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Headteacher
Chris Coyle-Chislett

Email the Office
secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk

Telephone Number
01736 753472

Follow us on Twitter
@PenpolSchool

Our Address
2 St George’s Road, Hayle,
Cornwall, TR27 4AH

“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.”

Class 7 are embracing collaboration and creativity!

Class 7 is buzzing with excitement as we delve into activities that foster teamwork, encourage creativity, and make learning fun and interactive. Here are some highlights from our recent adventures:

Collaborating on Writing

This week, Year 3 focused on improving their writing skills through collaboration and peer reviews. The children worked in pairs to share their stories and ideas. Each writer had the opportunity to hear feedback from their peers, who highlighted the strengths of the work and suggested thoughtful improvements. It was wonderful to see how constructive feedback inspired the children to polish their writing. The teamwork and respect demonstrated during these sessions were truly commendable!

Maths Dice Race Game

Learning maths has never been so engaging! To strengthen their quick-thinking and number sense, Class 7 enjoyed a lively dice race game. In this activity, pairs  competed to solve problems by rolling dice and calculating sums in record time. Laughter and determination filled the room as the children cheered each other on, showcasing their competitive spirit while working together. Games like these are a fantastic way to turn learning into a playful experience.

What’s Next?

As we continue to embrace collaboration in all areas of learning, we are excited for what’s ahead. Whether through writing, problem-solving, or creating art, Class 7 is proving that teamwork and creativity go hand-in-hand. Stay tuned for more updates from our incredible young learners!

Sweet Success: Year 2 Make Honey Flapjacks

This week, our Year 2 classrooms were buzzing with excitement as pupils traded pencils for mixing bowls to create their very own honey flapjacks. The sweet smell of honey and oats filled the air as the children took part in this hands-on learning experience, combining cooking with literacy, mathematics and creativity.

The week began with an introduction to reading recipes. In their whole-class reading lessons, the children learned to navigate the instructions step by step, identifying time connectives and command sentences. They practised reading measurements and ingredient lists, connecting their classroom English and maths lessons to real-life scenarios.

Our Year 2 pupils worked in groups to read their recipes, then carefully measured out and mixed the ingredients, before scraping the flapjack mixtures into greased and lined baking tins.

The flapjacks, baked to golden perfection, received raving reviews from children and parents alike. More than just a fun activity, this experience highlighted valuable lessons about following instructions, expressing creativity, and working collaboratively with peers.

After successfully making (and tasting!) their flapjacks, the children have been inspired to write their own recipes… Watch this space for their own oat-standing flapjack recipes!

Year 1’s Roarsome Dinosaur Hunts in Writing!

This week, Year 1 have been busy crafting some truly roarsome stories in English! Inspired by Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, the children wrote their own adventure: We’re Going on a Dinosaur Hunt! Their imaginations soared as they journeyed through yummy crumbly sausage rolls, cheesy pepperoni pizza, and even slippery smelly bananas, all in search of dinosaurs!

The children have really embraced the Penpol Values of Creativity, thinking up wild and wonderful ideas to make their stories come alive. We are especially proud of how they’ve shown the Penpol Value of Resilience by writing a whole story from start to finish. What a fantastic achievement!

The excitement reached new heights when a dinosaur visited the classroom, making the stories feel even more alive and thrilling!

Well done, Year 1! You’ve all proven yourselves to be fantastic writers with dino-sized imaginations!

We’re ‘buzzing’ about spelling in Year 5 and 6

 

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!

 

Penpol Writing Challenge!

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:

  • Esme from Class 1 – I loved your story about a family called Sparkle who visited Cornwall.
  • Jude from Class 3 – I loved your instructions for finding Pirate Bob’s treasure.
  • Andrew from Class 4 – I loved your instructions to Save Our Animals! You included so many interesting facts in your writing.
  • Jowan from Class 4 – I loved your instructions for making hot chocolate on the beach.
  • Macie from Class 4 – I loved your instructions for making chocolate chip cookies. They sound delicious!
  • Violet from Class 4 – I loved your instructions for making pea and potato curry-loaded naan. You’ve really shown our Penpol Value of Creativity.
  • Ted from Class 6 – I loved your creative story about the Queen’s birthday.
  • Hazel from Class 7 – I loved your creative story Tadeo Jones: The Amazing Adventure of Ancient Egypt.
  • Martha from Class 7 – I loved your story The Hot Sunny Desert. I especially enjoyed reading how to mummify a human!
  • Emily from Class 8 – I loved your creative story about a fairy adventure.
  • Suki from Class 9 – I loved your story Daisy and the Trouble with Bikes. It was so creative!
  • Alayah from Class 12 – I loved your story about Leaf the Little Flower Fairy. I can’t wait to read the next part of the series!
  • Pearl from Class 12 – I loved your story Pearl vs. Seagull. I was extra careful reading it thanks to your warning on the front page!
  • Molly from Class 13 – I loved your creative story Literally a Disaster. You really demonstrated our Penpol Value of Resilience and Creativity.

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:

  • Fiction: Write your own comic!
  • Non-Fiction: Write an invitation or plan an event or party.

We can’t wait to see your creativity in action—happy writing!

Reading and Writing is Magic, and Magic is for Everyone

Our annual Reading and Writing Is Magic Festival has been nothing short of spectacular, filled with fun activities, challenges, and a whole lot of creativity! This week, we’ve been celebrating the life-changing power of reading and writing in every corner of the school, inspiring everyone at Penpol to embrace their imagination and explore the magic of words.

The key theme of the week was ‘Reading and writing is magic, and magic is for everyone’ — a message that has resonated throughout every activity. We’ve focused on the idea that every child has the right to…

  • Be creative 
  • Have a planet to read and write on
  • See themselves reflected in a book
  • Have some choice in what they read and write
  • Read and write for the joy of it

We had the privilege of hosting Cornish writer Ben Rowswell, who led energetic and inspiring assemblies for all year groups. His passion for storytelling was contagious, and everyone was excited to tap into their own creativity. You can learn more about Ben and his work here: Cornwall Adventure.

To keep the creative spark alive, every child has been given their own special notebook — a place where they can write freely and express their ideas throughout the year. It’s a space for independent creativity, giving each child the chance to freely write for the joy of it.

At Penpol, we believe reading and writing are truly magical, and this festival has been a perfect reminder of how important and exciting these skills are. Here’s to many more adventures with books, stories, and the endless possibilities of writing!

A FIERY VISIT: FIREFIGHTERS BRING SAFETY AND FUN TO PENPOL SCHOOL!

Year 1 had an exciting visit from local firefighters as part of our Great Fire of London topic! The children explored how firefighting has changed since 1666, comparing the tools and techniques used in the past to the modern equipment firefighters use today.

Through cross-curricular learning in English, the children wrote their own interesting questions, such as, “What equipment do firefighters use to put out fires today?” and “How do firefighters stay safe?”

This visit provided a hands-on experience, helping the children connect their History and English lessons with real-life firefighting practices. The firefighters also explained the purpose of the equipment, sparking curiosity and deepening the children’s understanding of both the Great Fire of London and how we stay safe today!

A Delicious Apple and Blackberry Crumble Creation!

Year 1 went on an exciting blackberry walk to hunt for the juiciest blackberries, ready to add the perfect touch to our apple and blackberry crumble! After gathering our tasty ingredients, we got busy chopping, mixing and baking to create our scrumptious treat. Once the crumble was ready, we couldn’t wait to taste it – and everyone agreed, it was absolutely delicious!

But the fun didn’t stop there! In our English books, we wrote step-by-step instructions on how to make our apple and blackberry crumble, sharing our cooking skills with others. We also used our Design and Technology books to evaluate how well our crumble turned out.

What a tasty and creative way to learn!

Year 4’s Term of Magic Extends to St Michael’s Mount!

On Tuesday 27th February, Class 9 and 10 took a memorable and magical trip to St Michael’s Mount. This visit ties in closely with our current topic of Harry Potter and, in particular, focusing this week on describing the imperious Hogwarts castle. The Mount certainly has that magical quality to it and offered the perfect stimulus to encourage the children to describe a castle setting description, using similes and metaphors.

                                                                            
The excitement was palpable preceding the exciting walk over the iconic causeway, which links the mainland to St Michael’s Mount. Students were in their element, taking in the stunning Penwith coastline to the West and the imposing castle above which perched high upon the Mount ahead.

   
We were greeted at the harbour by Kerry Rice, the Education Officer for St Aubyn Estate, who led us on a magical journey through time as we explored the historic beauty of St Michael’s Mount. Upon arriving, the students were given a brief outline of the planned activities they would be taking part in, followed by a quick recap on why we had come to the Mount in the first place…to inspire our own Hogwart’s setting description.


Each group excelled and came up with high-quality and powerful adjectives, using them to create impressive similes and metaphors on their silhouette outline drawing of the Mount.

The children are also gearing up for World Book Day  next week, where they will be studying a range of Cornish Giant folk tales in English and Guided Reading. One of the children’s favourite activities was storyboarding the Cornish folk tale, the Legend of Cormoran the Giant , where Kerry captivated the children’s imaginations with her retelling of the tyrannical giant who once lived on the mount and how he was defeated by a local boy called Jack.

“I’ve actually visited the ground where Jack’s heart is buried deep beneath in the ground last time I came here!” one pupil was keen to share.

Kerry then led a wonderful drama activity in which they acted out the story of Cormoran the Giant – complete with an authentic blast of a horn from Kerry!

There was plenty of time to explore the village nestled below the castle, where students competed to find answers to the harbour challenge quiz sheet. Students were amazed to learn that the island lays host to 30 full time residents, who stay on the island and work there each day; be that as a gardener of the castle gardens, or working in the boatyard and maintaining all of the essential equipment.

 

All of the students demonstrated an excellent knowledge by the end of the trip of the history of the Mount and are now looking forward to writing up their setting descriptions of Hogwarts castle using similes and metaphors over the next few days.

It’s fair to say the children are all eager to return to the Mount and see what else the island has to offer!

             


Drama at the Minack

On Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd February, our Year 2 classes braved the elements as they ventured to the historic and magical Minack Theatre for a theatre tour and drama workshop.

 

After a long and hilly minibus journey, we arrived at a windy clifftop overlooking the beautiful Porthcurno beach. We then descended the 100+ stone steps to the wonderful outdoor theatre space below. The children were treated to a VIP tour of the theatre, including the backstage and dressing rooms, whilst learning about the rich history of the Minack.

The very welcoming and incredibly talented Minack Theatre staff led a series of fun drama games, before we split into groups to learn and rehearse the infamous tale of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Year 2 pupils then made history by becoming the latest in a long line of great actors to perform on this historic theatre stage. Their performances of Jack and the Beanstalk were thrilling, funny and most importantly filled with joy! Accompanied by wild winds, squally showers and even bursts of brilliant sunshine, the children enjoyed a truly authentic Minack experience.

 

We are very excited to take this experience back into the classroom and let it inspire our very own Jack and the Beanstalk-inspired stories next week!