Year 3

Year 3 Have a Pharaoh Time At Truro Museum

29th November 202221st November 2022 by Christina Sukstiene

Last Tuesday (8th November) saw Class 7 and 8 head off to Truro to visit Royal Cornwall Museum as part of their ‘Ancient Egypt’ topic.

Once we had (eventually) gotten the train from Hayle to Truro, we marched down to the museum.

When we arrived, we were able to have some free time to wander around the museum and find out lots of interesting facts about the different exhibits.

However, afterwards, it was then time to explore the ancient Egypt area…

One of the tour guides from the museum told us all about (and showed) their different Egyptian artefacts, a sarcophagus and a real mummy! We even got the chance to draw on some papyrus paper!

Finally, we got to watch (and some of us help) an Egyptian mummification (on a dummy). We pulled out the mummy’s brains, scooped out their intestines, but kept the heart safe inside. All of the organs were placed into canopic jars for safe keeping.

After our time at the museum had concluded, we walked back up to the train station and faced another train conundrum…

Celebrating the European Day of Languages at Penpol

29th November 20225th October 2022 by Jack Emery

Wednesday 5^th October marked a special day where Penpol celebrated European Day of Languages. To mark the occasion at Penpol, children came to school dressed in the colours of their favourite flag and were excited to share their knowledge of languages from all over the world. From Polish to French, Lithuanian to Portuguese, it was especially important to give all languages the recognition they duly deserve.

In the morning, 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.’

Following this, each KS2 class demonstrated their knowledge of French by serving their KS1 reading buddies pastries and teaching their younger peers how to order in French, which generated huge waves of excitement in each year group. In addition, Atene, Emilija and Hana all taught key phrases in Lithuanian and Polish and were fantastic language ambassadors throughout the day.

Finally, at the end of the day, Mr Jones and Mr Emery led a European singalong which culminated in a whopping 7 languages being sung in one song, all of which have been heard in the corridors at Penpol from our own multicultural students. This rounded off a fantastic day which marked an important day in the school calendar.

“Today has been the best day ever!” Isla, Class 9

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

Andrew Clover reminds us that Reading and Writing is Magic!

29th November 202227th September 2022 by Rebecca Best

We’ve had a very exciting day at Penpol today, kicking off our Reading and Writing is Magic Festival with a visit from the famous author, Andrew Clover! Andrew has written lots of books as part of the Rory Branagan Detective series.

The children in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 were both treated to an inspirational assembly this morning, where Mr Clover shared the Seven Secrets of Storytelling. Along the way he showed the children how important it is to have fun with writing and to let our imaginations run wild!

After this some of the classes went to do some hands-on workshops to learn even more about storytelling with our special guest.

At the end of the day we all came back together again in the hall to share the stories we’d written and to celebrate everything that makes reading and writing so wonderful. There were even free books for some of the stories!

It’s been such an exciting start to the Reading and Writing is Magic Festival – we can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings!

Penpol Mini Marathon 2022

1st July 20221st July 2022 by Nic Stanlake

The sun shone brightly for our first Penpol Mini-Marathon for 3 years on Wednesday; with it came the flushed red faces, the gallons of water drank and the hundreds of smiling faces.It always is such a lovely afternoon and it was bettered this year to finally be able so many parents back to spectate. I am sure this of you in attendance would agree that the children (and staff) did brilliantly; all showing determination to achieve their own person best! Our PFA do a wonderful job in supporting the school through events like this so please do send any remaining sponsorship money in with them or drop it into the office.

Paul has put together an awesome video of the event for you to enjoy below.

Class 8’s Summer Camp

20th June 202220th June 2022 by Bethany Waters

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

11th November 202216th June 2022 by Linda Ruffell

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

8th November 202213th June 2022 by Jacob Woolcock

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:

Platinum Picnic at Penpol

27th May 202227th May 2022 by Tiffany Pope

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

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’s Sponsored Mile for Ukraine

29th June 20224th April 2022 by Christina Sukstiene

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 JELLY FRIENDS American blog

Reception Children’s Exciting Adventure to Tehidy Woods!

“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.”