Year 4 are studying a small village in the south of India called Chembakolli this half term.
Today, as part of our India topic, we all took part in a India Hook Day.
We enjoyed a number of different activities:
Cookery Club had their first session of the Spring term today and make a delicious sweet potato and lentil curry.
We learned how to chop, peel and dice as well as how to deseed peppers and measure liquids and lentils!
Alongside our curry, we tasted samosas and onion bhajis. We have started our own recipe books and hope to add more recipes as the weeks progress.
Year 5 had a great time at the Oasis gym last week.
We are very privileged to be able to make use of the state of the art facilities at the new Oasis Lord's Hill building and we'll be going each week as part of our PE curriculum.
Thanks to Chris for the photos, the staff at Oasis and Luke and the TMC coaches.
We are fully intending to open the school as normal on Monday 21 January.
The path from the wooden gate on Sandpiper Road will be open and clear, and we suggest you use that route into school.
Children can come in via reception rather than going to their classroom doors, which may still be inaccessible.
We will try to clear other paths to the side entrances during the day.
Please take care on your journeys in, as some roads and pavements may still be icy.
Once again, apologies for the closure due to snow on Friday, but thank you for the excellent snow pictures you sent in! If you have any more, please email them to snow@oakwoodlive.net and we'll blog them.
Thanks to those of you who sent in snow pictures!
If you've got any more, please send them to snow@oakwoodlive.net, and we'll add them to this album!
Thanks to Jas, Oliver, Jacob, Abbie, Oliver, Nathan, Toby, Sophie, Luke and Sam, Robbie, Maisy and Georgia, The Peggs, The Walkers, The Handley-Garlands and the Worleys!
If you are out in the snow today, we'll be offering a prize for the best "snow-thing"!
This could be a snowman, snowlady, snowdog, snow dinosaur or something else equally creative!
There will be a prize for the most creative snow sculpture and another for the biggest, so get working...
Wrap up warm and send us your pictures...
Send them to snow@oakwoodlive.net and we'll publish the best ones on the blog.
Here are some pictures staff took of the school site this morning...
And thanks for the lovely email we have already received from a parent:
"As ever Oakwood, good call and thanks for letting us know nice and early.
I for one know you don't take these decisions lightly, but today I think you would have been fighting a losing battle with the snow!
Hope all the staff who came in get home safely as it's much worse now than it was when they came in. "
Both Oakwood Schools have to remain CLOSED today
We have done our very best to stay open today, staff have come in early and Martyn and Gary have been trying to clear paths, but with little success.
After closing on Monday because of the heating failure, the last thing we wanted to do today was close, but unfortunately we have no choice.
Most other local schools are closed and the conditions on the roads are very bad.
The forecast is for the weather to get worse rather than better.
We are very sorry for the further inconvenience.
Oakwood’s sporting New Year got off to a shouting start with Sama Karake instructor Rachel!
Rachel is already a regular visitor to school but on Tuesday she spent the day giving each class a taster of Karate. She talked to the children about the values of hard work but having fun whilst doing it; she also discussed how Karate teaches virtues such as self discipline and dedication. If that wasn’t enough the children got to hit stuff too!
Rachel brought some of Karate clubs training equipment with her and the children thoroughly enjoyed their controlled ‘hitting drills’ and basic Karate moves.
By 3:20 there was already a number of children joining Karate club after school. If your child enjoyed their session of Karate, with the excellent Rachel, and would like to join and become a black belt themselves, Karate club take place on a Tuesday after school in the school hall. If you would like to join please ask at the school office.
In the light of today's news about supermarket beefburgers, City Catering is pleased to be able to report that the burgers used in school meals are unaffected.
The beef is sourced locally, as is much of the food used in school meals. A food source statement is available for you to look at.
City Catering continues to be a very highly regarded LA catering service, and our kitchens at Oakwood have received the highest hygiene rating possible.
If your child does not currently have school meals, why not try and persuade them?
Here's what's on the menu today!
Meals are £1.90 a day, £9.50 for a whole week. You can pay online, or by cheque (made payable to Southampton City Council). You can also pay in advance so that your child can take a meal when needed.
We are pleased to announce that we expect the school to be open as normal on Tuesday 15 January.
We are very sorry that we had to stay closed on Monday, but as I said yesterday, the sudden cold snap over the weekend meant that the classrooms were bitterly cold. Even wrapped up warm, this was uncomfortable, and would have been for children.
Heating engineers were on the school site from 7.30am on Monday and stayed all day. (If you're interested in the technical detail of what went wrong, please see below...)
I can only apologise once again for the inconvenience this has caused, but even though the heating system has been out of action for a full four days, we have remained open for three of them. As many of you know from previous snowy weather, closing our school is the very last resort. We hope that the system will carry on working properly and we don't get any deep snow!
The heating was working fully from about 2pm on Monday and it was due to stay on all night, so we expect the school to be warm for Tuesday morning.
Thank you for your support.
What went wrong:
A separate fault, exacerbated by the major leak from last week, meant that a fail-safe pressure device in our boiler room was not allowing the heating to stay on before it automatically shut off. This device could not be over-ridden, and so was completely replaced on Monday.
The replacement for the pressure device which failed, now working properly.
We are sorry to report that Oakwood JUNIOR School will have to remain closed today, Monday 14 January.
After engineers spent most of Thursday and Friday digging up corridors and restoring heating to the site, the system failed completely again over the weekend, and has left classrooms as cold as 7°C. This is too cold for children to sit, even in coats.
We expect engineers to be on site again today and will keep you updated via the website, and via text message if necessary. We will also update the school answerphone.
Oakwood Infant School is open as normal.
Many apologies for the inconvenience this will undoubtedly cause.
We have engineers on site today looking into ducts which haven't been opened for over 10 years to track and track down our leak! Our lovely carpet in the shared areas is being torn up!
Nothing yet...
The school is fairly warm today and we'll keep you updated!
You can also read our letter from 9 January, about the problem and about wrapping up warm...!
Happy New Year!
Everyone was thoroughly entertained on the first day back by the crew from M&M and their production of Peter Pan!
The shy and retiring Miss Patchett was serenaded by Captain Hook (Oh yes she was!) and good triumphed over evil (as it always does...!)
Thanks to your support for our Christmas Fair and other fundraising events such as the disco, we can continue to offer these opportunities free for all children.
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