Year 4

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

Etch-A-Scratch with Year 4

29th January 201929th January 2019 by Jacob Woolcock

This term the Year 4 pupils are learning all about robots and their uses in the world. They’ve been taking this learning into Computing as well and this week we’ve written programs to help us draw our very own robotic creations.

Using Scratch 3.0 the children have worked together to make a program which mimics a traditional Etch-A-Sketch, moving the pen up, down, left and right by using the correct blocks of code.

Here’s a few pictures of what their programs looked like, followed by a gallery of the Class 9 robots and the Class 10 robots.

To make their programs even better the children used the MicroBit as a remote controller, adding in pen up, pen down and clear screen functionality into their coding.

Class 9 Robot Drawings

Class 10 Robot Drawings

Electrifying!

22nd January 2019 by Colin Jones

Have you ever wondered where electricity comes from? Class 9 have been investigating the different ways in which electricity is produced. After investigating and finding information, the children wrote short scripts outlining what they have found. Using iPads, the children have narrated a video from the BBC website to help people understand more about where electricity comes from.

Penpol School make their own 3D Winter Ornaments on our 3D Printer!

4th February 201917th December 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

This year, for the for the third time, we gave every child in Key Stage 2 the opportunity to design and refine their own 3D models on the computer, which we then printed out using our state-of-the-art Makerbot 3D printer.

This year the children had greater design freedom than ever before thanks to the fantastic new ‘Scribble’ tool on Tinkercad which lets the children draw their very own designs on screen, alongside their library of 3D shapes which the pupils have used previously. This tool was hugely popular and has resulted in us creating some really personal and unique decorations.

We’ve made a short video below to show the process of making our decorations, followed by a very large gallery underneath of every single decoration we printed this year!

This year we printed two hundred and twenty different decorations, which took a very very long time! You can see all of these decorations in the gallery below – see if you can spot yours…

This year there have been so many lovely designs and each one is completely unique. They’re all brilliant, but are there any that you particularly like?

Gallery of Decorations

(click a decoration to view it bigger)

Exploring 3D designs for this year’s Winter Ornaments

Jacob Woolcock 9th October 2018

What’s that noise coming from the Mac Suite?

Jacob Woolcock 20th November 2017

“You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.” – Dr Seuss

11th December 201811th December 2018 by Jess Riches

What an amazing half term it has been. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our Extreme Reading Challenge. It has been incredible to see the exciting adventures your reading has taken you.

Infant and Junior winners will be announced this Friday.

Have a lovely Christmas!

Keeeeeeeeeeeep Reading 🙂

Mrs Riches

Enjoying every second of the Hour of Code

11th December 20184th December 2018 by Jacob Woolcock

Over the last two weeks each class in Key Stage 2 has taken part in the Hour of Code. For those unfamiliar, Hour of Code is a worldwide event which encourages school children to spend an hour having fun by problem solving through writing code.

Each year some amazing activities are created and this year schools around the world got to enjoy spending an hour Dance Party and coding their characters to dance their favourite moves.

But enough of me talking about it, here’s a fab video of the children enjoying choreographing their very own Dance Party!

– Mr Woolcock

This is the second year we’ve taken part in the international Hour of Code – you can read more about the children’s Minecraft adventure last year below:

Penpol are Finalists at the 2018 Edge Awards

Hour Of Code 2017: A Hero’s Journey

Preparing For Christmas With The Choir

20th November 201819th November 2018 by Colin Jones

The Penpol Junior Choir has been busy preparing for this year’s festivities, rehearsing Christmas songs which are to be performed at a number of events throughout December. After working really hard to learn and polish the songs which were performed at the Camborne Music Festival, the choir have got together during a lunch time to record one of their favourite carols, The Sans Day Carol, to help get everyone in the mood. Please listen to the school choir and enjoy, whilst getting into the Christmas Spirit.

Watch out for the amazing Penpol School Junior Choir as they perform throughout December!

Penpol Junior Choir At The Camborne Music Festival

19th November 2018 by Colin Jones

On the 15th November 2018, the Penpol Junior Choir participated in this year’s Camborne Music Festival. The children performed two songs, Touch the Sky and I’m Still Singing, with energy and confidence giving a fantastic performance to the adjudicator and the audience. The choir were awarded with 168 marks (out of 200) and were praised for their energy and spirit and their great part singing. The children really enjoyed the experience and we look forward to the next Music festival.

Reading Reaches New Heights

19th November 2018 by Jess Riches

Another fantastic round of photos! It is brilliant to see so many new faces taking part in the Extreme Reading Challenge. Keep sending in your creative ways to read. The competition is heating up, winners will be announced on the 14th of December. Still plenty of time to get your photos in to reading@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk.

Happy Reading!

Mrs Riches