Headteacher
Chris Coyle-Chislett
Email the Office
secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk
Telephone Number
01736 753472
Follow us on Twitter
@PenpolSchool
Our Address
2 St George’s Road, Hayle,
Cornwall, TR27 4AH
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!
On Tuesday 27th February, Class 9 and 10 took a memorable and magical trip to St Michael’s Mount. This visit ties in closely with our current topic of Harry Potter and, in particular, focusing this week on describing the imperious Hogwarts castle. The Mount certainly has that magical quality to it and offered the perfect stimulus to encourage the children to describe a castle setting description, using similes and metaphors.
The excitement was palpable preceding the exciting walk over the iconic causeway, which links the mainland to St Michael’s Mount. Students were in their element, taking in the stunning Penwith coastline to the West and the imposing castle above which perched high upon the Mount ahead.
We were greeted at the harbour by Kerry Rice, the Education Officer for St Aubyn Estate, who led us on a magical journey through time as we explored the historic beauty of St Michael’s Mount. Upon arriving, the students were given a brief outline of the planned activities they would be taking part in, followed by a quick recap on why we had come to the Mount in the first place…to inspire our own Hogwart’s setting description.
Each group excelled and came up with high-quality and powerful adjectives, using them to create impressive similes and metaphors on their silhouette outline drawing of the Mount.
The children are also gearing up for World Book Day next week, where they will be studying a range of Cornish Giant folk tales in English and Guided Reading. One of the children’s favourite activities was storyboarding the Cornish folk tale, the Legend of Cormoran the Giant , where Kerry captivated the children’s imaginations with her retelling of the tyrannical giant who once lived on the mount and how he was defeated by a local boy called Jack.
“I’ve actually visited the ground where Jack’s heart is buried deep beneath in the ground last time I came here!” one pupil was keen to share.
Kerry then led a wonderful drama activity in which they acted out the story of Cormoran the Giant – complete with an authentic blast of a horn from Kerry!
There was plenty of time to explore the village nestled below the castle, where students competed to find answers to the harbour challenge quiz sheet. Students were amazed to learn that the island lays host to 30 full time residents, who stay on the island and work there each day; be that as a gardener of the castle gardens, or working in the boatyard and maintaining all of the essential equipment.
All of the students demonstrated an excellent knowledge by the end of the trip of the history of the Mount and are now looking forward to writing up their setting descriptions of Hogwarts castle using similes and metaphors over the next few days.
It’s fair to say the children are all eager to return to the Mount and see what else the island has to offer!
On Wednesday 4th October, Penpol School celebrated European Day of Languages for its 6th time. We are so fortunate to have so many languages being spoken as either a first or second language by our students. For this reason, European Day of Languages is a prime opportunity to shine a light on each of these languages which represents our diverse learning community here at Penpol.
Back by popular demand, the French café was a favourite amongst 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, Mrs Curnow and Mrs Best had KS1 enthralled with a reading of ‘Goolan’ to celebrate the Cornish language. In addition, Mrs Best and Mr Jones serenaded the children with songs featuring Welsh, Cornish and French. Mr Jones and Mr Emery led a European singalong in KS2, which culminated in a school record of 8 languages being sung in one song. This rounded off a fantastic day which marked an important day in the school calendar.
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. 
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.
Wednesday 5th 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.
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!
This half term our Year 4’s have been studying ‘Which Way to Africa?’ as their topic. Part of this exciting learning has involved creating Digital Art on the iPads.
The children started learning all about the the tools available in our chosen drawing app (Sketches School) and then began to research an individual country in Africa. We learnt about each country including landmarks, food, art, culture and geographic features. The children then used this information to inspire them in their digital artwork.
To aide their artwork, each child created a ‘mood board’ of imagery from their chosen country. We then used Adobe Colour on the iPads to extract the key colours from the images. This meant each child had a custom palette of colours for their country – helping them all stand out and look unique.
Finally the children bought everything together to fill in the outline of their country with themed text, imagery, the countries flag and other graphical elements which they felt best represented their chosen country.
As well as combining these into the map above, you can also explore each individual country below.
You can click on a country to view it full size!
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.
This week, Year 4 immersed themselves in The Lost Words, a book of poems and illustrations inspired by the rich wonders of British wildlife. Each lost word is saved through speaking or singing a spell to conjure back these creatures into our hearts.
Inspired this book of spells, pupils wrote their own poems to express their adoration for the humble plants and animals of their local environment.
Dandelions, daisies, mushrooms and moss; robins, magpies, seagulls and sunflowers; herons, holly, willow and oak.
Children created beautiful watercolour paintings of their lost words, upon which they wrote their acrostic poems.
Pupils demonstrated some spell-bounding performances around the school grounds, conjuring creatures and plants with their wonderful poems and songs.
“Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow”
The Lost Words Blessing
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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!
