The Penpol Times

Penpol, it’s NASA calling!

13th March 201912th March 2019 by Mark Pollard

This week, on Monday at 2pm our time (10am at the NASA space centre in America) Year 5 had the opportunity to Skype call with an actual NASA scientist (he even has the email address @NASA.com which Mr Pollard and Mr Wise were very impressed by).

The children had a range of excellent questions to ask Martin, whose job it is to look at molecules floating into the farthest reaches of our universe. These included ‘Which is your favourite planet and why?’ ‘Have you ever seen the NASA supercomputer?’ and the ever interesting ‘How do you go to the toilet in space?’

It was interesting talking to Martin as he is based in America and works for NASA. I learnt that there is a difference between types of meteor and also that it takes around 13 years to become a NASA scientist! – Fifi

We are very grateful to Martin for giving up his time and hopefully he has just had a hand in giving someone a lifetime of interest in the subject.

Cooking with Chartwells an enjoyable treat for Year 5 and 6!

12th March 201912th March 2019 by Mark Pollard

Last week, Year 5 and Year 6 were fortunate enough to have a cooking masterclass with Karen from Chartwells. After talking about cuisines and dinners from around the world and different types of foods it was over to the children to create some delicious, healthy food of their own, in the form of rainbow wraps.

They’re called rainbow wraps because there are lots of different coloured vegetables inside it to give it colour – Lily

Thanks to Karen for coming in, who will now be doing more cooking with the other classes in the school in the coming weeks.

Class 6 travel back in time

11th February 202010th March 2019 by Linda Ruffell

Class 6 travelled back in time last week when they visited The National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, to hear all about the Titanic and how she met her fate by striking an iceberg.

The children enjoyed meeting the Captain Edward John Smith, dressing up as survivors, making their own sailing boats and having time to explore other areas of the museum.

” I enjoyed meeting the real Captain Smith” – Amelia

“I loved making and sailing our boats” – Riley

” I loved looking out to sea using the binoculars” Hazel

“I enjoyed going back in time” – Jasmine

How can we Recognise Fake News?

11th February 20208th March 2019 by Penpol School

‘Fake news’ is a huge topic at the moment and believable but untrue content online has become more and more commonplace. Luckily, this week in our E-Safety lessons we are learning all about being Internet Alert, which means recognising what is real and what is fake, as well as being able to develop strategies to keep ourselves safe from false and misleading information.

To start our sessions the children were issued a research task, to learn as much information as they possibly could about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. If you haven’t heard of this rare animal then I wouldn’t be surprised, especially as it’s completely made up. In a sneaky twist, the children were actually researching from a fake website, trying to learn how some octopuses can live in trees when the children all know that they actually live in the sea.

This proved an excellent introduction to the fact that, sadly, not everything you read online is true. This particular website was made many years ago as a way of teaching children this very lesson.

The children then explored the concept of mis-information and fake news further, discussing how photographs and even videos can be misleading and not always what they appear to be. We discussed how this related to the idea of phishing too, which we learnt all about in our E-Safety lessons last year.

"I thought the tree octopus was very convincing because all of the facts sounded pretty real and the picture looked very convincing. It showed me that not everything that looks convincing is actually real."

Zara, Year 6

The children have once again shown themselves to be very aware of how to stay safe online and also able to hold sensible and mature conversations with their peers about how they can help each other to protect themselves online.

"I learnt that not everything that we see online is real. And that we should always watch out for scams and fakes."

Ariana, Year 5

We finished the sessions this week with a game of Reality River on Interland as a way to recap our learning and to ensure we are all making the right choices when it comes to understanding what is real and what is fake.

Robot Makers

4th March 2019 by Jess Riches

For the last half term, Class 10 have been learning all about robots. They’ve looked at the developments of robots and even had a go at coding a Mars Rover Robot. At the beginning of the topic the class decided that they wanted to build their own robot. Class 10 spent a lot of time building electrical circuits and designing their robots. They have worked really hard and produced some brilliant models.

What is our Online Persona?

11th February 20201st March 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

We are spending this half term focusing on the internet and how we can keep ourselves safe whilst online. Over the next six weeks we’ll be looking at online safety from a variety of different aspects, starting with looking at the information we choose to share online.

We’re basing our work on the Be Internet Legends project from Google, which builds on the lessons the children had last year.

To begin with we are looking at our ‘Online Persona’. This is how you appear online to other people, based on the information we have chosen to share. We’ve talked about the risks of over sharing our personal data and also the way other people might see what we’ve shared and draw conclusions about us.

This learning has been very thought provoking for the children and has seen us address lots of really interesting topics in whole-class discussions. A particularly interesting activity has been to ‘create a persona’ for a made up person, by giving them loads of personal information and then choosing what should and shouldn’t be shared online with the world.

Below are several of the characters that have been created this week, along with lots and lots of personal information. This information could range from general facts like their favourite colour right down to specific details like their date of birth and their phone password.

The children have then used the highlighter tool to mark green any information which they would feel safe sharing online with the world, or red for any information which they think should stay private. We talked about how information can be changed from red to green later on, but can never be changed back from green to red as when it exists on the internet, it can never really be deleted.

“You should never share really personal information online, even with just your friends. Always tell a responsible adult at home if somebody is asking for personal information that you don’t want to share.” – Zara

“I have learnt that sometimes when you post something other people can get sad or upset if I’m not careful. So in the future if there is a photo I want to share I will go to the people in it and make sure they are all right with me sharing it.” – Ethan

“I have learnt about keeping myself safe on the internet and learnt to always tell your parents or teachers or family about it if something silly comes up on Youtube.” – Poppy

Watch Me Grow

26th February 201926th February 2019 by Amanda Aspden

Class 1 have been enjoying planting lots of different plants and flowers to add a bit of greenery to our play ground.

Thanks to the generous donations from parents, Wyevale garden centre, Asda and B & M in Penzance, we have been able to plant herbs, flowers, shrubs and vegetables.

Plants need lots of sun and water to help them grow – Violet

Class 1 will be learning all about different plants this term. We have started to learn about the different needs of plants and how to look after them. We will learn about the structure and function of each part of the plant and how water travels around the plant. We will also learn to name different types of local wild flowers and some trees. Finally we will grow and try our own herbs and vegetables.

We have to look after plants because they are alive – Theo

We have so far planted garlic, onions, shallots, mint, basil and parsley. We will also plant delicious peas in the spring. The flowers we have planted are primroses, hyacinths, primlets and narcissus. We are going to plant some sunflowers and hopefully make a blackberry crumble if we have any blackberries to harvest from our hanging baskets by then, though we suspect they may be at their best during the summer holidays!

We planted mint and garlic. They need sun and water and soil to grow – Merryn

The sun makes energy for the flowers though the leaves – Henry

Motorsport UK award for Penpol Pupil

26th February 201916th February 2019 by Chris Chislett

Last weekend one of our pupils achieved the accolade of “Best Rookie in Honda Cadet” at the Clay Pigeon Raceway competition. This was his first race in MSA where only licensed drivers can take part.

This is a fantastic achievement, well done.

Penpol School attend the BETT Show 2019

1st March 201915th February 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

A couple of weeks ago myself, Mr Chislett and Paul all went up to London to visit the BETT show. This massive educational technology show involves thousands of companies, hundreds of workshops and some fascinating presentations from industry and educational leaders. This year we were also lucky enough to attend an evening event hosted by Apple at the Design Museum which focused on creativity and self-expression, particularly through the innovative use of Garageband in the classroom. We’ve all come back full of fantastic ideas and we can’t wait to start sharing them with the pupils at Penpol. – Mr Woolcock

Egg Box Dragon appears on National TV

13th February 201913th February 2019 by Linda Ruffell

Today, Egg Box Dragon made an appearance on day time TV to enable everyone to become aware of how and why he was becoming such a famous character. During the interviews, Egg Box Dragon gave details of some of the things that he has found and also gave out his contact details, if you should need help finding something special.

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