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.
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!
Children in Need
A huge thank you to everyone who remembered to bring in their donations and got dressed up for Children in Need on Friday. We saw some fabulous ‘Hero’ costumes around school, including sports personalities, policemen, firemen, armed forces members and plenty of comic book super heroes. Special mention must go to Form 3’s Oscar Fenby who emulated his cycling hero Chris Hoy by spending the day sweating it out in bubble wrap! Oscar’s inspired costume drew the attention of Sir Chris himself who retweeted the Fenby’s Tweet on the day! Thank you also to all the children in Reception who boosted the Children in Need coffers with their bun sale on Friday. The total raised by the whole school currently stands at a wonderful £456!
Karate Grading
There were lots of nerves and excitement last Saturday as four members of the Karate Club were graded for their Red Belt. Sensei Court 7th Dan was the external examiner overseeing the grading although the grading itself was conducted by our own Leckby pupil and Sensei 2nd Dan Isabella Mallon-McCarty. Isabella, an experienced Black Belt and qualified teacher/instructor, was responsible for training the boys being assessed and in charge of their actual grading. Isabella is offering her expertise and skills to the Karate Club as part of the Volunteer section of her Duke of Edinburgh Award; she said she was delighted with their attitude and the standard they achieved. Congratulations therefore to Hugo Hynd, Thomas Stringer, Henry Scagell and Alex Twibill who all performed extremely well and passed their Red Belt grading with flying colours. Mr McCarty was very pleased with the grading day and would like to thank Sensei Hunzinger Black Belt 1st Dan for his help, support and expertise.
Pumpkin Competition
A huge thank you to everyone who submitted their wonderful entries into this year’s pumpkin competition. We had a bumper crop of entries in both Main School and Pre-Prep, with prizes awarded as follows: Pre-Prep: Largest pumpkin: James Craig Smallest pumpkin: Gabe Collier Ugliest pumpkin: Ram Pisharody Best Decorated pumpkin: Annabel Mindenhall Main School: Largest pumpkin: the Wilkinson Family Smallest pumpkin: Freddie Marston Ugliest pumpkin: Cian Armstrong Best Decorated pumpkin: Hannah Barker
GCSE Art trip to Barcelona
Just before half term, this year’s new GCSE Art group went on an exhilarating trip to Barcelona and the Costa Brava to gather inspiration for their Portfolio Unit. The bijou group stayed in the heart of the Barri Gothic district which meant that they could fully absorb the atmosphere of Europe’s oldest medieval centre, with its amazing architecture and characterful streets. From there they had easy access to the rest of the sights of Barcelona including the Parc Guell, Miro Foundation, Picasso museum and of course Gaudi’s masterpiece the Sagrada Familia. A highlight of the trip was a day excursion to Figueres to the Dali museum followed by a visit to the coastal fishing villages of Cadaques and Port Lligat, where they toured the home where he lived for most of his adult life. Both places were incredibly inspiring and at times shocking, being full of the works and possessions of the great surrealist. Great weather and some delicious tapas were the cherry on the cake for what was a very busy and stimulating visit. We look forward to seeing how the trip inspires their work in due course.
Scarecrow Festival
Congratulations to everyone who came and joined in our inaugural scarecrow festival just before half term. The fabulous fruits of their labours added an extra dimension to life around the school grounds (there were several double takes to check whether these unfamiliar characters on the premises were in fact real!) in the run up to the half term break.
Lunchtime concert
What a lovely interlude our lunchtime concert provided in our very busy week leading up to exeat. Following the long summer holiday the pupils had very little time to prepare for this concert, but the standard of the performances was high and the children were unfazed. It was wonderful to have Lily Sadler with us from PP2 singing ‘The Clock’, which she delivered with such confidence and clarity. From the other end of the school we had Gawain Romijn (Thornton) who presented a delightful performance of ‘On The Street Where You Live’ from ‘My Fair Lady’. We had a good variety of instrumental solos including violin, saxophone, piano, cornet and the brass group started and ended the concert with some gusto! It is always a pleasure to hear our musicians perform; to see the progress being made and the increasing confidence which performance brings. Well done to all pupils who took part in the concert.
Latin scholars head for Cambridge
On Saturday, Mrs Richardson took her GCSE Latin pupils on a trip to the Classics Faculty at the University of Cambridge. The faculty had organised a study day to give GCSE Classics students an opportunity to delve deeper into their subjects and to experience study in a university environment. The pupils explored the role of the hero in epic poetry, the importance of ‘foundation’ myths and what historic sources can tell us about life in a Roman town. Working with GCSE students from other schools was fun and the group managed to get some time to explore the Museum of Classical Archaeology at the Faculty. They also managed to get a brief glimpse of some of the famous Cambridge colleges. The photograph shows Latin pupils Issy and Jemima in the faculty’s lecture room at the start of the study day. Further images of the day can be seen on the university’s facebook pageby clicking here