HWA Blog - 9.5.25
Wow what a week! Although it has been a shorter week, we have been busy, busy, busy across school.
We have had our second farm trip this week and celebrated the 80th anniversary of VE day.
Enjoy reading what our children and young people have been up to, this is my favourite part of the week.
Let’s start with Mrs Gittins class….
"In English, we have continued reading and learning about Harry Potter – the children have loved it and engaged fantastically. Over the past few weeks, we’ve developed our own magical creatures, tried some Bertie Botts every flavour beans and will continue with our ‘persuasion and description toolkit’ where the children will describe their very own magical wand and make this out of clay.
In Maths, we’ve been covering shape, space and measure. We’ve learned about both 2d and 3d shapes, introduced some tricky vocabulary and had a bit of fun learning about right angles – we did have a trick question about a left angle! But we know these don’t exist!
Geography has been a great lesson too, our topic is “Would you like to live in a desert?” – everybody said no! We know it’s a roasting hot climate and there’s some dangerous animals lurking under the mushroom rocks…
In Science we are learning about reproduction in mammals and plants – we use talk for writing to explain and understand key vocabulary, again something our class engage with brilliantly. Prior to half term, we learned about life cycles, we watched up close the life cycle of a butterfly and fortunately, they all hatched out of the cocoons with enough time for us to see and release them!
Of course, we’ve had lots of fun in other subjects too – but a highlight of this week has been the annual farm trip! We had great fun on the zipline, roasting marshmallows, exploring fox burrows and stroking the different animals.
As this is our final blog of the year, I feel it’s appropriate to give a special mention to our Year 6 children. This is one of the final trips they will attend with us. Although we have a couple of others to look forward to, I want to share how incredibly proud we are of them and how grateful I am to have been a part of their journey at Hollinwood Academy. The progress they have made is exceptional, I have watched them grow into resilient, respectful young people who all have a wonderful attitude to learning. It’s a bittersweet farewell for me, as whilst I am sad to see them leave us, I know they have the world at their feet and will experience so many new opportunities in High School. As they prepare to transition to a new stage in their lives, our class team would like to wish them all the very best and will make sure these final few weeks will be ones to remember!"
RGS - 9.5.25
And now to Mrs Cowling’s form…
"This week in English, the students have been learning to use persuasive writing. They had to choose a city or country and write an article persuading readers to visit. For example, one of the students chose to write about the city of London, and they mentioned places to visit like Buckingham palace and Big Ben. They have been doing their best to try and include as many persuasive language devices to make their articles as convincing as possible.
In Computing, the students have been finishing off their coursework, which is designing a box graphic for a chocolate brand (chocoindulgence) the students have done really well and created some amazing designs using photoshop.
In Maths, the students have been learning how to use probability tree diagrams. A probability tree diagram is used to represent the probability of occurrence of events without complicated formulas and displays all the possible outcomes of an event. The students have been engaging really well with the work and are making great progress in this topic.
In Spanish we have just started a new topic about travel and tourism, the pupils have been learning about comparatives, how they would like to travel and how to communicate all of this in Spanish, using what they have already learned.
In RSE the students have been learning about all the different ways of managing their money, learning about why it is important to build credit and learning the difference between credit and debit.
In Photography, the pupils have been using different kinds of lights, e.g string lights, bike lights and their cameras, to create light painting then editing them on photoshop by changing the brightness and contrasts, producing some excellent pieces of work.
In Science, the pupils have been learning about diseases; learning how they are spread, cured and prevented. This includes how bacteria and viruses multiply in organisms, and how they then make a person ill.
In music as part of the coursework the students have been researching different music composers. Thomas has been researching Rick Astley. Lucas has also been composing his own music and continuing to practise his ukulele. Connor has been practicing music on the keyboard, using a creative app, to the song Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz.
In Physical Education, the students have been learning games such as cricket, football and dodgeball. We also took a trip out to ‘Simply Cycling’ in Wythenshawe where the pupils got to cycle around the track.
It has been an amazing start to the summer term."
SCG - 9.5.24
Now to our amazing SUPER STARs and HWA We are Creative STARs
Mrs Lerigo’s STAR of the week is Madilyn for always trying her best in every single lesson and excelling in her maths work this week.
Mrs Lerigo’s HWA We are Creative STAR is Isla for super work in our lesson about planting vegetables, and showing she has a flare and passion for planting things and helping them grow.
Mrs Sutcliffe’s STAR of the week is Albi-Lee for being so happy and engaged this week! He has shown fantastic learning, using his iPad to complete all his learning tasks and to communicate his feelings.
Miss Sutcliffe’s HWA We are Creative STAR is Teddy B for being passionate about finding out more information! Always asking questions and linking his thoughts and ideas together.
Miss Boothroyd’s HWA We are Creative STAR is Effy for keeping calm when things get tricky and being kind to her friends.
Mrs Boothroyd’s STAR of the week is Nevaeh for trying her hardest in all her lessons this week.
Miss Bailey’s STAR of the week is Ziyan - for fantastic engagement in all class activities and excellent listening all week.
Miss Bailey’s HWA We are Creative Star Oliver - For working very hard in communication to build a sentence using TD snap
Miss Pietraszewska’s STAR of the week is Roman for: participating in our “Roll the Ball To…” game, improving friendships and communication
Miss Pietraszewska’s HWA We are Creative STAR is Harrison for: having fun and playing with friends during our structured activities — well done!
Mr Corrigan’s STAR of the week is Louis for coping really well with a change to his timetable this week.
Mr Corrigan’s HWA We are Creative star is Matthew for some outstanding independent writing this week.
Mr Corrigan’s WOW moments go to Simisola, Lewis, Matthew & Stanley. For being good friends.
Miss Hulme's STAR of the week is Henry R for his fantastic English work and for being such a super role model to the other children.
Miss Hulme's creative star is Thomas for his fabulous explanation of Microbits during our ICT lesson.
Miss Tootill’s STAR of the week is Cole for showing his exceptional behaviour.
Miss Tootill’s HWA We are Creative STAR is Jack for being passionate about looking after his environment.
Miss Gittins’ STAR of the week is Lewis for consistently giving 100% effort in phonics.
Miss Gittins’ HWA We are Creative STAR is Caitlin for being resilient when managing with tricky emotions this week.
Miss Oakley’s STAR of the week is Lyla- for being resilient and calm starting her ‘important work’ this week, you are amazing.
Miss Oakley’s HWA star of the week is for becoming an independent learner, starting all tasks without an adult. Well done for challenging yourself.
Miss Davies’s STAR of the week Olly for helping his friends when they’ve felt sad.
Miss Davies’s HWA star of the week Arissa for excellent engagement in communication this week.
STARS of the Week (9.5.25)
VE Day celebrations this week.
I started my VE day celebrations on Monday this week. Myself and my gran of 90 years, a war child and wife to my grandad who fought in the Navy during world war ll, joined the celebrations in Oldham to mark the 80th anniversary of VE day. Not to forget Eric my cheeky little English bulldog, he doesn’t like to miss out on a good field trip.
Hollinwood Academy continued the celebrations throughout the week and on Thursday the children and young people were invited to wear red, white and blue to school in memory of those who fought in the war.
It was great to see lots of students wearing red, white and blue to celebrate. Students had the opportunity to learn about the history of VE day and everyone behaved brilliantly during the minutes silence. Some of our students visited Oldham Town Centre and Library to join in the VE Day 80th anniversary celebrations. They enjoyed walking around the town centre looking at the decorations and had their photograph taken with Cllr Arooj Shah, Deputy Leader Cllr Abdul Jabbar, and Major Cllr Zahedan Chauhan while viewing a special commemorative card. Students then visited Tommy field Market to see Abby-Kaye, AKA Viva laVintage, singing some of the wartime era’s greatest hits and they had a fantastic time dancing and singing along. On their way back to the bus they called into the library to see the special VE Day- themed book display. Well done everyone.
VE Day
Children’s Adventure Farm Trust visit
This week students from key stage 2 visited the Children’s Adventure Farm Trust. CAFT is a registered charity that provides day trips, residential breaks and seasonal activities for children across the Northwest. During the visit students had the opportunity to play in the park and field area, pet and visit the animals, explore the forest school and toasted marshmallows. All the students represented school brilliantly and we would like to thank all the staff at CAFT for hosting a fantastic day for all of our students.
CAFT - 9.5.25
As you can see, we have had a fun packed week at Hollinwood Academy, I hope you have enjoyed this week’s Blog.
Good luck to all year six children and year 11 students for their up-and-coming SAT’s and GCSE’s. we are proud of your efforts in preparing for these tests/exams. Just do you best!
Have lovely weekend everyone
Miss Gordon
