Monthly archives: November 2019

Cinderella

 in Bowfell / Scafell / Skiddaw by

What an amazing performance we saw today at the Dukes, Lancaster! It was lovely to go as a whole school, we enjoyed delicious ice creams in the interval and were spell bound by the action on stage. Highly recommended production for all the family.

Here are a few comments from the children…

I liked the puppet birds that flew around our heads. I liked the way each of the actors played lots of different characters in the story. They swapped and got changed really quickly behind the scenes. The dad transformed into the evil step mother right on stage! I liked the way they had a real tree in the corner and Ella climbed up it. It was really funny when the Prince sat down next to Miss Butler and spoke to her! Someone disappeared under the stage and then popped back up dressed in something else! The step brother’s costumes were really funny. I liked the baby that transformed into a puppet toddler which transformed into a child puppet that changed into a real live Ella! I liked the prince’s clothes. They had clever ways to do the sound effects of ripping cloth, smashing plates and chopping off toes!! Cinderella wore a leather jacket and had sparkly boots.

Thank you to FOLS and parents for their financial support of this visit. It really was a memorable day in the life of Levens School!

 

 

What is a pentomino?

 in Skiddaw by

For Skiddaw’s latest maths investigation, Mr Ward-Banks introduced us to pentominoes. A pentomino was defined a shape made from 5 multilink cubes, fitted together where all 5 cubes touched the table when we placed it down.

We worked in teams to find as many different combinations. We found that some were reflections of others and some were the same when twisted them round. We recorded our findings and made a display of the different combinations. The next challenge was fitting pieces into a cross shaped jigsaw! Great persevering skills and team work was shown.

Superb Skipping Skills

 in Bowfell / Scafell / Skiddaw by

On Friday we welcomed Anthony, a skipping coach, into school. He worked with every class…twice…teaching them good skipping techniques including tricks to develop their skills. We all learnt about standing up tall with our backs straight, penguin position hands and windmills. He commented especially on the children’s excellent listening skills and was impressed with the speed of improvement seen over each session. Pupils showed a strong sense of perseverance and we all had great fun skipping the day away. Celebration Assembly showcased examples of our skills from every class in traditional and in French skipping. We are looking forward to skipping more at playtimes from now on.

 

Scafell’s Simple Machines

 in Scafell by

From the humble ramp to complex systems of levers and pulleys, simple machines make our lives easier every day. Scafell class have been finding out more.

As part of their History topic of Ancient Egypt, Scafell class have been studying the six types of simple machine. These tools are everywhere in the world around us and give us mechanical advantage. This means they make doing really hard jobs a lot easier, by spreading out the force we need to use over time.

We all know that the Ancient Egyptians designed and built grand structures to honour the important people in their society. What’s really amazing is how the Egyptian engineers figured out how to build such huge monuments without the help of trucks or cranes.  Instead, manpower and some clever use of simple machines made this great feat possible.

Huge stones were cut from quarries using a range of chisels – specially designed wedges to break the rock apart. The stones were likely transported using some kind of primitive form of the wheel to the nearest river, where they could be put onto a boat. Once at the building site, ramps, levers and pulleys were used to hoist the stones slowly up towards the top of the pyramid as it was built.

A lot of simple machines are quite intuitive to use, but it’s been fascinating to apply our math skills to the lessons and figure out exactly how simple machines make our lives so much easier.

Exciting Electricity

 in Skiddaw by

This week we have been using our electrical circuits for testing materials that let electricity flow through it, a conductor, and materials that stop electricity flowing through them, an insulator.

 

Tag Rugby Winners!

 in Skiddaw by

A Year 3 and 4 squad of 12 represented school at the latest Dallam interschool festival. It was a really chilly day so we were glad to be running around and showed great improvement during the afternoon’s games, learning how important it was to be in a good position to be passed the ball. We showed good understanding of rules and tactics of the Tag Rugby game, thanks to Mrs Cragg’s super training prep. We were joint winners of our group!

Thank you to Penny Garnet at Dallam for organising us all including a set of young referees who did a super job too and to parents and wider family who transported and came to cheer us on!

 

 

Anti-Bullying Week

 in Bowfell / Scafell / Skiddaw by

Last week, pupils at Levens School were all talking about bullying!  What does the word bullying mean?  What should we do if we think we are being bullied and who can help us?  What should we do if we see that someone is being bullied?

We have agreed that being bullied means that someone is unkind to you Several Times On Purpose – STOP!  Being unkind might mean online comments that are hurtful, leaving people out at playtimes, being physical, calling people names.  To raise awareness and keep us thinking about this important issue we took part in National Odd Socks Day; we also made a pledge to choose kindness; and we created our own sock designs with anti-bullying slogans and top-tips to STOP bullying!

Children in Need

 in Church / Whole School by

Thank you to everyone who supported our activities for Children in Need last week.  Our PJ day and cake sale, organised by our seven enthusiastic and dedicated school councillors, raised a staggering £185!  Well done everyone!

Owl Babies nest building

 in Bowfell / Whole School by

Reception and Year One enjoyed spending part of their morning last week thinking about what owl babies might like to make a nest from. They went on a collecting hunt around the playing fields as part of their Literacy and English work this half term. Reception then made collages using some of the things they found and talked about why they thought they would be good materials to build a nest from. Year One practised their sentence writing skills, giving reasons for their choices.