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Headteacher
Chris Coyle-Chislett

Email the Office
secretary@penpol.cornwall.sch.uk

Telephone Number
01736 753472

Our Address
2 St George’s Road, Hayle,
Cornwall, TR27 4AH

“Penpol pupils are curious, creative and courageous learners. Our school community believes in authenticity as the foundation 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

Penpol win the Mayor’s Cup

Last week the Penpol School boys football team continued their success at the Mayor’s Cup; making it 3 wins in 3 years.

The boys played wonderfully, winning league games against Connor Downs, St Piran’s, Bodriggy and fighting back to draw with St Erth conceding only 2 goals on their way to the final.

They spent most of the first half on the back foot with Bodriggy enjoying most of the possession with Penpol captain, Isaac,  having to come off injured in his last game for the school team. Also missing the game through injury was Alfie, whose team talk at half time turned the tide.

The game however, ended 0-0 and headed to the dreaded penalty shootout and I tell you what, Gareth Southgate and the England team should take note as both teams scored some excellent penalties. Unfortunately for Bodriggy, they went on to miss in sudden death. Up stepped Nicholas, the 3rd Year 6 pupil in the team making his last appearance, to confidently thrash home the winner- cue the celebrations.

Thank you to all at Hayle Football Club for the event and special thanks to Mayor June Lawrenson-Reid for hosting the event. The teams all played brilliantly, especially Bodriggy who would also have been worthy winners.

Hayle Schools team up for the 2024 Careers Fair!

This week we were joined by staff and students from Bodriggy Academy Hayle Academy for our annual Careers Fair.  But what would a Careers Fair be without some careers?! Well, luckily we had over 40 different professions represented from across Cornwall, giving our students an incredible insight and inspiration into future job opportunities.

Check out this video to see more from this exciting event!

 

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?!

Penpol Celebrates Languages Day 2023!

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.  

Healthy Choices on the Menu at Penpol

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.

 

Surf’s up with Y5/6 Surf Club

Surf’s up – During June and July, the Y5/6 went surfing with Hayle based surf school Shore Surf to learn to surf or improve surfing skills and also learn about key water safety messages and what to do if they find themselves in difficulty.

The first sessions had small surf due to glorious weather during June. Nevertheless, all were up and riding and learning key paddling and board manoeuvring skills.

 

 

” It was a really good experience and the coaches were really kind to us. ” – Felix.

” It was lots of fun and I caught one of the best waves I have ever caught!” – Ernie

The last two sessions however, we certainly had waves and were tested with over head high conditions. Some were even out back with an instructor but all were up and surfing and enjoying waves at last!

 

” It was very fun. I caught some good waves.”  – Bruce.

” This was my first time surfing and I can now stand up!” – Flo.

Our thanks go to Shore Surf for all the sessions.

A Very Special Visit from Biffa

Last week we had a very special visit from Biffa and their brand new Food Waste Recycling Truck.

Okay, you might be asking what’s so special about that?  Well the Penpol Pumpkins have been spreading the word about the upcoming Cornwall Council Food Waste Collection all year as part of their award-winning FIRST LEGO League Innovation Project and as a special reward for all their hard work they’re actually the first people outside of Biffa to ever see this brand new vehicle in real life!

Not only that, but they also got to see the truck in action and even sit in the cab and use the horn!  They learnt lots about the vehicle and asked plenty of interesting questions about the upcoming Food Waste collection.

After a tour of the truck the Pumpkins took great pride in sharing their Innovation Project Presentation with the team from Biffa in a real ‘full-circle’ moment.  Nearly 10 months after originally coming up with the idea of promoting Food Waste Recycling they were able to share their learnings in front of the actual vehicle that will be used and with part of the team responsible for rolling it out right across Cornwall – amazing!

But Biffa were also here for another reason…

Thanks to an incredibly generous donation from the company, the Penpol Pumpkins have been able to buy 10 LEGO Robotics Kits to donate to other schools to enable them to take part in FIRST LEGO League too!  These sets, offered as a gift from the Penpol Pumpkins and Biffa, will have a huge impact on hundreds of children in Cornwall who would not otherwise have been able to experience the powerful STEM learning experiences that this competition has to offer.

Talk about having a lasting legacy in Cornwall!  Well done Pumpkins – and thank you Biffa!

Penpol Win the Treble!

The Penpol School Boys Football team have followed up their successes in the Leading Edge Academy Trust Cup and The Penwith Schools District Cup with victory in the Hayle Mayor’s Cup.

After competing with local Hayle Schools the team made up on only Year 6 pupils sat a top the table and headed to the final. On their way to the final they were in red got form scoring over 20 goals in 5 games and conceding none.

They met local rivals Bodirggy again in the final after defeating them 1-0 in the round robin. The score was slightly different this time round with them wrapping the trophy up in style with an 8-0 victory. The final victory ensured they have been undefeated all season whilst more impressively not conceding a goal.

Their quality of their play was receiving applause and congratulations from spectating parents, teachers and players from other schools which is testament to the way they have gone about their football this year.

Hopefully their red hot form turns ice cold when they face off against the Penpol Staff in two weeks time.

Thank you to the Hayle Mayor and all at Hayle FC for an excellent afternoon.