Welcome back to Loveday’s class blog.  Another week in strange times.  However through these Hadrian doors… our school world, inside the safety of our class bubbles, are a wonderful place to be.  Our priority in school is to keep life safe, happy and as normal as possible.  This means business as usual for the children who are back in the building.  Children are working hard and playing hard.  We appreciate all of you parents staying in touch with school throughout these tricky times.  A team approach between home and school remains key.  So, this week in our class has looked like this….

Snow days

We continue to spend time daily learning outdoors.  Our children LOVE learning using our wealth of outdoor areas.  This week has been no exception with the arrival of more snow!!.  We have enjoyed daily sessions wrapping up and exploring outdoors and we are definitely showing preferences in activities and areas.  Here are some photos of our week outdoors…

Play space

This week we have been working on targets in our play space too. We wanted to share with you some of the learning intentions during our time here, to show how important play is in the context of learning.  This is the area next door to our classroom which is specifically set up into different areas to support play and learning using a child led approach. We have a messy play area, a small world and role play area, a construction area, a sensory integration/movement area and a problem solving area.  Children are encouraged to explore freely, supported by adults who scaffold their learning and play.  While we are in this area we are learning to play as well as any of the following……….

Developing gross and fine motor skills,

Developing curiosity and interest in a wider range of experiences,

Using and hearing key vocabulary,

Being challenged to extend our skills with new experiences,

Watch and show interest in the results of our actions,

Sharing attention with someone on the same experience,

Developing our problem solving skills,

Moving around to explore the space,

Developing trusting relationships with adults and friends,

Developing our sense of feeling safe and special through our play interactions,

Making choices and developing preferences,

Representing experiences through play.

Here are some examples of what that looks like for us …..

Our Fatima has been working hard in rebound this week.  She follows a rebound profile and has a range of stretches before she even begins her work.  She has been a superstar, doing all of this work with a beautiful smile on her face. She is crawling independently over obstacles and is loving her time working on her physical skills.

This morning we celebrated our Aaron in his favourite time of the week…..assembly.  Aaron was chosen to be our class Half term achiever for a list of reasons.  Aaron’s first time back in school post-lockdown was also for him post operation.  Aaron has had major surgery on his hips, ankles and toes.  He returned to us in October after 7 months off school with casts on both legs.  In a short space of time Aaron has gone from being confined to a chair to walking independently around school with the support of his walking frame.  Here is Aaron’s story……

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19QawnpUKBYT99dai6fHafpPedfUKReFA/view?usp=sharing

We hope you have great weekend.  Stay safe!

Happy New Year to you all.  We are super excited to see in a new year.  I know we’ve all been waiting eagerly to say hello to 2021!  Welcome back to our 2021 blog.  We hope this brings a little ray of light to all who follow in such strange times.  We have lots of fun activities planned this half term and this blog is dedicated to shining a light on all of the wonderful things we are doing and achieving.  We can’t begin our 2021 blog fun without first mentioning the obvious, national lockdown and C19 news.  We want to reassure you that we are doing everything in our power to keep children and staff safeguarded in school.  It is a worrying time for all of us currently but we are confident we are all following strict guidelines and procedures to keep our precious children safe.  Our senior leadership team are working hard to keep you all informed of our path forward as things change.  Any worries or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Happy birthday to our Lacey for her holiday birthday.  Lacey turned 9 on December 28 ^– you share your birthday with someone else at Hadrian………Mr Rollings!  WOW Lacey…..  We hope you have a lovely day celebrating with your family Lacey.

Congratulations to our Leen for being chosen to be class weekly achiever.  Her work in Music Therapy has been amazing.  She thrives in her sessions with Bev, showing anticipation and using her voice.  Well done Leen.

This week we have all enjoyed working on our targets in a range of different sessions.  This half term we began to use shredded paper in our sensory art exploration session. We explored both dry and wet paper this week.   Lots of opportunities to explore using our hands, ask for more, show preferences and show great engagement.  This is a weekly session which we will build upon using children’s preferences and engagement levels.  Here are some photos of our work……

We are still spending lots of time outdoors as our children love it!  We experienced snow this week.  We all had great fun.  Here are some pictures of our outdoor fun………

The weeks are flying by in a whirlwind of work and play.  This week has been no exception.  We are super proud for lots of reasons in class this week.  Our children continue to amaze and inspire us all.  Here is a snap shot of thing that have been going on the world of Loveday’s class in the last week of November 2020.

Following on seamlessly from the outdoor artwork we all had fun with last week, this week we got to visit our Hadrian Outdoor Art Gallery.  The exhibition was a collection of work made from children across the school. Every class had a slot to visit, making the activity safe for all to enjoy.  Our class loved seeing the different art work.  A particular favourite for our children was the Gruffalo piece!! Jacob could point out his sharp teeth, purple spikes on his back and even the wart at the end of his nose.  He told everyone on route back to class that he’s seen the Gruffalo in our caterpillar garden!! Thanks to our school Art coordinator, Scott, for organising this lovely event for us all.

This has also been an exceptional week for our Aaron in class.  He received this weeks achievers certificate AND a special Mr Rollings award for being our class.  Putting Aaron’s achievements in context……this little lad had major surgery on his hips and feet last month.  This operation delayed his return to school in September which meant he had not been in school since March this year.  He has surpassed expectation……he came back with a very calm and collected attitude.  He has been able to regulate himself so so well.  He has been a pleasure to have in class…….and if that was not enough, he is already weight baring using his walker AND TOOK 3 INDEPENDENT STEPS IN THE POOL THIS WEEK!!! What can I say? Well done to our class star.  We are all super proud of you.

Our achievers assembly was  a busy one this week for more than one of our amazing class. Jacob was also awarded a special Head Teachers medal.  Mr Rollings presented Jacob with his award for his new level of independence….during transport to and from school, he now sits on a big boys bus seat without the need for a buggy.  He also walks to his bus and back to and from class.  We are so proud of Jacob.  Jacob also has a very special secret…….being the eldest child at Hadrian school, he has been chosen to switch on our Christmas lights in our advent assembly next Tuesday!! We will be super proud to watch his represent class.

Our Yahya also showed the school what amazing work he has been doing with his communication aid in class.  He Has been asking adults in class about what is happening next in his timetable. He can navigate his way around word and phrase choices to ask appropriate questions and make comments during work and play.

We all watched our friends in assembly from the safety of our class bubbles.  We were very proud to see you all celebrating with Mr Rollings.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend.  We’ll see you all next week for the beginning of Christmas celebrations in school.

Stay safe

This week we had more birthday celebrations in class.  Happy birthday to Clare for Tuesday.  We all enjoyed birthday cake and a boogie to celebrate her special day.

Following the current need to keep children learning outdoors as much as possible, we enjoyed an Outdoor art session this week.  We loved exploring paint in our outdoor art gallery.  The pictures speak a thousand words……

We also found a new outdoor area in school which has proved popular.  The internal quad was an area we all loved.  Lots of lovely physical target work for everyone in this session. Conlan was walking up the steps to the slide independently.  Aaron crawled to the top of the slide too.  First time he has attempted steps since his operation.  Well done Aaron.  Everyone remained engaged throughout the session.  We will use this outdoor space every week, seeing how much we all enjoyed it.

We were very lucky on Thursday to enjoy an in-school theatre production.  Classes took turns throughout the day to sit with their bubble in the sports hall (social distancing measures in place) and watch The Wizard Of Oz. The show was enjoyed by everyone.  Very cleverly written production performed by a single actress along with a large video screen.  Our class particularly loved the extra songs featuring Frozen.  Lacey gasped out loud when ‘Let it go’ began to play.

Also. well done to our Lacey for being chosen to be our weekly achiever in class. Lacey has been consistently asking for more using her core communication board in a range of activities.  We all watched from class as Mr Rollings presented her with a certificate AND one of his special medals!

Have a lovely weekend everyone. Stay safe!

This week we had double birthday celebrations in class.  Our Amy and Fatima both celebrated their special day with a class party.  Amy celebrated on Tuesday with a lovely chocolate cake for us all.  We all enjoyed a boogie and Amy blew out her candles.  Thank you so much to Fatima’s family for sending in her wonderful cake.  We had fun celebrating her birthday early in class.  Fatima also enjoyed going to our assembly and having the whole school sing a virtual happy birthday to her!  We hope you have a lovely day tomorrow Fatima on your actual birthday at home with loved ones.

We are still enjoying lots of time outside, learning in the fresh air.  This week we ventured outdoors to enjoy our class drumming session.  We used our core vocabulary boards to make requests: fast, slow, go, stop.  Lots of great communication. This was just one of many outdoor experiences this week.  Here are some photo’s of this week’s outdoor activities….

On Wednesday this week the whole school got together, both virtually and social distanced, for our annual remembrance day assembly.  Jacob represented our class, joining other class representatives, our senior leadership team and our Chair Of Governor, Pat Fox in the in the candle lit hall. This is always a special assembly, remembering and celebrating the lives of everyone we have lost at Hadrian School over the last 20 years.  We shared special memories of Aaron Peace and Pat Collins who we sadly lost this year and we were thankful to be joined by their families via zoom.  Mr Rollings, supported by our Hadrian mini orchestra, lead us through songs remembering those lost in battle in wars too.  Children were able to share their own prayers with school after a live recital of The Last Post.  Children is school made a beautiful array of poppies to display in school.

The Last Post performed by Phil

Our school display of poppies, handmade by each class

On Friday we all had fun and games raising money for a charity close to our hearts, Children in need.  Lots of children and staff dressed in pyjama’s and funny clothes for a day of fun in school. Well done to our Conlan for receiving our weekly achievers certificate!  We are so proud of you!

Have a lovely weekend everyone. Stay safe