Computing

Penpol School are sharing their ‘Internet Legends’ status!

17th May 201817th May 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

Here at Penpol we’ve been working really hard to learn all about staying safe online and how to look after each other in the digital world. We’ve been one of the first schools to use the exciting and innovative Be Internet Legends program from Google and ParentZone, which has involved a series of five fun and immersive lessons for Key Stage 2.

We were contacted by ParentZone, the company who are helping Google introduce this program into schools in the UK and they were so impressed by what we’ve been doing here at Penpol that they’ve written a blog post about us for their website! Not only that, but they emailed the story out to every school in the country, to share our best practice with e-safety. The feedback from ParentZone on our implementation of the Be Internet Legends program has been overwhelmingly positive and hopefully we can help share these skills with other schools through this blog.

You can read the blog here.

We’re expecting a visit from Google next week to give a special assembly to our Key Stage 2 children, so keep an eye out for photos from that soon.

Mr Woolcock

Winners of the Penpol Times Easter Egg Hunt 2018

19th April 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

At the end of last term, a mysterious message appeared on the Penpol Times, along with a dozen hidden eggs! Nearly fifty children managed to hunt down all twelve eggs in order to unscramble the secret message contained within. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the secret message was actually ‘Happy Easter!’

Well done to our winners, who were chosen at random earlier today. They are James B from Class 3, Scott from Class 8 and Gabby from class 12. Well done to all three of you and enjoy your prizes!

Class 9 are Internet Kind

18th April 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

For our forth and final trip to Interland the children at Penpol School have been learning about how important it is to be kind and considerate online. This week, whilst learning how to Be Internet Kind we’ve been discussing a wide variety of topics including how positivity always beats negativity online and how a simple message can easily be mis-interpreted when you don’t understand the emotion it was sent with (i.e. try saying “whatever” in a happy voice, a sad voice, an angry voice and a joking voice – it has a totally different meaning!).

We also talked about how cyberbullies try to get other people to join in in order to strengthen their mean messages. We decided that it was always best to speak up to a trusted adult whenever we saw somebody being treated unfairly online and also that the best course of action was always to use kindness to help people who may be feeling upset.

Here are some photos of Class 9 enjoying the Kind Kingdom island on Interland as well as some really good advice from some of the children.

“It’s important to be kind because if somebody has been bullied online and a bystander isn’t kind to them then they could end up making the problem even worse. Without kindness we would end up with a world of mean people and nobody wants that!“ – Luke

“It’s not hard to be kind to others online and a quick message can make somebody feel much happier.” – Harrison

“Being kind is being nice to other people and yourself. That’s really important online because if you are kind to other people then they will be kind to you!” – William

“It makes other people happy when you are kind, and it’s just nice to be kind. If somebody was being cyberbullied you could send them a nice message to make them feel a little bit better and then you could tell an adult to get them some support” – Freya

All of the games that the children have been enjoying as part of the Internet Legends program are available to play at home for free on Interland here.

Year 6 Create an Animation for Mr Doyle

24th May 201829th March 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

Today was a very special day at Penpol – a day where we got to celebrate Mr Doyle and his 19 years at school, as well as a chance to wish him well with the next chapter in his life.

All of the children and staff got together in the morning for a very special assembly, where every year group presented Mr Doyle with something special for him to remember them by.

Below is the video that Year Six worked on with Mr Woolcock, set to the tune of 500 Miles. Each child has spent several weeks designing their own character in Photoshop, using nearly 30 different layers to allow the cartoon to become animated. By drawing the different elements on different layers they’ve managed to create some truly unique characters! They then got to grip with an amazing new program called Adobe Character Animator which is where the real magic happened. Stay tuned for lots more animations from our Year 5s and 6s after the Easter break!

Computing Speed Challenge: Musical Robots!

27th March 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

This week Class 8 had an unexpected Computing Speed Challenge with the Lego WeDo 2.0 robots. Their task was to design, build and then code a moving robot which makes noises using just the Lego bricks. No sound effects allowed!

To make this even harder, the children only had 45 minutes from start to finish, including tidying up time. The race was on and the children were eager to make the noisiest robot they could.

Here we have Oskar and Henry showing off their robot:

And here are Finley and Lucy with their design:

Finally, here is the robot that Brodie and Patrick built:

Class 7 are Internet Strong

23rd March 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

This week we’ve been looking at how to be Internet Strong in our E-Safety lessons. The key idea here is that our passwords need to be as strong as possible to protect our accounts and keep our things safe. We’ve talked with each class about some top tips for making strong passwords and have explored a website called DinoPass which is a fantastic and free way to create some super-strong passwords!

Here are some of the tips we’ve learnt this week:

Passwords should be strong so that hackers can’t get into our things. You could put an exclamation mark in your password to make it even safer! – Samuel

You should put capital letters and symbols into your password so that nobody can guess them. It’ll take them ages to work it out! – Aimee

You should never tell anyone your password, apart from an adult you trust who can keep it safe for you in case you forget it – Kiki

They should be quite long, maybe with two random words put together. It’s really important that you can remember your password! – Tilly

Of course we also got to explore a new island on Interland too, this time is was the Tower of Treasure where the children had to collect letters to build the strongest password they could.

Class 8 are Internet Alert

13th March 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

As part of our five week Be Internet Legends program, the children have been learning about how to protect their personal information online by being on the look out for phishing attacks and spam in a module called Be Internet Alert. Using the excellent resources from Google, we’ve discussed how to check if a website is safe, how to spot suspicious messages and how to ensure we’re as safe as possible when we use the internet.

“You shouldn’t send stuff that’s important to people you don’t know. If you aren’t sure you could ask your friends and family if they know that person and if they don’t you don’t send them anything. Always be careful!” – Brodie

As well as learning all about this, we’ve played the Reality River game on Interland to really help the children cement their new found knowledge!

“I really liked playing on Reality River because it was cool and I learnt about how to be safer online.” – Mason

“I learnt that if a website has a green padlock symbol then it’s usually safe to put your password in.” – Freddie

“I’ve leant that you have to look closely at details in messages that you are sent to see if it’s a scam or not.” – Fynn

Class 10 are Internet Smart

8th March 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

This half term we are looking at staying safe online, using a brand new set of resources from Google called ‘Be Internet Legends‘. This week we’ve been looking at the first aspect, Be Internet Smart, which focuses on knowing what information is safe to share online and who we could be sharing with in order to stay safe. We’ve also talked about being respectful online and remembering that comments and photos you post online tend to stay there for a very long time.

It’s been great to see how much the children have remembered from our online safety lessons last year, showing just how switched on our pupils are already when it comes to e-safety – Mr Woolcock

Remember children, if you see anything online which worries you or makes you feel a bit uneasy, you can always tell an adult!

“You need to be really careful who you share things with, any personal information should only be shared with people that you know in real life.” – Clarissa

As well as learning all about this, we’ve played the Mindful Mountain game on Interland to really help the children cement their new found knowledge!

“I think Interland is really fun and that everyone should play it to help them learn about staying safe online!” – Charlie

“You can be safe by not sharing personal information with the wrong people.” – Caleb

“I think Interland is a good way to learn about sharing because it’s safe and fun at the same time!” – Grace

Around The World With Class 2

22nd February 2018 by Elizabeth Nidds

Since Christmas Class 2 have been learning about the different continents and countries all around the world. The class have learnt about their own country, as well as others such as China, Mexico, Hawaii and the Arctic. The children have enjoyed looking at lots of photos and videos to see what different places look like and even have a travel agents in the classroom where they can pretend to book holidays!

The class also got the chance to use Google Earth in our IT lessons with Mr Woolcock to look at some different places and really enjoyed the randomise button which showed them lots of different places all over the world.

I liked looking at the places on the computer. I went to China. China is a big country – Hunter

The class have also been thinking about the different ways people travel around the world and some children have been busy making hot air balloons in the afternoons.

We have to put the paper and glue on first. We wait for it to dry and then paint it. I painted mine purple -Kensa

Here are some pictures of the finished balloons!

Class 2 have also been learning about the different animals that live in different countries and the children particularly enjoyed learning all about the animals that live in the Arctic and Antartica! Some have put their artistic skills to use by drawing some great pictures during free choice.

My picture has reindeer in it – Tilly

As a class, we have also been learning about different celebrations from around the world. Before half term, we celebrated Chinese new year in class and tried some different foods from China using chopsticks. We had great fun trying to use them!

The children have also been busy practising some dances from different countries and we are looking forward to showing off our moves to parents in a few weeks time!

Sphero Rolls into Penpol School

24th May 201821st February 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

One of the reasons we visit the BETT Show in London each January is to try and find exciting and innovative ideas to bring back into the classroom at Penpol. This year we’ve returned with a dozen brand new Sphero SPRK+ Robots for the children to get to grips with.

These small plastic robots are pretty clever, despite their simple appearance. Each robot can move at up to two meters a second, controlled remotely via iPad and can run complex sequences of code written by the children.

To get to grips with these new resources the children in Key Stage 2 have been spending time learning how to connect to the devices, how to steer and drive them and of course, having a little bit of fun along the way. It’s pretty exciting to have a Computing lesson without being sat in front of a computer!

“It’s a great thing to have races with, if you watch the video we did in the hall it was educational to learn how to code but also fun to race them.” – Phoenix, Class 13

“They’re very fun to play with and they’re great to have races with.” – Jake, Class 13

“I like the Spheros’ because they’re fun and great to learn with and I can’t wait to tell my mum that we had a really fun day in Computing with Mr Woolcock!” – Jowan, Class 13

I think it’s safe to say we’re looking forward to writing lots of interesting programs for the Sphero in the future.

“The Spheros’ are really fun and educational at the same time, I’d recommend them to anyone!” – Joe, Class 13

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“Penpol pupils are curious, creative and courageous learners. Our school community believes in authenticity as the foundation of deep-rooted learning. Through our rich and relevant curriculum, we nurture community-minded, forward-facing international citizens of the future.”