PSHE – Penpol Primary School

Reception Children’s Magical Adventure at the Minack Theatre

14th March 202514th March 2025 by Amanda Aspden

I was the queen fairy and I was in love with a donkey – Jackson

Our Reception children have embarked on an unforgettable journey to the breathtaking Minack Theatre for a singing, dancing, and performing workshop. The experience was a playful and immersive exploration of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, filled with music, movement, and storytelling.

We went to the Minack Theatre. I was a builder and we also did super heros. We had to save the day – Tristan

Led by the lively and engaging Wenna White, Betty Blue and Ryan Red, the children were transported into the magical world of fairies, kings and queens, builders, and even a donkey! Through song and dance, they brought Shakespeare’s enchanting story to life, stepping into the roles of characters and embracing the spirit of the play.

I was a fairy. We saw the dressing room. We had to collect magic dust. We had to be naughty with it and spread it over the builders and the princess and the donkey ee-or – Esme

The adventure didn’t stop there! As well as performing, the children had the chance to explore the stunning Minack Theatre and its beautiful gardens. They learned about the theatre’s fascinating history and how the remarkable Rowena Cade built it with her own hands. A real highlight was going backstage, where the children got a glimpse of where the performers prepare before stepping onto the famous stage.

I was being the prince – Ava, I was being the queen – Flora, I was being a fairy and I falled in love with a donkey – Georgie

The day ended with a special performance on the Minack’s stage, where the children showcased everything they had learned.

It was a magical and memorable experience for all, sparking creativity and excitement about theatre and performance.

A huge thank you to the Minack Theatre team for giving our children such an incredible opportunity. Who knows? Maybe one day, we’ll see some of them return as future stars of the stage!

Fruitastic Fun: Year 1 Children Explore Healthy Me with Fruit Kebabs!

6th March 202528th February 2025 by Rebecca Best

This term in PSHE, Year 1 children have been learning all about staying healthy. To bring their learning to life, they took part in an exciting Design and Technology lesson where they designed and made their own fruit kebabs!

The lesson began with the children designing their perfect fruit kebabs. They explored different types of fruit and discussed which ones would make a tasty and healthy treat. Once the designs were complete, the children got to work preparing and assembling their fruit kebabs, carefully selecting the fruit before threading it onto skewers.

After all the hard work, the children were able to enjoy the fruits of their labor by tasting their delicious creations. They loved evaluating which fruits they liked or disliked and shared their thoughts with their classmates.

The children thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on experience, and the highlight of the lesson was, of course, eating the tasty and nutritious fruit kebabs they had created! It was a fun and educational way to learn about healthy eating.

Class 7 are embracing collaboration and creativity!

25th January 202524th January 2025 by Jess Riches

Class 7 is buzzing with excitement as we delve into activities that foster teamwork, encourage creativity, and make learning fun and interactive. Here are some highlights from our recent adventures:

Collaborating on Writing

This week, Year 3 focused on improving their writing skills through collaboration and peer reviews. The children worked in pairs to share their stories and ideas. Each writer had the opportunity to hear feedback from their peers, who highlighted the strengths of the work and suggested thoughtful improvements. It was wonderful to see how constructive feedback inspired the children to polish their writing. The teamwork and respect demonstrated during these sessions were truly commendable!

Maths Dice Race Game

Learning maths has never been so engaging! To strengthen their quick-thinking and number sense, Class 7 enjoyed a lively dice race game. In this activity, pairs competed to solve problems by rolling dice and calculating sums in record time. Laughter and determination filled the room as the children cheered each other on, showcasing their competitive spirit while working together. Games like these are a fantastic way to turn learning into a playful experience.

What’s Next?

As we continue to embrace collaboration in all areas of learning, we are excited for what’s ahead. Whether through writing, problem-solving, or creating art, Class 7 is proving that teamwork and creativity go hand-in-hand. Stay tuned for more updates from our incredible young learners!

Bright Smiles Ahead: Year 1 Learns the Secrets to Healthy Teeth!

15th January 20256th November 2024 by Rebecca Best

Year 1 had a fantastic time learning all about how to keep our teeth clean and healthy, thanks to the brilliant team from Healthy Cornwall and NHS Dentistry! We discovered the best ways to brush our teeth and learned how much sugar is hiding in some of our favourite drinks. It was a fun, interactive workshop that helped us understand how important it is to look after our teeth every day!

Thank you so much Healthy Cornwall and NHS Dentistry!

Year 6 undertake mini-police training

15th January 202515th October 2024 by Nic Stanlake

As part of our PSHE curriculum, Year 6 had the privilege of welcoming Devon and Cornwall Police into their classrooms for an engaging and educational experience. The officers shared insights about their roles within the community, the importance of staying safe online, and the impact of antisocial behavior.

With a careers focus, Phil—a respected officer—captivated the pupils with his personal journey, starting as a 10-year-old with dreams of joining the police force to now having a varied and rewarding career. His story inspired many pupils to consider a future in law enforcement, now equipped with knowledge about the skills and qualifications needed for such a career.

Here’s what some of our Year 6 pupils had to say about the experience:

Ned

“I really liked the mini-police program. It was a valuable experience learning about antisocial behavior, vandalism, online safety, and the age ratings of games and apps. It’s important to tell a trusted adult if something makes you uncomfortable online. We also learned about road safety, like stopping, looking, and listening, as well as not using your phone while walking. I loved the experience!”

Isla

“During the last week, Year 6 was visited by an officer from Devon and Cornwall Police. At first, I didn’t know much about the police, but now I know so many jaw-dropping facts. We explored antisocial behavior—it was crazy to hear about the situations he’s been involved in! We also learned about online safety and road safety. It was so amazing to hear about the police from an actual officer!”

Theo

“When Phil came in, it inspired me to work harder in school, especially in maths and English, as he explained how important those skills are. I learned that to be a 999 response officer, you need to complete a minimum of two years before specializing in roles like traffic or armed response. Phil told me everything I need to know to become a police officer, and I am inspired to be one.”

A big thank you to Devon and Cornwall Police for providing such a valuable and inspiring experience for our pupils! 🚔✨

Healthy Choices on the Menu at Penpol

15th January 202515th October 2023 by Nic Stanlake

Earlier this week, we were visited by educators from the Council’s Healthy Cornwall team who worked with all of ur KS2 pupils . The idea for this session was the empower our children to make their own healthy choices when choosing what to fuel their bodies with. The Healthy Snack Family Challenge is attached below.

The session included 3 different activities: the tasting of different healthy snacks including, beetroot, dried apricot, sugar snap peas and humus; what a balanced diet looks like and how it contains lots of different food groups in moderation; and finally, shattering the myth that healthy food have to be expensive. The children all tasted different foods, with many doing so for the first time.

The children learnt all about the ‘Eatwell Healthy Plate’ and discussed how different food groups serve different purposes and how each are individually important to the growth, development and maintaining of a healthy body and mind.Our Year 5 and 6 pupils also took a more in-depth look at the calorie content of different foods, both healthy and unhealthy and took a closer look at the monetary cost vs nutritional output of each food.

They were particularly shocked at the sugar content of some their favourite drinks! With one even commenting “that’s why were encouraged to drink water!”

All children in KS2 then were gifted a free water bottle to celebrate their participation in which was some information to share with parents and a healthy snack challenge, all of which is included below. It has been wonderful to see so may children making healthy choices with their snacks continuing to celebrate the learning they have undertaken in science, PE and PSHE around health and wellbeing.

Proud to be Penpol

29th November 202225th July 2022 by Rebecca Best

Many children grow up wondering where they fit in the world. This is especially the case for those subjected to misunderstanding or prejudice because of who they are. During our Free To Be Me day, the children of Penpol did something amazing in celebrating the uniqueness in all of us. Every child has the right to grow up feeling proud of who they are and who their family is and our pupils demonstrated this today by creating a humungous rainbow on the school field, sharing songs, flying flags about themselves and enjoying some activities on the theme in class.

We are very grateful to be joined by Eliot and Eliot from Cornwall Pride who talked about the work they do in supporting everyone in Cornwall to be proud of who they are. What an incredible day – well done and thank you to all involved!

Being Kind

17th June 202217th June 2022 by Amanda Aspden

The reception classes were lucky to be invited into assembly to see an amazing speaker called Bereford Lee with the local Tri Service Safety Officer Adrian Hart.

Beresford has formed a group called Rice and Peas which is a community project in Cornwall which promotes acceptance, inclusion and cultural diversity throughout the county.

The children were captivated as Beresford talked about the importance of being kind to each other regardless of where you come from, your nationality or the colour of your skin.

It doesn’t matter who has different coloured skin, you should be kind to people of different skin – Jasper

Beresford explained that sometimes some people have been unkind because of the colour of their skin, we know this is wrong.

He also told the children that we need to be friendly to all and show respect for one another which fitted in beautifully with our Penpol School Values of Friendship and Respect.

It’s fine if you have black or white skin you have to be kind to everyone – Frida

Adrian was on hand to tell the children all about the law and what could happen if people are unkind to each other.

Beresford explained how being unkind to each other can not only hurt the other people, but can hurt yourself too therefore you have to be kind to everyone, including yourself.

He spoke about kindness, you have to help people get up and not push them over. It doesn’t matter about other peoples skin you still have to be nice – Maia

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got black or white skin or any colour even rainbow, you have to be kind to everyone – Freya

The children really loved listening to both speakers and commented on how they were all going to be kind to everyone when they left the assembly.

Thank you so much for the interesting and inspiring assembly. Please come and visit us again very soon.

An Inspiring Afternoon for Pupils at our Careers Fair

7th December 20235th May 2022 by Mark Pollard

On Wednesday the 6th of April, Penpol held its second careers fair after the first, which was held back in 2019.

This year, over 30 different job sectors came into school to talk about their job and potentially inspire the next generation. There were a huge range of jobs on show, from a doctor, a vet, the police and fire service, to potters, carpenters, jewellers and florists, with even the horticultural department at The Eden Project making an appearance.

There was a real buzz amongst the students and exhibitors alike and, even if it only inspired one child for a potential future career, that is a job well done. Research shows that young people who have a possible understanding of what they may want to do in the future are far less likely to fall out of education and not have a job in the future. There is a saying that ‘You cannot be what you cannot see’ and this event, with Penpol being the only primary school in the South-West to hold such a thing, will hopefully have opened a few eyes to future prospects.

A huge thank you to those who gave up their time to talk about their careers and if you might be interested in joining next year, please do get in touch with our Careers Lead, Mr Pollard by emailing him at mpollard@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk

Penpol Pupils extend Be Internet Legends with their own ideas

11th February 202022nd April 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

This half term we’ve been revisiting our learning on E-Safety and reminding ourselves how to stay safe online using the five sections of the Google Be Internet Legends scheme. We’ve dived into each of these five areas, had some fascinating and honest conversations and we’ve managed to ensure we all know how to stay safe when using the internet.

But towards the end of the sessions lots of children started asking about other elements of Online Safety – areas which perhaps weren’t covered in the Google program. This got us thinking…

“What would we add to Be Internet Legends if we were Google?”

We explored this question and quickly realised that we could enhance the Be Internet Legends program by adding even more valuable and important information of our own. Each child made a plan of what they’d like to include along with an idea for the Inter-Naughty (baddie!) who would play against the character of Legend in the game.

Using Keynote and the shapes tool, the pupils then created their own Inter-Naughty characters using triangles and clever colour shading to try to mimic the unique style of the other characters.

With an idea and a fabulous character in hand, the children then set about using a Keynote template to create their own poster, designed to fit into the current set of five made by Google. They considered colours, key words, messages and style and ended up creating these absolutely stunning posters which wouldn’t look out of place next to the real things.

It’s been a really enjoyable project learning about being safe online this half term, made even more so by the children taking their imagination and creativity to new heights by making their own posters and lessons for others. Many even designed the level of the Interland game along with sketches of the island itself.

It’s been great to see so many brilliant ideas and terrifying Inter-Naughty characters and these new posters will remain on display in the Mac Suite for the whole school to see.