Well, I cannot believe that another year at Hollinwood has finished. It seems like yesterday I was writing my first blog of the academic year.

The year has been filled with so many things, from residentials and visits, the fantastic primary nativity, more pupils at Hollinwood taking part in the New Bridge show, the Jungle Book…and that is only a fraction of what the pupils have been getting up to.

The year itself also brought challenges. As Graham often mentions in his blog, all the schools in our Trust have more and more pupils wanting places. Hollinwood is no exception – pupil numbers are on the increase and space is becoming tight. The open mornings we have held this year have become so popular that we have had to factor this in to next year.

This growth is definitely down to the hard work that all the staff at Hollinwood and the Trust put in on a daily basis. Meeting the needs of our pupils is our priority and ensuring that each and every pupil makes progress is a must. I am sure that what we do will not change and the support we have from parents will continue.

Now, over to what we did this week. The end of term in many schools is less structured than what we do; we were careful to ensure that even though we were not on timetable, the pupils were all engaged and focused on learning. Monday saw another fantastically organised secondary sports day where the Hollinwood secondary pupils and staff had a wonderful time, supporting each other and mixing together with pupils from the Trust (there are lots of lovely pictures in the New Bridge blog here). Well done, Mr Smith!

On Tuesday, the whole of the Trust looked at ‘journeys’ as part of our Super Learning Day, taking in different religions. We saw pupils delve into cultures and religions to find out what a journey in that specific religion looked like, as Miss Rudge explains..

Each class was assigned a religion. We were given the outline of a religious symbol and told to design a representation of the teachings of that religion – Miss Rudge encouraged us to be as original as we liked! All the classes set to work on the research into their given religious topic and produced some very creative representations using felts, pencil crayons, paint or collage with small pieces of card and paper..

As part of Culture Week, our secondary pupils looked at two local artists, Titus Agbara and Helen Bradley, who both now live and work in Oldham. Agbara uses lots of mixed media in his work and we had great fun creating our own Art pieces based on both artists. We created a representation of our home in the style of Bradley..

..and self-portraits in the style of Agbara – lots of fun was had by all!! 

This week has also seen some more class trips. The Museum of Science and Industry was a big hit with Miss Sanderson’s class..

..although the technology on display wasn’t quite what they’re used to..

Miss Shin’s class also had a fantastic day out – at Legoland!

The lion proved very popular..

On Thursday, Mr Heap and Miss Parkinson organised the primary Sports Day. In the past we have held all the primary sports events in one afternoon, however with the growing number of pupils at primary the day was split into Key Stage 2 in the morning and Early Years and Key Stage 1 in the afternoon..

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The staff made sure the pupils still had a full day of sporting fun though, with James from City in the Community using the playground to practise ball control skills with all the classes. The hall had the bouncy castle for some fun and the soft play had a time challenge to be completed. I think we had some rather exhausted children and teachers by the end of the day..

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”271″ gal_title=”Sports Day 2018 EYFS”]

 

Friday, our last day, saw the pupils relax and have some chilled out fun with their classmates and staff. I made my way around most of the school, saying my goodbyes to all the pupils – for those I did not see, I know that you will all strive to do your very best next year. We accept that things will not always be smooth sailing but remember that the staff are always there for you to talk to, the calm rooms are your safe spaces and the corridor carpets are there for you to pace along if need be.

Finally, can I say a huge thank you to all our parents and carers – without your support, Hollinwood would not be the school it is.

Thank you to all the staff team – you work so hard on a daily basis and never give up on the pupils you work with.

The admin team at Hollinwood are fantastic – you keep the school running and ensure that parents, staff and the leadership team have what they need.

My last ‘thank you’ has to go to our wonderful pupils who make Hollinwood the school it is! I’ll leave you with some pictures from our celebration assembly..

• Miss Parkinson’s class..

• Mr Heap’s class..

• Mr Rawson’s class..

• Miss Shin’s class..

• and our Hollinwood Oscar winners!!

I hope you all have a restful break. I know Mrs Millard and Miss Gordon are both looking forward to welcoming you all back in September,

Jaina

Click here for this week’s news from Graham

You can find all our previous blog entries here