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Chris Coyle-Chislett

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secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk

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01736 753472

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2 St George’s Road, Hayle,
Cornwall, TR27 4AH

“Penpol pupils are curious, creative and courageous learners. Our school community believes in authenticity as the foundations of deep-rooted learning. Through our rich and relevant curriculum, we nurture community-minded, forward-facing international citizens of the future.”
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Year 3

Class 8’s Summer Camp

On Tuesday 14th June, Class 8 set off on their first overnight school camp to Footsteps of Discovery; spending all of Tuesday there as well as Wednesday morning. During the camp the children got to try out a range of different bushcraft and survival activities, all of which had been tailored to our summer topic of the rainforest!

The pupils had the opportunity to experience fire lighting, water collection and purification, some problem solving survival situations as well as knot tying, a rainforest expert’s talk and plenty of free time to explore the beautiful woodland they were camping in!

The pupils should be incredibly proud of themselves and how they represented the school. For many it was their first time staying away and what a great job they did! The camp brought out the collective empathy and kindness that class 8 are so good at showing, as well as their resilience and friendship; truly upholding all of our school values throughout the trip. Even the people running the programme commented how well behaved and what good listeners they all were!

Well done class 8! 

War-rag, war-barth!

        

Year 3 visits Footsteps of Discovery

Year 3, have just returned to school after visiting and spending the night at the Footsteps of Discovery centre in Summercourt, Newquay.

Whilst at the centre, the children participated in a range of lifesaving skills. This included fire lighting using various methods, safe cutting and an introduction to basic carving, location and signalling, outdoor cooking and basic water sourcing.

The children also had the opportunity to play team sports, cook marshmallows and learn how to tie a range of knots.

 

 

Making Music with Micro:Bits in Year 3

Over the past few weeks Year 3 have been learning to code on our Micro:Bit computers.  These tiny devices are a great way to get hands-on with Computing and enable our students to write programs that they can run on real hardware in their hands.

To start with we explored the concept of Input and Output by using buttons, sensors and the LED displays on the Micro:Bits.  It was interesting to see the range of programs that could be created with just two buttons.

Once the children felt confident with this aspect of the device then took things a step further by using some LED light strips which connected to the pins at the bottom of the Micro:Bits.  

Suddenly the Mac Suite was transformed into a disco! We had colour changing, flashing and rainbow coloured lights everywhere.  

When we finished having a mini party we used the opportunity to learn about using loops and repeat blocks to create colour changing light patterns.

And that brings us on to today, where the children have been using the Micro:Bits in an entirely different way.  

By using three crocodile clips and some nifty external speaker modules, our Year 3s have been creating music!  From individual notes to complete melodies, the Mac Suite was the place to be on Monday morning if you wanted some music. 

(I must stress the word ‘music’ is used loosely here – it sounded less like Taylor Swift and more like an old fairground where the rides were breaking down and the normally happy music had started to sadly fade away into a sea of 8-bit beeps and bloops…)

As part of this activity the children embarked on some challenge based learning, where they were required to problem solve and troubleshoot both the code and the physical connection between the devices to get their music working.  This proved to be a lot of fun and certainly got their brains thinking!

We love using Computing in hands-on ways at Penpol – why should we be confined to a screen when we can have colour changing lights and music coming out of our Micro:Bits?!  

I dare say Year 3 would certainly agree.

Here are some more photos from our 'Musical Micro:Bits' lesson:

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Platinum Picnic at Penpol

It was such a glorious sight to see the whole school on the field enjoying the sunshine and celebrating the Queens Jubilee.

Every child had a smile, younger children danced and played with children from the older years and there was a real festival feel.

It has been such a long time since we were all able to be together, but I am sure it is the beginning of many more events to come!

Photo Gallery

An Inspiring Afternoon for Pupils at our Careers Fair

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’s Sponsored Mile for Ukraine

Over the past few weeks, Penpol have been raising money for ShelterBox – a charity that are providing emergency shelter and resources to families who have lost their homes during the current war happening in Ukraine.

 

Before we embarked on our walks, we had a visitor from ShelterBox – called Danny – come in and tell us all about what they do as a charity, as well as showing us some of the items that are sent all around the world to families in need.

 

On Thursday 24th March, everybody in school walked one mile each – together, making up the 400+ mile journey that many Ukrainians are travelling to reach refugee camps in Poland.

 

Everyone arrived at school dressed in blue and yellow clothes (the colours of Ukraine’s flag). Some children even made flags and banners with their buddies to wave around as they walked through Hayle!

We even had a visit from a PirateFM reporter who wrote about the event online – here!

Classes teamed up with their Reading Buddies to go on their walk, with each team choosing various routes to complete their mile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The grand total of all our fantastic fundraising is a flabbergasting… £7372.60!

Class 7’s Ancient Egyptian Day

To finish off this terms  history project, ‘Ancient Egyptians’, Class 7 held an Egyptian dressing up day.

During this day, the children were given the opportunity to reflect on their learning journey and also show off their creative talents by creating  their own scarab beetle and canopic  jars.

It was lovely to see the children arriving at school dressed as pharaohs, Tutankhamun, Cleopatra and Ramses II.

“I enjoyed making the scarab beetle out of clay”.  Harley

” It was great to see all of my friends dressed up as Ancient Egyptians”. Isabella

” It was lovely to see my friends having fun and using the clay to make canopic jars”. Luke

 

Penpol Celebrates European Day of Languages 2021

This week, the whole school celebrated European Day of Languages. With a wealth of languages being spoken along the corridors of our school, from Polish to French, Lithuanian to Portuguese, it was especially important to give all languages the recognition they duly deserve.

Students and staff were invited to dress up in the colours of their favourite country and rose to the call in spectacular fashion; by 9am, the whole school was awash with all the colours of the rainbow!

In the morning, KS1 students were invited to sample a French breakfast in the yurt with Mr Emery and six KS2 volunteers. 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.’

“Miam miam!” Phrase of the day, which translates as ‘yummy’ in French


KS2 students showed off their already fantastic French skills by competing as a whole class on LanguageNut Live, where each student puts their knowledge of their current French topic to the test in real time against their peers. A huge well done to Reuben and Merryn from Year 3 who came top in their year group on animals and colours in French – Bravo!!

All classes in KS2 also competed in the European Day of Languages shirt competition.
This had all students creating a design to best represent European Day of Languages. If proven successful, they will have it printed on the official European Day of Languages T shirt next year and receive 30 T-shirts for them and their class. I have already received some extremely creative designs so far – keep them coming!

Finally, Mr Emery led each of the assemblies to round off a fun European Day of Languages. From the video of students and staff speaking a multitude of different languages, to singing one of the classic “Tu as un animal” (do you have any pets) song, the assembly encouraged students to be adventurous and have a go at speaking in another language. Whether that’s greeting Diane the dinner lady with a ‘Czesc’ (hello), asking how Mrs Bailie is – ‘como você está’ (how are you?) in Portuguese, or asking for a strawberry ice cream on holiday in France(une glace à la fraise s’il vous plaît). Using a language is fun and the students and staff of Penpol proved that again today.

“Today has been the best day ever!” Louis, Class 12


A huge thank you to everyone who made the day such a great success! Check out the photos from the day, as well as the video of students and staff speaking in different languages.


 

Year 3 – Mummification in Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

As part of their history topic, year 3 started off learning about Ancient Egypt by turning some oranges into mummies!

Just like real Ancient Egyptian embalmers we started off by taking out all of the gooey insides and then used several paper towels to make sure the insides were nice and dry. Next we filled up our oranges with salt, just like the embalmers dried out bodies with natron. Finally, we wrapped up our mummies in bandages and put them somewhere warm to dry out. We will be checking on them  in a few weeks to see how the mummification process is going!

Penpol Pupils earn their Be Internet Legends Trophies

Children in Key Stage 2 have recently taken home their very own Internet Legend trophy to celebrate their ongoing learning into online safety and how to become responsible online citizens.

It’s safe to say that these trophies have generated quite a buzz amongst our pupils and I’m sure they will be appearing on desks, bedside tables and shelves all over the place very soon!  

The children have been encouraged to build their trophies with a grown up at home as part of the process involves answering a series of questions about being safe online in order to unlock the instructions step-by-step.  These questions also serve as great conversation starters and will hopefully help open up lots of productive conversations about being safe online.

The reward for their efforts are these awesome 3D trophies which will remind them that they really are Internet Legends.

We’ve been sent in lots of photos of these trophies in their new homes through Showbie and this post will be updated as more photos come in so watch this space!

Our Penpol School Vision: “Penpol pupils are curious, creative and courageous learners. Our school community believes in authenticity as the foundations of deep-rooted learning.

Through our rich and relevant curriculum, we nurture community-minded, forward-facing international citizens of the future.”

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Chris Coyle-Chislett

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2 St George's Road, Hayle, Cornwall, TR27 4AH

01736 753472