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“Penpol pupils are curious, creative and courageous learners. Our school community believes in authenticity as the foundation of deep-rooted learning. Through our rich and relevant curriculum, we nurture community-minded, forward-facing international citizens of the future.”
With the final term at Penpol School almost upon us, it’s the perfect time to reflect and evaluate on the year so far.
All students here at Penpol have one hour a week of French, as well as the opportunity of attending after school language club on Thursdays. Year 6 are currently involved in an email exchange with Octave Cazauvieilh, a primary school situated on the outskirts of Bordeaux in the South-West of France. We also celebrate students achievement in languages by awarding a Star of the Week badge in both Infants and Juniors.
As a way of evaluating languages at Penpol, please would you be so helpful and spare a moment to complete this short questionnaire below.
This week we’ve been looking at how to be Internet Strong in our E-Safety lessons. The key idea here is that our passwords need to be as strong as possible to protect our accounts and keep our things safe. We’ve talked with each class about some top tips for making strong passwords and have explored a website called DinoPass which is a fantastic and free way to create some super-strong passwords!
Here are some of the tips we’ve learnt this week:
Passwords should be strong so that hackers can’t get into our things. You could put an exclamation mark in your password to make it even safer! – Samuel
You should put capital letters and symbols into your password so that nobody can guess them. It’ll take them ages to work it out! – Aimee
You should never tell anyone your password, apart from an adult you trust who can keep it safe for you in case you forget it – Kiki
They should be quite long, maybe with two random words put together. It’s really important that you can remember your password! – Tilly
Of course we also got to explore a new island on Interland too, this time is was the Tower of Treasure where the children had to collect letters to build the strongest password they could.
On Friday 9th March, Class 4 had a fantastic time at Newquay Zoo. The children have been learning about animals in their science lessons at school and discovering which animals have backbones and which do not. We went to the zoo to learn more about vertebrates and invertebrates, and to learn more about the classification of animals.
When we got to the zoo, we were met by Pippa who gave us a really interesting lesson about classification. The first thing Pippa showed us was a cockroach. She explained that they have holes down their sides which allows them to make a hissing sound.
When the coach roaches get scared, they all get together and make a hissing sound that sounds like a snake. It tricks the predator that wants to eat them! Ada
Some animals do not have backbones, like insects. They are called invertebrates. Insects have 6 legs. Oliver
The next thing Pippa showed us was the skin of a royal python. It was very long and smooth. Flora and Amelie helped Pippa and held the snake skin. Everybody got a chance to touch the skin.
After that, we had to be very quiet because Pippa got out a real snake. His name is spot. Everybody got a chance to touch him if they wanted but we had to do it with the back of our hand.
I like the snake. I’m not scared of him. He’s quite cold. – Ptolemy
I know all about snakes because I’ve got one at home and he’s called Monty. Snakes are cold blooded animals. – Alfie
After a really interesting talk, we got to explore the zoo. Although it was raining and we got quite wet, we all had a fantastic time. Here are some of the photos…
Caio and Flynn count the meerkats
Silly selfies in the tropical house!
Ted, Riley and the lions have a roaring competition!
Class 4 had so much fun on Friday. It was Penpol Book Day! The school missed World Book Day due to the snowy weather but we made up for it in style. Everybody dressed up as their favourite book character and Class 4 were dressed to impress. Check out some of our photos…
I was dressed up as the wolf man and I was so excited because I won a prize for the dressing up competition. – Flynn
The children and the parents put in a huge effort in making the costumes. The children looked fantastic. They brought in their favourite stories from home and shared them with the class.
I’m Mr Strong. Mum and Dad helped me make my costume. I love it. – Zak
Georgia and Tacita dressed up as Goldilocks.
I dressed up as the rainbow fish. I helped my mum make the costume and my mum wore the same costume to her school for their book day. – Ada.
For our topic of Weather Around The World, Class 8 have visited Australia. We found out about the climate there and studied some of the Aboriginal culture: Dream stories and artwork. Inspired by some of the pieces that we had studied, the children set about designing and drafting their own animal based picture in the aboriginal style.
I loved looking at all the different pieces of aboriginal art. I especially liked finding Australian animals. – Harry
We then painstakingly completed our final pieces with acrylic on paper, dot by dot by dot! The animal designs were made first using paint on black paper. We then used white paper to make our backgrounds. We had to choose colours that complemented our animal designs so they stood out. To create our dots, we used cotton wool buds liberally loaded with paint and carefully applied onto the paper.
I really enjoyed making the background – Tess
Our finished products will be on display in our classroom.
Recently, Year 6 have written letters to different establishments to attempt to persuade them to do more to rid the world of plastic waste, and this week the first responses came through, with Delilah, Ines and Lola each receiving a letter!
Delilah received a letter from Tesco, describing what they already do to try to eradicate plastic waste and what they are attempting to do by 2050. They also praised Delilah for her well written letter.
Ines and Lola both received responses from 10 Downing Street, describing how their letters had been passed onto a different department and that, hopefully, they will have an answer to their letters soon, so watch this space!
I was really happy to get a response, but I think that making these changes by 2050 is too far away – Delilah.
I really enjoyed receiving the letter and finding out that we might be getting another letter – Ines and Lola.
Class 8 have been enjoying sing-a-longs in French this term to help them learn key vocabulary on the topic of family.
So far, Class 8 can already say who is in their family, including pets, size of the family member and colour of their pet. Mr Emery has been really impressed with their enthusiasm during lessons, which is shown in their singing, classwork and homework.
The song for this week is a song which shows appreciation for the family (merci pour ma famille), as well as friends (mes amis). Each student drew and labelled each of their members of the family, which they then each held up for the song.
If you’d like to hear a little snippet of one of class 8’s song, take a look at the video below.
I am really enjoying our French lessons, especially the songs and games we do in class. Alex, Class 8
I love practising a new language! I also go to language club every Thursday after school to learn an extra language. Corran, Class 8
Next up for Year 3 will be the celebration of “Pâques”, which is the name for Easter in France.
World Book Day may have been disrupted by the snow a few weeks ago, but that has not stopped Penpol celebrating the event, just a little later than expected.
The Year 6 children have been creating their own books to take down to the Year 1 classes to read to them. They have reworked some traditional tales, created their own illustrations to support their writing, as well as front covers to make their books look attractive. Well done Year 6!
I really enjoyed creating pictures to support our writing – Sammy
