The Penpol Times

Year 4 Go to Hogwarts!

27th February 202322nd February 2023 by Jack Emery

To celebrate all of the fantastic learning which has been going on, Year 4 celebrated a Harry Potter ‘dress up’ day this Wednesday 22nd February. The school was awash with the four colours of each of Hogwart’s Houses: Gryffinfor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff & Ravenclaw.

This term, Year 4 have been immersed into the world of Harry Potter, reading Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone. They have absolutely loved their Guided Reading sessions on this book and have really excelled at retrieving key information to help explain their understanding of the book.

In PE, all students have been learning the many complex rules of Quidditch thanks to our Mr Stanlake, our PE coordinator, training up our young Witches and Wizards in their first ever session. Since then, the students have relished the many challenges of this magical sport and have absolutely loved playing it! From chasing the Quaffle, dodging bludgers and seeking the snitch, there has been plenty for all to get excited about- check out the action shots below!

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 Emery and Professor Peck. This involved concocting a potion, deciding upon its magical value and then advertising their potion to the masses.

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 of the students and teachers having an incredible time below!

Local Beekeeper Creates a Buzz in Year 2!

7th December 202321st February 2023 by Michael Pearson

On Tuesday 21^st February, Year 2 were visited by Tamsin Harris, who has been a beekeeper since 1998 and currently keeps 109 hives in the local area. Tamsin has extensive knowledge and experience in the craft of beekeeping and also runs her own business, ‘Bee Special’, which produces a wide range of products from her hives, including beeswax candles, furniture polish, candle rolling kits, balms and salves.

Tamsin delivered an interactive workshop with the children, in which they learned about the different roles of bees within a colony. This involved the children dressing up as beekeepers, Queen bees, baby bees, worker bees, cleaner bees, guard bees and hive-fanning bees!

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The children then explored a virtual hive, layer by layer and frame by frame… The eagle-eyed were able to spot the infamous Queen bee amongst her workers!

To top off the day, pupils had the exciting opportunity to design and make their own honey flapjacks, using a selection of delicious local honeys.

Year 3’s Tin Mine Travels

20th February 20238th February 2023 by Christina Sukstiene

This half term (25.02.2023), Classes 7 and 8 went on an exciting trip to Geevor Tin Mine as part of their topic for this term – ‘Minecraft’!

We arrived in the morning and put our hard hats on – ready for adventure!

Both classes split into two groups with one going down into one of the mines and the other learning about the different types of rocks and minerals that were mined at Geevor…

The mineshaft was very confined; the adults had to bend down to be able to walk through properly!

After both groups had explored their respective areas, we swapped over to discover what else the tin mine had to offer!

We were able to have a look around lots of different areas that the miners used from 1911 up until 1990!

We learnt lots of interesting facts about why Geevor was built and how all of its machinery operated – we were also lucky enough to have the chance to pan for gold!

It was a hugely exciting day packed full of fun, for one and all!

A huge thank you to The Heritage Trust who funded the bus travel to get to Geevor!

Year 5 Tackle Touch Rugby with Cornish Pirates

30th May 202330th January 2023 by Nic Stanlake

Year 5 have been braving the weather in recent weeks to get to grips with touch rugby. We have completed a 5 week block of sessions with Sam, the community coach from Cornwall’s only professional rugby team- the Cornish Pirates.

From not being able to catch a ball to now doing it so in full flow some children have developed their sporting confidence greatly. They have also developed their understanding of attacking and defending space; a skill which can be transferred to many other invasion sports. They have also build on their knowledge of touch rugby with many now moving on to join Mr Peck at touch rugby club. Those that may chose not too will however be taking their newly developed team work and communication skills back into the classroom.

As part of our PE curriculum offer we try to engage many different local clubs. With each year group receiving professional coaching from external sources at some stage during the year with some even attending professional settings; this opens the eyes of our pupils to the world of professional sport whilst also maintaining the most important aspects of physical education- engagement and enjoyment.

Police Visit

7th December 202316th December 2022 by Amanda Aspden

The reception classes had a great time when Police Officer Mike visited us today.

He brought loads of equipment which we tried on and found out all about the different roles that the police do, including search and rescue, first aid and lots of different things to help us and keep us safe.

Police look after people -Cora

We got to see what is inside the police car and had a go with the lights and sirens.

If someone takes a bike the police take them to jail – Charlotte

I want to be a policeman when I grow up – Isaac

Class 1 and 2 would like to thank Mike for spending the time to share his exciting and interesting career with us.

3D Printing our Wonderful Winter Ornaments

12th December 202212th December 2022 by Jacob Woolcock

BUILDING WITH BLOCKS IN TINKERCAD

This half term our Year 3’s have been learning how to use Tinkercad to create 3D models and objects on their computers. This clever program lets you create anything you like in three dimensions, which can then be sent to a 3D printer to turn digital designs into real world objects.

To start with our students were introduced to the basics of Tinkercad (including how to resize, rotate, recolour and arrange 3D shapes). They then applied this learning to a series of fun (and slightly bizarre!) challenges – including building a Giraffe in 8 blocks, a favourite food item in 6 blocks, a spaceship with 4 blocks and a self portrait with 2 blocks (and the awesome Scribble tool!). To make it even harder then only had a few minutes for each challenge!

These fun and low-stake challenges helped the children explore the program and encouraged them to create multiple designs very quickly, rather than spending hours on each project. That meant when we came onto designing our Winter Ornaments the children were able to rapidly prototype different ideas before choosing their favourite.

But rather than me telling you about that here’s a video from some of our Year 3’s talking about the project…

DESIGN, REFINE AND PRINT

Once the children had designed a few different winter ornaments it was then time to refine those designs to ensure they looked as great as possible (and that they would print out nicely on our printer).

Part of this process involved checking the dimensions to ensure they all fit inside a 60mm box and also the tricky task of choosing which colour combination they’d like to use!

Lastly, we added a hole to the top to ensure our decorations could be hung up if desired.

After that all that was left was to print them out. An easy task you might think? Well, given we had 113 to print and each one takes nearly an hour it was touch and go whether or not we’d get them all done by the end of term!

Thankfully we managed it and below you can see a gallery of every single decoration designed by our Year 3’s and Year 6’s this year.

DECORATIONS GALLERY

Constructing Egyptian Pyramids in Minecraft

8th December 20228th December 2022 by Jacob Woolcock

This half term we’ve been building Pyramids in Minecraft Edu in our Computing lessons. Mr Woolcock and Paul have created a shared world where we were all able to work together and build pyramids for our Egyptian Pharaohs. We researched what would be inside a pyramid and learnt about the traps and secret rooms designed to stop thieves and included these in our designs. We even created secret chambers full of canopic jars, golden treasures and scrolls of knowledge for the mummies to take with them into the afterlife.

Welcome to our Pyramids!

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Here are some more photos of all of our pyramids, along with some extra information about each one.

Class 7

Xander, George and Maverick

This is a maze which is to trick the people that try and break in and take all the gold. There are pressure plates on the floor and when you step on one they open up a trap door and you fall down! At the centre of the maze there is lots of treasure which was buried with the god Osiris.

Sorrel, luna and noah

Our pyramid is for Thoth. We made a patten in the wall which was meant to be a hieroglyphic. We’ve added lots of gold and treasures inside our pyramid along with a red carpet which feels very royal. We put some chests in there too with lots of important things in them like precious gems and golden objects.

Koby, Lili, Daisy, Xanthe, Lowenna and Frankie

We’ve built secret tunnels under the pyramid so if people try to get in they’ll come straight out the other side! There are some other traps too that are supposed to catch people trying to break in.

Lexi, Alice and Alice

We put two chambers into our pyramid one is full of treasures and is where the sarcophagus is placed. The pharaoh would have been buried with all of their treasure. There are secret tunnels to get into the chambers to stop anyone naughty coming in. It’s designed to be really scary in the tunnels!

Bobby, Daisy and Casey

This is where the mummy would be placed in the pyramid. We have put gold inside for him so he can take it with him to the afterlife. We put torches inside so it’s not completely dark and so he can see the gold in the afterlife.

Fred, Poppy, Charlie and Darcey

We’ve got a staircase inside the pyramid which takes you up to a large maze where people might think the treasure chests are hidden, but it’s a trap! They’re actually hidden under the pyramid. This traps thieves inside the pyramid. We’re really proud of the fact it has two levels and the fact we’ve added ancient books to give the pharaoh lots of knowledge in the afterlife.

Edwin, Logan and Arthur

It was designed so explorers who come in through the entrance will fall into a trap. There’s an empty chest filled with really rubbish items which will trap the robbers into a chamber. We’ve made it really confusing so nobody can get into steal the mummy or the treasure! It’s full of traps and surprises!

Class 8

Grace, Izzy, Merryn and amelia

This is a hidden part of our pyramid where there’s lots of gold and things inside. There are false lights in a fake corridor to distract people trying to break in! The gold is hidden in a secret place behind a trap.

Rory, Darcey, Noah and Charlie

We made an upstairs in the pyramid, but didn’t quite finish it off yet. But there’s also a dungeon room below the main room where there are spider webs, creepy things and stuff like that. Our pharaoh was the god of the underworld so we made his dungeon look like the underworld.

Massimo and Jack

We really enjoyed making the pyramid! We thought “what would an ancient Egyptian think about when the pyramids was created?” We thought the answer would be glory, cool secret stuff and valuable treasure. On the top of our building there’s loads of gold and I made the Egyptian symbol of life out of gold! We also really enjoyed making the secret entrances behind the hieroglyphics.

Maddison, Nevaeh and Lucy

I liked creating the portals for each Egyptian God because I could figure out blocks would best show off the different gods. We also really liked making the secret rooms which were so important in the pyramids to store things safely for the afterlife.

Zak, Pearl, Isaiah and Ethan

The trap in our pyramid has a little hole in the middle of it, so if anyone is silly enough to walk in the middle they’ll fall through! Our little room is really important because you can only fit really special things inside it. There is a secret treasure chest hiding under our bridge!

Sam and Logan

When you first go in through the passageway there’s a real sense of Ra’s power. We used glowstone to represent the sun. I liked the front of our pyramid a lot because it’s so three dimensional and it looks absolutely massive – but still smaller than a real pyramid!

Noah, Dexter, Bailey and Koen

The room in the back corner is a secret space where we’ve hidden some gold treasure. Another room has other important things in it like a backdoor, a desk and lots of ancient Egyptian scrolls. We’ve also added some exploding traps to stop anyone coming in!

Evie, Freya, Alayah and Everly

In this room the Egyptians could practice their mummifications! They need to be perfect so that people they were mummifying could get into the underworld. We also put in a trap door in the so we can get down into the secret room where the mummification happens.

Year 3 Learn to Walk Like an Egyptian

2nd December 2022 by Christina Sukstiene

On Thursday, Year 3 had the opportunity to dress up in their best ‘ancient Egyptian’ outfits as part of their topic this term.

Reception visit Heyl Crossfit

2nd December 20222nd December 2022 by Amanda Aspden

The reception classes had a great time at Heyl gym.

Louise, our personal trainer, taught us how to do proper squats and we did some bear, frog and duck walking. We also learnt how to swing the kettlebell properly so that it worked on our full body strength.

The children had fun going into competition with each other and practised their endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility and balance.

The reception classes would like to thank Louise and everyone at Heyl gym. We had a great time.

Year 6 children gather for evacuation!

29th November 202228th November 2022 by Bethany Waters

On Thursday 24th November, the Year 6’s of Penpol School donned their 1940’s attire and were transported back in time. On arrival, their labels were checked and destinations confirmed. Roll call was taken and they were escorted into the school building to await further instruction. Whilst waiting, they were given the opportunity to meet their fellow evacuees, discuss their destination and make sure they had the government stipulated items in their suitcases, sharing these with their peers.

Upon inspection and arrival at their destination, the evacuees had the opportunity to write back to their loved ones at home to let them know they’d safely arrived and how they were doing. The evacuees then spent the rest of the morning creating model spitfires; learning of their importance in the war, playing some 1940s children’s games and cooking up a storm with our lovely land girls and their authentic rations dessert recipe. Blackout procedures were followed to a ‘T’, throughout the day, when the air raid sirens sounded and all evacuees were safely accounted for thereafter.

During the afternoon the cooking continued and the pupils explored the Blitz through some beautiful artwork. Parents were then invited in for the evacuees to share their ‘Wartime Britain’ work from the past term with some 1940’s music to set the scene and the rations dessert sampled.