Staying Safe on Site

Oakwood Infant and Junior Schools have been working together to make the school site safer for pedestrians, cyclists, prams and buggies and scooter users who arrive through the gate near to the driveway.

A lot of people crossed the car park to get to the Junior School or the Cycle Store because that was really the only way to go.

Now, there's a clear way to go, with a fence separating the path from the driveway. There's also a proper zebra crossing and a new path linking the Infant School path to the Junior School.

Thanks to Long and Dibden Fencing, R and D Surfacing and David Deane at Southampton City Council for working with us on this project.



You'll also notice that the fencing along the front of the schools along Sandpiper Road has been finished. This completes a project to replace the fencing around the entire schools' site which has taken about five years and cost about £125,000.

Staying Safe on Site

Oakwood Infant and Junior Schools have been working together to make the school site safer for pedestrians, cyclists, prams and buggies and scooter users who arrive through the gate near to the driveway.

A lot of people crossed the car park to get to the Junior School or the Cycle Store because that was really the only way to go.

Now, there's a clear way to go, with a fence separating the path from the driveway. There's also a proper zebra crossing and a new path linking the Infant School path to the Junior School.

Thanks to Long and Dibden Fencing, R and D Surfacing and David Deane at Southampton City Council for working with us on this project.



One of the photos has the Junior School House Captains recreating a famous pop group's album cover! Leave a comment telling us what it is and you might win a prize!


You'll also notice that the fencing along the front of the schools along Sandpiper Road has been finished. This completes a project to replace the fencing around the entire schools' site which has taken about five years and cost about £125,000.

A Flavour of Mexico - In Photos!

It's hard to believe that we have been living in Mexico City for 6 months now!

It is a noisy place to live - probably much like other big cities in the world. We have become used to the sound of constant construction noises, honking of horns, traffic, loud speaker announcements, whistles, bells and voices! It is very different to living in sleepy Lordswood where we could hear foxes and owls at night!

You may have seen on the news that we had a major earthquake a couple of - days ago - our second since we moved here in September. They have been strange experiences, where the ground rolls and you feel a bit like you are on a large boat in the ocean! To begin with it felt like we were dizzy and then the realisation that the earth was actually rolling registered.

We had to evacuate our home on both occasions and find a safe place to wait out on the street until the earthquake came to an end. This took a couple of minutes - which doesn't sound like long but, believe me, when everything is swaying and the vehicles are all moving around on their own, it feels like much longer! We lost power for about an hour and a half but thankfully we had no damage.

I have added a selection of photos from our first six months here to give you an idea of the different sights, both within the city centre and also on the outskirts of the city. Enjoy!

More Tudor Times at The Tudor House

Last week Year 3 had the wonderful opportunity of visiting Southampton's Tudor House. They thoroughly enjoyed the trip and learned all about the rich and poor in the Tudor times.

The newly rennovated building is amazing, Year 3 would really recommend a visit yourselves!

A Right Royal Time...

Year 3 have had a wonderful week exploring The Tudors especially 'Henry and his 6 wives'. They were lucky enough to dress up as Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon, then the children drew their portaits as if they were artists themselves. Keep posted for their sketches and written descriptions using their VCOP skills. Well done Year 3!

Greetings Mr Mayor!

A big Thank You to Mr Mayor (or to give him his official title: The Right Worshipful The Mayor of Southampton, Councillor Terry Matthews.)

Mr Mayor joined us for Celebration Assembly this morning to give award certificates and badges. He also had a guided tour of the school and saw the video of our Young Voices Performance at the O₂ last week.



The Mayor told us about the history of his role in Southampton. He is the 789th Mayor, the first one being way back in 1217 - you can even read who was the first!

Thanks also to Alan, the Town Sergeant, whose job today was to be the Mayor's chauffeur!

More Young Voices Videos!

The final medley is now up on the Young Voices website - you have to wait right until the end to see us at Fairisle and Oakwood. We're nearly the last schools shown, but we're clearly having a good time!



For a better view of us, you can watch these two videos of the High Kings, taken by an audience member. They are from just the right angle, so we're in the background almost permanently!

You were amazing!

From Mr Taylor:

This is a personal blog post to say how very proud I am to be Oakwood's headteacher!

Of course, I am always proud of the children and staff here, but yesterday's Young Voices concert at the O2 was an exceptional day.

It was a very long day, but I know that everyone involved - staff, parents and, above all, the children - had a really excellent time.

The hard work of the children really paid off. Not everyone can say that they have performed to thousands at one of the country's largest concert venues - but your children can.

Thank you for your continued support.







We have lots of people to thank - but in particular, we'd like to thank Southampton City Council and the Southampton Schools' Music Association, whose grant money helped us pay for the experience and make it free for all children from both schools.

We'd also like to say a special thank you to Ramesh and Ben from Lucketts Coaches, who got us safely there and back! (Sandpiper Road is not easy to negotiate in a coach at 12.39am!)

Well done to everyone!

Y5 Musicals Hook Day

To introduce Year 5 to their new topic 'Sensational Sounds!' we had a musicals day, where everything was musical!

In one day, they managed to learn, rehearse and perform three musical numbers from three different musicals:

• We Will Rock You
• I'm a Believer from Shrek, and...
• Mamma Mia

We also had solo and duet performances from all those children in Y5 who play musical instruments.

Well done to all of Y5 for all their hard work!

Young Voices at the O2 - An Experiment!

We're going to experiment with "live blogging" the Young Voices visit to the O₂!

This will be our first go and it might not work, but we're going to be taking photos during the day which should appear in this photo album as we take them!

As of late on Wednesday afternoon, it's only got a photo of Mrs Worley holding up a Young Voices t-shirt, but we hope that more and more photos will appear during the day so you can keep up to date with what's happening. Fingers crossed!

Let the sun shine!

The city council has now finished its project to install Solar Photovoltaic panels on our roof!

There are 42 panels, capable of generating 10kW of electricity, and they were busy working just a few minutes after the last connections were made!

You can click on this panoramic photo for a closer look!



The panels are linked to a live electronic display in the school which shows everyone:

• how much electrical power is currently being generated
• how many kWh of electricity has been generated since the panels were installed
• how many kg of carbon dioxide has been saved since the panels were installed.

As you can see, even on a bright spring day, we can generate 6.5kW of electricity, nearly two-thirds of the maximum, and we've already generated 371kWh of electricity. This is energy the school doesn't have to pay for, so our electricity bills will reduce, meaning we can spend more on resources for learning!

A big Thank You to José and the team at Solar Century for getting us up and running so efficiently!

Easter Gardens

Year 3 worked extremely hard last week learning all about the 'Easter Story'. They showed their understanding by designing and making 'Easter Gardens' in small groups. the children also showed great teamwork.

Diving in at the Deep End!

Melissa Harley from The Quays in Southampton came to see us in assembly this morning.

She told us about free diving sessions which are being held at The Quays soon. It is an excellent chance to have a go at diving and perhaps one day join the elite group of divers who train at The Quays, one of only four such training centres in the country.

She showed a video...



...and told us about Peter Waterfield and his training sessions.

She also told us about Max Brick, a Southampton school pupil, who one day went to a diving taster session just like this one, and is now a Commonwealth Gold Medal winner with Tom Daley.

Who knows? We may have a future champion at Oakwood!