Christmas Storytelling Workshop

As part of our Family Learning programme, we were delighted to invite Orangeapples Storytelling into school to do a Christmas themed workshop with interactive storytelling and craft activities.

Chris was able to offer us two sessions which meant that fifty-five families were able to access the storytelling which supports the work on oral storytelling that we have been doing in school.

The children were enthralled as Chris shared with them How The Crow Became Black,, and parents and children participated enthusiastically with the actions. This was accompanied by an activity making bird feeders using apples and sunflower seeds, followed by the story of The Grumpy Snowman and a quilling activity making snowflakes.

As you can see from the photos, everybody had a wonderful time!

Christmas on the Radio!

Our pupils are radio stars this Christmas...

BBC Radio Solent asked Oakwood pupils to be part of their Christmas celebrations by recording trailers to be played all through December!

Have a listen to what the children thought of the questions they were asked - and don't forget to tune in to Radio Solent over Christmas too!

Year 5 make an ERUPTION!

Yesterday Year 5 made their very own volcanoes! The children followed specific instructions on how to make the volcano using salt dough, a plastic bottle, food colouring, washing up liquid and bicarbonate of soda. The activity was a successful finale to our fierce earth topic. Have a look at our photos below.

Oh! Yes! She! Did!

So, did Cinderella marry Rockerfella?!

What do you think?! It's Christmas, so everyone has to live happily ever after!

Years 4 and 6 put on an amazing show, in the Great British Tradition of panto - all bawdy humour and bad jokes! Booo! Hisss He's behind you! (etc etc)



(and whoever it was who called Miss Patchett an "old woman" clearly has some explaining to do!)

Well done everyone involved!

Mr Potts worked through the night!

And all of Years 1 and Year 2 have also worked extremely hard to put on their Christmas performance!

It was a beautiful retelling of the nativity story through the eyes of school children, and their caretaker, Mr Potts, who worked through the night to decorate the school Christmas tree with special Baubles!



It ended with the school children making the final bauble, a picture of Jesus in his manger, so that Mr Potts could have a rest!

Many thanks to parents and friends who came along. You donations at the end of the performance, added to the Year R donations, mean that Oakwood is giving over £450 worth of support to Basics Bank this Christmas!

Grandpa tells us a magical story!

Years 3 and 5 really got their audience into a Christmas mood today (twice!)

They have been working very hard. Their production of Grandpa's Nativity combined great acting and speaking in verse, with super singing and playing to tell the 2000 year-old story with all the characters and our favourite carols.



Parents and grandparents in the audience sang along to the words they first learned many years ago.

Thanks to everyone in Years 3 and 5 for starting our Christmas week so well.

Let's Go!

Oakwood would like to say a really big Well Done and Thank You to everyone at Testlands Multisports Coaching (TMC)!

To our pupils, they are the best sports coaches in the world; to our staff they are valued colleagues (and some ex-pupils!)

In the summer, they undertook a charity bike ride from Lordshill to Paris, raising money for their charity, the Testlands Support Project.

We were very proud to be invited to the World Première of Let's Go - the film they made about the experience.

Have a look at the trailer here:



TSP helped us financially to complete the fencing for our basketball playground. We are very proud of them!

Thanks Luke and the team!

Full of energy at the Showcase Christmas Concert!

A brilliant (and very loud) time was had by Oakwood pupils (and pupils from our partner schools) at St Mary's Central Hall on Saturday evening.

Lots of Christmas songs and a real party atmosphere! (Including - you guessed it! - Let It Go!)



Many thanks to Alex from Showcase Performance Group!

(...and to Nick Guise-Smith for the photos.)

Year R get Christmassy!

Year R kicked off our Christmas Performance season this week, on Thursday and Friday, with their wonderful Nativity Play!

We always put on a great show at Oakwood for Christmas (and, don't tell anyone, but Year R's is always a little bit more magical than the rest!)



We hope you enjoyed it if you came along...

...and thanks for your donations to Basics Bank - we'll let you know what we did with the money you gave before we break up!

Wild Animals Home Learning Exhibition

This half-term Year 3 have been enjoying finding out about wild animals at home, over a period of weeks. Today we saw the end result. What a lot of fun facts and amazing presentations!

Music on the Christmas Map!

Year 3 Musicians gave their very first public performance to parents, grandparents, younger brothers and sisters and friends on Monday!

The excellent progress they have made since first picking up their clarinets, trumpets, trombones and glockenspiels in September was plain to see.



They are well on their way to a more extensive concert at Easter and then a truly wonderful performance with musicians from our partner schools in the Summer.
(Last year, the summer concert was amazing!)

Many thanks to the wonderful Showcase teachers!

Santa's Little Helpers!

We have been learning about comparing and measuring weight. Here are some of Santa's little helpers, busy sorting his presents ready to be delivered to all the good little boys and girls on Christmas morning! We decided that the light presents would get 'squished' if they were packed at the bottom of Santa's sack, so we sorted them into 'light' and 'heavy'. We then put the heavy presents at the bottom of the sack and the light ones on top! We tried-out Santa's sleigh, he wouldn't mind...would he? Ho, ho ho! Off we go!

Y1 Indoor Athletics Festival

Yesterday afternoon 14 Y1 children took part in a KS1 athletics skills festival. With the weather far from summer sun the event was held indoors and run by the School Games organisers Solent University.

The children had a whole range of different athletic based skills to complete individually and as a team. All children scored points and helped contribute to the overall Team Oakwood score.

KS1 Personal Best Day

KS1 have had their second half termly Personal Best Day today.

Today's challenges were all based around co-ordination and involved a range of different skills, all of which relate to key skills from sports.

Although Yr R did not have their session today they will have theirs in he New Year.

Fierce Earth Fun in Year 5

This term Year 5 have been learning about how fierce our earth can be, looking at mountains and volcanoes.

As part of this topic we have looked at the different ways in which mountains are formed (completing experiments for each).

Also, our homework was to create a globe and label the different continents around our earth. We will also be making model volcanoes before Christmas, so look out for that blog!

December Club of the Month

What a week for Sport!

This week all of our KS2 children have had a fun swimming session at the recently refurbished Oaklands Swimming Pool. Although the pool isn't open to the public until sometime in the new year the children have had a sneak peak at the improvements.

A BIG OSA Christmas Thank You!

We wanted to take this opportunity to say a big Thank You!

Your support made our OSA Christmas Fair our most successful event ever!

We were well fed with hot dogs at KS2 and the wonderful Indian food in the KS1 hall, there were lots of games and stalls and prizes to be won, Mrs Whitmarsh and Mr Taylor went "crackers", Miss Patchett was her normal shy, retiring self and, of course, Santa turned up!

Mrs Handley-Garland, Mr Chafe and the OSA committee are pleased to announce that the total raised (which will go back into school funds for special, additional events and resources) was...

£4053.42!




Thanks to everyone involved for such a brilliant Oakwood community event!

Sewing club

Sewing club has available for children in Years 2, 3 and 4 this term.

The children have completed a number of projects which have included bookmarks, sewing cases and Christmas cards. They designed and sewed using stitches of their choice.

Their finished articles have been of a high standard!

Here are some of our creations....

Homework of an Island home

 Year 2 have been learning about features of an island as part of the geography curriculum, focusing on natural and man made features.

For our home learning project they had to design their own island in any way they wished.

What a creative group of children who have amazed their friends! Islands of all shapes and sizes were brought into school today which were made of anything from polystyrene, in a box, a tin lid, papier mache and even Lego!

The children had a chance to share their islands with their friends today.

Year 6 History Research using the Chrome Books.

You could have heard a pin drop in the Year 6 classes today as the children enjoyed using the chrome books to research the lives of some famous Victorians. The silence was only interrupted by the sound of 'yuck' as Year 6 learnt how Edward Jenner had ground up scabs and put them up children's noses in his quest to conquer smallpox, and by the sound of admiration as they learnt about the remarkable lives of Elizabeth Fry and Isambard Brunel.

Y1's Who's Afraid of the Dark Day

Today Year 1 have had a very special day!

We have had a visitor from Liberty's Owl and Reptile Center who brought in 3 beautiful owls for us to look at and learn about at the end of our Nocturnal animal and night time topic.

After that we have been creative and produced some splatter art and some paper plate owls. We also shared our arty home works with each other.

What do you think?

Finally our PDR took a nocturnal turn and the children completed some puzzles and challenges!

Have a look at all the fun we have had!

People Who Help Us

To end our 'People Who Help Us' topic we had the option to dress-up as real superheroes today, what fun! Can you spot firefighters, police officers, soldiers, nurses, doctors and lollipop ladies in our photos?

Busy Hands in Year R

Part of developing good hand-writing is the improvement of fine motor control. In Year R we include 'Busy Hand' activities as part of our hand-writing sessions. Can you see us busy threading, weaving, rolling, pushing and grasping?

Krypton Factor

On Wednesday 26 November, Oakwood were proud to host a special Federation of schools event for able, gifted and talented mathematicians: Krypton Factor.

The following schools attended with six pupils from years 3 to 5:
Oakwood Primary
Redbridge Primary
Mansel Park Primary
Fairisle Juniors
Tanners Brook Primary
Newlands Primary

The children worked with those from others schools on a range of fun and exciting maths activities and investigations. The Brussel Sprouts two player game from the Numberphile website was particularly popular!

All children were fully engaged in the tasks given, enjoyed themselves and said that they would love to take part again.



Watch this space for future Krypton Factor events!

Paper and Pen Fun with the Playtime Committee!

Today the playtime committee have been learning lots of different paper and pen games that we can teach our classes to play during wet plays. We had lots of fun playing Twins, Boxes, Character Consequences and making chatterboxes and the great thing is they didn't cost anything! Here are a few pictures:-

We also had a great idea for wet play artwork and will be emailing the office later-we think it will be great for pupils and teachers alike. We will keep you posted. 

Sportshall Athletics

For the last three weeks a group of Y5 and Y6 pupils have spent an hour and a half each Tuesday after school at Bitterne Park school representing Team Oakwood at an Indoor Athletics League.

Although the team don't know how well they have done yet (we are still waiting for the results) they all competed excellently and really enjoyed the three sessions.

Look out for the results!

Y4 Gymnastics Festival

12 fantastic gymnasts from Y4 went to the Southampton Gymnastics Centre at Redbridge this morning to take part in a gymnastics festival.

As part of the festival, the children had expert tuition in a range of gymnastic disciplines (see pictures) before performing a routine that we learnt at school. All the children had a fantastic time and learnt lots of new skills.

Year 6 Victorian Fayre

After lots of hard work and much preparation, Year 6 held their Victorian Fayre yesterday. Parents, family, friends and fellow pupils visited and enjoyed an afternoon of cakes, crafts, and games.Lots of fun was had by all and lots of money was raised (the exact total is a secret for now-to be revealed to Year 6 very soon).

Take a look at a few pictures from the event..

Inter-House Sports Cup - Y4 Football Tournament

This morning saw the second event in this years Inter-House sports cup, the Y4 5-a-side football competition.

Compared to last weeks hockey tournament it was a relatively low scoring affair with all teams keen to keep it tight at the back and clean sheets were the orders from all team captains!

The scores were:

Ventura 2-0 Britannia                                         Adonia 0-2 Azura
Britannia 0-0 Adonia                                          Azura 0-0 Ventura
Ventura 2-0 Adonia                                            Azura 0-0 Britannia

These results meaning; Ventura again picked up the winners spot, Azura 2nd, Britannia 3rd, and Adonia 4th.

Terrific Table Tennis

Last week 4 members of the school table tennis club, which plays after school on Thursdays with Mr McPhillamy and Mrs Samson, travelled over to Cantell school to take part in a table tennis skills festival.

With 7 others schools taking part the Oakwood team had to work hard to master the skills and shots being taught. They hope to show off their new skills during the next training session.

The Travel Team's Green Cross Code Video

In our committee meeting, the Travel Team made this video to teach others the green cross code.

Year R Superhero Vehicles!

This week we have been finishing off our Superhero Vehicles! Last week we planned what we would like our outcomes to be and painted the base colours. This week we are adding the details using tools such as glue spreaders, scissors and sello tape. We are carefully selecting which materials we would like to use and thinking about why they would or wouldn't work. This has been an adult-led activity but we hope to see some more child-initiated junk-modelling over the coming weeks!

Year 6 Victorian Fayre Preparations.

Year 6 are busy cooking, making, designing and researching as preparations for our Victorian Fayre this Friday get underway. All manner of amazing (and affordable) gifts are being created and some delicious, appetizing treats lovingly prepared ready to share with our Year 6 parents and friends. It should be a lot of fun!

ChildLine visit Year 5 and Year 6

Article 19

Governments must do all they can to ensure that children are protected from all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and mistreatment by their parents or anyone else who looks after them.

Article 24

Every child has the right to the best possible health. Governments must provide good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food and a clean environment so that children can stay healthy. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.

As part of our rights respecting and anti bullying work, Year 5 and 6 were visited by experienced ChildLine volunteers. Through a special assembly and guided workshops, they helped us to understand how we can all keep happy and safe. They also showed us what we can do when we we feel unhappy, unsafe and feel we don't have a voice.

Year 2 Gymnastics Festival

Today 12 children were selected to take part in a gymnastics festival at Redbridge Gymnastics Club.

The children had the chance to use different gymnastics equipment including the balancing beam, trampoline, training bar and vaults whilst being coached by members of the gymnastics club. The morning finished with each school performing a prepared dance and gymnastics routine.

All the children tried their best and they enjoyed having the opportunity to be taught by specialist teachers and use new equipment.

Oakwood's performance was creative, rhythmic and well choreographed with help from Ryan Ship and Rob King, from TMC.

Well done to all the children who took part!

Children in Need 2014

A huge thank you to you all at Oakwood for searching your pockets and purses for 1ps and 2ps today. We raised a fantastic total of £220.00 and had great fun covering a very large Pudsey with all our money.

Reflective Jackets

In year 1 we have been learning about light sources and reflectors. We also read a book called 'The Owl who's Afraid of the Dark'. We designed the main character Plop a reflective jacket to make him feel safe at night. We put all our science skills into action to test different materials and see which ones best suited the purpose.
Come and see our winning designs on display in year 1.

Parent's Bike Maintenance Session

Last month, parents had the opportunity to improve their bike repair skills for free.

Curry in a hurry

As part of our India topic, year 4 had a fantastic afternoon tasting different food from India.

A huge thank you to all the team at the Coriander Lounge in Southampton, who kindly donated a variety of food: originating from different parts of India.

Inter-House Sports Cup

Today saw the first round of the Inter-house Sports Cup for 2014-15. Y6 were forced indoors because of the horrendous rain but still managed to complete their Quicksticks Hockey tournament.

Ventura ran out winners, with Adonia 2nd, Britannia 3rd and Azura 4th.

All the scores for the matches are below;

Ventura 2 - 1 Britannia
Adonia 4 - 4 Azura
Britannia 4 - 8 Adonia
Azura 0 - 2 Ventura
Ventura 1 - 1 Adonia
Azura 2 - 4 Britannia



Y4 will complete the second round of the competition next week.

Poppy Day at Oakwood

All children at Oakwood respected the Two Minutes' Silence at 11am today and, as usual, Year 3 attended the Armistice Ceremony at Hollybrook Cemetery.

Mrs Sansome says:

"How proud I am of Year 3.
So respectful, knowledgeable and a credit to themselves today at Hollybrook.
Well Done....."



One of our governors, who also went on the visit, says:

"Wow, what a lovely morning I had with such well behaved, knowledgeable children today.

I really enjoyed coming with you all to the remembrance service at the cemetery. The children walked quickly and sensibly in the cold and rain all the way and did not complain about it. When they were asked questions in the service they answered sensibly and were interested in what was being said. They waited patiently while the soldier played the last post and then placed their poppy crosses at the graves and were astonished at the youth of some of the soldiers who had died.

As we came to leave, several of the old ladies who were there (even older than me!) commented on the good behaviour of the children, which is all credit to you all.

Thank you for inviting me. Please pass on my sincere thanks to all the children several of whom were kind enough to look after me all the way.

I hope I can help and join you on future visits or in school."

November Club of the Month

Monday brought the rain, and our November Club of the Month - Southampton Hockey Club.

Roger and Steve, who run the junior section of the hockey club, spent the day with us helping each class get a better feel for hockey.

Southampton Hockey club run lots of youth and junior training sessions at the Outdoor Sports Centre so it's easy to get involved.

Oakwood 1 - 0 Highfield

As last years finalist Oakwood had received a bye to this round of the City Cup and had to negotiate a tricky home tie against an unknown Highfield team.

The game was edgy as both teams looked to defend and play on the counter attack. It took until well into the second half for Oakwood to find a break through, Sam drilling home through a crowd of defenders.

Oakwood will move on to play in the next round, Well done to Sam who also picked up the man of the match award.

Year 3's VE Day Tea Party

The War is over, it's time to celebrate! And what better way than to invite all our parents (some even came in war-time fashion!) in for the last afternoon of half-term and have a ration-guzzling party?

We had jam sandwiches and various war-time treats. The hall was decorated with the propaganda posters the children had made, and we showed of both our genteel waltz and frantic jitterbug dance moves which our great-grandparents would have enjoyed.

Blackboard, Easel and Dunce's Cap - A Day in a Victorian School

Year 6 left their brown uniforms at home today as they took a step back into the Victorian era.
Donning their Victorian clothes and clasping an authentic Victorian penny in their hands, they stood nervously awaiting drill before they were allowed into the building.

Once inside, after a very thorough inspection of hands, shoes and fingernails, they were instructed in the 3Rs.

After a brief lunch (not gruel) the children got to write with real nibs, ink and blotting paper, worked together to produce a portrait of Queen Victoria and worked on their needlework skills.

French Fashion Show - Year 6

This afternoon, Year 6 put on a fashion show in French for Year 5.
The models were funky, the presenters were fantastically french and the lighting and sound crew were superb.

Merci beaucoup to Mrs Rogers and TMC who set up the stage and seating.
Merci to Year 5 for being a fabulous audience.

Très Bien Year 6 I'm very proud of you all.

Y4s Basketball festival

10 excited year four children took part in the Sainsbury's School Games Y3/4 basketball festival at Cantell secondary school yesterday. The two Oakwood teams competed against children from; Springhill, Tanners Brook and Bassett Green in a range of basketball skills challenges.

The two sets of children bounced, dribbled, passed and shot their way round the activities earning as many points as they could along the way.

A New Outfit for Ms D-shopping, budgeting and French in Year 6.

Inspired by our French topic of clothing, and trying to help Ms D beat the winter blues, 6LD maths set were armed with the difficult task of buying her a new winter outfit.  Firstly, they had to browse different fashion pages and try to spend as much as possible of the £250.00 they were allowed to spend. It was explained that it was imperative they kept within the allotted budget-a feat which proved quite difficult for some of the more eager shoppers! They kept a running record of all costs and any change they had. Lastly, they practised their written and spoken French on the topic of clothing and adjectives. A lot of fun was had by all and lots of stylish new outfits chosen for Ms D. Take a look:-

Year R, 'People Who Help Us'

To kick-off our new 'People Who Help Us' topic a real firefighter named Gary came to talk to us! He showed us all the important clothes and tools that he needs to do is job and answered some of our questions. He told us that if we want to be firefighters one day we need to be really healthy and work hard at school. We showed him our new role-play and had great fun sharing it with him! We are drawing and labeling clothing and tools that firefighters need and putting them in our role-play, can you see them?

KS1 Personal Best PE day

On Friday KS1 children took part in the first of their six Personal Best PE days.

During the last week of each half term all the classes from KS1 will take on a number of agility, balance and co-ordination challenges where they will try to set new personal bests.

Friday's challenges were all based on balance. The children completed five different challenges in their session with each challenge having a number of difficulty levels to try and master.

All the children had a great time trying to beat their bests and are looking forward to their second Personal Best day next half term.

Titanic Day - Year 5

In the morning we designed our own passports and tickets in preparation for our journey.

We then lined up to have our tickets and passports checked and stamped before climbing aboard the Oakwood Titanic.

We celebrated our departure from Southampton with dancing (the Irish Jig and the Waltz) and then ate the scones we baked the day before.

As we crossed the Atlantic our celebrations were interrupted with an unexpected bump in the night. After reenacting the scene, the fate of the passengers was revealed. Each pupil has been writing as a Titanic passenger from 1912, for this half term.

Oakwood 4 - 2 Holy Family

The school football team played their third league game of the season after school on Thursday. The team visited Holy Family Catholic Primary School for the first time in a number of years in search of a third straight win.

The two teams had already met this year, with Oakwood winning on penalties after a 2-2 draw in the U11 Wide Lane Football Tournament.

Oakwood were again triumphant. Man of the Match, Gabe plundering all four goals in a 4-2 victory!

Autumn Patterns!

We have been learning to continue repeating patterns and create ones of our own! We used autumn objects that we found from around the playground. Can you figure-out what comes next?

Colourfully Creative Artwork in Year 6.

Inspired by the incredibly bold and imaginative abstract art work by Wassily Kandinsky, Year 6 put on the jazz music (his favourite genre) and created some masterpieces of their own. We are very proud of the results. Take a look:-

All Hands On Deck!!!

All hands on deck!! What a busy few days Year 5 have had!

In preparation for Year 5's Titanic day tomorrow, Year 5 have being preapring for the departure of Oakwoods Titanic tomorrow.

Our preparation has included: Making scones for our high tea, making 1st and 3rd class food menus for the tables, creating portholes and bunting to decorate the hall.

Have a look at our photos and look out for our blog of the fun we get up to on Titanic day tomorrow.

Y3&4 Club of the Month

With the excellent weather on Monday Y3 and Y4 finally got to enjoy their October Club of the Month session with Dean and Gary from Chilworth Golf Course.

Here's a few pictures from their sessions.

Baking bread like the Little Red Hen

Last week in Reception we were learning about Harvest. We read 'The Little Red Hen', and learnt about how wheat is cut down by the combine harvester, then milled into flour, then baked into bread. Just like the hen, we got to bake our own bread rolls! Fortunately though, our friends were happy to help. Yum!

Be Bright Be Seen

Due to the fact that the nights are getting longer, in assembly today KS2 have been learning the importance of wearing bright and reflective clothing when out at night.

GoRunForFun

Two teams of children, one from Y5 and one from Y2, made the walk up to the Outdoor Sports Centre today to take part in Southampton's GoRunForFun school event.

The children had to complete a cross county race around a mile of the Sports Centre's toughest hills. There were children from a whole range of Southampton schools to compete against. During the morning session Oakwood runners came home in a very impressive 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

Well done to all the children who went and took part, and earned their race t-shirt! And a big thank you to Mrs Vaudin, Mrs Morgan, Ms Pratt and Mrs Wheeler for accompanying the teams.

'No Pens Wednesday' Maths in Year 6

As part of 'No Pens Wednesday' Year 6 pupils have been using string to learn the ancient Japanese method of multiplying using sticks. It's a great method which involves drawing lines and counting dots so you actually multiply without multiplying! Check it out on You Tube or even better ask a member of Year 6!

Year 1's Book Week

In year one we had a great time last week reading for pleasure!

We made some amazing reading dens, planned our perfect bedtime story, shared books with some of our grown ups and had lots of bed time stories with our cuddly toys and pillows!

What is your favourite book?
We hope you enjoy reading as much as we do!

Our October Club of the Month

Years 5&6 took part in our October Club of the Month today.

In a slight change to our normal Club of the Month programme each of our classes received a full hour lesson today from Dean, one of the golf pros from Chilworth Golf Club.

They had to brave the October rain and wind, but the children completed a number of golfing challenges under the expert instruction before finishing with a 'driving' competition.

Y3&4 are looking forward to their session soon.

Shadow Play in Year 6

Year 6 were investigating shadows today. A fair test was carried out to see how the distance of the light source affected the size of the shadow. Measurements were taken and graphs were plotted. We then had time for a bit of shadow play to see what shapes we could create with our hands. This was in preparation for an end of unit shadow performance in PE, where we hope to create group shadow illusions to music. Keep an eye on the blog for upcoming news and photos of the performance. In the meantime here are a few pictures from today:-

Sainsbury's School Games Mark Award

Oakwood has heard today that our efforts during the last academic year, to provide our children with sporting opportunities for all, was enough to meet the standard of a Silver School Games Mark School.

This is a great achievement for us, as we had previously missed out on the Bronze version of the same award, in 2012-13.

To achieve the Silver Games Mark we had a number of in school criteria to meet, in addition to criteria which stipulated how many children and in how many sports school teams must compete in during the year.

Well done to all the children and staff who worked towards this award!!

Maths in Year R Autumn 1

We've been busy finding 1 more/less than a given number to 10. We used bricks, number lines and fingers to find and check our answers. We have been practising writing and ordering numbers. We have been ordering dinosaurs and can describe them using words like "tallest" and "shortest".

Keeping Healthy in Year R!

This week we have been learning about different ways we can keep ourselves healthy! We have been using a 'germ ball' (a ball covered in red glitter to represent the germs) and passing it around to learn about how germs spread. We have learned how to wash our hands properly and how important it is to...."Catch it, Bin it and Kill it!" We have also begun thinking about eating healthy foods, looking after our teeth and keeping clean.

Y3&4 Book Week

Having book swapped, den built and shared favourite stories, Y3 & Y4 continued the reading fun with parent reading sessions and 3 bedtimes today! But only so we could enjoy a good bedtime story.

Book Week Fun in Upper KS2.

Book swap and bedtime stories- shared by parents, teachers and each other-were only part of the fun that Years 5 and 6 had as part of our whole school celebration of book week. Here are a few highlights of the week:-

Willow class and 4TA Buddy up

Yesterday was the first meeting of Willow class and 4TA, who will be paired together this year. We will meet regularly to undertake a whole range of tasks, but yesterday, as its book week, 4TA chose a selection of books from the school library and read and shared them with their 'Buddies' in Willow class.

Y4 really enjoyed the visit and can't wait to invite Willow class to their own classroom for the next activity.

Florence Nightingale

This week in Year 2 we have been learning about Florence Nightingale. 

Florence was often known as 'The lady with a lamp' because she always carried a lamp when she checked on the injured soldiers during the night. 

Today we made our own lamps using; sugar paper, yellow, orange and red tissue paper and glue to make a glowing lamp. 

We thought Florence Nightingale was a real superhero.

Can you think of any other real superheroes?

Jewish Visit to Y3

Last week, Year 3 had a special visit from the President of the Southampton Hebrew Congregation - Martyn Rose. He told shared with us the things that made his Synagogue a sacred place.

2014 Y3 Jewish Visitor

Stripes or Spots

A big thank you to children, parents and friends for getting involved with our Stripes or Spots challenge yesterday. 259 of our children came to school without using a car, which is good news for our bodies, our planet and our learning!
      

'Vicious, Malicious, Delicious' spellings under attack from Year 6!

As part of Year 6's ongoing work towards our new whole school curricular writing target, they explored different ways of learning to spell tricky words. Take a look:-

Coding at Oakwood!

We are getting into coding at Oakwood, which means the teachers have to learn first...!

Here's a quick game one of our teachers made today using Espresso Coding... When you click a balloon, a new one appears. Which colour gives you the most points? Which colour balloon takes points away?!

You've only got 30 seconds!

The Disgusting Sandwich Writing Task!

What a fantastic fun morning in Year 3 (Day 3 of Book Week)!
 They all made the most disgusting sandwiches (following our story 'The Disgusting Sandwich') and then did a fabulous job drawing and describing them using super adjectives! They really enjoyed making and writing about these disgusting creations!

Year 1's Fun Fire day!

Year 1 were really lucky to have firefighters Nick and Paul come in to visit us yesterday.

The children learnt all about fire and road safety.
They were lucky enough to go inside a fire engine and race to the scene of a fire and put it out using the powerful hose.
They also learnt some catchy safety rhymes, so if you see a year 1 child ask them to teach it to you, it might come in handy one day!

All the children would like to say a massive thank you to Hampshire Fire Service for such a great day!

Sainsbury's school games Tri-Golf festival

12 children from Y4 made the short journey to the Southampton City Golf course this afternoon to take part in the Sainsbury's school games Tri-Golf Festival.

Although the wind meant that the children were unable to play Tri-Golf, they did try their hand at full golf and once in the swing of things all the children had a great time.There were no winners and losers as the festival was all about trying something new and enjoying sport.

Y5 at the Seacity

Year 5 had a spectacular day last week at our local 'Seacity Museum'. The children took part in many activities from Science experiments to being in role of a passenger on board. Have a look at our photos below.

Kicking off Book Week in Year 3

Year 3 are very excited to be sharing books together!
Our first story - 'The Disgusting Sandwich' was a real hoot!

Superhero Day!

Today Year 2 was full of superheroes; real life, comic book and imaginary!

Everyone has had lots of fun designing a clay superhero logo, cooking an energy bar and enjoyed walking down a runway, striking a pose to Batman music.

If you could dress up as a superhero, which one would it be?

Chicken...

Year 5 and 6 had an utterly amazing time watching 'Chicken', an original and thought provoking play written by one of the drama teachers at Oasis.

The play taught us a valuable lesson about road safety. The cast consisted of four students from Oasis - one of whom was a former Oakwood pupil. Even though there were only four actors on stage, they cleverly manipulated scenes and represented more than one character.

It was a flawless, professional performance that not only made us think but made us laugh too. We'd give it a 5 star rating and encourage all 8-12 year olds to go and watch it - it might just save your lives!



by Eloise and Maisie

Oakwood snatch late win!

The school football team left it late to collect all three points in their second league game of the season after school today.

Visiting team Bevois Town took a surprise lead and held on to go in at half time 0-1 up. Oakwood did fight back in the second half, and although again they went behind, 1-2, they kept battling and with the help of an own goal pulled level at 2-2 with a couple of minutes to go.

But super sub, Dan S, with almost his first touch of the game put Oakwood into a 3-2 lead, which they managed to keep until the final whistle.

Well done to man of the match, Ethan C. And scorers Reece G and Dan S.

Rights Respecting School Committee

Our Rights Respecting School Committee met for the first time today, with representatives from Year 1 to Year 6 all having a say in how we can improve how we respect rights at Oakwood.

We started all together, with a discussion about what rights are and how we are already respecting rights in school. We also talked about the adults' responsibilities in making sure we have these rights.

Then, Key Stage 1 children went off around the school in search of rights evidence. They took photos of our whole school charter, playground charter and displays where Articles are shown.

Meanwhile, Key Stage 2 children produced an information leaflet for parents and wrote a letter to our governors asking for one of them to volunteer to be part of our future committee meetings.

We will keep you updated with our progress throughout the year!

KS1 House Reps

Last week our new House Captains and Vice House Captains were voted in by the school. Not long after they put their badge on and polished it proudly, they were to undertake one of the first roles - a talk to KS1 children. In order to have a closer link with KS1 children, House Reps were needed from Y2. Children in Y2 put themselves forward and explained why they would be suited to the job. In accordance with the Rights Respecting Schools Article 12: Every child has the right to say what they think in all matters affecting them, voting took place, once again pupil voice was strong.

Our new House Reps for KS1 are very proud and determined to support their Captains and House!

First Meeting of the Playtime and Lunchtime Committee.

The playtime and lunchtime committee met for the first time this morning to set our agenda for the year. We looked at what we enjoyed about play times and things we thought we could improve together. We had loads of ideas to make outside break times and wet break times even better. Our ideas included: more seating areas for people to read and be quiet; a book trolley to wheel reading material out for breaks; bins and compost bins on the playground to reduce waste; water fountain for drinks on playground; design and create playground markings for games; more equipment for wet play times. We even had ideas on how to raise funds for any expenses that might be occurred. We are looking forward to achieving the goals we have made.



by Maisie and Eloise 6LD

All About Me!

In Year R we have been learning about our bodies, growing and changing. We used mirrors to look closely at ourselves and compared similarities and differences with those around us. We decided being different is a very good thing, otherwise we'd all look the same and it would be boring! We each brought in a baby picture to share with friends and tried to guess who each baby was! We noticed that we have changed in many different ways since we were babies and can now do things that we couldn't before. A mother and baby came to visit us and we asked questions to find out what the mum has to do to look after the baby. We have talked about 'families' and how each family is different, but what stays the same is the 'love'! This week we have been talking about becoming adults one day and thinking about what job we might like to do! Next week we'll be busy learning about how to keep our bodies clean and healthy! Stay tuned!