The Penpol Times

Penpol Celebrates Languages Day 2024!

15th January 202528th September 2024 by Jack Emery

On Wednesday 25th September, Penpol School celebrated European Day of Languages for its 7th time. We are so fortunate to have so many languages being spoken as either a first or second language by our students. Penpol’s multi-lingual community was the inspiration behind this year’s new ‘Mini Europe’ language long, which echoed around the hall and classrooms during the afternoon’s singing assembly:

When walking down the halls of Penpol School

I heard a lovely song being played

It celebrated the languages our students know

And the value that all of them play

This was followed by 7 different verses in the languages spoken by students at Penpol School which reflects the breadth of languages we have at our school.

In addition, the French café was a firm favourite among students and staff. Like last year, KS2 students were invited to sample a French breakfast in Class 9 with Mr Emery and his year 4 group. 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.’ KS2 students then put their French linguistic skills to the test to then host their KS1 reading buddies in their classroom.

Finally, at the end of the day, Bettens had KS1 enthralled with a reading of ‘Goolan’ to celebrate the Cornish language.

A huge ‘Meur ras’, ‘diolch yn fawr,’ ‘merci,’ ‘gracias,’ ‘dzien dobry,’ aciu’ and ‘obrigado’ to all of those who helped to make the day a huge success! Until next year!

YEAR 1’S FLUTTERING FUN: DISCOVERING THE BUTTERFLY LIFE CYCLE!

19th January 202527th September 2024 by Clare Sara

In Year 1, we’ve been extremely fortunate to have a lovely parent take some amazing photos for us, documenting the life cycle of a butterfly. OF COURSE, when Macie’s mum offered to let us release the butterflies at school, we excitedly said, “YES PLEASE!”

The children have been absolutely fascinated watching the stages of the life cycle come to life through informative videos and photos. This was a fantastic opportunity to bring our Science lessons of life cycles into the classroom and connect them to real-life experiences. A big THANK YOU to Macie and her mum for making this wonderful experience possible!

Year 6 explore STEAM subjects at Hayle Academy

15th January 202525th September 2024 by Nic Stanlake

Earlier this month, our Year 6 pupils enjoyed a short walk to Hayle Academy to take part in an exciting transition and taster day within the Science, Maths, and DT departments.

In the ‘Magical Maths’ session, the children tackled challenging puzzles that even left the adults scratching their heads! They worked diligently to solve Sudoku-style problems and explored how ancient civilizations used mathematics to create intricate shapes and patterns.

The theme of patterns continued in DT, where Class 14 had a hands-on challenge to construct geodesic domes using cocktail sticks and sweets. While some domes were more successful than others, a few sweet-related distractions may have played a part! If you’d like to try this activity at home, the brief sheet is attached below.

In the Science lab, Class 13 geared up in PPE and delved into an exciting experiment to test the pH levels of different liquids. Budding scientists in the making!

IT’S NOT SAFE FOR THEM IN THE CITY: Send them to the countryside!

11th November 202420th September 2024 by Nic Stanlake

85 years after thousands of children and young vulnerable adults were evacuated from cities across the country during WW2, our Year 6 children had a go themselves. To launch the start of our ‘Wartime and Peace’ topic the children (and adults) dressed themselves in period clothing and lived the life of an evacuee for the day.

After being met at the gates by 2 of the newest members of the Penpol Division of the British Forces and our very own Land Girls they waved a teary goodbye to their parents before heading off for the train station. They were then subjected to a roll call and squeezed into a cramped school classrooms; much like the evacuees of 1939 would have been when they departed the trains.

It was here the children had chance to act in character and meet their fellow evacuees, discussing the contents of their suitcases as well as their preferred destination. Those without identification tags were labeled and sent on their way. The children then had some time to look at and try different games that evacuees would have played in the 40’s. The children also took some time to research and better understand the process of ‘Operation Pied Piper” before writing some touching postcards home.

After a ration-free lunch the children got to grips with the struggles of rationing with some home cooking following a handed-down ration recipe to make some delicious scones.

At the close of the day the children were collected by their parents, their evacuation was much shorter than those during the war. Many parents came into class to sample some of their cooking but also sit and enjoy their child’s work from the day.

John Dyer inspired art from Year 6

25th July 202425th July 2024 by Nic Stanlake

In year 6 we have been creating a mural of Godrevy lighthouse: a painting from the Cornish artist John Dyer.

Firstly, we did some research about John Dyer to give us a better understanding about the painting that we were re-creating. After that, we got given the canvas we were going to paint, some more intricate than others but all equally as important. Shortly after, we started to draw our tiles in our sketchbook we then used oil pastels to draw our first picture of what we were later going to paint. We then looked at what type of colours we were going to use on our canvas then when we were all prepared with our brushes and our canvases we began to paint – one layer at a time.

After we did the basics on our canvas, we then let it dry and then came back a few days later to add in the detailed bits onto the canvas. We let that dry once again and moved onto the finishing touches. We checked with the people who has the canvases directly next to ours and they lined up almost perfectly. We then added them onto a wooden board before they went on display, hopefully for many years to come.

Why don’t you see if you can spot it somewhere in the school!

We reached out to John Dyer, a local Cornish artist, to see what he thought of our work!

“The artwork looks amazing! FANTASTIC work by the children and what an inspired idea! 🙂

I hope it looks fantastic in the school and inspires creativity and a love of the landscape and environment.

Thank you so much for sharing and well done!”

Staff 8 – 6 Students

21st August 202425th July 2024 by Nic Stanlake

As is Penpol tradition, the departing Year 6 children had the opportunity to have the last word and take home The Pollard Cup. Unfortunately no one told the teachers. The final score finishing at 8-6 in favour of the more experienced side meant the Pollard cup will remain in the hands of the Penpol Staff team for another year.

The score never does the match justice with it being played in wonderful spirits with many wonderful goals scored. The children should be ex optionally proud of how they performed but it is the teachers who remain undefeated.

Teachers goals were shared out between Mr Emery, Mr Stanlake and Miss Burlington as well as Nay and Mr Curnow on their final day before they depart to pastures new.

Children’s goals were scored by Isaac B, Isaac L, Alfie and Bobby.

Penpol’s Got Talent 2024

22nd July 202422nd July 2024 by Christina Sukstiene

As is tradition in the last week of term, our talented students from right across Penpol School put on a spectacular show for the whole school to enjoy today. The incredible students taking part in Penpol’s Got Talent showcased their singing, dancing, gymnastics, tap dancing, yoyo skills and so much more!

Year One

Year Two

Year Three

Year Four

Year Five

Year Six

Year 2’s Marine Discovery

4th July 2024 by Michael Pearson

On Tuesday 2^nd and Wednesday 3^rd July, our Year 2 pupils embarked upon some unforgettable boat tours of Mounts Bay with Marine Discovery Penzance.

We met the Marine Discovery crew on Albert Pier at Penzance Harbour. While we were fitted with lifejackets and suitably warm clothing, the children explored fact files about a rage of local sea animals, including minke whales and basking sharks. We then carefully descended the steep steps down from the harbour and boarded Shearwater II, a 10-metre sailing catamaran.

We left the calm waters of Penzance Harbour and headed south towards Mousehole. The children observed this historic fishing village from the sea and learned about the history of the Mousehole Cave and its use by smugglers. We learned that the Cornish name for Mousehole is ‘Porthenys’, translating to ‘harbour island’. This refers to St Clement’s Island, situated just offshore from Mousehole.

Historically, St Clement’s Island was home to a medieval chapel. Nowadays it is an important habitat for a host of seabirds and grey seals. We observed several seals, some of which were resting on the rocks and others could be seen ‘bottling’ in the water.

Josh, the crew’s marine mammal expert, let the children explore a real seal’s skull and some seal fur!

The bay also had a plethora of local seabirds, including skuas, Cory’s shearwaters, gannets, cormorants and oystercatchers.

It was time to hoist the sails as we set a course due Northeast for St Michael’s Mount! On the way, we sang sea shanties, spotted a number of different types of boats and kept our eyes peeled for more wildlife. Some children helped to steer the boat, using the steering pole and keeping a keen eye on the direction of travel.

As we sailed across Mounts Bay, we pondered the bay’s ancient past; it is understood that some 6000 years ago, when sea levels were much lower, the bay was home to a vast forest. ‘The Lost Forest of Mounts Bay’ is echoed in the Cornish name for St Michael’s Mount, ‘Karrek Loos yn Koos’, meaning ‘Grey Rock in the Wood’.

The children demonstrated incredible bravery and resilience during their marine voyages, at time battling high winds and choppy seas! They also showed great curiosity and a deep respect for their local environment. A huge thank you to Marine Discovery Penzance for a truly unforgettable experience and inspiring the next generation of marine voyagers!

Penpol win the Mayor’s Cup

15th January 20253rd July 2024 by Nic Stanlake

Last week the Penpol School boys football team continued their success at the Mayor’s Cup; making it 3 wins in 3 years.

The boys played wonderfully, winning league games against Connor Downs, St Piran’s, Bodriggy and fighting back to draw with St Erth conceding only 2 goals on their way to the final.

They spent most of the first half on the back foot with Bodriggy enjoying most of the possession with Penpol captain, Isaac, having to come off injured in his last game for the school team. Also missing the game through injury was Alfie, whose team talk at half time turned the tide.

The game however, ended 0-0 and headed to the dreaded penalty shootout and I tell you what, Gareth Southgate and the England team should take note as both teams scored some excellent penalties. Unfortunately for Bodriggy, they went on to miss in sudden death. Up stepped Nicholas, the 3rd Year 6 pupil in the team making his last appearance, to confidently thrash home the winner- cue the celebrations.

Thank you to all at Hayle Football Club for the event and special thanks to Mayor June Lawrenson-Reid for hosting the event. The teams all played brilliantly, especially Bodriggy who would also have been worthy winners.

Purging Pollution with our Scratch Games

2nd July 20242nd July 2024 by Jacob Woolcock

Our Year 5’s have been learning all about conservation, pollution and looking after Planet Earth this term. As part of this exciting project they’ve been designing and coding their own pollution-busting games in Scratch.

Starting with character development, each student used a fun drawing tool called Make 8-Bit Art to create a selection of fish, some polluting objects like carrier bags and drinks cans and their own underwater scene for their background.

After this the coding began in Scratch with the first session focussed around getting the fish to swim across the screen. The students explored using random generators to change the starting position, size and colour of the fish and how often they appeared.

We then used this same idea to add our polluting objects, this time falling from the surface to the bottom of the ocean. Once this was working we decided to add a variable to keep score of how many pieces of pollution were clicked on by the player.

This variable quickly led into another – this time creating a timer to keep track of the length of their game and create an element of competitiveness to see how many points could be earned in a short amount of time.

After these basics were created the children all had different ideas of where their games should go next. To help them explore, test and create these extra features they all had two weeks to design and code anything they wanted in their game. We had power-ups that gave extra time, lives that were lost if you clicked a fish by accident, game over screens, high score boards and so, so many more ideas! The children really ran with their games and created some absolutely fantastic projects. You can explore all the games from Class 11 here and those from Class 12 here.

“In my game I have lives which I’m quite impressed about since it looks complicated but actually when you think about it it’s pretty simple. What I did is when I was trying to figure out the lives I broke it into different stages – first of all doing the variable code to make it work and then if something else wasn’t working because of it I would figure out why and improve it by fixing the bugs.”

“I’ve added a score too, when you’ve finished the game it’ll come up with your score at the end”.

Luke (red-fish-235)

“In my game I’m proud that I could make it work at all! I’ve never thought of myself as being particularly good at coding but I really pushed myself and I’m so proud that I managed to get it working. I loved exploring the other games from people in my class to get ideas – they were all just so good! I think if we combined everyones ideas into one we could make a game that would go viral!”

Isla (red-fish-227)

“I’m really proud of my game because I didn’t know if I’d be able to manage all of the coding but I did in the end and I’m really happy with what I’ve done! We’ve spent four weeks doing this coding of the game and it’s already starting to look really good!”

Evangeline (red-fish-251)

“Throughout my time doing Computing at school its really inspired me to push past my limits and start doing it at home too. Inside of me it’s really sparked an interest for coding!

Inside my game I am most proud of my lives system (which mimic the variable Health) which means that I have five lives which link to five hearts on screen. Every time Health goes down a heart disappears until there are none left at which point it’s game over.

At home I also added a shop which I’m really happy with. It’s not finished yet, but it’s basically a way to use the points gathered by collecting rubbish to spend in the shop. You can buy extra time, plastic per second (which means you get more plastic to fall) and an upgrade which gives you even more boosters.”

Ned (red-fish-220)