HWA Blog - 9.1.26
Happy first week back.
We were welcomed back this week by snowy, cold conditions, and these have continued as we head towards the weekend. As a result, many of our children and young people have experienced changes to their usual routines, particularly during unstructured times of the day. To ensure everyone’s health and safety, we have implemented a few minor adjustments, and we are incredibly proud of how well the children have coped with these changes. They have shown resilience, flexibility and a positive attitude throughout, and they deserve huge praise for how well they have adapted.
I hope families have had a restful and enjoyable Christmas break. As we begin this new term, I am excited to see what it will bring and the opportunities it will offer our children and young people. We are hopeful that this term will be a little more settled than the Autumn term, allowing routines to embed and learning to flourish.
Sharing the highlights…
Let’s see what has been happening in the classroom.
In Miss Callan and Miss Emma’s class this week…
CSE/ELO - 9.1.26
"Happy New Year, and what a great, new and fresh start we have had to our term so far. We started the week by celebrating the New Year by re-enacting the moment with Big Ben and the stroke of midnight. We sang the song auld lang syne, and all held hands and celebrated. We looked at the new number for the year and all had a go at writing the new number 2026.
This half term we have started our new topic within Design Technology. This is all about structures and junk modelling. First we investigated different ways to attach things together, we used tape, glue, paper clips and stickers. Miss Emma created a cup monster to demonstrate the skills, then children had free reign to create anything that they wanted using the materials provided. We had a lot of fun.
In maths we have been learning about capacity. We looked at heaviest and lightest. We then read a story called Mr Gumpty’s Outing, the book is all about a man who goes out on his boat and lots of animals’ pile on to the boat. The boat begins to tip, and all the animals fall into the water. We then made our own paper boats and coloured them. We then went into small groups to re-enact the story. We have also been looking at the numbers 6, 7, and 8. We have practiced writing them and counting up to them. We have been building towers, by counting out the right number of cubes and shouting “STOP” when we reach the right number, to help us learn to count out objects from a larger group. We have also been painting the numbers and stamping 6, 7, and 8 times- remembering to stop too.
In current affairs we are going to be looking at the importance of reading and encouraging the children to bring in their favourite books and share them with the class.
Out Talk 4 Writing stories this half term are all based around traditional tales. This week we started to look at the story The Three Little Pigs. We learnt some of the repeated refrains and then when in Soft play we acted out parts of the story, blowing houses down and pretending to be pigs and big bad wolves.
In Science this week we have been investigating what material is strong and what is week, using our Three Little Pigs story as inspiration! First Miss Callan built a house of straw, sticks and bricks, then we used a fan to blow the house (just like the big bad wolf) using our repeated refrains from the story. We enjoying finding out which materials were weak and fell down and which were strong and stayed up. The children then enjoyed making their own houses, choosing which materials to use. We all became wolves, blowing down our houses to find out if they were strong or weak!
In Forest School this week we really enjoyed a snowy session! We explored signs of Winter that we would see and joined in with a poem all about Winter. The children loved making footprint and crunching the snow underneath their wellies. In the mud kitchen we made snowcakes and decorated them with food colouring. To end the session we enjoyed a warm hot chocolate and a gingerbread man biscuit whilst sat around our basecamp singing “Ram Sam Sam”."
And now to Miss Young’s class...
"In English, we have started an exciting new unit on persuasive writing. This is a fun and important skill that helps us express our opinions and convince others. We have been learning about the main elements of our persuasive writing toolkit. Some of these elements include alliteration, facts, personal opinions, rhetorical questions, exaggeration, statistics, the rule of three, modal verbs, and adverbs. Each of these tools helps make our writing more engaging and convincing.
To put our new skills into practice, we designed a travel brochure. This project allowed us to highlight the positive aspects of a location we chose. We had three options: the USA, Canada, and the Maldives. Each student picked one location and conducted research using links to National Geographic for Kids that were provided in Teams. This research helped us gather interesting facts and details to include in our brochures.
In Maths, we wrapped up our block assessment on rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, and 1000. Everyone did a fantastic job, and I’m so proud of your hard work.
In RSE, we had a thoughtful discussion about the changes we face when transitioning from primary to secondary school. We explored both the positives and negatives, sharing our feelings and strategies to cope with any worries.
In Geography, we learnt about the difference between weather and climate, while in History, we focused on the challenges William, the Duke of Normandy, faced after becoming King of England. Keep up the great work, everyone!"
OYG - 9.1.26
Now to our amazing SUPER STARs and HWA We are Creative STARs
Mrs Quinn’s and Miss McDonald’s STAR of the week is Roma, Cody, Riley and David for: Successfully settling into their new class and showing a positive, adaptable, and enthusiastic attitude to learning.
Mrs Quinn’s and Miss McDonald’s HWA We Are Creative goes to David for: Successfully adapting to a new style of learning and demonstrating outstanding engagement, curiosity, and commitment.
Mrs Bailey’s HWA We Are Creative goes to Euan - For exploring his new environment with interest and enthusiasm and utilising materials in lots of different ways to make marks.
Mrs Bailey’s STAR of the Week is George - For accessing outdoor education for the first time this year. We are so proud of you.
Mrs Lerigo’s and Mrs Sutcliffe's STAR of the Week is Blaire- for a great week settling into her new class.
Mrs Lerigo’s and Mrs Sutcliffe's HWA We Are Creative goes to Willow- for a great start to her Hollinwood journey.
Miss Boothroyd’s STAR of the Week is Isla for being kind and caring towards her friends and teachers this week.
Miss Boothroyd’s HWA We Are Creative goes to Nico for having a fantastic first week back. Nico has completed some super work, made good choices and done good listening all week.
Mrs McDonalds’ and Mrs Bramley’s STAR of the Week is Alfie for putting his hand up to answer questions in lessons and trying his best to work independently.
Mrs Matthews’ STAR of the Week is Thomas for offering lots of good answers in class discussions.
Mrs Matthews’ We Are Creative STAR goes to Beaux for an amazing piece of suspense writing and for the way you read it out to the class.
Miss Pietraszewska’ s HWA We Are Creative goes to Ivy and Maximus, for engaging in an interactive game by taking turns with each other. Well done.
Miss Oakley’s STAR of the Week is Libby for listening and accepting help from her teachers.
Miss Oakley’s HWA We Are Creative goes to Harrison for communicating with peers and staff asking and answering questions.
Mr Corrigan’s STAR of the Week is Albi-Lee for being proud of his friends.
Mr Corrigan’s STAR of the Week is Kian for helping a friend today.
Mr Corrigan Congratulates Teddy B for helping a friend today.
Miss Hulme’s STAR of the Week is Madilyn for showing fantastic perseverance in Maths. Even when she found the learning a little tricky, she kept going and completed some excellent work. Well done Madilyn.
Miss Hulme’s HWA We are Creative goes to Ariella for being so kind and thoughtful. She made some beautiful get well soon cards for her friends. Well done, Ariella.
Miss Jahnara and Miss Neelam’s STAR of the Week goes to Holly for settling in well.
Miss Jahnara and Miss Neelam’s HWA We are Creative goes to Lewis for excellent work in Geography.
Mrs Boylan’s STAR of the Week goes to Kai for great engagement during History and to Stanley for persevering with speech sounds and verbally requesting the ball.
Mrs Boylan’s HWA We are Creative goes to Oscar for excellent contributions during English.
STARS of the Week (9.1.26)
Well done to everyone.
Have a good weekend.
Miss Gordon
