A late addition!

Video just in of the Showcase Percussion Academy Concert at Oasis Lordshill on 10 December.



See more information and pictures!

Our Christmas Service

After a week of special events, hard work, loud singing, dramatic acting, festive eating, silly hats and jumpers, we took time out for our very special Christmas service.

Trudi from Lordshill Church joined us to lead us in prayer and we lit the final candle on our Advent Crown.

As always, our Nativity tableau retold the real meaning of Christmas.

All the Trimmings!

We have just had a fantastic, FREE Christmas Dinner at Oakwood!

Governors came in to hand out crackers provided by the OSA and Maureen and Cheryl (The "Suits" from City Catering) were on hand to serve puddings.

All the staff helped with dinners, but special thanks go to Mrs Le Bas and her excellent team, and to Mrs Lyons and her fabulous cooks in the kitchen!

The gents from TMC and Joe from Springwell were also on hand to make the lunchtime go with a swing!

Year 4 and Year 6 Christmas Production of 'A Pudding for a Chimney Sweep.'

It was Year 4 and Year 6's turn to put on the show this afternoon and tonight!

To capacity crowds in the Oakwood hall, they performed A Pudding for the Chimney Sweep, a sorry tale of downtrodden Victorian workers and evil factory owners. We learned of accidents in the loom machinery, cuts in wages and light-fingered debt collectors.

But hey! It's Christmas, so all worked out well in the end, and the frightfully posh Mortimer sisters got their longed-for brother!

Have a look at the photos below and the videos, which show the making of the Christmas pudding and their rehearsals.

Well done, everyone! A shilling's rise in wages all round!

Y3 and Y5's Nativity

Year 3 and Year 5's Christmas production this year was a traditional nativity play, with a chance for them to sing some of the songs and hymns their parents and grandparents knew from their own childhood Christmases!



They sung old traditional favourites such as "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!", "We Three Kings", "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks", "O, Come, All Ye Faithful" and "Away in a Manger".

The finished off with a rousing chorus of "Mary's Boy Child" and got the audience to join in!

You can also look at their rehearsal video below...



If you weren't feeling Christmassy before, you should be now!

We're in the Echo!

Oakwood's Key Stage 2 results were mentioned in a very good article about rising standards in Southampton.

Our results, as you might remember from the summer, were the best ever achieved by the school, so we were delighted when the Echo contacted us.

As the Year 6 pupils who achieved the results are now working hard in Year 7, our new Year 3 children represented us in the photo!

Introducing our December 'Club of the Month'

Oakwood’s December ‘Club of the Month’ had a bit of a twist to it today. Instead of being visited by a local club and having their coaches work with each of our nine classes throughout the day we simply rowed the day away.

Thanks to our close links with Oasis Academy Lordshill we were able to borrow some top of the line rowing machines for the day!

After a brief reminder of our past Olympic success in rowing (Rowing is the only sport which Team GB has won a gold medal in at every Olympics!) The children were given a go at rowing against the clock in a 100m sprint.

Amie-Megan recorded the fastest time in the school stopping the clock at 25.0 seconds, whilst Mr Ackland narrowly pipped Mr Newman to the top of the teachers leader board with 17.8 seconds.



Many thanks go to Mr Lloyd at Oasis for making the day possible!

Our Very Own Gold Post Box!

To commemorate British gold medal winners at the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, many post boxes across the country have been painted gold.

Each gold medallist had the post box in their home town painted gold in recognition of their achievement.

Have a look at this local post box:



This one can be found in Hamble, the home town of Dani King who won a gold medal for her achievement in the velodrome as one third of the women's cycling pursuit team.

As a symbol of Oakwood's dedication to the Olympic legacy and our continuing commitment to living the Olympic Values, our Christmas post box has had a golden makeover and we have launched it on 12/12/12!



It can be found in the entrance hall from today until the end of term.

Stationery Shop Launch

Today saw the launch of Oakwood Junior School's brand new stationery shop, organised and run by the School Council.

Not only can pupils replace lost or damaged school items such as handwriting pens and whiteboard pens, but they can also choose from a range of colourful and interesting stationery items at very reasonable prices!

Items are priced from 10p up to £1.70 and come with a free name label if requested.

We will be running our second stationery shop next Tuesday. Have a look at some of the stock we are selling:

Festive Drumsticks!

It was a loud and rhythmic celebration of Christmas at the new Oasis Lordshill Theatre last night, as children from Oakwood Junior School and Fairisle Junior School met together with Alex Pope and staff of the Showcase Percussion Academy for their Christmas Concert.



They got us in the festive mood, drumming along to a range of festive songs and carols, and they also gave out Percussion Awards, presented by the Mayor.

Many thanks to everyone involved for another celebration of the talent in our schools!

"Further" A Mystery Story

Alice has created an Audio story of her mystery story - Listen to it here!

listen to ‘Further’ on Audioboo

Year 4 and Year 6 Christmas Production

Year 6 and Year 4 children have been working hard practising for their upcoming Christmas production of 'A Pudding for a Chimney Sweep', For more details please listen to Ben and Jake's podcast-we hope to see you there!

listen to ‘Ben and Jake's Christmas Advert’ on Audioboo

Sumdog Superstars!

Ms Dowle's maths set have been working on Sumdog (a free maths website for children ages 7-18.)

They went up against 174 schools in the UK, including some Secondary schools and Colleges, with 8,803 students playing. As a grand total altogether, the students answered 2,117,392 questions. However they got, 1,834,432 correct.

Out of all these statistics Oakwood Junior School won!!!!

As a prize, the whole of our school was rewarded a free subscription of all the new games and different clothes and accessories for the students avatars. Having already won the Southampton competition, this a great achievement and all of Ms Dowle's maths set are extremely proud of themselves.

Another example of Achieving Excellence Together.

By Amie-Megan, Mary-Beth, Alice and Jacob.

If you would like to see some of our results for yourself click the link below:

Link to results

Live! On Stage at the Guildhall!

Following in the footsteps of many famous bands, comedians and entertainers, (including at least four other Oakwood Choirs in the past!), our fabulous Songsters entertained a full house at the Southampton Schools' Music Association Christmas Concert on Tuesday evening.

We joined together with the choirs from Fairisle Junior School, Bitterne Manor Primary School and Highfield Primary School to get everyone in the Christmas mood.

Our Showcase Percussion Academy Drummers also entertained everyone in the first half, and Alex Pope, who compered the whole evening in his best suit, donned something a little more festive to lead the percussionists...

OSA Christmas Fair

Many thanks to everyone who came to the OSA Christmas Fair - it seems a long time ago now, but the OSA Christmas Elves have been busy packing up and totting up the the money you spent on games, presents, raffles, Santa visits, hot dogs and chilli!



We are delighted to announce that the grand total raised on the evening (Drum roll....!)

£3330!

This is an amazing total, especially when times are hard, so we'd like to say a very big

Thank You...

to everyone who came. The money will be split between the two schools for the benefit of all pupils. We will let you know what we spend it on during the year!

World Links Committee

Hello, we are the World Links Committee from Oakwood Junior School.
We would like other schools around the world to look at Oakwood Junior School's blog  and to get in touch with us. We could compare life in our different schools.

We thought it would be good to put pictures of our school on the blog.




We will let you know a few of the things we do at Oakwood: Every year we have a Christmas performance, Year 3 and 5 together and then Year 4 and 6 together.

Our school day starts at 9am and finishes at 3.15pm We have 5 lessons every day.  Every Wednesday we have singing assembly; we have school assemblies on the other days. Every pupil takes part in a committee, for example, there are the Travel Team, School Council and Healthy Schools Committee. We go on many exciting trips throughout our time at Oakwood, for example, Intech science centre, the Southampton Boat Show, the Sea City Museum, Southampton Art Gallery and residential trips to Minstead and Knapp House.

Oakwood has many exciting after school clubs to take part in, for example, netball, Songsters, football, hockey. We have a fantastic school netball and football team!

We hope this has given you a flavour of Oakwood and will entice you to get in touch! There are 242 pupils in our school.

Year 3 Jittterbug down at a WW2 tea party!

Year 3 had so much fun today celebrating the end of the war at a tea party. Thank you to all the parents and friends who came.

Year 3 Angels Day

Year 3 had a wonderful time with Chris Davies from 'Scratch' last week learning all about angels.

Year 6's visit to Milestones Museum

On the 22nd of November 2012, Year 6 visited Milestones Museum in Basingstoke. We had a fantastic time walking through Victorian London streets and visiting shops and homes. Steam trains and antique cars were among the marvelous things we saw. Many people visited the 1940's sweet shop for their ration of the sugary treats. They were meant to last us the whole week, but most of them were gone in minutes!We also had a school session with a Victorian teacher where we used slates and slate pencils.

There were so many other extraordinary things that happened that day and (just to prove it) here are some pictures from that fabulous day! 

We dressed up too. Can you spot the poorer citizens?




By Beth

Year 6 Victorian Day

On the 15th of November 2012, Year 6 took a step back in time as they experienced a vile Victorian school day. They were under very strict instructions: hands on desks at all times; only speak when you are spoken to. Break these rules, and you could end up in the corner, wearing the Dunce Hat! The teachers were very strict and for those who they shouted at, it wasn't very amusing!

But we won't tell every thing that happened! You can find out for yourself with these pictures.

Can you spot the teachers?!





Presented by Kezia & Beth

Year 5 visit INTECH

Today Year 5 and an 'awesome' day at INTECH, as part of our 'Up, Up and Away!' topic. We watched a planetarium show, where we whizzed around the Solar System. We even launched rockets of our own!

We had a great time exploring all the new exhibits, especially the new area dedicated to the science of sport. Well done for a fantastic day, Year 5!

A Paralympian Visits!

Aaron Phipps, a member of the Paralympics GB Wheelchair Rugby Team, visited Oakwood last week.



He told us about his life, how he came to lose his legs and parts of his fingers, and how his determination led him to represent his country at London 2012.

He gave us all a clear message - when unexpected things happen, you can either moan, or you can pick yourself up, get on with life and work hard! No prizes for guessing which he chose to do... If you watch this video of his training, you can see the effort he puts in seven days a week!



Have a look at his website to find out more!