked at the end of the session what was their favourite part of the lesson, the overriding response was “learning French outside!”

I loved having lots of space outside to play games in French! – Sienna – Class 4 – Year 1

Let’s hope for more sunshine next week!

 

 

Class 4 have an Art Attack!

Class 4 love art! They have been having great fun investigating materials in their art lessons and have been making metal sculptures using everyday objects including cheese graters, cutlery, tin cans, mixing bowls and anything else they can get their hands on! Check out their fantastic owl creations!

 I love the metal feather bits on your owl Lily. Can I help? – Alfie

Evie and Sienna are really happy with the way their owls are turning out. They are using jam jar lids for the eyes and sticking on squashed foil cases and beads. They’re looking great.

I like my owl. I want to take it home and show my mum. – Tyler

Ada and Flora help each other choose the best buttons and beads to stick on to the wings.

I love my owl. I brought in my sieve and my whisk from home and Mrs Anthoney helped me stick all the bits together. – Zak

I am really happy and so proud of the children. They put in a lot of hard work and were very creative. I think their owls look fantastic! – Miss Ryan

Owl Facts

  1. Owls live in barns, trees, old buildings and tunnels.
  2. Owls eat mice, rats, birds, raccoons, skunks, snakes, squirrels and other small mammals.
  3. Owls can’t digest bones, fur or feathers so they spit it out.
  4. Owls have sharp beaks that they use to shred their food.
  5. Owls grab their ‘prey’ with their sharp claws.
  6. Owls don’t make any sound when they fly.
  7. Owls camouflage themselves in the trees.

Our Penpol School Vision: “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.”

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Chris Coyle-Chislett

secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk

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2 St George's Road, Hayle, Cornwall, TR27 4AH

01736 753472