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.