World Book Day is always a special day at Hazelwood as children and staff seem to go the extra mile to dress up as their favourite book characters. We had plenty of wallies, wizards and witches as well as lots of animals, superheroes and princesses. Huge thank you to the parents for supporting this lovely day - I know that it can be a challenge! 

The Day included special assemblies, 'drop everything and read' and a special teacher swap with many of the staff reading their favourite books to other classes. What a lovely way to end the week! 
 

The snow fell hard on Sunday evening and left a huge blanket all over Hazelwood Schools. With many members of staff unable to get in to school, we had no choice but to close. That said, it did give everyone a chance to have a lot of fun in the snow! A bit of a rarity in these parts, it seemed only fitting to build snowmen and snow women, create some snow angels and to sledge until the hearts content, or in my children's case: they were soaked through and I couldn't feel my fingers anymore! 

What a wonderful event we had last Sunday, with hundreds of children, parents, carers, friends, Governors and staff attending in the cold weather to create an incredibly warm family feeling. There were bouncy castles, tombolas, curries, candy-floss, cakes and burgers, fire pits, 'we made it' stalls, games, arts and crafts, present wrapping, bric-a-brac, book stalls and of course a special visit to Santa's grotto! Not to mention a headteacher being stuck to a wall with gaffer tape! Huge thank you to all of the parents and friends as well as Chris and Sango who helped make this very special day a reality. But the biggest thanks of all must go to our wonderful HPSA team of Anna, Hannah, Beata, Amy, Andree and Mel - you are amazing! 

On Friday, we were delighted to have launched our new Reading for Pleasure initiative – our brand new Book Vending Machine located in Maple Hall. Huge thanks to HPSA for funding this!

In order to be in with a chance to choose their very own book from our amazing vending machine, children must move their peg up the reading challenge chart in their class book corner each time they read and record in their reading record book. If by Friday lunchtime they have read 5 times that week, they will be entered into a random draw where in achievement assembly, one child from each house will be given a special, golden coin. They can then take their golden coin to the vending machine and choose a special book of their choice to keep and read for pleasure!

The challenge week runs from Friday to Friday so reading over the weekend definitely counts!

In addition to their new book, they will also take home our Hazelwood Reading Celebration book where they have the chance to decorate a page in their house scrap book, which celebrates their new chosen book, their favourite book from home or their favourite author.

What an amazing Spanish Day we all had on Friday 7th October!

We were all deeply saddened to hear of the death of our Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.