News
Coronavirus Update
01 May 2020Please see Mr Walker’s latest update below:
Good afternoon. I hope the routines have settled in and everyone has found the work to be a good balance of challenging and achievable. Thank you to everyone for your efforts at home – ensuring routines are kept to, making plans, and keeping structures of getting up and bedtimes is no mean feat! Keep sending us your valuable feedback so we can get everything perfect.
Remember, Friday 8 May is a bank holiday, so we will be setting all work by 12 noon on Monday 4 May, to be completed by 10.00am on Thursday 7 May. We will, of course, adjust the workload to take this shorter week into account. As usual, if there are any problems, contact the individual teacher so they can help solve the issue for that week.
Reading
As you know, we have the SORA app available so all students can access books online. We currently have the most users from one school in the country, so well done! We would love to see more students joining – so please follow Mrs Snowdon’s simple instructions below if your child is not already using the app:
First, make sure you are connected to the internet
- From your iPad home screen, tap on the ‘School Internet’ app;
- Fill in your school username and password, click ‘log in’ (remember to do this every 24 hours).
Then, go back to your home screen and tap the Sora app
- When asked for school, select ‘Penryn College’;
- When you are asked to log in, use your Microsoft Office 365 login details – school e-mail address and school password.
- Choose a book from the 1500+ available – including audio books, magazines, and graphic novels.
To log in on another device:
- Search for soraapp.com;
- Select ‘My school is Secondary Ebook NOW!’;
- Select ‘Penryn College’;
- When you are asked to log in, use your Microsoft Office 365 login details – school e-mail address and school password.
- Choose a book from the 1500+ available – including audio books, magazines, and graphic novels.
Happy reading! If you have any questions, please contact Mrs Snowdon via ksnowdon@penryn-college.cornwall.sch.uk.
To access the link for the app, please click here. If you need help logging on, please contact icttech@penryn-college.cornwall.sch.uk.
Year 11
Yesterday (Thursday 30 April) we sent an e-mail to all Year 11 students and parents/carers regarding the prom, yearbook, GCSE grades and our transition work with post-16 providers. This e-mail has a very important letter attached with specific information on the transition programme – we have also sent you a hard copy of this letter by post. Please read this letter carefully – it contains key information. Mrs Snowdon has also asked me to remind students to get their Post-16 application forms across – we are still missing some!
You can also access yesterday’s e-mail here.
ICT
All members of our ICT team, led by Mr Pell, are doing such a great job in ensuring we are all connected. They have asked me to give you a few tips to help get the best from iPads:
School Internet: Students need to sign into the School Internet app on their iPads every 24 hours to remain connected to the internet. Pupils can visit the bbc.co.uk website to check if they are connected.
Passwords: Many students use saved passwords – if these passwords are not working, please enter passwords manually.
Storage: Many iPads are low on storage – students can check storage information via Settings > General > Usage.
Help Files: There are lots of help files on students’ iPads, these can be located on the iPad Help app (black icon, white question mark) and will assist with many issues.
If there are any issues you cannot resolve, members of our ICT Tech team are available to help, and can be contacted via e-mail: icttech@penryn-college.cornwall.sch.uk).
School trips
Mr Cunningham has asked me to pass on the following message to parents/carers of students who were due to go on school trips this school year :
‘As a result of the uncertainty over coronavirus and the likelihood of some social distancing continuing for some time, the school has decided to cancel all trips for this school year. We are very sorry that we have had to do this, but it became apparent that there was too much parental money on the line and that even if the trips were to go ahead, we felt that parents/carers would not be happy for their child to travel. As a result, almost all refunds will be paid over the next five weeks through ParentPay. This is quite a complex procedure, so different trips will be done on an individual basis as quickly as we can do it. We have not yet got a date for refunds for those students who were planning on going on the football trip to Spain, as we are waiting for the insurance company to confirm the date of the refund, but I am hoping that will be resolved, so that parents/carers can get their money back by June. I am very sorry that we have had to cancel the trips, which I know students were really looking forward to. We will do our best to ensure that we have other trips available through the next school year.’
If you have any questions, please contact Mr Cunningham on dcunningham@penryn-college.cornwall.sch.uk.
Take care and stay safe.
Paul Walker
Headteacher