This week has been a busy one full of meetings with the trustees and governing body. It is always lovely to talk to other menbers of the senior leadership team and our governors and trustees and keep them updated on how things have been progressing at Hollinwood. This week we have discussed how the interventions we run at primary and secondary have had a positive impact on the behaviour of our pupils. The strategies that the staff have implemented and developed have supported our pupils to develop their own strategies to manage their own feelings and behaviours.

On to some news that will impact in the new school year…..I will be finishing at the end of term to go and have my first child. It was therefore agreed by the governors and trustees that Laura Millard would step up into the role of Acting Head of School while I am on maternity leave. I am hoping to return back to work all being well by June the following year.

On Friday we also had the photographer in school who has taken class photos and individual photos – I even managed to get on most of the class ones. We should hopefully have these out to families in the next couple of weeks.

This week Miss Grimsley’s class wanted to share with you what they have been learning. Miss Grimsley’s class are a very small class of 5 pupils who require a bespoke sensory curriculum. Here’s what they have been up to..

In reception we have had a very busy week and have made the most of the sun shining. We had lots of fun outside pretending to be Pirates, digging for treasure in the sand..

We even did our Maths lesson outside, counting the stepping stones, stacking cups and using chalk..

In English we have been enjoying our Pirate story, especially Mia who has been doing some fantastic independent reading..

We all had fun searching through our sensory tray finding different textured Pirate props..

In the afternoons we have been learning to take turns jumping on our new trampoline and building towers with our friends using lego blocks. We have also been extremely brave during swimming, going into the big pool which was very exciting. Our teachers are very proud of us.

Let’s now move to Miss Meadows’ static class and find out what they have been up to..

This week has been a hard-working week in our class. We have been converting seconds to minutes and minutes to seconds using our practical resources in Maths. We knew that 60 minutes were in one hour, we used Dienes blocks and applied our fractional knowledge to know and understand how many minutes were in half an hour and 2 hours. This was hard as we had to rely on our division and multiplication operation knowledge but we did so well and Miss Meadows was pleased! Well done everyone!

We have also been working on naming the different parts of a plant this week and building our scientific vocabulary. We have learnt the words: petal, pollen, anther, filament, ovary, ovule, sepal and stem. The children then labelled the part of a plant and we dissected a Lily to put these in our books. We all sorted the parts of a plant correctly and made a lovely reference in our Science books..

We have been sculpting in Art this term and this has linked to our topic of Egyptians. We have made Scarab beetles and we have learnt to stick additional pieces of clay to our models using slip and to smooth down the surfaces so they are joined. Well done everyone! We have had a messy week and it was great to see us all having fun while we were learning..

Our peer mentors met with their mentees this week. They introduced themselves and completed tasks enabling them to get to know important things about each other. All the mentors and mentees really enjoyed the session. It was really nice to see them engaging and showing interest with a view to offering support to each other throughout the coming year..

Let’s find out who are our SEAL Superstars and our Stars of the Week are:

• Mrs Dunsdon’s class:
  Star of the Week: Madison for being brave and swimming in the big pool..

SEAL Superstar: Renico for managing his own feelings and behaving so well all week..

• Miss Grimsley’s class:
  Star of the Week: Mia for engaging in the pirate story and doing some fantastic reading
  SEAL Superstar: Ijaaz for always trying his best and having excellent behaviour
• Mrs Lomax’s class:
  Star of the Week: Jacob for trying extra hard with his learning and completing all his learning tasks
  SEAL Superstar: Tyler for thinking about others and trying extra hard not to hurt his friends’ feelings. The emphasis is on his behaviour on the bus and the good kind choices Tyler has made
• Mr Corrigan’s class:
  Star of the Week: Ethan for writing and performing a fantastic poem in Literacy and recording it on the iPad
  SEAL Superstar: Zachary for talking about how dying reminds him of someone he has lost
• Miss Louden’s class:
  Star of the Week: Brooke for sharing
  SEAL Superstar: Mariam for her ‘talk for writing’ work
• Miss Parkinson’s class:
  Star of the Week: Aaron for great effort in English this week – he had a fantastic imagination when re-writing a story
• Mr Heap’s class:
  Star of the Week: Vincent for fantastic independent work in Maths this week
  SEAL Superstar: Dan for giving fantastic examples of people that we still think about but might not see anymore
  Our new ‘Marvellous Meerkat’ is Vincent. We hope you and Meerkat have a fantastic weekend and we can’t wait to hear about your marvellous adventures!
• Miss Shin’s class:
  Star of the Week: Jacob for improved behaviour this week
  SEAL Superstar: Summer for having a positive mindset and not giving up with her work

Well done to all our stars!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

Jaina

Click here for this week’s news from Graham

You can find all our previous blog entries here