Red Nose Day
The annual fundraising event for Comic Relief saw the whole school transformed into a rosy vision of red clothing. Lots of children took part in the decorated plate competition and we were thoroughly entertained by a talent show organised by the school council. Over £110 was raised through donations, a cake stall and competition entries.
Fair Trade
We welcomed John Turner, our local Fair Trade ambassador, in March. He told us all about the production of chocolate and heightened our awareness of how the Fair Trade organisation works together with farmers to ensure their produce is fairly priced and workers are treated with respect.
Science Week
To celebrate National Schools’ Science Week, we did lots of practical work linked to our Electricity topic. Years 3 and 4 were busy predicting and testing materials to see if they were electrical insulators or conductors. Years 5 and 6 looked at the effects on electrical components when different voltages were passed through a circuit.
The results were electrifying!
World Book Day
The whole school got into the spirit of all things literary for World Book Day as everyone dressed as characters from favourite novels. Lots of Roald Dahl’s stories came to life with numerous Oompa Loompas, Matildas and Fantasic Mr Foxes! The ‘Wonky’ bars sold on behalf of ‘The Friends of Lockington School’ were a great success and finally the five golden tickets were discovered.
Tophill Low
Right on our doorstep we have the most beautiful, natural resource for investigating and appreciating wildlife and the environment in which it finds its habitats. Tophill Low Nature Reserve, owned by Yorshire Water, offers 300 acres of woodland and wetland to explore. Class 2 took part in pond dipping and became nature detectives as they used essential science skills to observe, track and record evidence. It was a fabulous day to link with our geography and science work.
Tree Planting
Class 2 welcomed The Conservation Volunteers who were working in partnership with the Humber Forest Project to plant thousands of new trees in our region. The children worked enthusiastically to add field maple, hazel, wych elm and beech trees to the border of the school field. What a fantastic and worthwhile job!
UK Youth Parliament
One of the British Values is ‘democracy’ and we were delighted to learn about the work of the UK Youth Parliament this week. Pupils who are aged 11 and over can vote for their preferred candidate and there are nine to select from in our local East Riding area. We only actually had one pupil eligible to vote but that made him a VIP! He was very mature in his decision-making and considered the manifestos of each candidate before placing his vote.
The Phases of the Moon
Studying ‘The Earth in Space’ is already an exciting science topic.
It can only be made even more interesting when you use Oreo biscuits to learn about the phases of the moon as Years 5 and 6 found out this week.
The Big Schools' Birdwatch 2024
On Friday 26th January, Lockington joined many schools around the country to participate in the annual survey to count and record wild birds in the vicinity.
We have the most beautiful outdoor space at our school and the children spotted blackbirds, pigeons, pheasants, robins, rooks and crows.
It was heart-warming to watch the older pupils lead and inspire their younger partners with patience and kindness. Dr Parr, our Chair of Governors, was also on hand with his amazing telescope to add a new dimension to the proceedings.
Straw and Order
Our production this Christmas took us to a courtroom in the middle of Bethlehem…
The cows felt pushed out of their stable and they wanted it back! The donkeys, accused of having invited over a whole host of people, including a baby, denied all charges.
Fed up by their petty squabbles and confused by the nature of the case, Judge Grumps was far from happy. Seeing this, our narrator offered to take him out of the courtroom to witness the night’s events first-hand.
The performance was amazing with superb acting, beautiful singing and some rather snazzy dancing!
Reindeer Run
The antlers danced as a school full of reindeer pranced around Lockington grounds to raise money for Dove House Hospice. Our ‘Reindeer Run’ was such a lot of fun. First, Class 2 children led a warm-up to ensure our muscles were ready. Then, Jensen showed the way (a little like Rudolf!) and the whole school followed a ten lap sponsored canter.
We will announce the amount raised soon. Thank you to everyone who took part. Dan, the fundraiser from Dove House, who came to tell us all about the charity will be very proud, I’m sure.
Expression through Music in RE
In RE, we have been looking at how religion is expressed in different faiths. Music can be used to convey feelings and religious beliefs. In Christianity, the psalms are often sung as part of the act of worship. The children from Class 2 composed music to match Psalms 98 and 23.
Christmas Enterprise
Lockington School’s Christmas Fair was a tremendous success. The event, organised by the hard work of The Friends of Lockington School, saw record numbers of visitors enjoying entertaining songs by the pupils and a huge variety of festive stalls offering beautiful and enticing gifts.
Class 2 had a wonderful week creating salt dough wreaths and wooden Christmas trees to sell on the class enterprise stall. The compliments were fast flowing, as were the sales. A total of £103 was made which, after materials have been paid for, will be spent by the pupils. We shall let you know their decision very soon.
Special Visitors in RE
On Thursday November 16th we were excited to welcome Sholeh and Sina, faith members of the Bahai Community of Hull. They shared the fundamentals of their religion which is all-accepting and welcomes people of all other faiths to their meetings. The strong messages of love, hope and mankind working together as one, seemed particularly relevant in today’s world. The children of class 2 prepared and asked many questions which linked to their current RE unit of ‘Expressions in Faith’. Through story, song and discussion, it was enlightening and enjoyable to learn about another world religion.
Dance away for Anti-Bullying Week
The message was loud and clear when the whole school took part in events for anti-bullying week; Make a Noise About Bullying! Class 2 certainly did that when the children enjoyed an action-packed workshop led by Flex Dance. The talent was obvious and abundant as pupils rapped and moved to a specially prepared song with a clear message.
Lockington Pupil Worship
The children from Class 2 continue to plan and lead a Pupil Worship each week. Concentrating on the current School Christian Values, this term has seen themes of Respect and Friendship being explored. It is a privilege to join in as an observer and watch our young people engage and enthuse their peers with stories, discussion and prayers. We are so proud of these confident young leaders.
Transition Triumph!
We are all incredibly proud of our Y6 pupil Finlay who thoroughly impressed the organisers of the Driffield School Open Evening in October. As part of the event, the potential pupils had an incredibly tricky quiz to work through which involved all the secondary school departments. Finlay won the competition and was justly awarded a fabulous prize.
Exploring Air Resistance
As part of our unit of science on ‘Forces’ the children in class 2 have worked in groups to design and make different parachutes to investigate the effects of air-resistance on their performance. Each group changed their independent variable in order to test one specific area. We had to ensure the controlled variables remained the same in order for it to be a fair test, and our dependent variable was the time taken for the parachute to fall.
Our Homework Project
So much effort was put into Class 2’s homework project to create a model of a Roman aqueduct. These amazing feats of engineering were constructed thousands of years ago to transport water across cities and countryside. Our models made at home, with the help of grandparents, parents, siblings and carers, were also capable of carrying an amount of water over a specified distance. Well done everyone!
Our Roman Experience
To enrich our history curriculum, we were able to visit The Hull and East Riding Museum for an exciting Roman Experience. The work shop began with artefact investigation and working as archaeologists cleaning and scrutinising tesserae, which were used to create mosaics. The Romans were accomplished architects and we tried to construct arches using symmetry and problem solving. There was also a chance to dress up in replica armour to experience how heavy the helmets were. Our next challenge came at the forum which had been reconstructed as a replica of the Roman shopping area. Some of the class were stall holders whilst others took on the role of shoppers and tried to buy each item from their shopping lists.
After lunch, we had time to explore the rest of the museum. Being able to physically walk through a historical timeline made up of artefacts, replica scenes and interesting information really brought our learning to life. So many of the relics and exhibits were from the local area and this made us appreciate how much history is on our doorstep.
A huge thank you to The Friends of Lockington School for helping to subsidise our visit.
On March 28th we welcomed some new friends from Kings Mill School to play a range of sports for an inclusive afternoon of learning, sharing and community fun. Mr Cooper brought his class and together we played ten pin bowling, boccia and new-age curling. The latter involved a tricky scoring system which the students of Kings Mill were able to teach us. The afternoon was initially led by Lockington’s School Games Crew who got everyone involved in some energetic warm-up exercises. It was so inspiring that the leadership challenge was then taken up by a young lady from the visiting school. The afternoon was a fabulous learning experience for all the pupils involved, showing that sport can unite, inspire and involve young people of all different abilities who simply want to by healthy and have fun.
Shakespeare Week
Shakespeare Week is a favourite annual event in Class 2. This year, we celebrated the life of the Bard by studying biographical shape poems and then producing our own inspired by The Witches’ Chant from Macbeth. In the afternoon, we learnt, rehearsed and performed Romeo and Juliet with no scripts in sight! All the key elements and characters were included and our dramatic skills were honed to near perfection!
British Science Week
To celebrate British Science Week, class 2 took part in a live BBC lesson on Monday 13th March. The event was broadcast from The National Science Museum and incorporated fascinating content from scientists including Tim Peake. The children were then invited to design a capsule to land a spaceman safely using their new knowledge of gravity and air-resistance. These were tested on Friday and the winning parachute, by Isla, was brilliant. We also learnt about scientists from the past and wove their achievements and biographical information into shape poems within our English sessions.
Our geography work continues to look at natural disasters and we have learnt about floods this week: the effects of climate change, regions most at risk, building structure and world responsibility. In teams, class 2 pupils acted as a country and were allocated a budget based on that country’s wealth. They then had to come to my store to purchase materials to build a flood-proof house. Some looked at making a stilted structure, others chose to float their building. Miss Grainger also informed the groups during the session that, due to devastating floods, the richer countries had to provide charitable donations to poorer nations. This was a superb way of learning about world economies and charitable aid. This STEM activity covered many aspects of the curriculum and was great fun too.
One Day Creative
On February 23rd, Class 2 welcomed Louise from ‘One Day Creative’ to take them on an exciting journey through active learning about volcanoes and earthquakes. They found out about the earth’s crust, tectonic plate movement, parts of a volcano and the historic eruption in Pompeii. It was both educational and lively resulting in a performance to Class 1 to share the abundance of learning. We would like to thank Louise for a superb day and also ‘The Friends of Lockington School’ for making the experience possible.
Unfortunately one of our Y4 pupils was poorly yet, when she had recovered, she sent in some pictures of her own volcano day at home; what amazing commitment to learning.
We have also been raising money towards the earthquake appeal in Turkey and Syria as out learning has made us painfully aware of the tragedy.
In science, our work on habitats has included the study of classification keys. The older pupils of Y5 and 6 found out about Carl Linnaeus and his pioneering work on the systems which could be used to sort living things. They then had the difficult task of looking at the characteristics of some tasty treats and then attempting to sort them by devising their own classification key. It was tricky and led to fabulous scientific discussions with supportive peer feedback on a few errors. We learn best from our mistakes.
The pupils in year 3 and 4 have begun working on measures in maths. They took their learning outdoors to compare and investigate length in the school environment.
Collective Worship
Our Collective Worship is at the heart of the school day and the pupils of class 2 enjoy preparing and leading the service. This term, our Christian Value is ‘Perseverance’ and this theme has been embraced in the stories and prayers delivered.
Alternative Fairy Tales
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece was the destination for the time travelers of Class 2 on Friday November 4th. After studying the circumstances that led to the expansion of the Greek empire working through the time line of this era, we devised historical questions about the changes, causes and significance to our modern lives.
Through examining a myriad of artefacts, we became true historians by recording details in sketches with labels and ideas of how items were used.
History was brought to life when everyone was able to dress up in costume and a great variety of helmets!
The New School Year
