Well, this second week back has flown by and it has been lovely to see more and more of the new pupils settling into life at Hollinwood. This year we have strengthened the support that we offer our pupils and families – joining our pastoral team are Miss Knott at Primary and Mrs Bennett at Secondary. The pastoral support staff work with our pupils, helping them manage the day to day ups and downs of school life. Please feel free to pop in and speak to the pastoral staff about any issues you may be having at home.

As you are aware, it is important that we are flexible and able to modify and adapt our learning spaces so that we can meet the needs of all our learners. This year we have changed the way our Key Stage 3 classes are grouped and Miss Meadows has a class of Year 7 and 8 pupils who require the security and safety of one classroom. These pupils have most of their lessons in their form room with Miss Meadows but also access PE with the other Key Stage 3 classes, swimming with Mrs Fitzsimons and Spanish with Mr Francos. This week Miss Meadows wanted to share with you all what her class have been up to..

In KS3LMS this week we have been learning all about place value in Maths. We have worked hard on our 3 and 4 digit numbers and used concrete resources to do this. Our thinking caps were on when our place value bootcamp was invaded and we had to find all the intruders!

We have been working on creating our portraits in the style of Andy Warhol’s pop art. Our drawings were inspired by his pop art of Marilyn Monroe. We traced the other side of our faces and added colour to our lovely creations!

We have been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and today we completed freeze frames and discussed adjectives which related to Veruca and Charlie. We all worked really hard and got ourselves into some fantastic positions..

In English, we have been focusing on writing biographies; we now understand the features of a biography and we have been working on using third person and applying suffix rules for ‘ed’ to the ending. We have created them about people such as Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Abraham Lincoln. We found out that Steve Jobs was actually fired from his job at Apple for being too young, Abraham Lincoln was a wrestler and Albert Einstein had Autism! We tried really hard to have a growth mind set like those we researched and we really showed our perseverance and determination to be fantastic learners with a can do attitude!

We started to learn about the digestive system in Science and we have done a very messy but fun experiment where we learnt what the functions of each part of the digestive system are. We giggled and learned together while we squeezed our food down our small intestine..

We have had a very busy week but we have smiled lots and learnt too! We hope you’ve all had a fantastic week too!

Now let’s go to the youngest of our pupils in Reception..

We have a very busy start to the new school year as we welcomed 10 new children into school life at Hollinwood Academy and said welcome back to 2 Year One children. It is always difficult starting something new and we are so proud of the way our children have settled and are beginning to join in activities and have fun. Thank you to the parents who have put on brave faces and handed over your little ones to us, we promise we will take really great care of them. The children have been swimming, joined in PE with our coach from Manchester City as well as taking part in literacy, Maths and topic. They have all had new rules and routines to learn and lots of new faces to get used to.

Well done to you all, you have made a really super start!

Now let’s have a look at which children have been our SEAL Superstars and our Stars of the Week:

• Mrs Dunsdon’s class:
  Star of the Week: Madison for being more independent in the bathroom

SEAL Superstar: Victory for following class rules and showing good behaviour all week

• Mr Corrigan’s class:
  Star of the Week: Ethan for his fantastic perseverance on the carpet, consistently putting his hand up and trying his best..

SEAL Superstar: Charlie for following and helping others with the class rules..

• Mrs Lomax’s class:
  Star of the Week: Christopher for trying his very best to follow instructions and joining in PE
  SEAL Superstar: Joshua for following the class rules..

• Miss Louden’s class:
  Star of the Week: Alivia for finishing all her Maths work independently
  SEAL Superstar: Jenna for contributing to our class rules poster and trying her best to follow them
• Miss Parkinson’s class:
  Star of the Week: Kyle for fantastic work and effort in Art this week, and Thomas for fantastic participation and singing in Music
  SEAL Superstar: Luigi for contributing and adhering to class rules
• Mr Heap’s class:
  Star of the Week: Thomas for fantastic work and behaviour, and Josh for fantastic behaviour and excellent work in English
  SEAL Superstar: Nimra for following class rules and being a good friend
• Mrs Shin’s class:
  Star of the Week: Finlay for always setting a good example to the rest of the class when sitting on the carpet and lining up
  SEAL Superstar: Reece for contributing to and always following class rules
• Mr Rawson’s class:
  Star of the Week: Olivia for making good choices

Well done, everyone!

Invitations have gone home today to our Macmillan Coffee Morning on Friday 29th September and we very much hope you will be able to join us and spend some time in your child’s class. You should also have received details of our half term Holiday Club (also available here) – please remember to return the forms by next Friday 22nd if you would like to book a place for your child.

I hope you have a lovely weekend,

Jaina

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