Headteacher
Chris Coyle-Chislett
Email the Office
secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk
Telephone Number
01736 753472
Our Address
2 St George’s Road, Hayle,
Cornwall, TR27 4AH
On Thursday 23 children made the relatively short walk to Hayle Academy to take part in a coaching clinic with 4 Year 10 pupils from Hayle; 3 of which were ex-Penpol pupils.
The Year 6 pupils performed admirably, showing many of our school values; respect, integrity and resilience. For many, the toughest part was understanding the different roles for players in different positions.
Class 1 had a great time in Tehidy woods.
As part of our 360 curriculum, we are took the learning outside the classroom and experienced our local environment.
We builded dens for us for next time we go to the woods, with sticks, big ones and little ones. We did potions and we put leaves on a stick 5 leaves – Maya
Tehidy woods was the venue of our a scavenger hunt. We foraged, observed and hunted for treasures.
We collected some sticks and leaves to take back to class to make some leaf pictures and prints.
We made dens and made potions in the woods, me and Maya were witches and we were going to turn any bad monsters into frogs – Flo
The leaves called off the trees because its Autumn. We found leaves and sticks and we lifted up trees and we made dens for the fairies and the lion king – Maia
We built dens, made a birds nest sculpture and a fairy home using the things we find.
Finally we had a go on the rope swing.
There are squirrels in the woods and woodlice and beetles and foxes but I’ve never seen a fox. Reggie needed help lifting logs up so I asked other people to help him. I found a sweet chestnut- Jack
A great time was had by all in the terrific Tehidy woods.
Today, Year 4 got a true taste of Roman army life, with Marcus Quintonius, a high ranking legionnaire, visiting Penpol Year 4 children for the day. Focussing on the Roman invasion of Britannia, students came into school armed with shields, swords and Roman legion attire, ready to join forces with the impressive Roman army.
To begin with, the Year group were greeted with Roman army commands: Consiste! (Halt!), Laxate (at ease), silentiurm! (Silence!) and Sin/ Dex (Left/ Right!), which would come in hand later on in the day.
Next, both classes were thrown into the melee and had to use their best codebreaking skills in order to crack a hidden location written by the emperor himself, Julius Caesar. The hidden message revealed one of Rome’s greatest engineering feats in the Roman empire – Hadrian’s Wall.
“I loved using my knowledge of Roman numerals to crack the code.” Joseph, Class 9
Next up, both classes got to play some classic Roman games, such as Rummy and Hadrian’s Wall card game. The atmosphere in both classes was as if you had walked into a Roman army barracks in the evening!
The grand finale, however, had to be experiencing what it was like to march like a Roman. Led by Roman Legionary Marcus’ booming commands, Classes’ 9 and 10 both marched up and down the playground, to embed their understanding of Roman commands. Next, the students practised forming the defence shape, which is the ‘testudo’, or the tortoise. This proved an effective barrier against incoming missiles aimed by the teachers.
All in all, the children had an excellent day immersing themselves in the Roman life and learning first hand how the Roman army worked.
Year 2 have been learning about The Gunpowder Plot this term and loved meeting Guy Fawkes.
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Their knowledge of the event is remarkable and they successfully sequenced the events onto a timeline.
Year 2 enjoyed putting their Forest School Skills into practise with lighting a fire.
They also loved the Guy Fawkes trail and game.
Classes 9 and 10 had the privilege of a free Savvy Dance session at the wonderful Savvy Dance Studios in Foundry Square. Each Class got to experience a session of Commercial dancing , which incorporated a bouncy and poppy dance routine. Claire was fantastic at getting all sorts of contortions and body shapes from the students!
Upstairs, Charlotte led an upbeat yoga-style dance routine, which had the children showing off their flexibility and capacity to travel across the dance floor.
The afternoon was amazingly fun! Jay, Class 9
This was a brilliant opportunity for the children to draw upon the expert tutoring from Savvy Dance Studios and the students were incredibly grateful for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you Savvy!!
Class 1 had an incredible fun packed morning with the super savvy team in Hayle.
We practised our ballet moves with Clare and pretended to be cheeky pixies picking a lovely juicy apple from a tree then running away.
We had to lie on our tummies and I had to touch my hair with my feet. We had to take a apple from the farmers tree and run away – Darcey
It was so fun, we did exercises and dancing – Ashton
We danced the morning away with wings, wands and scarves to some beautiful ballet tunes.
Upstairs in the second studio we practised our street dancing to some upbeat dance tunes.
Clare and Ben were wonderful with the children as ever. There were smiles all round as the children pirouetted, twirled, stretched, skipped, jumped and practised different positions for their feet, legs arms and bodies.
We had to put our legs out straight. We have to point our feet up and down and had to creep and try to get the apple and we have to spin our scarves around. Then we had to walk side to side -Elsie
The children were really lucky to be given a ticket for another free trail class. Class 1 would like say a massive thank you to Clare, Aidan and Ben more making our morning so much fun and teaching us some great moves.
Class 1 had a fabulous time at the Standing Stones Stables in Trink St.Ives.
We met Rolo, Buddy and James the gentle and patient ponies.
I liked riding the horse, the brown one – Jasper
We took turns in grooming the horses and learning all about how to care for them. We decorated James the unicorn with glitter, sparkles, gems and gave his mane and tail a good groom.
We had a go at waxing some saddles, colouring some unicorn pictures and filling up the nets with hay for the horses.
It was fun. I loved it. I decorated the horse with glitter and I rided on a horse, the white one, it felt like my dog because I have a dog called Tessa – Billy
After making a wish by the largest standing stone in Cornwall, we had a run around in the field then made our way over to the paddock. There we took it in turns to ride Rolo and Buddy. We also got to lead James around the paddock.
We had a lovely time and would like to say thank you to Natalie and all her wonderful staff for making our visit so much fun. 
I liked going on the horses. My favourite one was the white one. I liked going on Buddy – Hazel
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.
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
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.
