We’ve had another very busy week at Hollinwood Academy, rounded off by celebrating Red Nose Day. The pupils did not come in their own clothes as it is very hard for them to cope with a change in the structure and routine of their day but we did let the children wear their red noses for lessons – which strangely enough seemed to improve their concentration!

Let’s find out what Miss Parkinson’s class have been up to this week..

What a busy week we have had! The children have enjoyed looking at Roman soldiers and gladiators. Here you can see them sharing and taking turns whilst playing a pop up race around the Colosseum game. It was lovely to watch the children engaging, sharing and interacting with one another..

In Science this week we are looking at bones and the human skeleton. The children really enjoyed drawing around themselves and drawing where and what we think bones look like. We even had a go at naming them!

Our target this week in assembly was to ‘identify ways we can relax’. The children have excelled this week at doing just that. We all discussed ways that we can relax and what we like to do. For our activity we decided to make some sensory balloons..

Keeping with the balloon theme, to celebrate Red Nose Day we made our own red nose balloons!

Over to Miss Rudge to share with everyone what her class have been up to..

Having receiving lots of wonderfully positive comments from Cameron’s teachers, he was nominated for a special Head Teacher’s Award by Miss Rudge. Cameron has impeccable manners and is really caring towards staff and his peers and he was delighted to be chosen by Mrs Walton as the winner! Cameron’s award is now proudly displayed in our form room – well done, Cameron! That’s not the only achievement for Cameron though, here he is wearing his Greater Manchester School Games tag rugby gold medal!

A number of our pupils took part in the Greater Manchester School Games this week with New Bridge and the team did brilliantly – you can read Mr Smith’s full report here..

In Drama, Key Stage 3 have been working through a scheme of work on ‘Genre of Theatre’. So far we have explored ‘Naturalism’, ‘Horror’ and now ‘Melodrama’. We discussed over exaggerated movement and gesture in ‘Melodrama’. We all very much enjoyed watching clips from the famous Charlie Chaplin, we found his acting style hilarious..

The class then performed in a melodramatic way, receiving some brilliant feedback from peers..

In Art, we are very close to completing our self-portraiture work. Key Stage 3 have been exploring self-portraiture in the style of the Artist Fredrich Hundertwasser. We have used a number of different materials to build up our artistry skills. The portfolio work completed so far is superb and very impressive – watch this space for the next Hundertwasser, Picasso or Banksy! Here the pupils are showing off their beautiful photographs which will be used to create an abstract self-portrait in the next few weeks..

We were very lucky to receive a visit from Oldham College BTEC Performing Arts students on Thursday. The group performed a piece based on mental health and disabilities to our Key Stage 3 classes and invited all our learners to join in a workshop afterwards. Both the performance and the workshop were very well received by our young people and we’ve added a few new drama games to our repertoire too..

Our young people were invited to wear a red nose on Friday and make a donation towards Comic Relief. In order to understand where the donations go and who benefits from the charity, we used our assembly time to do some research into Comic Relief and present back to our peers. We learned a lot of information about Comic Relief and the people who are helped by donations just like ours..

Our SEAL Superstars and our Stars of the Week are:

• Mrs Dunsdon’s class:
  Star of the Week: Lewis for super sewing and independent mark making..

SEAL Superstar: George for knowing different things he can do to relax..

• Mr Corrigan’s class:
  Star of the Week: Ivy for being “an angel” in her reflection book every day this week..

SEAL Superstar: Bronson for making great progress in finding ways to stay calm and relaxed when he is upset..

• Mrs Lomax’s class:
  Star of the Week: Nimra for doing some fantastic writing on her own..

SEAL Superstar: Joshua for playing a board game as part of a team and supporting his friends in the game..

• Miss Louden’s class:
  Star of the Week: Lewis for listening and contributing in English
  SEAL Superstar: Brooke for participating in and sharing a relaxation idea
• Miss Parkinson’s class
  Star of the Week: Luca for following instructions and logging off the computer
  SEAL Superstar: Sahil for identifying ways he can relax
• Mr Heap’s class:
  Star of the Week: Joshua for trying hard with his handwriting and Maia for fantastic Maths work this week
  SEAL Superstar: Finlay for finding different ways to relax in quiet time
• Mrs Halkyard’s class:
  Star of the Week: Kyle for persevering with his Maths work
  SEAL Superstar: Ronnie for joining in the calm time activities

We also had AB4 join us in assembly today and their Star of the Week was Umar for following instructions and joining in with class activities..

Well done, everyone!

We’re looking forward to welcoming parents and carers to two events this week – our E-Safety Workshop at 4pm on Thursday and our coffee morning from 9.15am – 10.30am on Friday. We hope to see you there!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend,

Jaina

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