Fairthorne Residential

Last week, thirty-nine children from Year 3 set of for Fairthorne Manor YMCA Activity Centre for two days and a night of adventure!

Here are a few photos of children working together and challenging themselves to overcome daunting tasks such as a gigantic climbing wall, a strenuous low-ropes course, an archery course and an aerial runway. The weather was great and the children loved the camp-fire sing-song on Thursday night!

They all did brilliantly, especially considering it was the first night away from family for many of them.

Let the market research begin!

After returning from our Jude’s ice cream trip it was time to start thinking about our Jude’s challenge (designing a new flavour). To kick start our market research we spent the afternoon taste testing, thinking carefully about the appearance, texture, smell and what customers would like. This will help us design our own flavours later in the week ready to pitch to Jude.

Factory Fun.

Over the last couple of days we were lucky enough in year 5 to visit a local Hampshire business, Jude’s Ice cream in Twford. 5FL were the first to experience the joys of the Jude factory (on Tuesday), followed by 5BK (on Wednesday).

While there we met Jude herself and her husband (the businesses founder), we received a detailed talk on how the business started (back in 2002 in their family barn) to the production line today thirteen years later in the factory. In small groups we experienced a tour to observe the factory in action, meet some of the workers and learn about the business process.

We were also fortunate enough to have a taste of the yummy flavours being produced at several points in the ice cream making process. It was a fantastic day out with lots learnt, thank you again to everyone at Jude’s for making us feel so welcome and teaching us so much.

Last week to kick off our brand new business topic Jude's Ice - Cream challenge year 5 had a go at really fun team building challenge. This gave them a chance in their new teams to work as a team and find their strengths and weaknesses. The challenge was to make the longest paper chain only using: one piece of A3 card, glue and scissors.

Year 5 make their own baby books

Last term Year 5 made their very own baby books (linked to our changes topic). It was a fabulous home learning project and the children loved sharing them too!

April Club of the Month

Today was Club of the Month day for KS2. This meant dancing shoes were needed!

Solent University bought their dance mat equipment to school for the day and children jumped, tapped and twisted their way through some routines.

A Massive well done to Matias who clocked a mighty 81.41, the top score in the school by far! The closest to him was Mr Wills, who topped the teachers competition with 75.02.

Year 3 Cookery and Origami Day

What a super day we had on Friday. We had lots of fun cooking up a feast for our picnic. We baked sausage rolls, pizza, chocolate cakes and cookies! The best fun was our afternoon picnic eating it all! Whilst it was all cooking - we learned how to make origami picnic boxes!

Year 2 trip to Beaulieu Motor Museum

On Friday Year 2 went to Beaulieu Motor Museum, which was the 'hook' to their new topic called 'wheels, wings and things'.

After a scenic coach journey through the New Forest we arrived at the museum. Everyone went into a lecture theater, which was very exciting for the children, and they watched a slide show and listened to a member of staff from the museum tell them about the history of motors.

The year group split into four groups which meant everyone could take part in all activities and tours. The activities included: a car ride on 'Gumdrop', a ride on the Veteran bus, a tour of the museum where they learnt about different motors and how they have changed over the years. The children also got to ride on the monorail around the grounds of the museum, they explored the Top Gear exhibition and they even saw Mr Bean's car and Wallace and Gromit's car!

It was a very exciting day and the children learnt lots. Thank you to all the parents and staff who helped make it a successful day for everyone. Also, well done to all the Year 2 children who represented Oakwood with good behaviour on the trip.


Look out for more updates about their topic!

YR get a visit from their Y6 buddies

This Wednesday Y6 came all the way back to YR for a spot of afternoon reading in the sun!

Getting down to business in Year 5!

Year 5 had a very exciting start to our new topic yesterday. This half term the children will be working in groups and creating their own business. Each group will create their own brand and flavour of ice cream in partnership with Jude's Ice Cream based in Winchester. The winning group will have their ice cream made and sold at school. To start this topic we had a hook day where we designed and made the packaging for a fictional sweet brand. The children also had to write mouthwatering descriptions for these sweets and present their work to the class.

Year 1's walk

Today Year 1 kicked of their summer term by going on a walk around the local area to see what they could see.

First we put our geography skills into action and plotted the route we would take on a map. Then we opened up our science investigation eyes to spot different plants and trees along the route and identified them as we went.

We have learned lots of names for plants and trees that we recognised, but didn't quite know their name. Can you spot any that you recognise?

Southampton City Cup Final

Whilst most people children and parents were celebrating on Thursday at the start of half term, the School Football Team headed over to Wide Lane to play in the Southampton City Cup Final.

This was the second year running that Oakwood have reached the final of the competition, and were hoping to pick up the trophy this year after losing in extra time in 2014.

Oakwood took on Blackfield Primary School and started well. However, owing to some last ditch defending Oakwood were held by Blackfield until half time. 0-0 was tough to take as Oakwood had controlled the game.

Oakwood's plan for the second half went out of the window after about 30 seconds, when Blackfield won the ball with Oakwood on the attack and exposed in defence. Blackfield broke and were 3 on 1, and unfortunately were able to take advantage putting themselves into a 0-1 lead.

The match continued with Oakwood trying to attack and find an equaliser, until Blackfield produced another goal out of nothing from long range. Although Oakwood hit the crossbar twice in the final 2 minutes they couldn't find a goal and when the final whistle blew it was Oakwood 0 - 2 Blackfield.

The team never gave up and were of course very disappointed with the result, but as always they performed well and did the school, and their parents, proud.

Well done for reaching the final boys, and don't forget Oakwood we're still league champions!

Year 6 Clapping Rhythm Patterns

Year 6 enjoyed exploring hand clapping rhythm patterns in their music lessons this half term. Within their compositions they focused on looking at patterns, counting beats, tempo and rhythm. They then moved on to compositions working with rounds and, finally, worked together on their own group creations.

Please take a look.

Chick Presentations

Year 4 turned into teachers for the day, as they taught year 1 and 2 everything they knew about chick development. Hopefully, KS1 now have a better idea about the difference between embryos, pipping and incubation.

4TW Families

In 4TW today we have been learning about different types of family; how your family is unique to you; how families are different and what families have in common.

Crashing Down to Earth

4TW had a fantastic time on Friday 'walking a mile' in farmers wellies. Feeding all the different farm animals: goats, cows, sheep, snakes...! Yes snakes! See if you can see Oscar the corn snakes and can you remember where he originates?

Year 4 Young Composers

History tells us that musical genius can be seen at a young age. Mozart is reported to have composed the symphony 1 in E flat major (most people's favourite symphony in E flat) when he was 8 years old, which is the same age as many of our year 4.

Therefore, there were no excuses for high quality composition - when they were asked to write, practice and perform a piece of music that included ostinato (repeating patterns).    .

Willow Class Victorians and Spring crafts

This week has been very exciting for Willow class. I was really proud of them for their performance in our first class assembly together. They made some pretty convincing Victorians.
We also spent time creating some rather fantastic Easter bunny hats, flowery garland alternatives and spring pictures or hatching chicks. You may spot an after crafts' and 'after tidy up' picture. I had to take those photos to show what a jolly good job of tidying up they made.

Year 5 make some Easter Treats yum yum!

Today Year 5 had great fun making some 'Easter Treats'. First were hot cross bun cookies, a twist on the classic hot cross buns, then some chocolaty Easter bark. Before making them we revisited why the cross at Easter and re-capped the Easter story. Their maths skilled were very valuable in measuring all the ingredients correctly and reading the food packaging.

Year 2 Cake decorating

Year 2 have been very creative. They were given the challenge to design a cake for Easter.

After thinking about signs and symbols of Spring and Easter, we then looked at various cake designs and designed our own.

Using various coloured Royal icing the children rolled, and shaped the icing onto a plain bun.

They look delicious!!!