Hawes Side Academy Blog Community, Learning & Creativity in Harmony

Congratulations to all of our school winners of the Seasiders Art Competition. See them below standing in front of the exhibition being held at the Solaris Centre in Blackpool. If you can pop down and take a look at all the work submitted by local schools.

Well done to Sophia who has begun a promising career writing for The Gazette. We look forward to reading more of her articles soon.

Lots of exciting things are happening in Year 3 and 4 this week!   Students from the University of Cumbria  have planned a creative week where the children will be learning lots of different things, taught in really innovative and imaginative ways around the theme of books. A bean stalk sprang up over the weekend in 3B, a huge tent has appeared in 4L and a blacked out 4K classroom saw an astronaut emerge to speak to the children! We are looking forward to hearing all about the children’s learning and we thank the University of Cumbria students for planning this fun filled week.

We have been talking a lot about how we know when successful learning is taking place. There are lots of approaches we use in school such as quality marking and feedback, talking to each other about our learning, making good use of learning objectives and success criteria. Please have a think about how you learn best and click on the wall below to share your thoughts.

Created with Padlet

Enjoy looking at all the amazing artwork created by the children with the help of Mrs Barnes and Matthew. What a creative lot!

Today we were visited by the musical group ‘Travelling by Tuba’, Chris and Stuart entertained the children with stories and musical instruments from around the world throughout history.   From Ancient China, Rome and Turkey to Switzerland and the ‘first mobile phone’, the Alpine Horn.   It was lots of fun and when we left the hall a layer of snow covered the playgrounds!

This morning we met with officers from Blackpool catering services to further plan for the roll out of the Breakfast offer starting at Hawes Side on Monday 25th February. The picture shows you the range of food that will be available to the children. Two or three of the following items will be offered each day:

• Fruit juice – orange, apple or pineapple
• Yoghurt drink
• Fruit – whole (apple, banana, orange)
• Fruit – chopped (grapes, apple, raisons)
• Mini bagel (or half normal bagel)
• Fruit loaf – buttered slice
• Malt loaf – buttered slice
• Cereal bar

Potentially there could be a great of deal of waste and we are keen to ensure this does not happen when we start the programme.   There have also been a number of pupils and parents who have stated that they already have a breakfast at home and would not wish to be part of this scheme. It is for both these reasons that we have decided to ask families if they want to take advantage of the offer. We are sending home letters asking all those who wish to have a breakfast in school to return the slip with names and classes filled in so we can ensure we do not over order keeping waste to a minimum.

Free milk will also be offered to all children in school and again we will ask parents and carers to let us know if this is something they wish to take advantage of.

Welcome back to school and the start of a new year! 2013 promises to be exciting, busy and fun, you can read about a few things that are already in the pipeline on Mr Shepherd’s blog. Last year was another successful year for Hawes Side as we ended 2012 with several awards. We picked up Primary School of the Year and Sustainable School of the Year, both for the second year running at the Gazette Educational Awards. We also came away from the ‘It’s Our Planet’ Awards as winners in the Green Primary School, Global Citizenship and Environmental Innovation categories. The Olympics were celebrated locally with our very own Mr Smith organising the Blackpool Schools’ Torch Relay. Mr Livesey organised a Schools’ Eco Conference and in the summer we hosted another ‘Kidsmeet’ where children from all over the county came to Hawes Side to share their innovative learning experiences (some of them also popped down to the seaside!) We also celebrated the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and Hawes Side’s 75th Anniversary. These and other events over the year made Hawes Side an exciting place to be!

We received lots of visitors over the year from local and national schools and from teachers and pupils in our partner schools in China, France, Germany, Turkey, Poland and Estonia. We also worked very closely with the University of Cumbria and Edge Hill College, welcoming trainee teachers to Hawes Side as part of their training. These partnerships will continue this year and several students joined classes on Monday for their current teaching placements.

The children have started the year with enthusiasm and have enjoyed sharing their Christmas and New Year accounts! We’re all looking forward to a fun filled and productive spring term.

Many thanks to the children for performing a selection of Christmas favourites. The huge turnout enjoyed drinks, mince pies and wonderful entertainment. Merry Christmas everyone from all at Hawes Side Academy.

Please enjoy the video of our Foundation Stage Christmas Performance. Unfortunately due to some technical issues the first minute or two and some sections within the performance have been lost, hopefully there is enough here to help you relive the memories though!