As we approach the end of the term, it’s certainly beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Hollinwood Academy!

Our Hollinwood superstars never fail to impress when it comes to performing in our wonderful shows and this week was no exception! The pupils have worked so hard, giving up many a lunchtime to practise and Miss Rudge couldn’t be more proud..

The pupils not only performed confidently and beautifully, they also conducted themselves in the most wonderful and grown up way backstage.

Every performer received a Drama Award and a prize from Miss Rudge, as well as a Head Teacher’s Award from Mrs Walton   #superprouddramateachermoment

You are all ace and make me proud every single day 🙂 

Well done to Caitlin, Ciara, Neive, Danny, Ethan, Delta, Tobias, Raihan, Karl and Shaun! I was delighted to present them with my special Head Teacher’s Award for all their hard work. If you missed the performance, don’t worry, you can order a copy on DVD here. Next week it is the turn of our Primary children who will be putting on another wonderful nativity – I can’t wait! Once again, the performance is being filmed and edited by ‘New Bridge Productions’, the talented students from the New Bridge IT pathway, Digit4ll. If you would like to order your own copy in time for Christmas, please click here.

You may remember how the children in Mrs Lomax’s class were visited by the naughty Hollinwood Elf who arrived last Friday. Let’s see what he’s been up to and where he has appeared this week, starting with Miss Grimsley’s classroom on Tuesday..

The Hollinwood Elf on the Shelf has been very mischievous whilst the children were at home in bed. He crept into our snack cupboard and spilt the corn flakes all over the table!

The children were very excited when they arrived at school to find that this had happened……early snack time!!! YEYYYY!

On Wednesday the children came into Miss Shin’s class to find a surprise visitor – it was Selfie the Elf and he had sent us a letter. He had stolen our lego and our teddies!

We hunted around the classroom to find the candy canes Selfie had asked for. Eventually we found all 10 and after lunch Selfie returned our toys..

He didn’t stop there though! For the rest of the afternoon he was still causing trouble and moving around the classroom to different hiding spots whenever we were not looking..

Luca came up with a very clever idea of putting an ipad on record to catch the elf moving. We went for lunch and when we came back Selfie had moved from the top of the cupboard and was sat by the ipad. We looked back at the footage and found out that Selfie had deleted the video and left this instead!

On Thursday, the Elf visited Mr Corrigan’s class, however they decided that they would focus on teaching the Elf how we behave at Hollinwood Academy. In our class we spent the day teaching the Elf all the good choices we make in class every day. The Elf learned important friendship choices such as kind hands, kind feet and kind words. The Elf also joined us in lesson times where we showed him good sitting, good listening and putting our hands up..

The Elf tried his best to copy our choices and is going to take them back to the North Pole to show Santa.
On Friday Selfie the Elfie went to Miss Louden’s classroom, he got up to some mischief and pulled our Christmas display down..

We talked about the good choices Elfie could make so he gets on Santa’s nice list..

We also wrote a diary entry about what Elfie got up to..

and made our own selfie Elfie..

Miss Meadows’ class wanted to share what they have been up to in preparation for Christmas..

This week we have been adding to our knowledge of Christianity and have been learning about the tradition of Christingles. We learnt that the orange represents the world, the red ribbon represents the blood and love of Christ and the sweets and dried fruit represented all of god’s creations. We also learnt that the candle represents the hope and the light that Jesus brought into the world! It was fascinating to learn all about how the different parts came together to represent a well-known tradition of Christianity..

We also had a lot of fun making our own Christingle and we practiced our fine motor skills putting them together and of course we enjoyed eating the dried fruits too!

Now over to Mrs Singleton would like to share with us how well some of the classes are progressing with their swimming..

The New Bridge Swimming Department are sad to announce that Mrs Whitworth is leaving us at the end of this term; she is looking forward to spending her retirement with her grandchildren and going to the cinema. Miss Jamieson will be joining us and I’m sure everyone will make her feel welcome and help her settle quickly into her role.
Once again, the New Bridge Swimming Department has been very busy since we started back in September. The students have been working towards their distance swimming awards, which used to be ASA and have now been re-branded as Swim England. All of our young people are building up their fitness and stamina levels in preparation for this.
We have a new SUPER SWIMMER too! His name is Luca  from Miss Shin’s class. Luca really enjoys being in the water and has shown great progression. He is even getting his arms out of the water in Front Crawl!

Mrs Dunkerley also wanted to let you know how well KS3NMY class have been progressing in their Science lessons; they have been learning all about balanced forces and as part of the scheme of work, they have had to design a parachute that worked with a person on the end..

Miss Rudge’s year 7 Living Skills class had lots of fun making ‘creative cookies’ this week – they got very sticky and made loads of mess, just the way it should be!

This week pupils on the GCSE Photography course went on a trip to Tandle Hills Park and Media City with Mr Bright. Some of their photos are stunning!

Look at the professional stance they have all developed as they frame their subjects..

They braved the cold winter weather to make sure they got the snaps for their project. And we treated ourselves to a nice hot chocolate afterwards. All pupils behaved impeccably whilst out and about. Well done!

Finally, our SEAL Superstars and our Stars of the Week are:

• Mrs Dunsdon’s class:
  Star of the Week: Renico for super sewing
  SEAL Superstar: Ollie for finding ways to make himself feel happy
• Miss Grimsley’s class:
  Star of the Week: Ijaaz for engaging in all of his lessons this week..

SEAL Superstar: Daniel for smiling and cheering the children up in his class..

• Mrs Lomax’s class:
  Star of the Week: Tyler for trying extra hard in his reading and writing and making excellent progress
  SEAL Superstar: Marcus for staying calm and following instructions during our fire evacuation practice
• Mr Corrigan’s class:
  Star of the Week: Zachary for his fantastic effort writing his letter S’s and applying it to his work..
  SEAL Superstar: Nathan for showing great communication skills by talking and listening with his friends about what they want for Christmas..
• Miss Louden’s class:
  Star of the Week: Lewis for trying his best to make good choices all week
  SEAL Superstar: Jack for being a very kind friend
• Miss Parkinson wanted to give a special ‘shout out’ to Thomas Wills for overcoming his anxieties about going over to the New Bridge theatre. We are very proud of Thomas for being able to go over and watch the whole of the Christmas Showcase – “It’s the best show ever!”

• Miss Shin’s class:
  Star of the Week: Reece for always being kind and helpful
  SEAL Superstar: Jayden for being able to recognise what makes him angry or upset..

• Mr Rawson’s class:
  Star of the Week: Lucas for some great work in English

I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Jaina

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