English

Fantastic Fireworks in Year 1

29th November 20224th November 2022 by Jacob Woolcock

This week Year 1 have been learning all about fireworks by writing poetry and creating digital art.

The children started on Tuesday by getting used to drawing on the iPads with the Logitech Crayons. They used Keynote to draw some colourful, bright fireworks using lots of small mark making around a central point.

These fireworks were then all put together into one large image (with the help of our Year 6’s!) to create the lovely animation you can see above.

In their English lessons the children were learning about verbs to describe movement and the -ing and -ed suffixes. They considered which of these words would best describe fireworks and then used them to help with their pattern poetry.

You can see their wonderful verbs and poems by clicking on the pictures below.

A Book and a Bagel

29th November 20224th November 2022 by Amanda Aspden

The reception classes had a lovely morning sharing stories with Mummy’s, Daddy’s and Granny’s.

The children had chosen some books from the library the day before that they said they would like to read with their parents.

We read stories about pirates, bugs, the tooth fairy, aliens, wild things, plants, recycling, the deep blue sea, crocodiles and snails, as well as the old favourites such as Winnie the Witch, The Highway Rat and The Scarecrows Wedding.

After enjoying our stories, the classes proudly demonstrated their fabulous phonics knowledge to parents. The children taught the parents how they learn phonics in class and introduced them to Fred, who can only say words in sounds.

The children loved sharing their classroom with their parents and enjoyed listening to all the exciting stories.

We look forward to welcoming you to the next book and a bagel session.

Andrew Clover reminds us that Reading and Writing is Magic!

29th November 202227th September 2022 by Rebecca Best

We’ve had a very exciting day at Penpol today, kicking off our Reading and Writing is Magic Festival with a visit from the famous author, Andrew Clover! Andrew has written lots of books as part of the Rory Branagan Detective series.

The children in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 were both treated to an inspirational assembly this morning, where Mr Clover shared the Seven Secrets of Storytelling. Along the way he showed the children how important it is to have fun with writing and to let our imaginations run wild!

After this some of the classes went to do some hands-on workshops to learn even more about storytelling with our special guest.

At the end of the day we all came back together again in the hall to share the stories we’d written and to celebrate everything that makes reading and writing so wonderful. There were even free books for some of the stories!

It’s been such an exciting start to the Reading and Writing is Magic Festival – we can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings!

Class 9’s Lost Words

15th June 202213th June 2022 by Michael Pearson

This week, Year 4 immersed themselves in The Lost Words, a book of poems and illustrations inspired by the rich wonders of British wildlife. Each lost word is saved through speaking or singing a spell to conjure back these creatures into our hearts.

Inspired this book of spells, pupils wrote their own poems to express their adoration for the humble plants and animals of their local environment.

Dandelions, daisies, mushrooms and moss; robins, magpies, seagulls and sunflowers; herons, holly, willow and oak.

Children created beautiful watercolour paintings of their lost words, upon which they wrote their acrostic poems.

Pupils demonstrated some spell-bounding performances around the school grounds, conjuring creatures and plants with their wonderful poems and songs.

“Enter the wild with care, my love

And speak the things you see

Let new names take and root and thrive and grow”

The Lost Words Blessing

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Reception Classes Visit the Maritime Museum

29th May 2022 by Amanda Aspden

Classes 1 and 2 had a great time at the Maritime Museum in Falmouth.

We loved meeting Oceana, the sea sprite who told us a wonderful story of how she now lives in the lost land of Lyonesse. We helped her retell her story using instruments and learnt how she was rescued by merpeople and how Poseidon the God of the sea gave her the gift of being able to breathe underwater.

We looked at some treasures that Oceana had found at the bottom of the ocean which included part of a shipwreck, (possibly a pirate ship), a cannon ball, an old boot and a killer whales tooth.

We also learnt all about the different parts of a boat before making our own.

Next was the exciting boat races where we got the chance to race them on the boating lake.

We had a look around the museum and discovered all kinds of amazing monsters from the deep including a blob fish, angler fish, a fangtooth fish and a cock eyed squid.

We also had time to play on the rescue boats, jet ski, quad bike and life raft. We pretended to rescue each other from the ocean.

Finally we went to the top of the lookout tower and had a look at all the amazing boats in the harbour. We learnt all about sail boats, yachts and catamarans and found out that one of the super yachts in the harbour would need about 15 crew members to run the ship.

Class 1 and 2 would like to say a big thank you to all the staff at the maritime museum. We learnt so much, had lots of fun and had a great day out.

Year 4 enrol at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry for the Day!

11th November 202211th February 2022 by Jack Emery

This half term, Year 4 have been immersed into the world of Harry Potter, reading Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone. In English, they have described Hogwarts using adventurous adjectives, similes and metaphors to really showcase the magic that conjures up Hogwarts castle. In addition, they have also experienced a Potions lesson with Professor Pearson, Professor Peckunia, Professor Emerald, Professor Cross de Morte and Professor Antonia. This involved concocting a potion, deciding upon its magical value and then advertising their potion to the masses.

To celebrate all of the fantastic learning which has been going on, Year 4 then celebrated a Harry Potter ‘dress up’ day! The school was awash with the four colours of each of Hogwart’s Houses: Gryffinfor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff & Ravenclaw.

The students were incredible and bowled us over with their enthusiasm and flair for writing this term. Their persuasive posters and adverts were of spell-binding quality. Check out the pictures and videos of the students and teachers having an incredible time below!

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Class 13 Visit Bodmin Keep

30th June 20223rd November 2021 by Nic Stanlake

On taking a short break from studying WW2 within their topic of Wartime Britain, Class 13 moved their focus to WW1 and the commemoration of the Armistice. To help emerge themselves in to the lives of young soldiers we visited Cornwall’s military museum at Bodmin Keep.

The children learnt all about how the keep was used to train and house recruits who later went onto fight in France and Belgium as part of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry before housing visiting G.I Joes in the lead up to the D-Day landings in 1944.

The building was rich with British Military history and a plethora of artefacts and replicas to explore and discuss including; Mary tins, a present from Princess Mary to serving soldiers in 1914; genuine WW1 clothing, helmets and boots; food stuffs from the time of WW1, including a VERY hard tac biscuit; and soldiers personal possessions, such as boot polish, button polishers and shaving kits.

After exploring the museum the children had chance to join the regiment, armed with their rifles (very much wooden replicas) they marched towards the enemy and took their place in the trenches and awaited the call to climb. On their lucky escape from the trench, the children sat and read some of the life stories of soldiers who left Bodmin and served, some not so fortunate to return.

After lunch we entertained two veterans, messers ‘Spanner’ and ‘Kelvin’ who taught us some basic knot skills and some far more important team building, leadership and communication ones too. The children learnt how to tie a ‘highway hitch’ before competing in a team drill to crown the fastest and best platoon in the regiment!

A truly awe-inspiring day where many of our current day to day difficulties were put into persecutive, from here we will be writing some remembrance poetry and letters from the trenches, so keep your eyes peeled for post from the Somme.

Year 3 – Mummification in Ancient Egypt

25th September 202125th September 2021 by Linda Ruffell

Ancient Egypt

As part of their history topic, year 3 started off learning about Ancient Egypt by turning some oranges into mummies!

Just like real Ancient Egyptian embalmers we started off by taking out all of the gooey insides and then used several paper towels to make sure the insides were nice and dry. Next we filled up our oranges with salt, just like the embalmers dried out bodies with natron. Finally, we wrapped up our mummies in bandages and put them somewhere warm to dry out. We will be checking on them in a few weeks to see how the mummification process is going!

Sticky Jam Sandwich Fun in Year 1

19th June 202118th June 2021 by Emily Bodmer

Jam 3

After reading ‘The Giant Jam Sandwich’ in our ‘Talk Through Stories’ session, Year 1 explored instruction writing whilst making jam sandwiches. They focused on sequencing, using time connectives and imperative verbs.

Jam 1
Jam 2

Apart from watching their teachers get messy whilst they followed the classes vague instructions, their favourite part was of course eating them.

Jam 4
Jam 5
Jam 6

Summer Sunshine and Year 4 Learning in the Wildlife Garden

10th June 202210th June 2021 by Jack Emery

This term, Year 4 have taken great joy from learning outside in our wildlife garden. From Science through to Music, the wildlife garden has provided the perfect setting to enjoy not just forest school, but also all of their learning.

Just before half term, Class 9 wrote a description of the wildlife garden from each of their perspectives. The class really enjoyed sharing their descriptions in the mini amphitheatre. This task drew out all of the benefits of looking after the fantastic wild areas that we are lucky in our community to have, a particularly poignant topic of discussion with the G7 summit taking place this week.

I really like spending time in the wildlife garden. It makes me feel happy and calm. Alex, Class 9

In Science, Year 4 have also been learning about habitats and had to create a powerpoint/ pic collage on what habitats could be found in the wildlife garden, along with the features and residents of each habitat. Students were particularly surprised to find centipedes, tadpoles and even a wandering Wilf (our very own resident school dog) in the wildlife garden.

Finally, Year 4 have taken dusted off their vocal chords and sang a classic song, ‘Let it Be’, by the Beatles, a song which we studied last half term in music. It was a great song to finish off last half term and listen to students singing in a big group again. Enjoy the video below!