School Blog


Elleray Cross Country Event

What an absolutely brilliant afternoon we all had at Elleray last week, participating in their terrific, challenging and rewarding cross country competition, running against 564 of the best runners that the county has to offer!

As totally expected, our team of 18 did not disappoint, everyone finishing the hilly, stream-ridden course with great personal gratification to be rewarded with a special medal and a burger/hotdog!

For a small school, we provide a terrific punch in cross country running, our Under 10 girls finishing second in the team competition, many children running against much older competitors. The day might have been incredibly cold, but staff and parents were warmed through with pride, appreciating every single effort, they could not have given more or tried harder.

Running Club concludes for the season this week with a celebration run through Levens Park and warming homemade refreshments served at Mrs Mason’s farm. We cannot wait to start again in September already…..


Fantastic Food- Class 3

Class 3 have had an amazing time learning all about seasonal foods. We began by looking at the climatic zones of the world and where foods can grow. We then made Japanese fruit kebabs using strawberries, watermelon, lychees and bananas. We looked at seasonal foods in the United Kingdom and created seasonal food wheels. We then had great fun learning how to make apple crumble. It tasted delicious with custard! We found out about food miles and the environmental impact of this. Did you know on average a pineapple travels 5,000 miles to reach the UK! We then designed our own seasonal tarts. This was a little bit tricky, so we decided to use tinned and frozen foods as well. We followed recipes and made these, they tasted delicious.


World Book Day 2023

We had a wonderful day celebrating World Book Day 2023. This year, our challenge was to create a story sack of clues about a favourite book or character from a story. We had some brilliant book choices, with some being quite tricky to guess! We also enjoyed taking part in lots of lovely activities; writing book reviews, designing and making bookmarks, a pre-loved book sale after school organised by FOLS and World Book Day yoga in Class One. Class teachers also shared their own story sacks and read to different classes throughout the day.


Amazing Authors- Anthony Browne

Class Three have loved looking at the books of Anthony Browne. We started the topic looking at the book ‘Gorilla’. The children thought about how the characters were feeling using inference.  They moved onto to researching facts about gorillas and produced some amazing non-fiction reports, organising the facts under sub-headings. We then moved onto ‘The Tunnel’. The children made predictions about what would be at the end of the tunnel. We also considered the actions of the characters and carried out a conscience alley. The children gave the character advice and guidance. We followed this with the children producing decision wheels, these gave advantages and disadvantages of suggested next steps for the character Rose. The children then focused on diary writing and wrote an entry for Jack and Rose. We finally looked at ‘Voices in the Park’. The children loved the idea of writing about the same event from different views. To finish this topic, we wrote our own versions of the story  and called them ‘Voices in the playground’. We can’t wait for you to read them!


Class 4 Bridges

For our D&T project this term, Class 4 are building bridges. We’ve been exploring different ways to stiffen and reinforce cardboard. A simple flat “beam” of paper can’t support much weight on its own, but add a curved “arch” underneath and suddenly things are much stronger! We’ve also been exploring corrugation and lamination techniques to further reinforce the structures we have been building. Check out some of our prototypes below!


Barrow Raiders School of the Week

How delighted were we to once again be invited to the Barrow Raiders’ School of the Week recently.

Eighty nine of us enjoyed the hospitality of the Raiders, for their game at Barrow against Superleague side, Wigan Warriors. We turned up with banners and very loud voices to cheer our team to victory and were delighted with both the win and our opportunity to accompany the team as mascots onto the field in from of 2,500 spectators.

It was a wonderful, memorable event and we hope to be invited again in the Summer as the season progresses.


Edinburgh Highlights

This week, Class 4 enjoyed three amazing days in the incredible city of Edinburgh.

Our trip began bright and early on Monday morning with a meet up at Oxenholme Station for our train journey North.  On arrival, we dropped our bags at the hostel, then set off up Calton Hill for views of the city and the surrounding hills on such a clear, bright day.  In the afternoon, we enjoyed a tour around the Scottish Parliament – an incredible modern building located opposite the historic palace of Holyrood.

Tuesday started with a good breakfast and a walk up the Royal Mile to the Castle and then to Camera Obscura – a fascinating museum and definitely a popular highlight of the entire trip with all our pupils.  We then headed out of town on a local bus to Edinburgh Zoo where we saw koalas, penguins, pandas, sun bears and much much more!

Our final day involved exploring the exhibits at the National Museum of Scotland which included stepping back in time to Ancient Egypt and lots of interactive scientific displays too!

We all enjoyed such a wonderful time and, as always, the children were incredible ambassadors for our school!

Take a look at some of the highlights here:


Wheelchair Basketball

We were incredibly lucky last week to welcome wheelchair basketball world champion Nat Pattinson to Levens! Nat came and delivered a whole school assembly and the staff and children had a wonderful time learning how to play wheelchair basketball – a sport which develops collaborative team work, perseverance and resilience.  Nat is passionate about raising awareness of disability in sport and answered lots of questions from the children, telling them about how he manages everyday tasks in his daily life and what it was like competing in the world championships. A wonderful day was had by all!


Multi-Faith Week

We are currently enjoying learning more about some of the many faiths followed by people across our community and the wider world.  At our School, we spend a lot of time learning about Christianity, but this week we have immersed ourselves  in the faiths of Judaism, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism through the theme of prayer.

Each day, we have started with a whole school assembly led by each of our four classteachers. This morning, Mr Dean led the whole school in Buddhist meditation!  Each class has then enjoyed a session in the their classroom with each of our four teachers learning about every faith in greater detail through a variety of ways including role play, artefacts, photographs, art and film.


Kendal Mountain Rescue visit Class One

 

Nursery and Reception were lucky enough to receive a visit on Monday from Tony who is part of the team at Kendal Mountain Rescue. They found out all about the types of work Mountain Rescue do and when they might be called to help someone out. They explored lots of Tony’s kit and equipment, finding out about the importance of each item. The highlight of the visit was a trip outdoors to have a seat in one of the vehicles. Thank you Tony for a super afternoon!