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Chris Coyle-Chislett

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“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.”
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Year 6

Cracking the Code: Year 6 Builds Brilliant Morse Machines!

This term, Year 6 pupils embarked on an exciting project that combined history, science, and technology: building their very own Morse code machines! Inspired by the revolutionary invention that changed the way humans communicated in the 19th century, the pupils dived into the world of coding, circuits, and ingenuity.

Before the building began, pupils explored the fascinating history of Morse code. They learned how Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail developed this groundbreaking system of dots and dashes to send messages over long distances. From its vital role in maritime safety to its use in wartime communication, the pupils were captivated by the story of how Morse code shaped history.

With the historical foundation laid, it was time to get hands-on! Pupils worked independently to design and build functional Morse code machines using batteries, wires, bulbs, and switches. Guided by their science and technology lessons, they learned about electrical circuits and how to create a closed-loop system to power their devices.

They also tackled the challenge of encoding and decoding messages, practicing their new Morse code skills with their classmates.

Super work Year 6!

We Will Remember

On Monday our Year 6 pupils took break from writing their World War 1 poetry to pay their respects and mark the two-minute silence on Armistice day at the War Memorial in Hayle alongside other members of our community.

 

The children have been learning lots in class about the sacrifice many service personnel have made on behalf of their countries through their topic of ‘War and Peace’

This has included making poppy crosses to lay in the D-day inspired garden outside of the Passmore Edwards Institute opposite the memorial. They have also sewn their very own felt poppies whilst raising money for the Royal British Legion.

 

IT’S NOT SAFE FOR THEM IN THE CITY: Send them to the countryside!

85 years after thousands of children and young vulnerable adults were evacuated from cities across the country during WW2, our Year 6 children had a go themselves. To launch the start of our ‘Wartime and Peace’ topic the children (and adults) dressed themselves in period clothing and lived the life of an evacuee for the day.

 

After being met at the gates by 2 of the newest members of the Penpol Division of the British Forces and our very own Land Girls they waved a teary goodbye to their parents before heading off for the train station. They were then subjected to a roll call and squeezed into a cramped school classrooms; much like the evacuees of 1939 would have been when they departed the trains.

It was here the children had chance to act in character and meet their fellow evacuees, discussing the contents of their suitcases as well as their preferred destination. Those without identification tags were labeled and sent on their way. The children then had some time to look at and try different games that evacuees would have played in the 40’s. The children also took some time to research and better understand the process of ‘Operation Pied Piper” before writing some touching postcards home.

 

After a ration-free lunch the children got to grips with the struggles of rationing with some home cooking following a handed-down ration recipe to make some delicious scones.

At the close of the day the children were collected by their parents, their evacuation was much shorter than those during the war. Many parents came into class to sample some of their cooking but also sit and enjoy their child’s work from the day.

John Dyer inspired art from Year 6

In year 6 we have been creating a mural of Godrevy lighthouse: a painting from the Cornish artist John Dyer.

Firstly, we did some research about John Dyer to give us a better understanding about the painting that we were re-creating. After that, we got given the canvas we were going to paint, some more intricate than others but all equally as important. Shortly after, we started to draw our tiles in our sketchbook we then used oil pastels to draw our first picture of what we were later going to paint. We then looked at what type of colours we were going to use on our canvas then when we were all prepared with our brushes and our canvases we began to paint – one layer at a time.

After we did the basics on our canvas, we then let it dry and then came back a few days later to add in the detailed bits onto the canvas. We let that dry once again and moved onto the finishing touches. We checked with the people who has the canvases directly next to ours and they lined up almost perfectly. We then added them onto a wooden board before they went on display, hopefully for many years to come.

Why don’t you see if you can spot it somewhere in the school!

 

We reached out to John Dyer, a local Cornish artist, to see what he thought of our work!

“The artwork looks amazing! FANTASTIC work by the children and what an inspired idea! 🙂

I hope it looks fantastic in the school and inspires creativity and a love of the landscape and environment.

Thank you so much for sharing and well done!”

Staff 8 – 6 Students

As is Penpol tradition, the departing Year 6 children had the opportunity to have the last word and take home The Pollard Cup. Unfortunately no one told the teachers. The final score finishing at 8-6 in favour of the more experienced side meant the Pollard cup will remain in the hands of the Penpol Staff team for another year.

The score never does the match justice with it being played in wonderful spirits with many wonderful goals scored. The children should be ex optionally proud of how they performed but it is the teachers who remain undefeated.

Teachers goals were shared out between Mr Emery, Mr Stanlake and Miss Burlington as well as Nay and Mr Curnow on their final day before they depart to pastures new.

Children’s goals were scored by Isaac B, Isaac L, Alfie and Bobby.

 

Penpol’s Got Talent 2024

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!

Year One

Year Two

Year Three

Year Four

Year Five

Year Six

The Dragons and the Six Super Stars both come back from Culdrose with Trophies!

Last week our Year 6 and Year 5 Lego Teams (the Six Super Stars and the Dragons respectively) took part in the Cornwall finals of the FIRST Lego League.

With thirty other teams taking part each day it was wonderful to see the event getting bigger and better every year in Cornwall.  But of course more teams also means more competition for our own Penpol pupils!  They completely rose to the occasion though with both groups sharing two excellent presentations and each taking part in three brilliant Robot Games runs.

This is the story of how our students got on at RNAS Culdrose…

Part 1: Robot Games

The Robot games is a fun challenge where the children have to design, build and code their very own robot to complete different missions. There is a maximum of 550 points on offer this year and a score of anything over 200 is considered exceptionally good – especially for primary teams!

The Dragons

Never under-estimate how much pressure it takes to be a Robot Games Engineer.  Not only are you lining up your robot and ensuring your code works perfectly, but you have a whole world of excitement, pressure and expectation building around you.  Those two and a half minutes determine a huge part of your whole teams score in the competition – so it’s a lot of pressure!

Not that you’d know if from watching the Dragons though.  They stayed cool under pressure, re-ran missions that didn’t work quite right and communicated throughout to ensure they got the very best score possible in each game.  And all that hard work paid off on the third and final run as, to much cheering and support from their fellow team members, the robot managed to achieve it’s best run and got a score of 265 points when it mattered the most – catapulting the team to second place on the Robot Games scoreboard.

245

Round 1

230

Round 2

265

Round 3

The Six Super Stars

In the Robot Games you are given three opportunities to get your best score possible – but the Six Super Stars did theirs on the very first run!  To much cheering and excitement their robot pulled off the perfect run, completing all the missions they had planned and scooped up a brilliant score of 265 points.  This took the pressure off the other two runs, allowing the students a chance to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the moment.  This was a real team success as every member had the opportunity to launch at least one mission in the two and half minute timeframe.

They even engaged in some friendly banter with the the Year 7 team from Hayle Academy, which included some team-members from last years Penpol Pumpkins.  This caught the attention of BBC Spotlight who sent their reporter Johnny Rutherford who featured the team on his report in the evening news!

265

Round 1

225

Round 2

205

Round 3

Part 2: Innovation Project

The Innovation Project is a chance for the children to identify a problem linked to the annual theme (Creativity and Hobbies for this season) before researching, creating, refining and presenting their own innovative solution. This takes the form of a five minute presentation to the judges and a ten minute question and answer session afterwards.

The Dragons

For their Innovation Project the Year 5’s conducted a survey all about art and found that 80% of children in school loved to draw.  The only problem was that three quarters of those children often didn’t draw because they didn’t have any good ideas of inspiration of what to create.

The Dragons set about fixing this by creating a Scratch project called the DrawingRandomiser which gives people an idea of what to draw – often with some very funny results!

They shared this project with the judges in a short comedy sketch that they’d written together and gave the judges a chance to try their project for themselves.

For this presentation there was nowhere to hide and the team all had to be really brave in their confidence – something they truly excelled at in the run up to the competition.  On the day they were able to speak confidently and proudly to the judges (in fact one of the organisers told us it was hard for the judges to get a word in because the team were so confidently explaining everything they’d been doing!).

31 points

out of a total of 40

The judges praised their “unique idea to encourage creativity for all people” and thought they “adapted to failing technology very well” when their laptop couldn’t get onto the internet.

The Six Super Stars

The Year 6 Innovation Project also revolved around the theme of art, but with a slightly different focus.

After lots of planning meetings and discussions, the team identified the problem that quite often people struggle to draw because they don’t know how to.  To help with this problem they decided to create a book that students can use to learn how to draw different things with friendly, step-by-step instructions.  They chose popular things to draw such as animals and using iPad they created illustrations and instructions to help even the most beginner artist create some beautiful pictures.

Having made this book the team then created a presentation to share with the judges which featured lots of comedy and some great acting too.  They also had a printed copy of their book to demonstrate what the finished product would look like in the future.

They were full of confidence in the judging room and ensured that each team member had the opportunity to talk and reflect on the journey they’ve been on over the course of the competition.

19 points

out of a total of 40

The judges enjoyed their “unique, acted presentation” and said their “excellent, enthusiastic teamwork” was evident throughout whilst describing and solving their “novel problem”.

Part 3: Robot Design Presentation

The last part of the competition was the Robot Design Presentation. This name is slightly deceptive as it isn’t just about the robot that the teams have built. Yes it is largely about this, but it is also a chance to share the story that the children have been on since starting their journey in the competition. This is a chance to share their learnings, their new skills, their strategies, plans and anything else that they want to with the judges.

The Dragons

When it came time to share their Robot Design presentation the Year 5’s decided on an ‘interview-style’ approach where they took it in turns to ask questions for each other to answer about the robot, coding, mission strategy and testing they’d done.

This fun approach meant the children were able to talk naturally without having to learn a script beforehand and gave them plenty of opportunities to highlight their coding and strategy for their missions.

29 points

out of a total of 40

The judges shared that it was “well presented” and that the team “explained thoroughly what could go wrong and the how to avoid mistakes during the missions.” 

The Six Super Stars

For their Robot Design presentation the Year 6’s created and shared A1 posters which featured their code, photos of the robot and attachments and important information about their robot.  This meant they were able to clearly articulate the journey they’d been on with their coding, including the decision making strategy behind changing their robot design from the standard ‘Advanced Driving Base’ to a more unusual ‘Coop Bot‘ which they found after doing lots of online research into effective robot designs. 

They took this starting point and adapted the robot for their own mission strategy by creating an assortment of interesting attachments to help them earn points.

30 points

out of a total of 40

The judges said their presentations were “novel, funny and charming” as well as their “detailed explanation of design, issues and solutions”.

Part 4: Core Values

The final of the four areas that teams are marked on is called the Core Values. These values include Discovery, Innovation, Impact, Inclusion, Teamwork and Fun. Throughout their presentations, their robot games and the day itself the teams are being judged on these six areas.

The Dragons

As a team, the Dragons really embodied their Core Values over the course of the day.  They supported each other throughout, from cheering during the Robot Games matches to supporting each other in the presentations if they stumbled on any lines.

They demonstrated the impact they’ve had through their project and shared all the discoveries they’d made as they learnt to build and code their Lego robot.

20 points

out of a total of 24

The judges were really impressed with how the team “supported each other and the most confident always encouraged the least confident” and said that “when asked about teamwork they all discussed how they organised as a team and how the team has supported each other learning new skills”.

The Six Super Stars

The Six Super Stars did a fantastic job sharing their Core Values during the competition – from supporting each other and exploring the STEM exhibitors together to being kind and courteous to adults and other teams. 

The judges picked up on their team spirit and gave them a rare Exceeding score of 4 points for both their Teamwork and Fun.  For every other score they got a 3 which shows that Discovery, Innovation, Impact and Inclusion were “consistently observed across the team“.

20 points

out of a total of 24

The judges praised their “excellent teamwork”, the fact they “worked out improvements and simplified their designs” and the fact that during their presentation there were “great answers by all members to questions”.

The Final Scores

As you can see from each of the four areas above, both teams did really well and embraced each and every aspect of the competition. I’m thrilled to say that they both returned to Penpol with a trophy to recognise their hard word.

Year 5 Team

The Dragons came second overall in the Robot Performance category with a score of 265 points, as well as taking home the Breakthrough Award which "celebrates a team that made significant progress in their confidence and capability in both the Robot Game and Innovation Project and are a shining example of excellent Core Values."

Year 6 Team

The Six Super Stars came top of the charts in the Robot Games section, beating over 30 other teams with their incredible score of 265 points.

Because of this excellent score they take home the Robot Performance Trophy.

Conscription! Year 6 are heading to the front!

As we have in previous few years, Year 6 headed to Bodmin Keep to explore the Military Museum. Bodmin Keep is the historical home of the DCLI; the barracks for which many of our ancestors signed up in and trained at as members of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.

To help immerse ourselves in to the lives of young soldiers we took part in two workshops. One, where we were able to explore their replica trench where we discussed the dismal living conditions and even had a go at heading ‘over the top’ ourselves. During the second workshop, we had the opportunity to look at ‘Somme’ letters that were written by soldiers in 1914 from the muddy battlefields on France. Here we really felt the emotion connected with these letters and the sensitivity with which we were going to need to write our own. We then had the chance to write pen some ideas to take back to school with us for our very own letters.

During our guided tour we learnt all about how the keep was used to train and house recruits who later went onto fight in France and Belgium as part of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry before housing visiting G.I Joes in the lead up to the D-Day landings in 1944.

The building is rich with British Military history and a plethora of artefacts and replicas to explore and discuss including; Mary tins, a present from Princess Mary to serving soldiers in 1914; genuine WW1 clothing, helmets and boots; food stuffs from the time of WW1, including a VERY hard tac biscuit; and soldiers personal possessions, such as boot polish, button polishers and shaving kits. A new addition to the museum is a exhibit on the United Nations and the roll the British Forces play in peacetime; helping maintain the peace across the world and well as helping with natural disasters.

We had a truly awe-inspiring day where many of our current day to day difficulties were put into persecutive. We left feeling very grateful to live in the world in which we do and will be taking our first hand experience of the trench back to school with us and using it to help write our very own letters from the Somme.

Codeblocks at Christmas

This term the students in Years 3 and 6 have been creating their own 3D Winter Ornaments using the Tinkercad program.

The Year 3’s have been learning all about 3D modelling and how to adjust, combine and create using different 3D shapes, while the Year 6’s have been putting their coding skills to the test by creating their own 3D decorations using nothing but blocks of code!

This week, as one hundred and twenty 3D decorations go home, we wanted to share some of the behind-the-scenes of how these wintery treats were made…

Year 6

Isaac

Class: 14

I used three spheres for the body.  I used the move block and changed the z axis.  I then squashed a cynlinder for the base and I used the text block for my name and the size block to change the size.

For the hat I used a torus shape and a cynlinder, which I moved using the Z axis.

Verity

Class: 14

For my Christmas decoration I made a gingerbread man, it was very fun to make! At first I was quite confused, but then I got the hang of it and created this!

Hana

Class: 14

Rosie

Class 13

I used hearts instead of triangles to make the tree segments unique. I also did a green gradient. Then we were told that our designs are going to be printed in white and that we would haft to paint it.  For the tinsel I used dashes in text because there was no shape that would mimic tinsel very well.

This is where I got stuck on how to flip it upwards. This is where Harry told me I just needed to place a ‘select all’ block at the bottom.

I used two squares and moved it by the z axis (up) to create the pot top and I used a semicircle to make the tree stump. 

Jowan

Class: 13

Blue blocks make the shapes – if we didn’t have these we wouldn’t have anything on this page.

Purple blocks are vital if you want the objects to be in the right place to make something cool or cute.

Top tip: If you open the Blue blocks you can change the size of each block individually.

Lola

Class: 13

To make my snow monkey,I first had to place the body by using spheres all lined up on top of each other.  Next I did the ears to do that I used cones and adjusted the sizes.   Then I started doing the mouth because I want my monkey to be happy.  After that, I started doing the eyes with two spheres again it was quite hard at the start but then it got a bit easier.

On the next part of my code, I tried doing a tail it was really hard to do because you cant make it curve since we are coding it. I managed to do it by mixing up all the numbers and then it just turned out to look like a tail.

Year 6 Gallery

I think it’s safe to say the Year 6’s have truly outdone themselves this year, each taking home a beautiful and unique 3D winter ornament.

Year 3

Our Year 3’s have also been exploring the world of 3D designing in Tinkercad whilst creating their own two-tone winter ornament.

They’ve learnt how to master the different tools and iterated on their designs to make each one the very best it can be before they got printed.  How good do these look?!

Our Penpol School Vision: “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.”

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Chris Coyle-Chislett

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2 St George's Road, Hayle, Cornwall, TR27 4AH

01736 753472