Year 3

Celebrating our first Careers Fair

7th December 202321st November 2019 by Mark Pollard

On Wednesday the 6th of November, Penpol held our first ever Careers event. 30 different businesses and employees gave up their time to explain just what makes their job sector special, with hands-on demonstrations, interactive activities and a stream of answers ready for the children’s questions. The event was a huge success and we look forward to doing it again next year.

Special thanks must go to those people who gave up their time to inspire others. The exhibitors were very impressed with the children’s interest and described them as ‘eloquent, interested and a joy to talk to’.

Penpol School Choir at Camborne Music Festival

21st November 2019 by Colin Jones

On Thursday 14th November, some of our fantastic KS2 choir represented Penpol School excellently at the Camborne Music Festival. The Choir sang two pieces, Human – by Rag ‘N; Bone Man and When I Grow Up from the hit musical Matilda, written by Tim Minchin. The choir sang beautifully and were well received by the audience and adjudicator, receiving 84 marks and being Highly Commended.

During the piece When I Grow Up, there was a well praised solo and a number of duets and small group parts which were highly praised and wonderfully sang by the pupils. We look forward to competing at the festival again another year.

The successes of our school choir have led to a record number of members, which now total a staggering 57 pupils in Key Stage 2. If you missed the performance of the choir at the music festival, please look out for future Christmas Concert dates in the coming month. We shall be performing at the annual Key Stage 2 Christmas Concert at St. Elwyn’s Church on 18th December, as well as other venues in the lead up to Christmas.

Music in the Marquee 2019 – The Movie!

11th February 202018th August 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

This year we had our fifth Music in the Marquee concert here at Penpol School, this year featuring the amazing Leanne Kyte as The Ariana Grande Experience. As is fast becoming a tradition, we’ve made a very special short film of the evening to bring back all of those amazing memories!

As always, these events are held to help raise money for the Penpol Friends Association (PFA) and this year I’m thrilled to say that we’ve raised nearly four and a half thousand pounds – all of which will go to supporting Penpol School in the years to come.

Thank you all so much for supporting our school through events like these.

Penpol Tennis Champ!

11th June 201911th June 2019 by Penpol School

This weekend Ruby travelled to Bodmin to take part in a Cornwall County tennis competition. She was playing against 8 other really talented children but she managed to beat them all by winning the most points and won the competition!

Her prize was to take home two very special t-shirts – one of which she is wearing in her photo below.

Ruby says “I felt amazed that I’d won, because I was playing against some really good people. I practice my tennis at least three times a week and I think all that hard work is why I managed to win.”

“Tennis is such a good sport because when you’re playing it’s not like football where only so many people can play, it’ s game where anyone can play and take it in turns whenever they like. It’s great fun!”

Teamwork and Cooperation help Class 8 race to success with LEGO Race Cars

10th June 201910th June 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

Year 3s have started using LEGO WeDo 2.0 robotics sets for the first time this week! After much excitement and anticipation, Class 8 have been building race cars for their first project. From building with LEGO bricks to writing the code on screen, the children have demonstrated fantastic teamwork and perseverance to overcome obstacles, locate missing pieces and connect the robots to their iMacs.

The key to success here was good teamwork and cooperation, something which Class 8 realised from the start. Working in pairs they set about co-ordinating their approach so one had the instructions on screen whilst the other built the model, often switching roles as the process went on.

In forty minutes we all had race cars built, but then it was time for the biggest challenge of all – getting the cars connected to the computers and moving by themselves!

Of course we had to have a race to finish the lesson, check out the breathtakingly fast action on the video below…

Class 8 have made an Elephant inspired by Art from India

14th May 201914th May 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

Class 8 have been learning about India for the last couple of weeks, including looking at some of the beautiful vibrant artwork that has been inspired by Indian culture over the years.

Having considered lots of examples and discussed the colours and shapes that make them stand out, we set to work designing our own colour scheme and patterns in Keynote.

Everyone created their own motif based on this theme and then we put them all together in one document to create that beautiful elephant you can see above. Finally we used some of the animation tools in Keynote to make each design rotate slowly, creating the mesmerising colourful effect for our whole-class artwork.

Well done Class 8, it looks great!

Class 6 brave the elements, whilst visiting St Michael’s Mount

5th April 20194th April 2019 by Linda Ruffell

Before being beaten by the weather, Class 6 had a great time exploring in the sand, rocks and sea. The children were so excited to find a crab and with a little bit of help from Hazel, managed to find its way back to the sea.

The children enjoyed walking across the causeway and heading up the steep path towards the castle. After visiting the inside of the castle the weather deteriorated very quickly and sadly the children had to make a very quick return to the mini buses. All of the children from Class 6 demonstrated great stamina and perseverance against heavy rain, hail showers and a biting cold wind. As their Class Teacher, I am extremely proud of all of them!

Announcing Music in the Marquee 2019

11th February 202019th March 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

The last four years have seen sell out performances at our annual Music In The Marquee concerts from Little Chix, Yellow and last year’s return performer Bradley Johnson.

I’m delighted to say that this summer we will be hosting our fifth concert in the marquee, on Saturday 20th July 2019. Each year we ask the children which music they are enjoying and what sort of act they’d like to see play in our marquee at the end of the Summer term. This year one name kept coming up in each class we spoke to and that was the one and only Ariana Grande.

So, with great excitement, I’d love to introduce you to The Ariana Grande Experience performed by the incredibly talented singer Leanne Kyte. Leanne is a singer/dancer from North London who studied musical theatre for two years in California. Since coming back to the UK she’s been on tours around the country, has performed in the US and Canada and has received rave reviews for both her singing and dancing.

Leanne will be playing two sets of live music on the night, the first being a hit-filled and family-friendly Ariana Grande tribute set including tunes both new and old including ‘Problem’, ‘No Tears Left to Cry’, ‘Into You’ and ‘One Last Time’, followed by a later set which will include other popular covers. As always with Music in the Marquee her two sets will be accompanied by local support acts to round off the whole evening’s entertainment. We’re delighted to confirm that this years support acts will include a return for the fantastic DJ Flo Selecta, a debut performance from acoustic singer Hannigan and also an incredibly exciting set from the local band Saltwater Cure – featuring our very own Mr Emery!

Just like in previous years the event will raise money for the Penpol Friends Association and will also feature a fully licensed bar, BBQ, soft drinks, and food for everyone to enjoy. I hope you’ll agree that Music in the Marquee 2019 is already shaping up to be a phenomenal night of entertainment.

We are opening this event to the whole community, but want to give our Penpol parents the first chance to get tickets. For this reason we’re offering you a special pre-sale of tickets, starting TODAY! Tickets are priced at £9 for adults and £6 for children. Please note that all children must be accompanied by an adult.

Please return this slip and money to the office to secure your tickets. Music in the Marquee has been a sell out for the past four years and tickets will be on a first come first served basis.

How can we Recognise Fake News?

11th February 20208th March 2019 by Penpol School

‘Fake news’ is a huge topic at the moment and believable but untrue content online has become more and more commonplace. Luckily, this week in our E-Safety lessons we are learning all about being Internet Alert, which means recognising what is real and what is fake, as well as being able to develop strategies to keep ourselves safe from false and misleading information.

To start our sessions the children were issued a research task, to learn as much information as they possibly could about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. If you haven’t heard of this rare animal then I wouldn’t be surprised, especially as it’s completely made up. In a sneaky twist, the children were actually researching from a fake website, trying to learn how some octopuses can live in trees when the children all know that they actually live in the sea.

This proved an excellent introduction to the fact that, sadly, not everything you read online is true. This particular website was made many years ago as a way of teaching children this very lesson.

The children then explored the concept of mis-information and fake news further, discussing how photographs and even videos can be misleading and not always what they appear to be. We discussed how this related to the idea of phishing too, which we learnt all about in our E-Safety lessons last year.

"I thought the tree octopus was very convincing because all of the facts sounded pretty real and the picture looked very convincing. It showed me that not everything that looks convincing is actually real."

Zara, Year 6

The children have once again shown themselves to be very aware of how to stay safe online and also able to hold sensible and mature conversations with their peers about how they can help each other to protect themselves online.

"I learnt that not everything that we see online is real. And that we should always watch out for scams and fakes."

Ariana, Year 5

We finished the sessions this week with a game of Reality River on Interland as a way to recap our learning and to ensure we are all making the right choices when it comes to understanding what is real and what is fake.

What is our Online Persona?

11th February 20201st March 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

We are spending this half term focusing on the internet and how we can keep ourselves safe whilst online. Over the next six weeks we’ll be looking at online safety from a variety of different aspects, starting with looking at the information we choose to share online.

We’re basing our work on the Be Internet Legends project from Google, which builds on the lessons the children had last year.

To begin with we are looking at our ‘Online Persona’. This is how you appear online to other people, based on the information we have chosen to share. We’ve talked about the risks of over sharing our personal data and also the way other people might see what we’ve shared and draw conclusions about us.

This learning has been very thought provoking for the children and has seen us address lots of really interesting topics in whole-class discussions. A particularly interesting activity has been to ‘create a persona’ for a made up person, by giving them loads of personal information and then choosing what should and shouldn’t be shared online with the world.

Below are several of the characters that have been created this week, along with lots and lots of personal information. This information could range from general facts like their favourite colour right down to specific details like their date of birth and their phone password.

The children have then used the highlighter tool to mark green any information which they would feel safe sharing online with the world, or red for any information which they think should stay private. We talked about how information can be changed from red to green later on, but can never be changed back from green to red as when it exists on the internet, it can never really be deleted.

“You should never share really personal information online, even with just your friends. Always tell a responsible adult at home if somebody is asking for personal information that you don’t want to share.” – Zara

“I have learnt that sometimes when you post something other people can get sad or upset if I’m not careful. So in the future if there is a photo I want to share I will go to the people in it and make sure they are all right with me sharing it.” – Ethan

“I have learnt about keeping myself safe on the internet and learnt to always tell your parents or teachers or family about it if something silly comes up on Youtube.” – Poppy

Sleeping with the Sharks

“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.”