It has been a busy first week back after the half term break. I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone!
On Tuesday morning 20 pupils and 9 of the Hollinwood staff team joined New Bridge School and Spring Brook Upper on the New Bridge Group’s annual Year 8 residential to Disneyland Paris. I am sure many of you reading this have loved seeing the pictures that have been posted on our Facebook page here while they have been away and reading Graham’s updates from France here.
On Thursday evening I received an email from Miss Meadows, who only joined the Group as a teacher in September. This was her first residential trip, which I think she has loved. She talked about how well the pupils had been, including one in particular who I am going to surprise with a Head Teacher’s Award on Monday. One part of Miss Meadows’ email rings very true to my own experience of the New Bridge Group – I have now been part of the wonderful team for over 3 years and I have never looked back. Miss Meadows says, “All in all, this trip has opened my eyes to how amazing people are across the MAT and how lucky we are as an organisation! The way the New Bridge staff were transferring the wheelchair users so swiftly and without a fuss was quite something yesterday! It’s been a phenomenal week.”
As Graham mentions so often in his blogs, it is the hard work and dedication of the wonderful staff team who work at all the schools that makes experiences like Disney so memorable for all our young people. I cannot wait to see the 20 travellers back at school on Monday and hear what fun they have had!
As well as the Disney adventures starting on Tuesday, we gathered together a group of very talented young people from Key Stage 2, 3 and 4 who have been nominated by Mrs Millard to be our iPad Champions. They met with Graham T. from Jigsaw who is working with us in setting up the use of iPads in school to enhance teaching and learning. As part of the project, Graham is not only working with the teaching staff and teaching assistants but he is also training our champions so that they can support the iPad work taking place. On Tuesday afternoon they gathered in Conference Room 1 for their first training session on the use of Showbie. I am proud to say they were already so knowledgeable that Graham learnt some new things too! I will keep you updated in the blogs on how it is all progressing.
This week Mrs Potts had a group of 11 students mixed from the classes where the Year 8 members had gone to Disney. I asked if she would tell us how their week has been..
What a strange week this has been! The Year 8 students from Hollinwood joined New Bridge and Spring Brook on the annual trip to Disney. KS3SPS became a combined class of all students that didn’t go to Disney for one reason or another.
In Science with Mr Fieldhouse, the class made their own slime and water cannons – as you can imagine, they had great fun soaking each other. In PE the class joined up with Activ8, the Sports Pathway, and played rounders. It was a warm day and they all got very sweaty!!
Humanities focused on Geography and as it was a mixed class they played various quizzes with sweets up for grabs for the winners. In Spanish the class worked on a poster about the weather and it made a pleasant change to talk about nice, warm weather.
The group had an extra swimming lesson this week which involved creating a sequence on floats, then in the second lesson they could experiment with the floats. They really enjoyed this!
I have mentioned before how our primary classes are using ‘Talk for Writing’ to enhance their work in literacy and how successful it is proving to be. On Tuesday, Mrs Needham, the MAT’s Maths lead, had the pleasure of observing a ‘Talk for Maths’ lesson on the properties of 2D shapes with our Reception class..
Mrs Needham has since contacted Pie Corbett, the developer of ‘Talk for Writing’, and he is very interested in what we are doing with regards to Maths and making links to other areas of the curriculum. We might even get a visit!
Next week I have Miss McMurray to tell you all about the Hollinwood crew’s adventures in Disney – definitely something to look forward to.
Finally, let’s see who our SEAL Superstars and our Stars of the Week are:
- Mrs Dunsdon’s class:
Star of the Week: Renico for writing his own name..
SEAL Superstar: Jake for recognising that it’s ok to feel angry but not ok to hurt others..
- Miss Grimsley’s class:
Star of the Week: Myla for engaging in her work and doing some fantastic independent shape paintings in Maths..
SEAL Superstar: Fatima for taking turns with the hula hoop when playing with an adult and her friends..
- Mrs Lomax’s class:
Star of the Week: Marley for doing some fantastic Talk for Writing and using this to do some fantastic writing of his own
SEAL Superstar: Tyler for thinking about others and showing kindness by giving his friend his Busy Box..
- Mr Corrigan’s class:
Star of the Week: Oliver for an outstanding Art lesson this week, staying in for the full day and producing some fantastic artwork..
SEAL Superstar: Bronson for a fantastic week, being a great friend and trying his best with his emotions..
Superstar of the Week: Ivy for showing incredible resilience in Maths – not giving up until she got the right answer..
- Miss Louden’s class:
Star of the Week: Lewis for his amazing work in ICT
SEAL Superstar: Jack for being a good friend - Miss Parkinson’s class:
Star of the Week: Kyle for fantastic behaviour and effort in all lessons this week - Mr Heap’s class:
Star of the Week: Lewis for excellent work and behaviour on the bus and in school
SEAL Superstar: Lucas for being kind and helpful to others
Our new ‘Marvellous Meerkat’ is Lewis. 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: Jayden for working hard to build his vocabulary using his magpie book
SEAL Superstar: Jayden for having a positive attitude.
I was very lucky and Jayden came to see me on Friday with some fantastic writing he had done. He had innovated Treasure Island and I was amazed with his use of vocabulary to engage the reader. I even showed his work to Mrs Hobson, the MAT’s English lead, and she was blown away.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend,
Jaina
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