Year 4

Penpol Celebrates European Day of Languages 2021

5th October 2021 by Mr Emery

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.

Summer Sunshine and Year 4 Learning in the Wildlife Garden

11th June 202110th June 2021 by Mr Emery

This term, Year 4 have taken great joy from learning outside in our wildlife garden. From Science through to Music, the wildlife garden has provided the perfect setting to enjoy not just forest school, but also all of their learning.

Just before half term, Class 9 wrote a description of the wildlife garden from each of their perspectives. The class really enjoyed sharing their descriptions in the mini amphitheatre. This task drew out all of the benefits of looking after the fantastic wild areas that we are lucky in our community to have, a particularly poignant topic of discussion with the G7 summit taking place this week.

I really like spending time in the wildlife garden. It makes me feel happy and calm. Alex, Class 9

In Science, Year 4 have also been learning about habitats and had to create a powerpoint/ pic collage on what habitats could be found in the wildlife garden, along with the features and residents of each habitat. Students were particularly surprised to find centipedes, tadpoles and even a wandering Wilf (our very own resident school dog) in the wildlife garden.

Finally, Year 4 have taken dusted off their vocal chords and sang a classic song, ‘Let it Be’, by the Beatles, a song which we studied last half term in music. It was a great song to finish off last half term and listen to students singing in a big group again. Enjoy the video below!

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Penpol Pupils earn their Be Internet Legends Trophies

28th April 202120th April 2021 by Mr Woolcock

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!

Summer sunshine and Year 4 learning in the Wildlife Garden

12th June 202124th March 2021 by Mr Emery

Just before half term, Class 9 wrote a description of the wildlife garden from each of their perspectives. The class really enjoyed sharing their descriptions in the mini amphitheatre. This task drew out all of the benefits of looking after the fantastic wild areas we have, a particularly poignant message with the G7 summit taking place this week.

I really like spending time in the wildlife garden. It makes me feel happy and calm. Alex

In poetry, we have been studying the book ‘The Lost Words’, by Roger McFarlane, which is an ode to the words the current generation of children, particularly in inner cities, are losing touch with. This week, we have been learning the poem ‘Conker’ from memory and did a performance in the wildlife garden. See below to check out Class 9’s performance…

Year 4 Go on the Rampage!!

21st October 202021st October 2020 by Mr Emery

Today, Year 4 celebrated the rise of the Roman Empire in true fashion. Armed with shields, swords and Roman legion attire, the excitement from the students entering school was palpable.

To begin with, the Year group were greeted with Roman army commands: Consiste! (Halt!), Laxate (at ease), silentiurm! (Silence!) and Sin/ Dex (Left/ Right!), which would come in hand later on in the day.

Next, both classes were thrown into the melee and had to use their best codebreaking skills in order to crack a hidden message written by the emperor himself, Julius Caesar. The hidden message revealed one of Caesar’s greates quotes to date:

“It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.” Julius Caesar

After exploring this quote and thinking deeper into what Caesar’s quote means, creating is exactly what the students did next. After having designed mosaics the day before, the students were tasked with creating a Roman mosaic. This proved lots of fun and the results are already looking promising.

The grand finale, however, had to be experiencing what it was like to march like a Roman. Led by Mr Wise’s booming commands, Classes’ 9 and 10 both marched up and down the hall, to embed their understanding of Roman commands. Next, the students practised forming the defence shape, which is the ‘testudo’, or the tortoise. This proved an effective barrier against incoming missiles aimed by the teachers, as you can witness in the video below.

All in all, the children had an excellent morning immersing themselves in the Roman life and learning first hand how the Roman army worked.

Year 4 embrace the return back to school!

25th September 202024th September 2020 by Mr Emery

Today, Class 9 took their Maths lesson outside and, it has to be said, they have embraced the outdoors despite the change of weather!

The lesson today was a recap of what they have been learning about this term – Place value. The students showed great teamwork and were able to confidently partition 4 digit numbers, as well as round their chosen number to the nearest 10, 100 and 1,000.

In addition, our Topic this term is ‘Romans on the Rampage.’ The class have been busy learning about who exactly the Romans were and what they have done for us. For DT, each of the students were tasked with creating a Roman helmet using paper mache, balloons, cardboard and, of course, the red and gold paint! This was a great success, with all students now learning Latin salutes in anticipation of a Roman Legion army drill in the coming weeks. ‘Dextrum sinistrum!

Finally, the good weather so far was not wasted, with many of our Guided Reading sessions taking place outside in the Gazebo and our first session of Tag Rugby taking place in glorious sunshine.

Enjoy the pictures below!

Team Y4

Outdoor Learning in full flow at Penpol

22nd September 202022nd September 2020 by Mr Chislett

We are learning outdoors more than ever at Penpol and this is having such a positive impact upon the way we learn. Have a look at what we’ve been up to below. Please do keep an eye on the forecast each day so that your child is ready to enjoy their learning whatever the weather throws at us!

Sports Day 2020

20th July 2020 by Mr Stanlake

2020 brought around a slightly different kind of sports day. Over 100 of our pupils took part in first ever Rainbow games, both at home and in school.

The day consisted of children competing in for their houses in a range of throwing, jumping and running activities alongside some cross-curricular olympic themed activities such as designing/cooking a healthy meal; researching one of the continents; creating banner and posters to show their support for their house.

A brilliant event with many children engaging in the activities. Over 18000 points were shared between the 4 houses with less than 100 separating first and second.

Results are announced in the below video!

Music Without the Marquee 2020

17th July 202017th July 2020 by Mr Woolcock

Here at Penpol School we are delighted to be able to bring a slice of Music in the Marquee to you virtually. Yes, we know it’ll never be the same as being in the marquee together as we celebrate the end of another school year, but we sincerely hope that this mini-event can bring a slice of that fun to you at home.

So it is time to get the wristbands on and the fizzy pop out as we all have a bit of a party in our own homes.

This is Music Without the Marquee!

– Mr Woolcock

(Ps if the embedded video below doesn’t work try this link)

Play Video

Diving Giraffes Writing Competition

10th July 202010th July 2020 by Miss Holcroft

Dive into our Diving Giraffe Writing Challenge!

Key Stage 2 children were set a Writing Challenge during our remote learning. Firstly, the children watched a video on Literacy Shed called Diving Giraffes. Here is a link to the Diving Giraffes video:

https://www.literacyshed.com/diving-giraffes.html

Then children needed to produce some writing based on the video. It was entirely up to them what they wanted to write. We were so impressed with all of the entries that we wanted to share them on The Penpol Times. Please have a look at the amazing writing. Thank you so much for all the children who took part in the Writing Challenge. We are very proud of you all!