Levens School

The Grand Mosque Bradford

 in Class Four / Class Three / RE by

All of KS2 travelled to Bradford yesterday to learn more about the Islamic faith by visiting their very sacred place of prayer and worship.

Bilali, our guide for the day, welcomed us at the door and led us all around the inside and outside of the Mosque.  We began with the grand entrance hall with a huge glass chandelier and as we looked around, Bilali pointed out all the different symbols and features around us.  We moved on to the place for ritual washing (called wudu) before prayer, which was a huge bathroom where Muslims will cleanse by washing the face, arms and feet; before wiping the head.  We then moved on to the main prayer room where we learnt all about the weekly homework set my the Imam every Friday.  This encourages the community to do good things – either for each other or for God’s creation – linking our Christian Values with Islamic beliefs.

We learnt more about the five pillars of Islam too; about the festival of Eid and Ramadan from our expert guide and the children had many interesting and valuable questions to ask!

We even remembered to step in and out of the Mosque using the correct foot first (the right foot) which we had learnt from Mohammad at our live-linkup with him the day before our trip.

The Grand Mosque also provided us with delicious treats at lunchtime for both children and staff; and each child was presented with a gift bag containing information books, quizzes, pens, stickers and more!

Thank you to everyone at the mosque for making us so welcome and teaching us so much about faith in our communities.  We all valued our experience so very much and will certainly be back in a few years time when our current infant children move up to the juniors.

 

Buzzing bees!

 in Class One by

Class One have concluded their learning about bees this half term with a visit from Chris the beekeeper! We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon learning all about the bees, looking at them up close and trying some of the wonderful Levens honey they made. Can you spot the queen bee?

Eco Team and our Community Garden

 in Whole School by

School’s Eco Team, along with some help from a group of very keen volunteers, have been busy preparing our  Community Garden in Levens Playing Fields.

Earlier in the year, they were involved in planting a number of saplings that are now settled in and doing well.

 

During the late spring, they have been back out to create a wildflower meadow that we are hoping will attract lots of bees, butterflies and other insects.   The seeds were sent to us as a special delivery from His Majesty, King Charles III, as part of the Coronation celebrations.

 

 

Coronation celebrations

 in Class Four / Class One / Class Three / Class Two / Whole School by

We had a fantastic day celebrating the coronation of King Charles the Third. We learnt about the service in Westminster Abbey and watched some of the highlights. The children wore the fabulous crowns they had created and enjoyed an amazing buffet lunch. Thank you to Year Six for your hard work making the cakes and crown shortbread biscuits. It was wonderful to see the children enjoying the celebrations.

Harold visits school!

 in Class Four / Class One / Class Three / Class Two / SCARF by

We enjoyed a wonderful visit from Harold and Steven yesterday from Coram Life Education who provide our SCARF curriculum. Each class took part in workshops ranging from exploring the brain to managing friendships. Harold made an appearance in each class too! Thank you Steven for a brilliant day!

 

 

Fantastic Fossils!

 in Class Three / Science by

Class Three have continued to learn all about rocks and soils. We have learnt how fossils form and about the work of Mary Anning. We made our own fossils by creating a mould using plasticine then filling this with Plaster of Paris. We finished then off by painting the set plaster. Don’t they look amazing!

Visiting the Buddhist Temple

 in Class One / Class Two / RE / Whole School by

Reception, Year One and Two had a wonderful visit to the Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre in Ulverston yesterday. We were greeted at the temple by our guide Kerrin who led us through a guided meditation session and taught us a little more about the Buddhist faith. We learnt that Buddhists believe in living their lives built on love, compassion and empathy.

Our meditation session focused on steady breathing and everyone agreed they felt calm and relaxed afterwards! We enjoyed looking at the statues of the Gods and Goddesses, learning their names and spotting the largest dharma wheel in the building. Can you find it amongst our photos?

 

Collaborative Writing

 in Class Four / English by

We’ve been trying something new in Class 4 this week. Making use of the collaborative features in Microsoft Word, the entire class has come together to re-write a story inspired by our class novel: “Trash” by Andy Mulligan. Some of us were assigned as writers, others as proof-readers and others as editors. The result was amazing (and a little chaotic) as our story came to life at breakneck speed. Words were appearing from all over the classroom as people wrote, edited and corrected as a whole. Below is the story we ended up with, in full, for you to enjoy at home!

I jumped off the train before it reached the platform. You don’t want to get caught by the station guards so we needed to get off as soon as soon we could. The train must have been moving faster than I thought; as soon as I hit the ground I fell over and rolled in the grass. Gardo almost ran over me! I scrambled to my feet as quickly as I could and noticed some station boys, who looked pretty mean, standing at the far end of the platform.

 When I first saw them, they looked all tough; the kind of boys that would fight a guard but that wouldn’t end well. In the corner of my eye, I saw Rat hand over a 20, then 50, then another 20. I didn’t know how long we had to get the thing in the locker, I hoped it would be at least 15 minutes, or more. It looked like Gardo was getting ready to fight, as he was gripping onto his sharp hook. Rat turned around, steadily walked towards us and started talking to us. He said we had five minutes to get the thing in the locker, and we had to be quick!    

As I was walking through the crowed station, I felt Gardo gripping my wrist extremely hard! Rat was picking up a pace and was giving us a signal. I didn’t know what it meant but Gardo certainly did. I think it meant down here. Then Rat sneaked down some bendy stairs and we were in a grey small room. The pipes were wiggly and I saw Gardo looking around anxiously. Then Rat went round a corner for a while. Then I saw Rat reappear. 

Rat was quick to open the locker and to get the mysterious thing in the black door which we did not recognise. We wanted to find out that’s for sure. Rat turned to see if anyone was looking, without thinking he grabbed the black “mystery thing” and ran. I asked, 

“What were you thinking?! You could have got us caught!” The surprising thing was he just ignored me. Then I started to get angry, I thought if it wasn’t for me we wouldn’t have got the bag! He just ignored me, again.  

Sprinting through the station, Gardo was watching around like a CCTV camera making sure Raphael was safe. There were no cops in this area with this mystery item in this bag in Rats clothes.  Suddenly, lots of cops were covering the crowded station but that didn’t stop Rat slithering through the crowd. They didn’t get caught so they ran home.