One year on from lockdown madness……..

18th March 2021Loveday Fisk

Just think….. this time last year we were just ending the last week at school before Covid 19 lockdown hit the UK.  A year on, we are still in our bubbles, wearing face masks, keeping up strict cleaning and good hygiene practice daily.  We still keep each other safe around  school by not mixing bubbles, both staff and children.  Nobody could have predicted the enormity of the pandemic nor its impact on Hadrian.  We feel proud of how well school have been able to support parents and children throughout.

Here we are, March 2021 and …….This week spring feels like it sprung!  How beautiful has the weather been?  We have taken advantage of such warm climate and ventured outside without coats!!! Sunshine makes everyone feel happier.  Here are some photos of some of our outdoor play this week.

 

We also  celebrated St Patrick’s Day in style this week.  We celebrated in 3 special ways:

  1. We held a hat making competition. Each class had to make a hat and present it on a table outside of classrooms to allow them to be judged by our panel safely.  The only rule for the competition was that each hat MUST be made by children’s hands.  Minimal adult input.  We were very proud of our creation.  Lacey modelled the hat beautifully.  The winner will be announced in Friday’s assembly.
  2. Our St Patrick ’s Day virtual assembly was inspired by X Factor. We watched 3 special judges press their buzzer for some AWFUL acts!! We all laughed at the terrible dancing and abysmal talent……..until a young lad and his Mum caught our attention with their terrible sob story.  The wonderful boy was an Irish dancer.  He made Riverdance look like an amateur show.  His dancing was complimented by the moves of 3 friends.  I can only describe the performance as Stavros Flatley inspired moves.  Tracey’s class did a marvelous job creating such an entertaining show.Welldoneguys.
  3. Finally, we all celebrated in our bubbles with a Ceilidh. We played Irish music and danced around our classes.  Our class was covered in St Patrick ’s Day themed decoration.  We all had a ball. Here are some photos of our day for you all to enjoy.

Weekly news!

12th March 2021Elaine Quinn

We have been making the most of the Spring weather and enjoying the outdoor areas around school. Our class love the mud kitchen, it is a chance to explore the mud using lots of different tools and utensils whilst getting messy and having fun. It provides a whole variety of different learning opportunities including sensory, imaginative, creative and exploratory play. The water wall is also a big hit whilst encouraging children to problem solve, increase their fine and gross motor skills also hand-eye coordination through actions like pouring, squirting, scrubbing, stirring and squeezing.

We will be working outdoors lots during the nice weather so if you have wellies or waterproofs could you send them in please.

 

Have a wonderful weekend, stay safe.

Brian Harrison

12th March 2021Dave Robinson

Pen Portrait of Brian Harrison
Vice Chair of Governors
Term ends 15.4.21

My first connection with Hadrian School began when our two daughters both attended school. Initially I became a Parent Governor and was recently delighted to be appointed as Vice Chair in November 2020. I am confident that working alongside the Chair, Chris, Marian, the Leadership Team, Staff and the rest of the Governing Body that my experience and expertise will help develop and maintain the schools very high standards.

In my current working role I am the Designated Safeguarding and Prevent Lead for Learning and Skills in Northumberland. I look after the well-being of our staff and learners and I am also responsible for the health and safety and risk assessments for our provision. I am a counter signatory for our DBS service for Northumberland and manage our online safeguarding portal ‘Tootoot’, which is similar to CPOMs.

I have held positions at Northumberland County Council for 41 years in both residential care, day centres, mental health units and for the last 24 years I have worked in education. I am a qualified Social Worker and Teacher, with specialist knowledge in counter terrorism and Prevent. I deliver Prevent Training for the Home Office and have worked on numerous government funded projects.

As Safeguarding Lead for ‘Education in Learning and Skills’ and as an e-safety champion I have developed an expertise in children and young people’s health improvement and child protection.

My wife and I also foster children from Newcastle Fostering Services and as I mentioned, two of my long term foster children were educated in this very school. We also host placements for new born babies who require care and are waiting to start the adoption process.

My hobbies and interests are photography, table tennis and I run the Bruce Lee Fan club in the UK, I am also Safeguarding Lead for a youth and family support group called Tanga Club in Hexham that my wife set up and runs with 5 other mums.

I am looking forward to taking an active role as Vice Chair. I am always available at the end of the phone if you have any concerns and hopefully will be popping in to school on a regular basis for a coffee and a chat on my days off from work. If ever you see me around school, please say Hello.

Thanks
Brian

Weekly news!

5th March 2021Elaine Quinn

World Book Day was Thursday 4th March and we celebrated reading books all day in school!

All of the children liked our costumes, we were ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’ .

The whole school made a fabulous effort with getting dressed up. We read our story when the children came in then we had a whole class parade down the catwalk in our costumes.

The fun carried on into the afternoon we told the story of the Gruffalo, we did story yoga and then went on a Gruffalo hunt around school looking for some of the animals from the book then got a quick play with with our favorite animal in school Alfie!

Then it was our wonderful World Book Day Assembly – it was lovely to see all our friends. Our favorite part of assembly was a hilarious story reading session with a twist ‘The Masked Storyteller’ this caused a great deal of laughter, a lot of guesswork.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, stay safe.

News From The Giggling Googlers

28th February 2021June Ball

What a busy first week back. We are particularly delighted that we have James and Diana back with us. They both received a Weekly Achiever’s certificate for settling back into school so well.

We have been exploring the role of a Police Officer as part of our Humanities work. James received a medal for his excellent Police work.

Police Officer Thompson

We also set up two shops (Morrisons and Asda) We wrote shopping lists in our English lesson and then took our money to buy items.(we are learning all about money in Maths)

In Science we are learning all about healthy eating. We each made a plate of healthy and unhealthy foods. After we had made our plates we chose healthy foods to eat at snack time.

We continue to work on our Art pieces exploring the Four Seasons. We added some wonderful bits to our Summer piece. We have now taken down Winter from outside our door and we have replaced it with our Spring one. When the display is complete we will take a photograph of it to show you. We have a great plan for the 4 pieces which we will share with you soon.

We’re looking forward to World Book Day/Week next week.

Year 3 Team.

Weekly news

26th February 2021Elaine Quinn

 

Big welcome to Mandy who has joined our class this week.

 

We began introducing our ‘War’ topic this week.

We have explored artefacts in the yurt on Monday, we looked at a gas mask, old photos from the war time of children all being evacuated, the damage left after our cities were bombed.  The children have been very interested and have been asking some very good questions such as  “why are the children going on the train without their mummy’s and daddy’s”.

We have also been learning Makaton signs relating to our topic we have been practicing old, new, airplane, train, children and broken.

We spent the afternoon in the yurt making some treats for the birds, we added seeds, peanuts and mealworms we stirred in some melted lard to make it stick together then put it into cups and added string to hang them from the trees. We hung them all around the school grounds on Tuesday and we keep checking to see if they have been eaten.

We had great fun den building in class and are going to be using our skills outdoors next week.

Our class air raid shelter is finished now and proving a bit hit with the children.

 

Have a wonderful weekend, stay safe.

 

Slime Slime and More Slime!

26th February 2021Tracy Gooderick

This week in our class the children have been working hard on their shape recognition and starting to match shape patterns. Max has been learning all about new shapes and their properties. Zack has been matching patterns and Emma, Nelson and Bilal have been staring to match shapes and colours. They have also been working on their Artist Bridget Riley and created their own optical illusions for our class display.

The highlight of the week was definitely our Sensory Fun session where the children got themselves covered in Slime and Jelli Bath! They thoroughly enjoyed the squidgey jelli bath and slippy slime. Some of them even had a slime swim! Yuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!

World Book Day next Thursday – we can’t wait!

Happy half term

12th February 2021Loveday Fisk

Well, it is the end of Spring 1 half term already.  We all got here safely and soundly.  What a half term it has been.  The country is in lockdown, we have snow on the ground.  The days are getting longer and we are all feeling very proud of how resilient our children have been through tough times.  A huge thanks to everyone in school for making our school a safe and happy place to be.  Thanks to SLT, to admin staff, to kitchen staff, our lovely caretaker and site manager, to teachers and teaching staff, to our cleaning team, our bus escorts, our fantastic supportive parents and of course our amazing children who are the reason our Hadrian world goes around. Special thanks to our lovely teacher Phil for leading our zoom assembly’s and singing sessions.  He has kept us all entertained this half term with his singing, guitar playing, and funny characters.   Here is a snippet of another busy couple of weeks at school.

This week we celebrated a special birthday in class.  When any of our adults celebrate a birthday we say it is a special one when it ends in a zero;0) Children and staff enjoyed a party in class, a fun exploration session and lots of music and singing.  In unusual times we couldn’t invite friends into class to celebrate so we made a video from every class in school wishing Loveday a happy birthday in their own ways.  Very creative work from everyone……Loveday shed a little tear.  Big thanks to Phil and Ellen’s class for safely serenading Loveday from outside.  They all sang happy birthday for Loveday to enjoy through the window.

Music is a favourite amongst all of our children!  Our Daniel and Leen enjoyed music therapy sessions this week with our Music Therapist, Bev.  They had fun initiating music, responding to fast and slow tempo and enjoying some wonderful intensive interaction using voices and instruments.

During half term we share Shrove Tuesday and in true Hadrian tradition we celebrated a week early by making and tasting our own in class.  Children explored using their hands, their mouths and tools such as whisks and spoons.  We cooked them in class so everyone could enjoy the delicious smell and we had a special pancake snack with chocolate spread and golden syrup.  Yummy.

Watch out in children’s bags this week for special cards coming home.  We celebrated LLEERRVVEE this week for Valentine’s Day this Sunday.  Children made cards with their own hands for people at home.  We also made special cards for our friends who are not able to join us in class during lockdown.  Watch out for postman Pat, Jacob and Yahya!  He might just have something for your from your class friends.  We miss you guys.

 

We ended the half term on a high note today.  The whole school enjoyed an outdoor assembly to enjoy a singing session together, safely distanced outdoors.  It was wonderful to see everyone having fun.  These are times we miss at Hadrian.  We all miss our whole school gatherings. Mr Rollings has competition with some of our older children leading singing!! Joe sang beautifully using the microphone in front of the whole school.   We kept warm with blankets and cuddles in our bubbles while we sang and danced in the snow.

 

This week we celebrated our Daniel in our weekly assembly.  Daniel’s progress this week has been phenomenal.  He is now using our core vocabulary boards to choose symbols which help him make choices.  Daniel showed us that he can consistently ask for more by pointing precisely with his finger at the more symbol.  It was wonderful to see him gaining skills which gives him his own voice.  Well done Dan!! High five to you!  Mr Rollings saved one of his special medals for Daniel as he was super impressed by this progress! Have a look at our Dan…

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zNvQMpDV0dgqFhbW1F6lyjFt8NJ7qbBY/view?usp=sharing

Delayed Weekly News

12th February 2021Scott Marshall

Hi Everyone

We hope that you enjoy our pictures from making ice sculptures, playing in the snow as well as the other activities we have been doing this week.  We celebrated Shrove Tuesday early by making pancakes on the school bus. We had great fun this afternoon taking with a singing session outdoors and trying some Chinese food for Chinese New Year.  We hope you have a lovely half term and thank you for all your support.

Thank you

Scott, Abbie, Andy, Ann, Jen