Dear Parents/Carers

This is my last message to you of 2020. What a year it has been! We have had many successes despite all the challenges of the pandemic and for this I am very grateful to all our amazing staff and families of High Hazels Academy.

As we come to the end of autumn term, I am filled with pride to be part of such a fantastic team and learning communities. We have managed to maintain our high standards of teaching and learning for all pupils, support all our vulnerable families, and kept school open for learners. There is so much to celebrate this term. Please do read through the rest of the newsletter to find out about the experiences your child/ren has had thus far. I hope that you like our new format of the newsletter too.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our staff, pupils and community a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a restful break. Please stay safe during the festive period. I look forward to working with you all again in January 2021.

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Kind regards

Mrs Shah

We have a new Spring lunchtime menu starting on 5th January.  Please click here to view the full menu

In year 5, we have made wonderful progress towards the end of the year. The children came back to school after the half term fresh faced and eager to learn. This term our topic has been ‘Investigating World Trade’, which we have corporates into all our learning.

In reading and writing we completed King Arthur topic and wrote our discussions regarding whether he was a real person or an exaggerated character from stories. The children researched who he was and how the stories became so famous before deciding what they believed to be true. After this, we began to look at ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’. In reading, we explored the text and the evacuations of WW2 to help the children connect with the text and understand why the children had to leave the city. The children were excited and very inquisitive when learning about the air raids and evacuations of the Second World War. In writing, we read the text and watched clips from the film of Lucy entering the wardrobe. The children then had the opportunity to write their own setting description using their senses as well as using similes, metaphors and parenthesis.

In geography we have been looking at world trade and Fairtrade products. We have explored what Fairtrade is, why it is important and how world trade affects people all over the world. The children have also had the opportunity to explore what food comes from where and how it is imported and exported globally, as well has having the opportunities to try some new fruits from across the globe.

The children have carried on with their city-scapes in art and have created their final piece using the knowledge and skills they have practised over the Autumn term. In P4C, the children have discussed why and what we are grateful for as well as why we should, and we can help other people. All the children had amazing and selfless ideas especially during these tough times. For PE, the children have participated in gymnastics where they have learnt stretches, poses and different ways to travel. With this, the children have created their own routines in groups. When they had time to practise, they performed to the rest of the class where the rest of the children analysed the performances. 

This half term in Reception we have been learning about nocturnal animals, owls and Christmas. The children enjoyed a visit from Owl Wise Falconry where they got to learn facts about owls, watch a flying display and have a photo holding one of the owls. In Phonics we have been practicing to recognise and write the Set 1 sounds and in Literacy, we have read stories including Whatever Next, Owl Babies and I Love You Father Christmas. They have acted out, drawn story maps and ordered sentences for each book. In Math’s we have been learning about numbers 3, 4 and 5, counting objects to 5, 1 more and 1 less, positional language and 2D shapes. To end the half term, we have been busy creating festive cards, calendars and winter pictures using a variety of media and materials. We also learnt the song ‘Snowflake’ with actions and performed it as a year group.

Year 6 have continued to shine this half term and we have enjoyed deepening our knowledge of the Victorians. 

In English, we have produced some fantastically eye-catching double page information texts, detailing the differences between how the lower, middle and upper class lived during this time.  For this, we conducted research, looking at a range of different sources, and compared their homes, their diet, their experiences and their family life.  Within this unit, we developed our ability to use a range of conjunctions (both coordinating and subordinating) and sentence structures.  

We have also enjoyed writing stories inspired by one of our high-quality class texts – The Nowhere Emporium.  We learnt how authors use ‘Show Don’t Tell’ as a technique to effectively convey emotions and used this within our own narratives. 

In maths, we have developed a secure understanding of fractions, now being able to compare, order and simplify as well as solve fraction problems involving the four operations.  Additionally, we are absolutely loving our CLIC maths review sessions, where we get to practise our key skills and challenge ourselves every week. 

We have completed a unit called ‘Improving our Environment’ in geography and it has been eye-opening!  We have maturely noted and discussed the impact that human behaviour is having on our environment and have thought carefully about small changes that we can make in school and at home.

One of our favourite subjects this half term has been science; we have been studying electricity and have completed a series of experiments to measure the effect of altering different variables on the circuit output. 

Overall, we are so impressed with our year 6 pupils this term and have loved to see them engaged and progressing in all areas of the curriculum.  We can’t wait to dive into our WW2 theme next term and know that they will continue to make us proud every day. 

Year 4 have enjoyed another successful half term at school, full of learning, creativity, and fun. We are proud of the way the children have continued to try their best, follow the new school routines and develop their learning.

We have continued to do lots of learning across different subjects. In History, we have explored Sheffield and Darnall from the 18^th Century and discussed our own family stories. In reading, we have explored a range of texts including poetry, non-fiction texts on the human body and fantasy stories like the Heavenly Elephant. In Maths, we have been learning about addition, subtraction and measurement. The children always have excellent enthusiasm for their maths learning.

In particular, the children have thoroughly enjoyed our unit on Local history, where we have explored the major changes in Darnall and Sheffield since the 18^th century. The children showed great enthusiasm for this, and it has been lovely to hear them share all their own stories of family history and their experiences of Darnall. The children did some fantastic learning; exploring what life was like for children in Sheffield in the 18^th century, Sheffield during WWII and how migrants changed Darnall exploring food, religion and culture.   

In science, we were impressed by the knowledge that the children had on the human body and the digestive system. We have been learning about teeth in different animals and understanding why certain animals have certain teeth like carnivores, omnivores and herbivores.

We have now started our new class book, ‘The boy at the back of class’ which the children have enjoyed reading in story time and exploring further in our reading lessons. It has been full of interesting topics based on migration, refugees and settling into a new school. The children have been insightful and respectful in exploring these themes. We will be continuing to finish this book in the new term and the children are excited to discover the mystery of who is narrating the book.  

The children have created some excellent Kennings poems. We explored some good examples about the seasons and created our own versions ‘Rio Carnival Kennings’. The children learnt to write in this format and developed their learning on adjectives and suffixes.

The Year 4 team have thoroughly enjoyed teaching year 4 this term and we feel that all of the children have grown and progressed with their behaviour and determination. It has been a successful term and we are all so proud of the children's ambition and love of learning.

We hope the children have a well-deserved rest over the Christmas holidays, and we look forward to welcoming them back for a new term of learning where we will be starting our new topic of Early Islamic Civilisations.  

See you soon,

Year 4 Team.

Well done Y1 on a fantastic Autumn term! The children have flourished over the last few weeks and are much more confident in their learning. The teachers are very impressed with how the children have matured and how they always try their best in their learning.

We have really enjoyed our reading books this term especially ‘The Dark. The children loved it so much that we went on a hunt around school searching for the dark. We found lots of places where the dark was hiding. We have even created our very own stories after innovating ‘The Gigantic Turnip’. The children were so imaginative in their ideas and the teachers really enjoyed reading their published stories.

The children have particularly enjoyed our computing lessons and visiting the ICT Suite. The children managed to log on and perform tasks on the computers.     

We have also started a new topic of D.T. and had an afternoon of food tasting! We really enjoyed trying lots of different foods and rating them. We are looking forward to making our own sandwiches next term!

Well done for a fantastic term Y1, we cannot wait to see you back after the holidays.

Due to an inset day, and school being closed to pupils on Friday 18th December fish and chips will be served on Tuesday 15th December and Thursday 17th December this week.

Y4 have been developing our skills as artists this week. We have been learning different shading techniques such as stippling, hatching and cross hatching. These techniques will be used in our final piece to create depth and a life-like drawing.

Y4 Turquoise have even been practising these techniques from home. Another thing we have thought about, is how to grip the pencil when we draw. We have seen how different grips can create different effects on the page. 

This week we have found our science learning fascinating. We have been studying food chains and how energy is transferred along the chain. We have learnt the names of the different parts of the chain such as producer, consumer, predator and prey. It was really interesting to think about the food chains we know and to realise that animals can be both predators and prey.