Children at Hartsholme Academy have been extremely busy! This week has been jam packed with fantastic learning opportunities and celebrations. Every year group participated in our D&T week and designed, made and evaluated some fantastic products; from free standing structures, to electrical systems, food & nutrition and wheels and axles, if you can think it you can build it!
On Tuesday 21st March, 2023 it was World Down Syndrome Day and here at Hartsholme Academy, we celebrated the occasion.
We wore mismatched socks in order to bring awareness to those with the genetic disorder. Did you know that the idea behind wearing mismatched or odd socks is that chromosomes are shaped like socks?
This week children at Hartsholme Academy have been learning about the water cycle and how water changes form and travels through evaporation, condensation and precipitation.
Our water cycle investigation provided the perfect visuals to better understand how clouds are formed from water vapour: our “environment” became very misty, the tiny particles slowly started gathering together at the top to form drops that eventually became too heavy and fell back down as precipitation.
This past Friday 3rd of March, we had our very first whole school assembly of the term where the Early Years, Key Stage One and Key Stage Two came together to celebrate each other’s achievements. It was the perfect opportunity to announce our Hartsholme Academy Reading Ambassadors.
The ambassadors will be championing reading across the school and we can’t wait to find out about the amazing ideas they come up with to make reading for pleasure even more enjoyable!
On Thursday 2 March we held our second whole School ‘Book Swap’.
As part of our ‘World Book day’ celebrations, children were able to bring unwanted books from home and exchange them for different ones. Thanks to the generous donations from our families, every child was able to choose a new book to take home and enjoy; we also dressed as our favourite book characters, learnt about some of the authors that created them and had the opportunity to read to other year groups.
In honour of Children’s Mental Health Week, just before half term, Hartsholme Academy took part in Place2Be’s ‘Dress to impress’ and fundraising to support the mental health of children and young people throughout the UK.
Students and members of staff used colour and clothing to express their individuality and the school council prepared and delivered an assembly providing tools to improve mental health such as keeping active, getting enough sleep, eating a balance diet and reaching out when in need of help.
On Wednesday 9th February, Hartsholme Academy had a very special visitor. Rosanne Kirk, the Mayor of the City of Lincoln, visited Hartsholme Academy.
The children were extremely excited and asked various questions to find out some facts about the role of the Mayor and the responsibilities that come with it. They learnt that Mayor Kirk is a long-time Birchwood councillor; last year she became the 817th Mayor of the City of Lincoln and the third consecutive female Mayor.
As the visit fell on her birthday, the children performed a song to surprise her and celebrate the special occasion with her.
Year 4 have been learning all about electricity and have had the chance to conduct several science investigations.
Nearly all the electricity we use is artificially produced by generators and batteries; yet electricity is one of the basic natural forces of the universe, and it’s around us all the time.
Did you know that a balloon charged with static electricity can stick to a wall?
Static electricity can even bend water!
We not only put those two theories to the test but also succeeded in creating our own complete circuits to light up bulbs and turn on motors.
It has been such a pleasure to see the children working and learning together and specially seeing their faces light up in awe at the results of their investigations.
This week the children at Hartsholme Academy were lucky to attend an amazing virtual workshop with author Sarah Ann Juckes.
Sarah Ann Jukes has both won and been shortlisted for various writing prizes, such as the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition and the Bath Novel Awards – she is currently Waterstones’ writer of the month.
We were introduced to her new novel ‘The Night Animals’, where a little girl named Nora welcomes into her life a range of ghostly night animals who help her deal with the difficult moments that may arise in her day.
We also recieved some fantastic tips on how to become an author and about the process of writing a novel.
“With hard work, anything is possible.”
A valuable piece of advice from Sarah.
The children at Hartsholme Academy thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and have become even more inspired to write their own stories – some children have now shared their aspirations to become published authors in the future.