Whole School

Elleray Finale and Special Celebration for Running Club

 in Class Four / Class Three / PE / Sport / Whole School by

Very sadly our winter X Country running season drew to an end last Friday, but what a season it has been!

The staff have had the very best of times,  every Friday after school, running through, mud, rain, sleet, slurried fields – no end to what we got up to alongside our pupil running buddies. Poor weather was just an enhanced challenge to us!

The third and final event of the running calendar, was the grand finale X Country Championships at Windermere St. Anne’s School where, on Wednesday last week, our teams ran themselves into the history books with a 3rd place in the Yr6 Boys event, and a first place, Elleray Shield Champions, in the Girls Yr5 and Under race (with all of our participants Yr4 or Yr3), how good is that!

Aside from team performances, there were individual goals achieved and running resilience and support for team mates that could not have been bettered, we were proud to the point of being tearful.

We then all enjoyed the most fabulous celebratory run together on Friday evening, through Levens Park, finishing with hot chocolate and cakes at Mrs Mason’s Farm – what a week, what an occasion!

The last thing to say is to wish Dougal the best of luck in the National Finals at Leicester on 26th March. Good luck Dougal, we will all be thinking of you!

Running Club starts again next September, when we look forward to welcoming back our existing fellow runners, and hopefully encouraging some new running friends as well.

 

Day for Ukraine

 in RE / SCARF / Whole School by

Thank you for your support on our ‘Day for Ukraine’ last Friday which raised a staggering £452, which included a very generous donation from one pupil’s grandfather.

Every penny will be forwarded to one of the DEC’s (Disaster Emergency Committee) 15 charities to support refugees affected by this terrible crisis in Ukraine.

Next week, every child will be involved in a democratic vote to decide which charity they would like to support, following some input from Class 4 about how the charities that are members of DEC help people in crisis all around the world.

(Class) Four’s Fabulous Fairtrade Fortnight!

 in Class Four / Geography / Whole School by

Fair Trade: What It Is, How It Works and How You Can Help | Treading My Own Path | Less waste, less stuff, sustainable living

At Levens, we have been celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight. Through our key-stage assemblies in recent weeks, we have been learning about the FairtradeFairtrade logo and symbol, meaning, history, PNG Foundation and what it means for a product to be “Fairtrade”. We’ve found out about the conditions that workers around the world sometime have to endure to produce some of the products we take for granted, including bananas, chocolate and even footballs! However, when we buy a product that has the Fairtrade symbol on it, we know that the producer of that product has been paid fairly for the work they have done.

We also learned about the Fairtrade Premium, which is an extra pot of money which Fairtrade producers can access and spend in their communities on a variety of improvements. In class, we role-played this and put ourselves in the shoes of the Ghanaian cocoa farming community. Different groups had different ‘roles’ within the community and had to decide what to spend the money on.

We found that it was fairly easy to agree how to spend the money in a small group of people with the same job, but incredibly hard to decide when different people had different wants and needs! After debating for a long while we made our decision by democratic vote.

In grey – the decisions we made in a group of people with the same role. In orange – what we changed our mind on when debating with the class!

For our homework, we had a range of activities to choose from, all based on Fair Trade. Some of us have created comics, some posters, some art, but my favourite of all has been the three separate Fairtrade chocolate based recipes which the class has been lucky enough to enjoy! Well done to everyone who has got themselves into the spirit of Fair Trade, and a huge thanks to Pam Martin for all of her help in championing Fair Trade in our school.

Safer Internet Day 2022!

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

Today is Safer Internet Day 2022, when schools and youth organisations across the country take part in a global campaign to promote the safe and responsible use of technology. Safer internet day calls on young people, parents, carers, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, companies, policymakers and more to join together in helping to create a better internet.

Using the internet safely and positively is a key message that we promote in school, and celebrating Safer Internet Day is a great opportunity for us to re-emphasise the online safety messages we deliver throughout the year.

This week, Class 1 have listened to a story about Smartie the penguin, joined in with Mummy penguin’s song and learned about what to do if we feel unsure, scared or upset by something we see online. Class 2 have met “Jessie and Friends” and explored how to share pictures online appropriately and use online games responsibly. Class 3 are and Class 4 have both looked in detail at online gaming by teaching an alien from another planet about how online games work, what’s OK, what’s not and where to get help if we need it.

We would be delighted if you could join us in celebrating the day by continuing the conversation at home. To help you with this, you may be interested in downloading the free Safer Internet Day resources for Parents and Carers which are available at: saferinternet.org.uk/sid-parents.

There are top tips, quizzes, and films which you can use at home with your child.

Some other resources which you may find helpful in supporting your child online are:

● Tips, advice and guides for parents and carers from the UK Safer Internet Centre (saferinternet.org.uk/parents-and-carers)
● Advice for parents and carers from Childnet (childnet.com/parents-and-carers)
● Reviews and information about games, apps, TV shows and websites from
Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org)
● Help on using parental controls and privacy settings from Internet Matters
(internetmatters.org/parental-controls)
● Information and reporting of online grooming or abuse from CEOP (ceop.police.uk)

 

 

 

Experience Church

 in Church / Class Four / Class Three / Class Two / RE / Whole School by

This week, we were treated to another of the “experience” series of events by St. Johns church. We’ve previously enjoyed experience Easter and experience Christmas, this time was “experience Church”.

Arriving at church, we found 6 stations waiting for us – each one representing a part of the church and service that the church provides. These included: the font (welcoming); the pulpit (teaching); the prayer desk (praying); stained glass windows (serving) and the altar (celebrating). At each station, we were encouraged to think about how the church serves all of these different functions. We also took part in a special activity to represent each station.

The sixth and final station was saved until the end. Everyone sat down in front of the great wooden door in the side of the church. Here, we learned that the church shares – part of the job is to share the ideas of Christianity with others. The things that we learn in church are designed to be taken out into the world and shared with others. I wonder if any of our children have shared what they learned with you?

Thanks to everyone from St Johns Church who helped to organise and staff this experience for us – it is greatly appreciated!

Games Night at YoYo

 in Whole School by

YoYo Club are having so much fun, captured earlier this week absorbed in, and thoroughly enjoying their selection of new games.

What great fun they were having, combined with hot buttered toast, what more could anyone want!

Reception visit Leighton Moss

 in Whole School by

We had a wonderful visit to Leighton Moss Nature Reserve on Monday to find out all about birds as part of our winter topic. We enjoyed learning about birds’ feathers and the four jobs they do. We also explored nests, comparing lots of different ones and talking about what the birds had used to make each one. Our morning was finished off with a treasure hunt and creating our own large nest. In the afternoon we enjoyed a sensory walk and looking out over the sky tower which gave us the most amazing views of the local area where we also spotted some migratory birds. A wonderful day was had by all, a day outdoors in the fresh air meant some of us became a little sleepy on the way home!

A Bundle of Joy!

 in Whole School by

Mrs Haslam and Miss Robinson are so proud of all the children for their three performances of ‘A Bundle of Joy’. They certainly helped us all to enter into the festive spirit!

 

Icy art in Class One

 in Art / Bowfell / Class One / Science / Whole School by

Nursery and Reception have been observing the signs that winter is on its way! After noticing the frost last week, we decided to make some of our own ice decorations using natural materials. We collected leaves, conkers and twigs to create them and then hung them on our apple tree to watch what happened as they began to melt. The results were beautiful!

Children in Need

 in Whole School by

We enjoyed an amazing day raising money for Children in Need. Thank you to everyone for taking part on the day and to School Council for organising a super raffle!