Welcome back and Happy New Year to all our families!

I am sorry that I did not manage to get a blog out to families last week but I have ended up spending all my holidays and these last two weeks trying to get over this dreaded flu…

For me this week, writing the blog has helped me while at home keep in touch with everything that has been happening at Hollinwood. It is great to see how well all our pupils settle back into the well-established school routine. This is one of the key aspects we will showcase to Ofsted when they come and visit.

It may only be January but Mrs Millard informs me that this week’s admissions panel was very busy with applications for places for September 2018. I know that myself and Mrs Millard will be starting to look at classes and class groups ready for September in the near future.

Now let’s have a look at what the class groups at Hollinwood have been up to since we started back after Christmas. Mr Rawson’s Nurture Group have been learning a lot in their Science lessons. This week the class have been investigating States of Matter and were experimenting with the properties of solids and liquids (you also might spot an extra pupil, Olivia from Miss Louden’s class who loves spending time in Mr Rawson’s class)..

Mrs Lomax wanted to share what her Year 1 and 2 class have been up to..

What a fantastic and exciting start to the New Year! In our class we are looking at the seasons and weather and how this affects animals and people. We have been looking at different birds and whether they stay here or migrate. As part of this, we have been making bird feeders which we sent home so we could take part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Bird Watch 2018..

We have also been looking at different disabilities and on World Braille day we even tried writing our names in braille! We found out that there are lots of different disabilities and how we can help each other..

On Friday we explored the Spanish traditions of Epiphany and we found out that Spanish people leave their shoes outside their houses on the 6th January and the 3 Kings visit and fill them with sweets. So we decided that we could do an Epiphany parade in school! We asked all the primary children to leave their shoes outside their classrooms on Monday and we each made a crown for one of the 3 Kings so we could wear them during the parade. We made the crowns using 2-d shapes and we created a repeating pattern..

Then on Monday we took part in a belated Epiphany walk. We dressed up as the 3 Kings wearing our shapes crowns..

..and we visited each of the classrooms and put sweets in the children’s shoes..

We hope you enjoy our photographs!

This term’s joint secondary Spring production with New Bridge is the Jungle Book and our primary children have also enjoyed looking at it with Miss Rudge. The Key Stage 1 pupils did lots of independent learning on Friday, creating their own tigers in the style of Shere Khan. They talked about Shere Khan as a character and chose lots of dark colours to show emotion..

Our SEAL Superstars and our Stars of the Week are:

• Mrs Dunsdon’s class:
  Star of the Week: Victory and Renico for setting themselves realistic goals and working hard to do them..

SEAL Superstar: Lenni for taking his medicine and trying hard all week even when he has not felt very well..

..and Ollie for trying roast potatoes at lunch time..

• Miss Grimsley’s class:
  Star of the Week: Ijaaz for doing some fantastic topic work..

SEAL Superstar: Daniel for communicating with an adult by taking their hand when something he wants is out of reach

• Mrs Lomax’s class:
  Star of the Week: Marcus for fantastic independent writing and excellent behaviour and Christopher for swimming without any flotation aids..
  SEAL Superstar: Jacob for setting himself a realistic goal and working hard to do it (good sitting)..
• Mr Corrigan’s class:
  Star of the Week: Byron for showing great independence this week getting changed in Swimming..
  SEAL Superstar: Ivy for setting a realistic target for herself..
• Miss Louden’s class:
  Star of the Week: Brooke for using her quiet voice even when others weren’t using theirs
  SEAL Superstar: everyone in the class because they have all set themselves personal targets and tried really hard to achieve them!
• Miss Parkinson’s class:
  Star of the Week: Gabriella for trying her hardest in spelling and not giving up
  SEAL Superstar: Thomas for writing about achieving his goals
• Mr Heap’s class:
  Star of the Week: Caelan for fantastic work in Maths
  SEAL Superstar: Maisha for being a good friend
• Miss Shin’s class:
  Star of the Week: Jayden for a fantastic attitude to learning
  SEAL Superstar: Josh for setting a goal (improving handwriting) and beginning to work towards achieving it
• Mr Rawson’s class:
  Star of the Week: William for huge improvement dealing with social issues, friends, and even being able to cope with losing at a game

Well done, everyone!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I am looking forward to being back at work.

Jaina

Click here for this week’s news from Graham

You can find all our previous blog entries here