What a week! I can’t believe we have finished week two already.

On Monday afternoon, Miss Gordon and myself met with the other Heads of Sites across the Trust to share good practice and advice from our recent Ofsted visit. It was an enlightening meeting and one that will bring our schools, pupils and staff within the Trust closer together. I have spoken with Pierre, Head at Hawthorns, Alison and Mel at Spring Brook Upper, Toni at Spring Brook Lower and Dan at Medtia to arrange visits to their schools to meet pupils and staff and likewise for them to visit Hollinwood. Through these shared visits we hope to observe and share the excellent practice that occurs within all of the schools across the Trust and learn from each other to provide the best provision and outcomes for our young people. I cannot wait to visit these other sites and I will update you as and when these visits take place.

This week has been about new beginnings; new school, year groups, teachers, classrooms, friends and learning. Coping with all of these areas is a massive achievement for every pupil at Hollinwood Academy. Even more so when I see our new Reception children settling so well into their class, what a huge milestone for them as they start their first year in school. This is an equally big step for our Year 7 pupils as they begin their secondary school education.

All the pupils have settled in this week and you will see our new starters in Mrs Dunsdon’s class and Miss Daniels’ secondary class feature in this blog. First, let’s see what our Reception children have been learning about..

We have had a wonderful first 2 weeks in our Reception / Year 1 class where we have welcomed 9 new children into our happy class. The class is now made up of 5 Year 1 children and 4 Reception children. We cannot believe how quickly the children have settled and are already participating in full lessons and completing some super work. The children have been swimming today for the first time in school and the only tears we had was when it was time to get out!!

The children have already started ‘Talk for Writing’ and our story for this term is ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?’ The children have learnt all the actions for the story and are excellent at making all the animal noises!

The children are enjoying both indoor and outdoor learning and are engaged in a fully multi-sensory creative curriculum..

Our topic this half term is ‘Head to Toe’, we are learning to identify all the different body parts and we particularly enjoyed this learning outside when we drew around our bodies and did mark making on them with the chalks..

In Maths we are using the Autumn slant for sorting, matching and counting and the children have all done some super work with conkers, pine cones and logs..

We have had some lovely learning in soft play with the children hunting for hidden photographs of themselves and their new friends.

It has been a pleasure over the last 2 weeks to work with the children and we are looking forward to the year ahead. Thank you for trusting us with your wonderful children.

Mr Rawson and his class love Science and, as you can see from their experiments, they are thoroughly enjoying their learning..

Today’s Science lesson was about Light and Shadows and the children had to do experiments to prove that light travels in straight lines and that shadows change depending on the angle that light is shone on an object. Lucas and Finley tested the Shadow theory..

Donte and Olivia set up the experiment..

Olivia was amazed at the result!

Miss Daniels’ class would like to share their first impressions of Hollinwood Academy now that they have spent time moving around the secondary classes and meeting their new curriculum teachers. We’ll let them tell you themselves..

My first two weeks in my new class went well so far with my favourite lesson being English along with other fun experiences that was super amazing. I made some new friends with my old friends from my previous year being at this school. You are probably wondering what did I do in English since it is my favourite lesson, well I will tell you; We played a memory game, wrote a spooky story and learnt some new stuff about Shakespeare ~ Joshua

I’ve made lots of new friends so I have loads of people to talk to and play games at break time with. I also enjoyed doing PE because we got to do lots of sports. The things I like about the school is soft play and the sports hall. We also have the best teacher in the world Miss Daniels and the best TA Miss Taylor. I also really liked the presents that my class got me for my birthday, and the cake of course ~ Gabriella

I liked my first two weeks in year 7 because we had lots of lessons that I liked in year 6 like maths and ICT. As well as my old friends, I have made lots of new friends so break and dinner time is never boring ~ Kyle

I have made a-lot of new friends in my class. My best lesson was PE because I love doing sports. I have also made a-lot of new friends because of my football at break time and dinner time. A good thing about school is lunch club because I can have my dinner with not a-lot of noise. Another lesson I really enjoy is science as we use microscopes and we learnt a-lot of interesting things about animals ~ Idrees

My first two weeks have been good and fun. My favourite lesson was science, looking through microscopes. It was the most fun! Break time and soft play are fun too, we all have lots of fun playing games with our friends ~ Oliver

I have had a good two weeks in my new class because I made new friends and my favourite lessons are MFL, Swimming, PE, Science, Music and English. I liked doing Joke of the day with Mr Francos and we have the best TA in the world, Miss Taylor! ~ Freddie

My first week at Hollinwood was amazing! I made lots of new friends and my best lesson was science, it was extraordinary because we looked at sand and pond animals under a microscope ~ Aiden

The first week and a half went well, I got to help the Spanish teacher Mr Francos with his computer, I made an ICT rules poster, used a microscope in science and also learnt about good and toxic friendships ~ Harry

The first two weeks went well because I have lots of my favourite lessons like ICT, Music, Art, Maths and History. I made lots of new friends and I have really enjoyed the experience ~ Luigi

Well, what a wonderful start to the year in KS3ADS – it has been very busy but fantastic at the same time! We have a wonderful new class who get on really well together and help each other out. It’s such a pleasure to teach such a wonderful, well mannered class..

Miss Rudge was also very impressed with Miss Meadows’ class in Drama this week..

This week saw us look at ‘Greek Theatre’. We found out lots of exciting facts about the history of Greek Theatre and how plays were performed to honour the God ‘Dionysus’… the Greek God of Theatre..

We explored a play text and drew our own representations of the creature described..

Miss Rudge was super proud of all our good listening skills and how well we answered questions too! We all received a reward for our hard work. Great week in Drama!

This week features our Primary SEAL Superstars and our Stars of the Week:

• Mrs Dunsdon’s class:
  Star of the Week: Fatima for some amazing independent work in soft play, following instructions and completing her work really well..

SEAL Superstar: Xander for knowing all the class rules..

• Miss Grimsley’s class:
  Star of the Week: Ijaaz for trying new foods in school at dinner time..

SEAL Superstar: Lenni for settling into his new class and following the school rules..

• Mrs Lomax’s class:
  Star of the Week: Brooke for doing some excellent work in RE about Rosh Hashanah and pomegranates..

SEAL Superstar: Thomas for remembering our class rules and explaining why we have them..

• Mr Wood’s class:
  Star of the Week: Farrukh for settling so well into her new class and working with great enthusiasm in every lesson..

SEAL Superstar: Renico for using lovely manners all week..

• Mr Corrigan’s class:
  Star of the Week: Jake for excellent listening and being a great friend – a fantastic start to Year 1!

SEAL Superstar: Brodey for making good choices and following the class rules..

• Mrs Halkyard’s class:
  SEAL Superstar: Luca for contributing to our class rules..

• Miss Parkinson’s class:
  Star of the Week: Alfie for great participation in swimming and P.E.
  SEAL Superstar: Harrison for always following the class rules
• Mr Heap’s class:
  Star of the Week: Joshua for fantastic work in Maths with his counting..

SEAL Superstar: Jack for following class rules and being a kind friend..

Our new ‘Marvellous Meerkat’ is Joshua. 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: Alfie for super behaviour and attitude to learning all week..

SEAL Superstar: Amelia for settling in well to a new school

Well done, everyone!

I would like to thank you all for your patience as our new ParentPay system has come into operation. This is a much safer way of collecting money as suggested by the Department for Education and enables you to view your account history and keep track of payments you have made. Letters with log in details have been sent home but if you have not received yours or you need any help activating your account, please speak to Natalie or Courtney at reception and they will be happy to help.

Following a reorganisation of the admin team across the Trust at the start of term, Natalie and Courtney are now the full time members of our admin team at Hollinwood Academy, while Becky and Izzy have moved to New Bridge School. As much as we will all miss Becky and Izzy, I am delighted to welcome Natalie and Courtney to our outstanding team at Hollinwood. They have just completed their first week with us and they have done a sterling job of being the face of the school.

Please could I remind parents about breakfast club. Children who travel on school transport are supervised by their passenger assistants until school opens and do not attend breakfast club. Children who are dropped off by parents or travel independently, however, will all attend breakfast club if they arrive before 8.30am as it is not safe for them to sit unattended in the reception area. School does not open for secondary pupils until 8.30am and for primary pupils until 8:45am. Pupils in secondary finish school at 3.30pm and primary pupils are brought out by staff from 3.10pm onwards as they finish at 3.15pm. If you need to pick your child up before the end of the school day, please could you speak to the pastoral staff or myself.

I am celebrating my youngest daughter’s 4th birthday this weekend with a trip to the Ice Cream Farm. I just hope we get the nice weather to enjoy all its facilities, as our pupils have previously visited The Ice Cream Farm on a number of school trips and loved it!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend too.

Laura

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