Hat Trick of wins for HPS Footballers

Today marked another day on the footballing calendar for Holywood as they travelled to Bangor Football Ground to compete once again in the North Down League.

Holywood kicked off the trio of fixtures for the day against Bloomfield PS. The boys got off to a flying start taking a commanding two goal lead courtesy of both goals from Matthew K who neatly slotted the ball past the keeper with great composure. Holywoods’ quick passing and moving was causing trouble for the opposition and Holywood were dominating the possession. Bloomfield pulled a late goal back but Holywood held on for a well deserved 2-1 win.

Moving into the 2nd fixture of the day Holywood came up against Crawfordsburn PS. In a cagey opening few minutes both sides battled to get a foothold of the game. Holywood gradually started to win the second ball in the middle of the park and looked the more dangerous going forward. Crawfordsburn were a threat on the counter attack but Holywood broke the stalemate with a great finish by Kyle which was the only goal of the game.

Final game on the schedule was an anticipated local derby against St Patricks. The boys were fired up and excited to put their skills to the test against a lot of their friends and club team mates. In the early stages the game was end to end with some great passages of play from both sides. Holywood looked the more comfortable on the ball and were winning their individual battles and eventually took the lead with a strike from Zac W. As St Patricks looked for a way back in they began to commit more men forward which left Zak S to find some space and after a good solo run neatly rolled the ball into the bottom corner leaving the keeper stranded.

A great day of friendly competition and football with friends topped off with 3 excellent wins! Well done to all the boys on a great display both on and off the pitch.

Results:

2-1 W - Bloomfield

1-0 W - Crawfordsburn

2-0 W - St Patricks

SQUAD: CAMERON, JOSHUA, THOMAS, CONNOR, KYLE, OSCAR, MATTHEW K, ZAC W, MATTHEW L & ZAK S.

Spring is on its way!

 We have begun to see the first signs of Spring as our bulbs donated to us by ‘Hannah’s Courtyard’ last year have begun to resurface this year! We have spotted daffodils, crocuses and snow drops already! Eco club have been busy weeding and looking after these flower beds.  

Our Second Waste Audit

In February 2019 we conducted a school waste audit and found large proportions of food waste and recyclables in our classroom bins. As waste is our current major Eco school topic we have promoted taking food waste home and disposing of it in green bins and cutting down the use of our single use plastics through Waste Free Wednesdays. In the past year we have had also had assemblies raising awareness of the problems with landfill sites and disposing of plastic. P7 Room 10 have also bought and taken responsibility for washing out metal straws to replace our plastic ones. Here are photos of ECO club conducting our second audit of our classroom bins a few weeks ago. It was great to see an overall reduction in our waste, especially food waste. Our P6’S are currently compiling the results and we hope to share these with you soon. 

P7 Shared Education

P7 had a fun filled day at Aurora with Glencraig Integrated Primary School. They were split into four groups - Cultra, Seahill, Redbird and Kinnegar - with pupils from both schools in each group. Each group took part in a fitness activity, a gymnastic obstacle course, a golf based activity and an intro to disability sport - curling. They had a great (and tiring) day!

Waste Free Wednesdays

 At the start of January, we started Waste Free Wednesdays to work to reduce our use of single use materials and encourage each other to buy in bulk and use reusable containers. Thank you to all the parents and pupils who have been working hard to achieve this! Here are some pictures of our reusable containers in P4 room 16! Let’s try to keep this up! 

NI Cross Country Finals

On Wednesday 22nd January Holywood set off to compete in the Northern Ireland Primary Cross Country Finals at Mallusk Playing Fields in Belfast. After some tough competition in the County Down qualifying rounds before the new year Holywood earned themselves a spot in the finals with a boys team qualifying alongside two individual competitors Isla and Mia in the girls race.

The boys and girls were very excited for what was a fantastic day out. The atmosphere was electric and with so many schools across the country competing the runners were piled up at the starting line. This made it difficult for the Holywood runners to make their way to the start of the pack in the early stages of the race but none the less they pushed themselves all the way to the finish line. The boys and girls did immensely well with the boys team finishing 12th overall across the whole of Northern Ireland and the individual competitors in the girls race recorded excellent times to finish off a great cross country campaign!

Holywood are very proud of all the pupils who competed across P5-P7 in what was a great way to get active with friends and enjoy a healthy dose of competition.

A special well done to the boys team and girl individual finalists for their superb efforts and performances throughout!

Matthew L, Benjamin, Oliver, Matthew L, Reuben, Lucas, Isla and Mia

A big thank you as well to both Mr Lockington and Mr Wright for their help as parent representatives for the school at each of the events. Their continued support has been greatly appreciated!

Girls compete in Zonal Finals 2020

Well done to Megan, Isla, Bea and Katie who represented HPS at the Zonal Finals of the UK Trampolining competition recently in Newcastle, England. We are very proud of you all and what you have achieved! The girls came a creditable 7th place in the team events. Megan had also qualified for an individual event too. CONGRATULATIONS GIRLS!

A first taste of silverware for the football team

The football team took part in the annual Ashfield tournament on Friday. The two teams put in a number of great performances, showcasing some super skills and terrific teamwork.

The Holywood B team were placed in a very difficult group but produced some brilliant performances. Despite a difficult start against Strandtown A they bounced back to defeat StMatthews, with Ben Curson scoring a well placed strike. They put in one final performance against an Ashfield Boys Select team but sadly fell to a narrow defeat.

The Holywood A team started strongly with two victories and a draw before falling to a narrow defeat to Elmgrove. They fought well but it wasn’t until the last group game that they secured fourth place and a spot in the semifinal of the Bowl. In the semifinal against Rosetta, the boys produced a dominating performance but it wasn’t until the last ten seconds that they found the breakthrough, Zac Wright finishing from close to put Holywood A into the final. The final was a hard fought game with the boys conceding early to Knocknagoney but they kept their heads and turned the game round coming out 2-1 winners.

Well done to both teams! 

Footballers kick off the New Year

Holywood travelled to Bangor Football Ground today to kick off the new year in the North Down League.

Holywood were feeling fresh and started brightly in their first game against St Malachys. The boys worked well as a team and were on top for large parts of the game but just couldn’t break down the resolute defence of the opposition which meant the game ended 0-0.

In their second game they came up against a strong Ballyholme side but brought the game to the opposition from the first whistle. Holywood had some great spells of possession and had their fair share of chances. After falling behind Zac brought the sides level after a fantastic individual goal that left the keeper helpless. The game was well balanced with both teams going end to end but with a late break away against the run of play Ballyholme managed to steal a late goal and hold out for the win. A disappointing result but the boys left it all out on the pitch in a great performance.

On to the last game against Crawfordsburn and the team had gone from to strength to strength from their previous games. Holywood dominated the play and overwhelmed their opponents in the opening stages leading to a great goal from Connor who had pushed from defence into the middle of the park to drive the ball into the side of the net. Holywood continued to apply the pressure but against the run of play were caught out with a quick break away. With the game all level Holywood continued to press for the winner with some great strikes on goal but the Crawfordsburn keeper pulled off some wonderful saves to earn their side a point at the final whistle.

Overall three great performances in what was a great start to the new footballing year! Well done to all the boys involved! Time to rest and recharge before another fun filled footballing day when HPS head to the Ashfield Football Tournament on Friday.

SQUAD: CAMERON, JOSHUA, CONNOR, THOMAS, MATTHEW L, MATTHEW K, KYLE, ZAC, OSCAR AND ZAK