Pre-Preps Cosmic trip to York
A Cosmic Day in York for Pre-Prep 2 PP2 enjoyed a “Cosmic day” at the Yorkshire Museum in York recently. They made their own telescopes (which work a treat), and then examined the one made by the Victorians in the Museum’s observatory. They squeezed into the inflatable Cosmodome and enjoyed an adventure to the planets. They flew through the skies as the universe sparkled before them and learned about star constellations too. Well done PP2 – you made this a terrific day and learned SO much!
Thirsty in Thirsk?
Does Thirsk need a Coffee Shop? That was the question posed to the Eldmire Business Studies group who visited Thirsk, on a very cold Wednesday afternoon. Their task was to assess the suitability of Thirsk for a proposed business venture. They were most grateful to Mrs Lake, of White Rose Books, who took time to speak to the students about her experiences running a successful Coffee Shop in Thirsk. They were rather surprised at the number of recent business ventures in Thirsk and they initially discounted the Public Houses as being a competitor to the proposed coffee shop. Joe Ducker commented that although Thirsk is a growing town, with parking and near to a good road network, he had counted 17 outlets that would be competitors and concluded that Thirsk was already well served. All the other students agreed. The task gave the students an insight into the initial research start-up business would need to undertake.
“Silly” Andy Seed visits KS2
Visit from “Silly” Author Forms 1-4 enjoyed a recent visit from author Andy Seed. Andy is a children’s author from North Yorkshire who was recently awarded the Blue Peter book award for his Silly Book of Side-Splitting Stuff. Andy delivered some ‘reading for pleasure’ workshops to each of the year groups in KS2. The children were in fits of laughter as he revealed excerpts from some of his books, told various stories and tried out some of his new jokes. After school there was a book sale and signing and it was great to see so many children queuing up to buy some new books to read! It was very fitting that Andy visited the children on Silly Hat Day!
Woolly hats raised £267 for homeless charity
Woolly Hat/Wig Day for the Homeless This week Key Stage 2 supported St Mungo’s charity for the Homeless by wearing Woolly hats or wigs. St Mungo’s works to provide a bed and support to more than 2,500 people a night who are either homeless or at risk. Students raised an impressive £267! Well done everyone!
Times Tables Equal Fun
House Times Table Competition On February 2nd the main school fell silent for 5 minutes for the annual House Times Tables Competition. The highest score, an amazing 99, was achieved by 8 students! The winning house was Stuarts, with an average score of 62. Show-Ups are given for the top scores in each Year but everyone who participated certainly tried their best for their house. Well done! Form 1 Winner: Toby Praud 56 Highly Commended: William Keens 55; Eleanor Smith 40; Monty Woodhouse 40; Edward Little 39; Hugo Hynd 35. Form 2 Winner Jacob Old 64 Highly Commended: Arran Armstrong 52; Harry Feeley 51; Harry Henson 51; Lwle Preston-Yates 50 Form 3 Winner: Isla Wadsworth 90 Highly Commended: Tallulah Lascelles 89; Casper Dallas 89; Sasha Reed 85; India Duree 81 Form 4 Winner: Patrick Cunningham 99 Highly Commended: Cian Armstrong 85; Sam Dallas 84; Milly Baker 80; Ellie Mercer 80 Form 5 Winner: William Cunliffe-Lister 96 Highly Commended: Jenson Woodhouse 92; Matthew Mairs 89; Harry Nettleton 89; Lewis Dawson 85; Emily Bulmer 84 Form 6 Winner: Jacob Zoing Oliver Booth 96; Basil Nettleton 94; Issy Saxby 91; Theo Veakins 91; Connie Gill 91; James Earley 90 Leckby Winner: Ethan Watkins 99 Highly Commended: Sarah Sullivan 98; Ben Hunter 97; Sean Skahan 96; Rebecca Hall 95; Ellen Watkins 94; Annabel Hartley 94 Eldmire Winners: Max England 99; Elise Darcy 99; Oliver Hartman 99 Highly Commended: Ross DiClemente 98 ; Isabella Mallon-McCarty 93 ; Louis Zoing 92 Thornton Winner: Amalia Watkins 99; Annabel Hill 99 Highly Commended: Becky Thompson 98; Jenny Davidson 98; Becky Sayer 82; Marcus Nunn 82 House Results: 1st Stuarts 62, 2nd Saxons 61, 3rd Normans 58, 4th Tudors 57
Drama entry – Beasts and Beauties
ISA Drama Entry begins to take shape 14 students from Leckby and Form 6 are well into rehearsals for their extract from ‘Beasts and Beauties: Eight Tales From Europe’ that they will be performing at the ISA Drama Festival on Sunday 13th March 2016 at The Hammond School, Chester. The students will be telling the stories of ‘Beauty And The Beast’, The Three Wishes’ and ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ in a physical and energetic interpretation. These talented students are hoping to emulate the glory of our previous entry, ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ that won prizes at last year’s festival.
Magna Science Adventures
Magnificent Adventures at Magna Form 1 had an action packed, fun day at Magna Science Adventure Centre. The enormous venue has four pavilions, one for each of the elements; fire, water, air and Earth. Each pavilion is full of many games, activities, facts and demonstrations specific to the element. It wasn’t a surprise that the children enjoyed the water element the most, where they got the opportunity to get wet and play with water. The children also took part in a ‘Rockets and Balloons’ workshop which supported their recent Science topic very well. Hot air balloons were created out of different sized plastic bags, testing out which worked the best against the gravitational force. They then witnessed a rocket blasting along a thin wire using air, water and then finally fire, this was very exciting! The children had hands-on experience creating their own mini rockets using a chemical reaction of vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, so simple but such fun! A fantastic day was had by all.
Musical production is nearly “rapped” up
Cundall Manor “School of Rap” – Thursday March 3rd The pupils in Leckby have been hard at work since September writing, producing and performing their own musical theatre production, “School of Rap”, loosely based on the High School Musical story. Between them all, they have written the script and all the songs, produced the necessary backing tracks, and now they are hard at work rehearsing it for their performance on Thursday 3rd March. To write an entire musical is an amazing achievement. They have had the opportunity to develop their creativity and practise many of the skills required for both music and drama at GCSE. All are welcome to the performance.
GCSE Art students find inspiration in London
GCSE London Art Tour This year’s GCSE art trip was a very action-packed two days. On day one, the students discovered that The Natural History museum, Science Museum and V&A are treasure troves and the groups split to make the most of the time to sketch and take photographs for their sketchbooks. After a few hours of intense exploration and a spot of lunch, they explored the more contemporary works of the Saatchi museum. The current exhibition features a number of up and coming artists whose varied and experimental ways of working gave the students lots of ideas. The evening was spent singing along to Abba songs at the internationally acclaimed production of Mamma Mia at the Novello theatre. Day two started with a hearty breakfast followed by Mr Vale’s magical mystery tour of the City and its iconic buildings. The group climbed the 311 steps of Monument Tower to be met at the top by gale force winds! Next was the Tate Modern via Borough market and the Cutty Sark to see the Alexander Calder exhibition, a fantastic collection of the late Kinetic artist’s sculptures. The permanent collections gave the opportunity to see a wide variety of artists’ works. The river boat to Embankment gave students the opportunity to rest their legs and view the city from the water. After lunch, a busy afternoon was spent viewing the amazing collections at the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Seeing so many famous works reaffirmed the point that there really is no substitute for seeing works of art “in the flesh”. The students returned with heads spinning full of ideas and hundreds of photos and sketches to process. The results of the students’ work will be exhibited for all to see at the annual Summer Art exhibition in June, we hope to see you there!
Pre-Prep’s Astronaut Training
Pre-Prep Astronauts PP2 had an exciting afternoon on Thursday training to be astronauts as part of their Space topic. They developed co-ordination skills learning the “Bear Crawl” and the “Crab walk”, worked on their fine-motor skills, fastening a bolt wearing thick, bulky protective gloves and even got to try real space food – dehydrated ice-cream! Watch out Tim Peake – we have a number of budding astronauts eager to take your place at the International Space Station!