HWA Blog - 26.04.2024

It was a pleasure this week welcoming our families onsite for our academic parents' evening on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon/evening. It was wonderful to see so many families attending and engaging in positive conversations with class and subject teachers. Class and subject teachers were able to share some valuable insights into your child's progress and areas for improvement. It is always a pleasure to have open and constructive conversations about how we can work together to support your child's learning journey.

It was also really pleasing to hear the year 9 families engaging in KS4 Option dialogue as students prepare to pick their KS4 options subjects. We have worked hard this year to offer a range of KS4 options and this has been received well by the families.

I understand, from family feedback, that the Arbor booking system was challenging to navigate and we will be working hard on this for the next parents’ evening so it is a smoother experience. As always, we welcome your feedback as this supports our continued school improvement.

This morning, I had the pleasure of meeting Michelle Rathor, our new Executive Director for Learning and Impact across the MAT. Last term, Clare John, the CEO, and the Executive team were involved in a significant amount of recruitment to strengthen and expand the central team. All processes were extremely rigorous and involved wider teams, myself included, and we have been delighted with the new recruits. Michelle’s new role has the responsibility for the Learning and Impact portfolio and will offer School Improvement Support to all parts of the organisation, leading the small team of executive advisers across the MAT. Michelle joins us from The Oak Learning Partnership, in Bury, and she was eager to see what we do at Hollinwood Academy. She thoroughly enjoyed her tour, meeting staff and most importantly seeing our children and young people engaging in their learning and talking to them about this. It was a pleasure to show Michelle around school and discuss the areas that we will be seeking support. I look forward to working closely with Michelle.

Let’s see what some of the classes have been doing starting with Miss Bailey’s class…

"What a fantastic week we've had in RBA! Our theme this half term is 'transport' and we've been having a blast exploring it through a wide range of multi-sensory activities.

During our Sensory Story session, we've been diving into the book 'We All Go Travelling By'. It's been amazing to see all the different modes of transport in the story and listen to the unique sounds they make. Our sensory activities related to the book have been a hit, from boats in the ocean to trains on the track and airplanes in the air.

In our communication sessions, we've been working hard on making requests with the help of adults. We've been using symbols, communication mats, and TD Snap to express our wants and needs, and we're making great progress in this area. We've even been practicing these skills in other sessions too. For example, in our 'Fun with Food' session this week, we used TD Snap to request the various fruits we wanted to add to our fruit kebabs. It was great to taste and explore the different fruits and we showed remarkable independence.

On Tuesday, we celebrated St George's Day. We engaged in sensory activities with red and white trays and expressed our creativity by painting our own St George's flags. We also had a fantastic time playing with water on Tuesday - it's always one of our favourite activities. We love filling and emptying containers and playing with our friends.

During outdoor education, we ventured to the park. We absolutely love going out and about, especially when we get to ride the bus. It's always a fun-filled adventure. Additionally, we look forward to our weekly music sessions with Mr. Scott. We get to sing along and play a variety of musical instruments.

We've had an incredible start to the summer term, and the adults working with us couldn't be prouder of the progress we're making. We can't wait to see what the rest of the summer term has in store for us!"

RBA Blog - 26.4.24

Now to Miss Bouttell’s form…

"10MBL have worked really well this week individually and as a form. They have shown great engagement and progress across all lessons. Each student has shown a positive ‘can do’ attitude, contributing to each lesson, while confidently answering and asking questions to secure their understanding. 10MBL have demonstrated our trust value “caring” toward each other and their peers in both lessons and unstructured times.

During English this week, our focus has been on narrative writing. This style of writing has reflected our trust value “creative.” Each student has been able to express themselves by sharing ideas and experiences in a way most other forms of academic writing do not. The students have let their imagination run free and have challenged themselves in extending their writing skills, by using different types of sentences. 

During maths, we have been focusing on ratios and fractions. The students have looked at solving problems with currency conversion. Each student worked independently to complete the tasks set. Throughout the lesson the students modelled our trust value “trust”, as those who needed support engaged with Miss Bones (Maths teacher) and the TA’s to ask for help and guidance.

During Science this week, we have begun the new topic of ‘Molecules and Matter.’ The students have conducted an experiment measuring the destiny of irregular objects, using water displacement. Throughout the lesson, our trust value “passionate” was reflected by the students, as their determination and passion to achieve the desired outcome shone through. 

During MFL (Modern Foreign Languages - Spanish) the students have been focusing on “Shops and Souvenirs.” Each student has been reading, listening to and writing in Spanish, while also translating this into English. To consolidate their understanding and for revision, the students have made notes of phrases and words in their ‘vocab’ books to look back over. During the lesson the students have demonstrated our trust value “inspiring” as they have shown positivity, excellent concentration and determination to confidently answer questions. 

During Geography the students have been focusing on Natural Hazards. This week the focus has been about plate margins. The students were encouraged to label convention currents, new land being formed, mantle, crust, earthquakes etc on given diagrams. The students also had to draw their own version of a destructive plate boundary. The trust value “innovation” was reflected in this week's lessons, as the students have learnt new vocabulary and ideas, that they have then used in their written work."

Now to Mr Ottoway…

"In Outdoor education for primary, this term each class are working on leisure activities within the community, primary comms classes have been going to local parks enjoying the outdoors by doing lots of walking and then being able to play on the playground. Everyone has had so much fun and there is still lots more fun to be had this term with visits to the farm, library and garden centre coming in the next couple of weeks. 

Primary KS2 Year 6 visited Oldham Library this week. The children were able to develop a sense of responsibility, independence, and confidence whilst outside of the classroom. The children were able to showcase this by selecting a variety of books to read with their classmates and teaching staff but also show positive behaviours whilst in the library. They also have lots of other planned visits arranged too. 

In Outdoor Education for Secondary, Year 7 and 8 classes got to visit Madhlo Youth Centre in Oldham, they were given a tour of the building and what Madhlo has to offer throughout the week, especially during the evenings after school. They got to see the sports hall and the different types of sports they play, a dance studio, a climbing wall, boxing studio and even the chill-out zone. All the students that went on the visit were extremely well behaved and had lots of questions to ask the staff there. 

CWN class for Outdoor Education visited Failsworth park this week and had lots of fun on the playground, next week all our secondary students on outdoor education will be cycling.

In PE, our Reception class have been working on their fundamental skills by doing lots of running, jumping and throwing activities. Next week we are moving onto practicing on the balance bikes. 

In secondary PE, year 7 are participating in cricket practicing how to correctly hold the bat, learning the rules as well as working on their fielding and how to catch and stop the ball. 

Year 8 and 10 are playing rounders this term and year 9 are working on their badminton skills performing layup shots, drop shots and everyone’s favourite the smash shot. 

Well done everyone, keep up the good work. "

Now to our amazing SUPER STARs and HWA Passionate STARs...

Mrs Lerigo’s STAR of the week is Teddy for trying his very best in learning all week and becoming more tolerant of people around him.

Mrs Lerigo’s HWA Passionate STAR is Teddy for always being so dedicated to his learning, and for resolving conflicts in class by being kind.

Miss Bramley’s STAR of the week is Harry for having a brilliant week in school and being a fantastic mathematician.

Miss Bramley’s HWA Passionate STAR is Eliora for being a passionate member of the class in every activity she does. 

Miss Pietraszewska’s STAR of the week is Roma for being passionate about her drawings. Well done Roma!

Miss Pietraszewska’s HWA Passionate STAR is Diana for writing sentences with finger spaces for the first time! Well done!

Miss Oakley’s STAR of the week is Oliver for initiating intensive interaction with his teachers and having a laugh that is very infectious.

Miss Oakley’s HWA Passionate STAR is Euan for aways being passionate in all areas of his school day, from tuff tray work to dancing at the songs for carpet time. Well done!

Miss Bailey’s STAR of the week is Noel for following instructions given by adults and wonderful listening.

Miss Bailey’s HWA Passionate STAR is Ohud for joining in activities and showing great enthusiasm. 

Mrs Quinn’s STAR of the week is Olly for fantastic work during his maths lessons this week which demonstrates his understanding of perceptual subitising.

Mrs Quinn’s HWA Passionate STAR is Olly who has really shown a keen interest during his English lessons this week, starting to make the link between some of the animals and vehicles in our story.

Mr Corrigan’s STAR of the week is Mayafor showing great patience at lunch times.

Mr Corrigan’s HWA Passionate star is Louis for fantastic engagement on the carpet this week.

Mr Corrigan’s WOW moments go to Lewis, Simisola, Louis and Faiha. Well done!

Miss Boothroyd and Miss McDonald’s STAR of the week is Jacob for a significant improvement to his attitude to learning and effort during English lessons.

Miss Boothroyd and Miss McDonald’s HWA Passionate STAR is Logan for always being passionate about his learning.

Miss Boothroyd and Miss McDonald’s Dojo winner is Isaam. Well done!

Miss Hulme’s STAR of the week is Brooke for trying so hard with her handwriting in our English lessons this week.

Miss Hulme’s HWA Passionate STAR is Derry for always being such a lovely friend to his peers.

Mrs Davies’ STAR of the week is Anna for becoming more confident in making spontaneous comments and vocalisations this week during all sessions.

Mrs Davies’ HWA Passionate STAR is Shayan for signing our morning routine songs.

Miss Matthew’s STAR of the week is George putting his hand up and trying harder to engage in lessons this week.

Miss Matthew’s HWA Passionate STAR is Ebon for helping his friend in ICT when he wasn’t sure what he was doing!

Miss Tootill’s STAR of the week is Madison for having a positive attitude towards learning and peers.

Miss Tootill’s HWA Passionate STAR is Zack for being independent.

Miss Gittins' star of the week is Joshua for excellent learning.

Miss Gittins' passionate star of the week is Ollie for being resilient when visiting a new school.

STARS of the Week (26.4.24)

Well done to our secondary Hollinwood Academy STARs this week:

Secondary Stars of the Week (26.4.24)

The summer term is always a busy term as our children and young people will be sitting formal assessments and exams. The dates for these are:

Year 1 phonics: 10th June - 14th June
KS1 SATs: 7th May - 10th May
KS2 SATs: 13th May - 16th May
Year 4 multiplication test: 17th June - 21st June
GCSEs first exam date: Friday 10th May
GCSE last date: Wednesday 19th June

Attendance for all our children and young people during these times is crucial and the right support is in place for our students.

We also have residentials and transition dates to look forward to:

Residentials dates:

Year 6 residential: 11th July - 12th July
Year 11 residential: 27th June - 28th June

Transition dates:

Friday 21st June - Transition for all primary and new year 6-7's 9:00am - 11:00am
Friday 28th June - Transition for all primary and new year 6-7's 9:00am - 11:00am
Friday 5th July - Transition for all primary and new year 6-7’s – 9:00am – 11:00am

We will also be holding midterm performance management meetings with teachers, learning walks across the school that will involve curriculum leads, senior leadership team, governors and the executive team and 1:1 meetings with curricular and non-curricular support staff.

This term, I am looking forward to seeing exciting teaching and learning opportunities and curious and engaged learners. I also love to see the teachers taking the learning outside into the school grounds as the look of awe and wonder is fantastic to see on the faces of the children and young people.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Millard