Christmas News Round-Up... (Part 2)

This week, we have heard some of the most amazing singing in our two productions:

Christmas – Why do we do That? …and… Are we Nearly There Yet? It was lovely to hear some old traditional carols and to hear the storytelling in each performance.

Years 3 and 5 performed, off by heart, ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas and Years 4 and 6 shared the Story of the Nativity, once again, off by heart.

Yesterday morning, we braved the cold and frosty weather for our walk up to Lordshill Church, invited by Nick, Val and the team for our Christmas Service. Thanks to parents who were able to join us up at the church. You heard the best singing ever from the children!

And then it was back to go crackers at our Christmas Dinner…



We were very pleased, once again, to offer Christmas Dinner free for all children! Thanks to Lorraine and her team (plus extras!) in the kitchen for a lovely meal and to the OSA for providing the crackers!

Mrs Heathcock definitely enjoyed her Christmas Dinner...!



We finished with a very informal sing-song in the hall on Friday afternoon.

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PS...We also thought you might like to see Year 5 leaving for Christmas by all trying to get into Ms Dowle's car once again! Well done to Kerenza and Elena for making the video.



Have a lovely Christmas!

Incredible Instruments!

If you came to a Year 3 and 5 Christmas performance yesterday you might have seen and heard some unusual instruments being played.

Year 5 have had a sound-tastic time making musical instruments this term. We produced a range of instruments including guitars, shakers and drums. It took a lot of planning and lots of messy gluey fingers but we were very pleased with the finished results- take a look at what we have done!




We hope you like them!!!

by Conor 5LD

A Stamp for all Seasons!

Our recent home learning task in Year 5 was to design a set of stamps. These were for peace, joy, celebration and happiness. Here are some of our designs-we hope you like them!



Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone from all of Year 5.

Christmas News Round-Up... (Part 1)

It seems like a very long time ago now, but it was really good to see so many people at the OSA Christmas Fair playing the games, buying stocking fillers, winning prizes and generally getting into the festive spirit (even though it was still November!)

We thought Santa’s sleigh was better than ever this year!

In what are still hard times, when money is tight, we didn’t think we would beat last year’s total of £2800, but thanks to you, the OSA raised a new record total of…

£3537.02!

A big Thank You to you all (especially the person who gave us the 2p!) and, of course, to Gill Handley-Garland and the OSA.

The OSA will now be able to donate money to both schools in the new year.

On Friday 4 December, many parents and friends of the school were privileged to listen to our Songsters at West Quay Shopping Centre, singing Christmas Carols and entertaining shoppers!

We are always very proud to see our children representing the school so well.

Money was collected in aid of the Hampshire Autistic Society, so we were glad to play our part, as we do every year.



And finally for this part, the Southampton Schools Music Association concert took place at the Guildhall on Tuesday 8 December.

It was no surprise to us that all soloists in the Junior School section were Oakwood pupils... and the biggest junior school choir there? You guessed right again!

It was an amzing concert and really showed off the talent we have here, while getting everyone in the mood for Christmas!

(We weren't allowed to take photos! Booo!)

Roll on our Christmas performances next week!

Soldier, Soldier

Year 3 had a visit today from Bob Anderson, a retired soldier.

He came to talk to the children about life as a soldier as part of their work on World War 2. The children had a chance to try on camouflage uniform, marching boots and a helmet, and they thought about how the uniform today differs from the uniform in 1939.




We had a great afternoon, and the children asked lots of interesting questions. A big thank you to Bob for giving his time to us!

University Life!

On Monday 7th December Year 5 were very privileged to attend a mini lecture at Southampton University in Highfield. After a great morning at Intech we headed to the university where we were greeted by some of the students, Kirstin (Outreach and Partnership Officer for the university) and space expert Ian.

Firstly, we learnt a little bit about what life at university was like-it sounds lots of fun!! Then we had a really fascinating and funny lecture about Earth and Space. We found out lots of interesting information but here are our top facts !

• We have all been hit by a shooting star for in each drop of rain is a microscopic piece of a shooting star .
• The earth spins round at 900 miles an hour.
• Space is only a mere 100 km away from the Earth.
  
  
  
  After the lecture we all 'graduated' but more of that next week!

A big thank you to Ian , Kirstin and all the Students at Southampton University!

We had a great day!!

By Amie Barnes 5LD

Intelligent Intech!

On Monday 7th December 2009 Year 5 went to Intech. We arrived there with great excitement to tour the exhibition. We were greeted by a kind lady called Alison, who told us about the rules of Intech. Soon we were on our way to the planetarium. The space-tastic astronaut film was a spinning-sensation!



After that we went round Intech, playing with the "mind-boggling" exhibitions. We made tornados; we found out how heat rises; which countries waste the most water; we made bridges and we also submitted ideas for the future.

It was a great day out!!!

Winter Wonderland

On Thursday 3rd December 2009, Year 3 visited Sir Harold Hillier Gardens in Romsey.

After a very wet week, we all came ready and prepared for a damp day! However, we were met by beautiful sunshine and fabulous views.

The morning was spent exploring the winter garden. We had paint pallets with colours which we had to try and find amongst the plants. We were amazed to find purples, oranges, reds, yellows... a whole rainbow of colours if you looked closely enough!

Then we searched for some woodland decorations. Pine cones, firs, twigs and leaves were transformed into outdoor hanging decorations.



After lunch - and a good warming up indoors! - we put our creative talents to work. Beautiful pine cones became even more lovely with the addition of some festive glitter! Our artwork will be adorning the tree at our forthcoming Carol Service at Lordshill Church.



A big thank you to all at Hilliers for a wonderul day!

Strictly Year 3

On Wednesday 25th November, Year 3 became 1940's dancers for the afternoon.

Emma Maer, a dance coach from Oasis Academy Lordshill, visited the school to teach Year 3 some Jitterbug steps as part of their work on World War 2.



The children had a wonderful time dancing along to Glenn Miller's classic, "In the Mood".

Strictly Come Dancing, watch out!

Year 5 and 3 Rocking Rehearsals!

Year 3 and 5 Christmas production rehearsals are now well under way.





Year 3 and 5 have been very busy practising our production of "Are We Nearly There Yet!" We have cracking choirs; amazing actors; sensational songs and a lovely traditional Christmas poem. We also have stressed teachers pulling their hair out helping us to learn words, give out parts and put us into our performance places!

We hope you can come and see the finished production on Wednesday 16th December-you will be thoroughly entertained!

by Amie and Conor 5LD

OJS School Council get set for the Christmas Fair!

The School Council had a very busy Friday helping Mrs Handley-Garland set up for the Christmas Fair!

Tables, decorations, a helpers' rota and a very secret room all had to be organised ready for Monday's Christmas celebrations!

Everybody had a part to play in preparing for the Fair - from gathering ideas for the stalls and making posters, to organising helpers and setting up the secret room, we have had lots of fun and are looking forward to everyone enjoying the Fair on Monday!

By Rhian, Sean and Miss Denton

Lovely St. Lucia!

Year 6 had a fantastic St Lucia morning!

In Miss Denton's class we learned about Caribbean music - steel drums, soco and calypso music. We learned 'The Four White Horses' and made our own Caribbean music using drums!

We made Caribbean collages with Miss Beavill, "It was great making the waterfall," commented Alex.



We learned about family life in St Lucia with Mrs Collins. We started to make our St. Lucia factfile. "I learnt that in St. Lucia the average wage was a pound a day! I was shocked," said Elliot.

We all had a great day and learned lots!

By Alex, Elliot and Miss Denton

School Council Conference 2009!

Yesterday, we had a fantastic time representing Oakwood Junior School at the Biannual School Council Conference 2009!

We started the day by taking part in a team-building exercise with lots of other schools also at the conference. We successfully built a newspaper bridge to hold our egg safely! Mrs Bevan-Mackie and Mr Honeybone were glad we didn't get egg on the carpet!

After break, we improved our communication skills with Mr Honeybone and had a tour around the stadium! We discussed with Mrs Bevan-Mackie what makes a good school councillor. We also had time to share our work on anti-bullying with other schools and 'magpied' a few ideas to bring back to OJS.

After a quick lunch, we drove to the Civic Centre and presented a speech in the Council Chambers,we did this in front of the Mayor and all the other school councils! We felt quite nervous standing in the middle of the chamber but everybody was really interested in our explanations about Committee Afternoons at OJS.

Finally, the Mayor and the Town Sergeant gave us a tour of the Mayor's Suite. It was a brilliant day!

Sean really liked seeing the picture of the first Asian Mayor of Southampton, Alisha loved trying on the Mayor's clothes, Lewis found the tapestry of WW2 fascinating and Caitlin enjoyed comparing the old and new pictures of Southampton!

Thank you to the Mayor, Mrs Bevan-Mackie and Mr Honeybone for making our day so special. We can't wait for the next conference!

Written by Lewis, Alisha, Caitlin, Sean and Miss Denton

Year 3 explosion!!

On Wednesday 18th November 2009, Year 3 had a hands-on taster of what life would have been like during World War 2.

The had a fun-packed day visiting two museums - Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower amd SEARCH Living History Museum, both of which are in Gosport.

At Explosion, the children were able to get up close to, and even touch, examples of naval firepower through the ages. They learned about the site of the museum, Priddy's Hard, and had a chance to set off the air raid siren in the education centre.



The children became museum curators at SEARCH, where they explored objects from history, and used clues in the World War 2 kitchen to help them decide whether the objects were from that period or not. They also hid in an Anderson Shelter during one of the air raid sirens.

Year 6 trip to Highclere Castle

Last Friday year six were treated to a fantastic trip to Highclere Castle, near Newbury. We had a wonderful day, even though the weather was not so wonderful!

Firstly, we explored Highclere's Secret Garden, complete with hedge tunnels, grape vines and ancient fig trees.

Once inside the castle, we watched an informative video all about the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. We were also lucky enough to view actual artefacts from Ancient Egypt, discovered by the Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter. Finally, we visited the 'hands-on' room, where we could dress up and create pieces of artwork.



By Angela, Bethany and Miss Beavill

All the fun of the Fair!

Our second Committee Afternoon passed in a blur of planning and preparation for the school council, as we continued to put our Play Ranger plans in to place, whilst also preparing for the Christmas Fair!

We have now completed our recruitment drive for Play Rangers and selected candidates begin their training with Mrs Le-Bas next week. We are all looking forward to seeing the new Rangers supporting children on the playground and also showing us how to use the new playground equipment.

We also met with Mrs Handley-Garland to help her organise the Oakwood Junior and Infant School Christmas Fair, which will be on Monday 30th November, from 5-7pm. We have all chosen jobs to help with the preparation and running of the Fair - come and see us in action!

Delightful Data Loggers

5LD have been having a 'sensor' ible time with the Easy Sense data logger. For the last week 5LD have been taking the data loggers into assembly and recording the noise levels-at one point we managed to reach 90 dba!!!

After assembly we interpreted the graphs for our Sensational Sounds work. Later 4 super secrect spies snooped around the school. They stood outside each class room door recording the sound levels. The highest recording was 73.5 dba!!!

Take a look at the graphs and see if you can work out who was the noisiest and quietest classes at that particular time. We will award a sticker for anyone who posts the correct answer.



By Amie And Conor

Boats Ahoy at Lordshill Library.

Year 5's boatastic boat projects have now docked at Lordshill library. You will find them in the the children's section of the library so go and check them out!



by Amie and Conor.

A Day to Remember

On Wednesday 11th November 2009, Year 3 walked to Hollybrook Cemetery to visit the World War 1 Cenotaph.

We looked at the graves, read the names of the men who had died at sea and we spent some time reflecting on the sacrifices these young men made for us.

At 11am, we stood for 2 minutes in silence and laid a wreath of poppies on the monument. The poppies had our thoughts and prayers written on them.



On the way back, we stopped to pay our respects to the World War 2 graves.

The year 3 children showed great maturity on our trip, and we were very proud of how well they behaved.

School Council Committee Afternoon!

Oakwood Junior School Council had a jam-packed committee afternoon planning ideas for school improvement!


We believe that children need more support at playtime! As a result, we are going to re-launch play rangers! We discussed how we could do this and decided we would need to:

• Plan a recruitment drive (year 5 and year 6 assembly)


• Select candidates (use a vote system if necessary)


• Organise training for the new play rangers, teaching them how to be a fantastic ranger!


• Organise training to teach the rangers how to use the playground equipment and how to store it properly.


• Plan a rota for the rangers so they know when it is their duty day.

We also felt that the play equipment might need a new home or better storage, this would mean the equipment would be easier to keep tidy and in would stay in good condition for longer.

We asked Mrs LeBas (Head Dinner Lady) to give us some information and advice about Play Rangers. She gave us some top tips on how to make Play Rangers a success!

Watch out for the our next update on Play Rangers after Committee Afternoon 2!

The Travel Team Plans Ahead...

The Totally Travel Team Committee met for the first time this afternoon on the first of our Committee Days of the new academic year.

Our committees mean that all children in our school have a say in how the school is run and the improvements we make.

Last year, the Totally Travel Team had ideas for the new 20mph School Zone and designed 20 is Plenty signs, looked at how safe Sandpiper Road is, and arranged for the Truck Safety Team to tell us how to stay safe around big lorries.

Today, we started this year's hard work. We...

• designed our Totally Travel Team ID Badges
• organised Walk To School week resources for 16 - 20 November;
• designed bookmarks for Road Safety Day on Tuesday 24 November (each child will get one);
• wrote letters to parents to accompany a special Road Safety Booklet which all parents will be getting.

We think we got a lot achieved for our first Committee Meeting and are looking forward to next time!

The 'L' Factor.

The 'L' Factor committee had a very successful first meeting this afternoon. The L stands for learning. Throughout the year our committee will be looking at lots of different ways we can all help each other become better learners.

Today we looked at how our books are at marked at Oakwood. Every child in the committee felt that having their book marked was very important. Through discussion and questionnaires, we came to some conclusions about what was successful and what could be improved to help all learners know their next steps. The committee were very pleased with the rewards and comments they were given when they had produced a good piece of work.

Children would like to find more ways of showing that they themselves understand what is a good piece of work. They would like more time to read and respond to the teachers comment; more one to one marking with the teacher and times when they can mark and review each others work. Over the next couple of committee meetings we have decided to trial a few ideas.

We learn 95% of what we teach others.
William Glasser.

At the end of the afternoon we started to design our committee logo. Well done to the 'L' Factor committee a very productive meeting.

Spot the Secret Agents!

James Bond visited OJS today!

In fact, there were lots of James and Jane Bonds, Professor Laytons, thieves, spies and secret agents in the school today, as year 6 arrived in disguise this morning to celebrate the launch of their new Secret Agents topic.

We started the day by playing a game of 'Spy and Seek'. Our codeword was 'Stormbreaker' - you will have to ask any of our agents to explain why we picked that particular word!

As secret agents, we imagined ourselves in a variety of settings and designed appropriate masks and costumes to help us blend in to our surroundings! We used a variety of art mediums, including watercolours, to display our ideas.

Finally, we read our new class novel (the clue might be in our codeword!) and cracked some secret codes!

Well done to everybody for making such a huge effort with your costumes. We have had a fantastic start to our new topic and I know we are all looking forward to finding out what is in store for Alex Rider!

Icebergs Ahead!

Year 5 Titanic Day

At the end of last term Year 5 celebrated Titanic Day. It was a wonderful commemoration which marked the end of a fabulous unit of work investigating the part that Southampton played in the history of the Titanic, and how it was affected by the disaster that occured.

All the children came dressed ready to board the ship. They had chosen whether to be passengers (1st, 2nd or 3rd class) or workers. After a quick fashion show children recorded all relevant details onto their passports and boarding passes.

In the afternoon all children took their documents down to passport control and boarded the Titanic to the melodic sound of the 'orchestra'. The day culminated in High Tea where the children sat down to a delicious feast of scones, jam and cream. These had been made by the children in a Let's Get Cooking session the previous day. They were then taught an Irish jig by our resident school expert Hannah.



Year 5 would like to thank all the Year 6 muscians and passport control officers who helped make it such a special experience.

Boat-Tastic Boat Show!

Last term Year 5 had a terrific time at Southampton Boat Show and guess what we even saw Princess Anne!!!

During the day we had a little lifeboat lesson which included learning about the dangers of the sea. We also learnt that all of the RNLI workers are all voluntary. In small groups we toured around the boat show and got to see all the fantastic sights. Most pupils favourite experience was going on board the simulator which made you feel like you were actually on a real boat and even squirted water at you!!! We saw sunseekers sparkling in the golden sun and we even had lunch on the beach with a jazz band accompanying our munching!



What a great day!

by Amie and Conor.

Boats Ahoy!

Year 5's Brilliant Boat Projects!

Year 5 had their own AMAZING boat show yesterday. After working extremely hard for the last 6 weeks on their home learning tasks, it was time to show off the completed projects to parents and fellow pupils. We had models of all ships and sizes, from little lifeboats and canoes to speedboats and sparkly cruise ships. Everybody agrees they were all 'BOAT-TASTIC' .

As well as the magnificent models we had jaw dropping stories, fascinating facts and scintillating PowerPoint presentations. These will all be shared in class in the next few weeks for everbody to enjoy.



From next Friday a range of these super projects will be on display in Lordshill library up untill Christmas. So take grans, grandads, aunts and uncles and ENJOY!

Well done to all the children in Year 5. Everybody has been extremely impressed and very proud of how hard you all worked.

Year 3 Art Gallery Visit

Year 3 had a fantastic time on their trip to Southampton Art Gallery this week.

They were budding artists in a portrait printing workshop and aspiring art critics on a tour of the gallery.

They learned how to draw faces, as well as how artists communicate their ideas through their work. They also learned a thing or two about mono-printing.



A great time was had by all!



(The Art Gallery is open every day apart from Monday and is free to get in!)

Everybody Writes Day - Planet Mad!

Oakwood was planet mad for our Everybody Writes Day on Friday 16 October.

Every year group had a planet to work with and used Holst's Planet Suite as musical inspiration. They then used lots of imagination and creativity to come up with some exciting writing about their planet.

Year 3 made rockets to travel to Saturn in. The flames held poetic lines about their journey.

Year 4 wrote some free verse poems about their planet, Jupiter. They then presented them on paper planets.



(Listen to Jupiter - The Bringing of Jollity!)

Different writing tools were the order of the day in Year 5. They wrote alien messages using tin foil, chocolate, sand and even baked beans!

Year 6 sent cryptic message rocks down to Earth in their newly created Martian language.

(Listen to Mars - The Bringer of War!)

All year groups then exhibited their work in the hall for the afternoon for the rest of the children to see. As you can see from our photos, Everybody Writes Day at Oakwood was a lot of fun!

Get Active at Half Term!

Our cluster schools have got together to lay on a big range of free activities to keep you occupied during half term...!

We're working with the YMCA to offer:

• Multi-sports
• Drumming and DJ workshops
• Arts and Crafts
• Outdoor Challenges

...including a unique opportunity to work on Team Building activities with volunteers from the YMCA in The Netherlands!

You can download the leaflet to read all the details, or you can phone YMCA direct on 023 8021 0227 to book places.

Don't forget - these activities are all free!

Awesome Egyptians Home Learning Exhibition!

Great fun was had by all as the year 6's exhibited their fantastic Ancient Egyptian home learning projects!

Amidst a sea of pyramids, parents and friends were able to wander around and read Egyptian fact-files, ancient hieroglyphic manuscripts and even Egyptian newspapers!

Many of the children transformed themselves into Egyptians for the day - from slaves and priests to King Tut himself, the costumes were outstanding! Whilst we thought many of the fine linens worn by the Ancient Egyptians were beautiful, unsuprisingly, shaving our hair to make wigs (and to prevent nits!) or wearing perfumed fat, were less popular wardrobe additions!

The children put huge amounts of time and effort into their home learning exhibitions and it was lovely to have their work so widely celebrated by their peers, family, friends and school staff. Congratulations year 6! We look forward to the next home learning project in the spring term!

Kay is moving...

We have worked with Southampton City Council to move Kay, our lovely crossing patrol lady, to the new crossing point outside the school!



She will be in her new position after half term. Please make sure you cross with her in the right place!

Titch says "Thank You"

Titch came into school this morning to celebrate Harvest with us!

He told us how he thanked his Mum for his breakfast...
...and his Mum said to thank the Supermarket
...and the Supermarket said to thank the farmer
...and the farmer said to thank the cow
...and the cow said to thank the grass
...and the grass said to thank God!

He then told the story of a family who received some of the harvest food and Mum said "Now we can have breakfast..."



Everyone brought in food for the collection - a really excellent display of tins and packets and boxes which was collected by Basics Bank after the assembly! They will sort it and send it out to those who need it over the winter months.

(You might notice that Titch also bought Chris along! Chris brought his MBE to show us - Congratulations! - and he told us it was the last of 39 Harvest Assemblies he had done this year. You must be exhausted, Chris! Thanks for fitting us in!)

Into Cyber World...

We've had some excellent work done at Cyber Cafe this term!

Here are some photos showing what we've been up to...



The Cyberpupils learned how to use Photoshop to design their own CD case labels and also the labels to attach to the CD.



They have now taken these home and they can turn them into music CDs, or put files from their computers onto them!

Well done!

House Captains 2009 - 10

Not many people know this, but Mrs Di Maiolo, who works in our office, also works for Southampton City Council when they have council elections!

SO... she was the perfect person to organise the elections for our House Captains!

Firstly, she and Mrs Worley told us in assembly about how elections work.

On election day, she made sure everything ran smoothly and then counted the votes...



...and today, she announced the results and the Mayor of Southampton, The Right Worshipful Councillor Elizabeth Mizon, met our newly elected House Captains!

Well done to them all!

Big Money from the OSA!

A really big THANK YOU to everyone who supported our Summer Fair, comes to the regular Discos and other OSA events!

Mrs Handley-Garland handed over a cheque for £1112.50 in assembly this morning - money which was raised at those events.



We've already spent some of this money by bringing the theatre to your children on the first day of term - a fantastic performance of Robin Hood!

Thanks again, OSA!

Superhero Fun!

In Year 2 our topic has been SUPERHEROES! We have made superhero puppets, clay models and superhero sidekicks.

Look at our puppets. Some of us decided that sewing the pieces of felt together was the best idea. This took us quite a long time but we got the hang of it.

Walk to School Week!

This week is our HEALTHY SCHOOLS WEEK and WALK TO SCHOOL WEEK.

So put those shoes on and walk to school if you can. Remember to add a sticker to your chart in class if you have walked.

To remind us to stay healthy we are having the following at school:

Tuesday-Exercise day

Wednesday-Extra piece of fruit or vegetables in your lunch box

Thursday-No crisp day

Friday-Reflect on how to be healthy

Macmillan World's Biggest Coffee Morning

A personal message from Mr Taylor...

Oakwood Junior School is a very special place to work, but on some days your children and our staff leave me so proud I'm speechless. (And that's saying something!)

Friday was one of those days!

We had decided to host a coffee morning in aid of the Macmillan Cancer Care Charity. We know that so many families are affected by this horrible, vicious disease and wanted to do something positive and amazing to show that we are part of beating it.

So we got busy...

The kitchen was buzzing as children made cakes and classrooms turned into "Invitation Factories!" We invited parents, friends and families, local businesses, people from organisations we work closely with, such as Neptune Court and Semble House, governors - in fact anyone and everyone we could think of! We said "Come and have a coffee and a cake and make a donation to Macmillan..."

But we weren't sure how many people would come and how much money we would raise...

Friday morning came and after a steady build-up, the queue stretched out of the door! We reckon over 250 people came and shared the morning with us...

We raised a grand total on the day of £644 - in just one hour! (And a little more has come in since!)

My personal thanks to everyone who came and had a cake or helped organise the morning - and a very special thank you to all our children. If it weren't for them, we'd have had no cakes, no people to eat them and no money to give to Macmillan... You are superstars!

Welcome Back!!!

We would like to welcome back all the children at Oakwood Infant School and say a big hello to all the new Year R children.....!

Year 4 Roman Feasting!

Year 4 really enjoyed their hook day tasting food 'Roman style'!

Throughout the day year 4 ate a Roman breakfast and lunch as well as designing their own menu. The children completed research using the internet and books to find out key information.

Lots of fun was had by all, a brilliant day all round! Well done year 4 for all your hard work and trendy togas!





Year 4 are looking forward to more detective work for their new topic and trip next week!

MultiSports Day

Oakwood pupils took part in a fun MultiSports event on Thursday run by Jo Terry from Premier Sport.
Pupils had a go at out tri-golf activities - putting to a target and chipping to a flag.
There was also a standing long jump competition.

Well done to eveyone for great effort!




Look forward to Monday school assembly where Jo & Mrs Mahoney will hand out certificates to the boy and girl in each class who jumped the furthest.

Jo will also be letting everyone know about his exciting new club which starts next Thursday - Mini-Olympics!

Awesome Egyptian Morning!

What a fantastic start to the first whole week as the new Year 6!

We celebrated the start of their Ancient Egypt topic by having an Egyptian feast, cooking flatbread, building pyramids and learning all about hieroglyphics!

Miss Denton, Miss Beavill and Mrs Collins had a lovely day teaching the whole year group. The award for best costume definitely went to Mrs Collins! It is truly amazing what you can do with one sheet and a bit of Blue Peter magic!

We look forward to sending our Egyptian home learning projects home at the end of this week and the children will be able to dress up on the Home Learning Exhibition day - so lots to look forward too!

Well done to all our new Year 6s for such an enthusiastic start to the academic year. We look forward to a year of fun, laughter and hard work in equal measure!

Welcome Back!

We're looking forward to welcoming everyone back at 9am on Friday (4 September) and to our new Year 3 children arriving for their first proper junior school day!

This is just a very quick reminder that, for the time being, Sandpiper Road is One Way only, while the School Zone roadworks are being completed.



This is mandatory, so please observe it for everyone's safety, especially your children. The City Council have said that the work will be finished by next Friday (11 September).

Thank you for your understanding.

Where in the world is... OSCAR Bear?

Hello All!

I hope you are enjoying your holidays! After spending a year in Australia, it's very different being back home in England... or am I???

I will post a few photos over the next few days - see if you can work out where I am!



PS Who is Barnaby again?

Get off the sofa!

In partnership with the Lordshill and Lordswood Schools Cluster, Southampton YMCA is providing Summer workshops and activities.

They will take place at the different school sites - give them a quick call to find out what's happening at Oakwood!



There's lots on offer, including:

• Family Fridays
• Dance
• Drama & Music
• Sports
• Arts & craft
• Outings
• ICT

For more information call: 023 8021 0227

SAM in Mexico

SAM says:

I met up with an old friend again the other day when Mrs Hamilton came into assembly to tell everyone about her trip to Mexico last summer - and to tell us why she's going again this year...

I spent last summer working on the dumps on the outskirts of Mexico City - for me, it was just a couple of weeks, but for many families and children, it's their home.

They live on the dump, with no access to clean running water, education or doctors.

I went out to Mexico with a charity which takes health workers, dentists and other care workers out to the dumps and provides check ups to the families who live there.

You can see some of the conditions and the help we provided in the photos below...



Mrs Hamilton and her family are there again this summer with the charity, so next time you turn on your tap, or think about school, or go to the doctor or dentist, please spare a thought for the families they are helping.

A Life at Sea for Me!

Year 6 had a very busy end of term and everyone went on one of the Big Ships in Southampton Docks. The cruise ships are basically floating hotels, but the WhitChallenger gave us a better idea of what a life at sea is really like!

We had to follow very important health and safety rules, including wearing yellow hi-viz jackets, and we toured every part of the refuelling tanker, learning about navigation, safety, food and accommodation on board - and even knots! (Some things never change at sea!)

We also learned a lot about what goes on behind the Dock Gates in the city and how important the maritime industry is to Southampton.



Some of us were shown around by 2nd Officer Tom Barkley, who has recently been awarded the Maritime and Coastguard Agency's Officer Trainee of the Year Award, so we couldn't have had a better guide!



Thanks to Tom, the rest of the crew and to Ashley Jenkins, a director of the Whitaker Group for giving us this great opportunity!

Speedmark Challenge

On Thursday 9 July, Oakwood Junior pupils and staff took part in the SpeedMark Challenge.

This was a sponsored fun event, supervised by footballer Josh Dutton Black. Everyone took three penalties into an inflatable goal, with an integral radar that records the speed of each shot.

The children's quickest speed was recorded on individual certificates. The fastest boy & girl from every class also received a medal.

The fastest in the school were Sophie at 42mph and Dalton and Matthew at 50mph!

Well done to all those children who raised sponsor money - the school received a massive £574.89 which we will be putting towards a whole school sports event and useful PE equipment.

We enjoyed the day so much we're doing it again!

Our next SpeedMark Challenge is booked for Thursday 10 June 2010!

Who will record the fastest penalty?

Google Doodle Designs!

Well done to everybody who entered the Google Doodle competition! The theme this year was 'My Hero' and we had some fantastic tributes to many people - ranging from Mums and Dads to nurses and even Superman!

Congratulations to each of the class winners; Liam, Charlotte, Luke, Billy W, William, Billy A, Korneliusz, Joel, Matt, Josh and Jordan. Your designs were voted the most well designed and presented! They will be sent in the post this evening so fingers crossed for a win in the nationwide competition!

Have a lovely summer everybody and we look forward to seeing you refreshed in September!

Year 6's FACT- tastic Land Ho Exhibition!

Year 6 have had an amazing afternoon celebrating their Land Ho! home learning projects. We have read stories of desert islands, facts about distant lands and have seen some outstanding 3-D islands - some were even made out of cement and had exploding volcanoes!

All the parents and visitors thought that the work had been completed to a very high standard. Also the children recieved a certificate, which they can be very proud of!

Congratulations year 6 on all your hard work!

Dragons' Den!

Year 4 have worked incredibly hard to create their own innovative popcorn holders over the past few days. They have then worked in their groups to create a persuasive poster and a detailed accounts (and profits) analysis so that they could persuade the Dragons to invest in their product.



On Tuesday, the day had come! Each group had to enter the Dragons' Den and pitch their product. The Dragons then had to make a decision about whether to invest in the popcorn holder or not. The companies that offered a higher percentage of their profits to the Dragons were the most successful!

Well done to all of Year 4! Your teachers are very proud of you.

Year 3 Fun and Celebrations at the Sports Centre.

As the first year in junior school draws to a close, Year 3 travelled en masse to the Sports Centre to celebrate their many successes this year. They were joined by parents and friends for a picnic lunch, before every child was presented with a certificate to celebrate their star achievements in Year 3.



Thank you to children and parents for making it such a fun-filled, happy occasion.

Sketchbook Habit-Crazy Collage and Picture Paragraphs!

Keeping a sketchbook is a great way of keeping track of creative ideas and getting in the habit of regular drawing.

All week Year 3 will be looking at examples of how real artists (specialising in both 2D and 3D artwork) use their sketch books to record and trial their ideas. They will also add to their own sketchbooks-recording their own innovative ideas from several fun projects.

They started today with some crazy collage, where they used pictures or words from magazines as well as sketching to produce a finished picture. As you can see from the photos lots of merriment was had by all and some amusing and clever pictures produced.




For their second task they were given the job of rewriting a paragraph of text. Their challenge was to replace as many of the words as possible with pictures instead. Look carefully at the pictures-can you work out the missing text?

Year 4 Entrepreneurs

Year 4 have transformed into budding entrepreneurs this week. After a trip to the cinema, we have been designing some innovative popcorn holders. However, not only have we had to come up with a unique design, we have also had to think about how to insulate our popcorn to keep it nice and warm!



As you can see from our photos, we have come up with some wonderful ideas. As we have been working, we have had to keep track of our accounts to work out how much it costs to make our holders, and we have also had to price our designs to ensure we make a good profit.

Next week, we will be pitching our ideas to the "Dragons' Den", asking them for investment for our new product, so we have also been working on persuasive posters and speeches.

Fabulous Go-Riders!

Every Wednesday for the past 5 weeks you might have noticed the playground filling up with cyclists after school.

Go-Ride club is held for Year 5 children to help them become confident and safe cyclists. It's also a lot of fun! So far the club members have successfully managed several different activities to test their individual cycling skills. They have also worked in groups, to help them become more aware of what is happening around them as they cycle.

The club has been extremely lucky to have been joined by Penny Cossburn, an experienced cycling coach, who has been greatly impressed by the skills that the children are showing.

Go-Ride will continue in the Autumn term and will culminate in an exciting and challenging ride through the woods.

Travel Team's Last Road Safety Review

Monday was the Travel Team's last get-together as Year 6 are leaving and the Oakwood years are moving on. The Travel Team will be splitting up next academic year into different committees, so other people get a chance at each committee. There'll be a brand new Travel Team next year!

We all have enjoyed ourselves and we thank Mr Taylor for running this committee this year.

This is what we have been doing:

School signs. We have designed our own School Zone signs to send to Southampton City Council and ONE might get chosen to be placed alongside Sandpiper Road.



We took a trip outside of school too take a look at a safety sign informing us about the Council placing speed bumps outside the school - Jed and Dillon measured the length of the bumps using Trundle wheels.


Mr Clapham (one of our School governors) said that this lesson has been very interesting and has said he had learned how to use a trundle wheel (because he had never used a one...)

Marking on the safety and danger signs on maps! Last Committee Day we printed out an aerial image of Sandpiper Road from the Internet. We then marked on the safety and danger zones on the map, this way if they were detailed enough we could mail them to the Council and ask them what they would do about it.

by Jed and James

Oakwood Infants in Bloom!

Look at all the lovely colours....!

Oakwood in Bloom!

Come and have a look.....

Oakwood Infant in Bloom!

Look at all the lovely flowers the children have brought in....

Operation Super Library-End of Term Report.

As the school begins it end of year book return to the library, the ECT Committee have been doing their bit to ensure that the library has some exciting new literature ready for September.

After the last committee afternoon 2 members of the ECT organised a visit from the school library service. On Monday 29th June 2009 Chris Thomas joined the committee for the afternoon. Chris came armed with boxes of books to help the committee implement one of their previous ideas - to get pupils involved in choosing books for the library.



After formulating criteria by which to evaluate the books, the committee spent the afternoon reviewing and choosing new books (fiction and non fiction) for all the pupils of Oakwood to enjoy. Books about pirates, beautiful picture books and lots of humorous and exciting new story books were all chosen, with every member of the committee having at least a couple of their choices added to the school collection.

The ECT team hope to continue their good work in the new academic year and would like to thank the Year 6 members for all their hard work and wish them all the best in their new schools.

Mission Accomplished!!

The current Year 4 cohort proved yesterday that they were equal to any challenge that might come their way next year.

As part of their taster day in Year 5 they were set a mission to undertake 6 different individual and team challenges. These challenges were chosen to test their problem solving, creative and team work capabilities. They incuded activities such as:- Gloopy Slime; Monster Pictures; Krazy Creator; Tantalising Tangrams and Guess the Object.



As you can see from the pictures a lot of fun (and mess!!) was had by all. The day cumulated in a celebratory welcome party where the children paraded their own fantastic headwear creations, which they had designed and made especially for the celebration.

Well Done New Year 5 - your teachers were very proud of you and we know you will be as successful next year.

Fabulous Final Friday!

It has been a fantastic week at Knapp House and to finish off a whole selection of fun-filled activities, we went for a spot of canoeing on a picturesque Devonian lake. The children had the opportunity to try three different sized boats and just about managed to stay dry!

After a quick change and a last look to make sure nothing was left behind, we set off home. Amazingly, after a tiring week nobody fell asleep on the way back (except Mr. Larder!)! Everyone was obviously far too excited to share their trip stories with friends and family upon their return.

Topsy-Turvy Thursday!

Still no broadband, but here's the lastest...

Where has the time gone? We can't believe it is our final full day at Knapp House!

After ANOTHER good night's sleep and ANOTHER cooked breakfast in our tummies, we set off for more fun-filled activities. Lewis found the tiniest crab imaginable when Miss H's intrepid explorers beach-combed the coastline. After two and a half miles and a few splashes later, weary feet trudged into the dining hall for lunch.

All groups learned the vital skills for tomorrow's lake trip: paddling, capsizing and climbing back on board! Brandon was fantastic at helping his partner back into a boat after it had capsized.



After being given extra pocket money, the atmosphere was electric as children got ready for the disco. Singing... Dancing... (And that was just the staff!). The children bopped away to Kanye West, getting 'Stronger'!

We are just about to rest our weary heads ready for our final day!

申し申し

Hello friends,

How are you doing? Thought I'd send you a quick update before I leave the country and head off back to sunny Southampton... make sure that sun is still shining for me when I arrive as I'm very used to it having been living here in Australia for almost a year!!

Last week I accompanied my Grade 6 host on a special trip to learn all about things Japanese. It was a very interesting day. We took a 45 minute bus trip to the Botanic Gardens where we learned some martial arts, viewed a Japanese tea ceremony and listened to the Japanese flute. We also looked at many bonsai trees.



For lunch we had teryaki chicken and spring rolls. I struggled with the chop sticks! The children helped me but I like to use my paws!

Well, I'll be off now as I'm on my way to the airport shortly. I will see you all very soon!

Love from Oscar. x x

PS Does anyone know what the Japanese writing at the top is?

Wicked, Watery Wednesday!

After a terrific, well-needed sleep, we awoke to another beautiful day of glorious sunshine.

Following ANOTHER hearty cooked breakfast, we went tunnelling commando-style and raft building. William was fearless underground!

Miss Hutchinson's group built a sturdy raft... which nearly kept them dry!

In the afternoon, Mr and Mrs D. went ringo-ing. Amy was awesome! The children staked a claim to Devon by carving their names into the sand. Much fun was had by all!



To round off Wednesday we all went crabbing! The children caught lots of crabs and learned how to tell the difference between males and females.

Tomorrow is the disco and we're all looking forward to a boogie!

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: It's a shorter update today with not many photos and no podcast - sorry! That's Devon Broadband for you... :-(

Sensational Summer Sailing at SWAC

Today year six took to the water at SWAC.

The activities were Pico sailing and Powerboat driving. The Pico sailing was enjoyable - steering in the right direction and staying in the boat proved challenging for some!

Most of the group had a turn at driving the Powerboats. Half went along the River Test and the other half, the River Itchen.

A fun day had by all in glorious sunshine.

Tan-tastic Tuesday!

Today year six took to the water and explored the coastline. We were ferried over to a beautiful strip of sandy beach by James Bond’s actual speedboat (honest…). The real stars of the ringos were James, William, Matt and Mitchell, who managed to cling on even when we were travelling at turbo speed!

The other half of the group went on an exciting coastal walk and discovered many creatures of the deep on their journey! A lucky few even found a starfish!

After a lightning lunch of sandwiches, crisps and fruit, half of the group embarked on the giant slide and low ropes course, whilst this morning’s ringo riders became mega mountaineers on the climbing tower.

We finished off the day by all having a fantastic session of pedal carting!



...and you can "hear all about it" on today's podcast!

Just another Manic Monday!

Surf's up at Knapp House as year six embarked on the beginning of their week of adventure. We were very lucky to have such fabulous weather; sun shining, not a cloud in the sky and the lovely warm sea!

We enjoyed surfing and body boarding in the afternoon, with great help from our instructors. After a much needed supper of pasta, chilli and pie, we scaled the heights of the climbing tower and risked it all on the 'Crate Stack of Terror'!

After some time relaxing with our friends, it is nearly time for bed. Stay tuned for tomorrow's adventures!



You can hear what we thought of our surfing experience here in our mini podcast: