Welcome to another learning filled blog….

This week we have been joined by 3 of our governors and trustees as we carried out some learning walks around the school. It was a great opportunity to pop into classes and see pupils at work. The learning walks also gave our governors and trustees an insight into the way the classrooms are set up and work.

This week Mr Corrigan, Miss Rudge and Miss Meadows all wanted to share what their classes have been up to, starting with Mr Corrigan..

In Literacy this term we have been looking at the recurring literacy language in poetry – in particular, repetition and onomatopoeias..

This week we showed we can participate in presentations and build on our vocabulary..

In Maths we have been looking at 3D shapes and their properties..

We have identified, labelled and recorded everyday objects using the iPads and manipulated the shapes to identify their properties.

In Geography we have been studying Jamaica and the differences/similarities with where we live. We have been specifically looking at the Human and Physical Geography of both countries, using the ‘Selfie’ videos we made to teach our friends..

We have also been using our sensory area to learn about the different foods that Jamaica produces..

In Science we have been looking at what plants need to survive through observation and making comparisons. In our experiment we sowed four seeds and subjected them to different conditions; water/sun, water/no sun, no water/sun and no water/no sun. We then observed and described the results..

Now let’s have a look at what Miss Rudge has been up to..

We’ve had a busy week in KS3ZRE this week. We’ve unleashed our inner poets in English whilst studying the poem ‘Blessings’ by Imtiaz Dharker. We’ve also been analysing different poem extracts such as ‘The Highway Man’ and ‘Spellbound’.

In Geography we learned that earthquakes are measured on the Richter scale. We also looked into natural disasters such as tsunamis and volcanoes..

In History, we have been studying the Black Death. Bradley had this to say about his new found knowledge:

“I have learned that the Black Death started in Asia and it spread around Asia by boat. And it was also carried to Europe by boat as well. Lots of rats came off the boats and the fleas from the rats bit the humans and infected them with the Black Death. It started with vomiting and then ended up with big spots, and if they would burst then you would have a good chance of survival. It was pretty weird.”

In Art, we all received a positive postcard home last week for our AMAZING work on our ‘Natural/Man-made’ projects! Miss Rudge is super proud and our portfolios are looking awesome!

We also made a beautiful Manchester Bee tribute canvas. This was a joint effort from a number of pupils and staff from across Hollinwood as a tribute to both the victims and survivors of the Manchester attack last year. We created our bees using thumb prints and could add a comment if we wanted to, but we didn’t have to. To quote our lovely Maia in Year 5: “We all fly together”. Our children were an absolute credit to us on Tuesday and made us all so proud..

Miss Meadows also wanted to share what her class have been up to..

This week in English we have been working hard to understand the purpose of apostrophes! We understood that the apostrophe is sometimes used to make two words into one, to make it shorter and easier to say! We were doctors this week, performing emergency surgery on a number of words to stitch them back together! We all managed to stick our words together correctly. Amazing work everyone, well done! Hollinwood Academy definitely has a lot of future doctors sitting in our class, we concentrated very carefully!

Miss Meadows was excited about our Science/ STEM lesson this week. We have been learning about seed dispersal and we made three different models of seed dispersal in 3 different groups – they were animals eating seeds and disposing of them through the digestive system, wind carrying seeds and explosions of seed pods!

The children all contributed to making their model with their group and the incredibly creative Miss Taylor’s group win with their dog animal dispersal model..

Great work everyone, what a fun end to the term!

We couldn’t resist showing you how Mrs Dunsdon’s reception class are using Talk 4 Writing..

Let’s finish with our SEAL Superstars and our Stars of the Week:

• Mrs Dunsdon’s class:
  Star of the Week: Victory for using his timetable
  SEAL Superstar: Jake for including his friends in his games outside
• Miss Grimsley’s class:
  Star of the Week: Daniel for being super brave and having his hair cut in school
  SEAL Superstar: Myla for having a fantastic behaviour all week
• Mrs Lomax’s class:
  Star of the Week: Edward for trying to be ready for learning by completing the morning challenge
  SEAL Superstar: Christopher for showing kindness by thinking about how others feel
• Mr Corrigan’s class:
  Star of the Week: Charlie for a fantastic effort and showing great resilience with his SATs tests this week
  SEAL Superstar: Bronson for listening to and accepting help with loud noises, then applying it straight away
• Miss Louden’s class:
  Star of the Week: Kyle for working hard all week
  SEAL Superstar: Jenna for being a good friend
• Miss Parkinson’s class:
  Star of the Week: Ellie for fantastic swimming without a woggle
• Mr Heap’s class:
  Star of the Week: Josh for fantastic work in talk for writing
  SEAL Superstar: Darnell for being very helpful
  Our new ‘Marvellous Meerkat’ is Daniel for fantastic independent work in talk for writing. 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: Rhys for good listening in lessons and writing a story independently

I hope you all have a lovely break over half term and I look forward to seeing everyone back in school on Monday 4th June (please click here for a reminder of all our term dates),

Jaina

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