Thursday 29 September 2016

Oakwood 0 - 1 Holy Family

Team Oakwood suffered their second straight league defeat for the first time in more than 4 years when playing away to Holy Family this evening.

Following the tough game against Foundry Lane last week the team were determined to improve! The first half was a tight nip and tuck battle for possession with both teams putting in hard tackles, trying to take control. At half time the score was still 0-0. The teams continued to fight for the opening goal, but no 'clear-cut' goal scoring opportunities were created. Then, following a Holy Family corner, a scramble took place in the Oakwood box and the ball rebounded off an Oakwood leg and into the back of the net. It stayed 0-1 until the final whistle which was particularly harsh on the Oakwood players - a draw would have been a fairer result.

Well done to Leo, whose constant energy earned him the Man of the Match award.

(Just a quick note to thank parents for their understanding and support - the game was switched to Holy Family School instead of cancelling the game as Holy Family lost their transport at short notice. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.)

A Learning Ranger visited Year 1

Year 1 were lucky enough to have Will, The Learning Ranger, to support our work on our senses by taking us on a woodland adventure. Through a story using Mr Potato Head and woodland animals, the children participated in various activities in order to win back Mr Potato Head's senses. These activities included: - A smelling test with Mr Badger - A blind folded walk with Mr Mole - A popcorn taste experiment with Mr Hedgehog - A sound game with Mr Rabbit After these activities the children made their very own Mr Potato Head including all of the sense organs.
 

Wednesday 28 September 2016

KS1 Basketball festival

Today 10 children from KS1 attended a basketball festival at Cantell secondary school. The children had the opportunity to practise their ball skills whilst doing fun drills on their own and in a team.

The day finished with a mini tournament and Oakwood scored a few goals against the other schools!

The children had fun and represented Oakwood brilliantly at their first festival of the year.


Year 3 and Year 4-Achieving Excellence Together.

Year 3 and Year 4 have been working incredibly hard at the start of this academic year. As well as working on some mind boggling maths challenges, delving into the past and asking lots of questions in Science, they have created some lovely art work to brighten up the Year 3 and 4 shared areas. Dream catchers, pots of painted flowers and word tripping Wordles produced on the computers have made their learning environment a colourful and inspiring place to be. Take a look:-


Tuesday 27 September 2016

Year 6 Visit Milestones

Year 6 travelled back in time today (we have a magic minibus) and ended up in Victorian Britain.

As part of our study of Britain during the reign of Queen Victoria we visited Milestones museum, Basingstoke. Whilst surrounded by the small, Victorian style town the children learnt about all things 1837-1901.

The children looked at travel, housing, shopping, schooling, building and life in general; a great way for us to continue to explore Victorian Britain.



Monday 26 September 2016

Southampton U11s 6-A-Side Tournament

This afternoon, the school football team competed in the Southampton U11 6-A-Side Tournament at Wide Lane. The team had a late start due to a delayed first opponent and were keen to get their competition underway. Team Oakwood's group results were as follows:

Oakwood 1 - 1 Bitterne Park
Oakwood 1- 0 Sholing
Oakwood 1 - 0 Abbotswood
Oakwood 1 - 0 Calmore
Oakwood 2 - 1 Foxhills
Oakwood 0 - 0 Foundry Lane

Finishing their group with 14 points Oakwood were runners up (on goal difference) to Foundry Lane. The team then had an anxious wait to see if they would claim the 'Best runner-up' slot and move on to the semi-finals.

Oakwood did make it through and faced Orchard in the Semi-finals. Orchard, who won all their groups games, defended well and Oakwood could not find a way past their 'keeper. Even after extra time the score was still 0-0, so the game moved to penalties.

Both teams scored their first penalties, but an Oakwood miss and saved Orchard penalty kept the score at 1-1. Both teams scored their final penalty so the shoot-out went to sudden death. In the second round of sudden death spot kicks Oakwood were denied by the post - Orchard progressing to the final.

Well done to the days top scorer and Player of the tournament Jack (4), Leo (2) scored Oakwood's other goals.

Southampton Boat Show

Year 5 spent the day at Southampton Boat show, this was a great opportunity to develop a greater understanding of Southampton's current maritime culture (something we are studying as part of our Titanic topic).

We could not have being luckier with the weather and had a great day out. Some of the our biggest highlights were: meeting a Paralympic gold medalist, going on 6 million pound Sunseekers, the RNLI stand and the Navy stand. Take a look at our photos, to see what we got up to.

Friday 23 September 2016

Oakwood 0 - 4 Foundry Lane

Oakwood's football team league campaign didn't get off to the best of starts after school yesterday as they were beaten 0-4 by a very strong Foundry Lane team.

Oakwood were forced to do a lot of defending and had few changes to test the foundry lane goalkeeper. At half time the score was 0-1 thanks to some excellent defending and a couple of fantastic saves from new 'keeper Tom.

In the second half the Oakwood players tired and couldn't keep up the same level of defending, conceding a further 3 goals.

For their first game together as a new team all the players did Oakwood proud and will look to build on their performance against Holy Family next week.

Well done to Man of the Match Alan.

Thursday 22 September 2016

Curriculum Bulletin: Year 3

Year 3 is already underway and all children have made a brilliant start.

Oakwood Live: Year 3-Yes we can!

Topic



Our topic this term is 'A Long way from Home' which focuses on children's experiences of life in WW2.  It is an important and engaging topic which is taught sensitively and is cross curricular: therefore it is not only taught in history lessons but is incorporated into lots of other subjects such as English, Maths, Science, P.E and Art. It is taught in Year 3 because it is hoped that children will be able to learn first hand from  members of their extended families personal stories of life in WW2. Visitors with any stories to share are always gratefully welcome-just see your child's class teacher.

During this topic Year 3 will represent Oakwood at a Remembrance Day service at Hollybrook cemetery. It is a very moving experience for the children who will lay wreaths as part of the service. Our topic culminates in our V.E celebratory tea dance which family members are invited to join their children for an afternoon of celebratory jitterbugging and wartime fare. Date below. Take a look the the fun we had last year here.



Reading

As in all other year groups, reading is an important focus on Year 3.  As well as still focusing on decoding and reading words on a page, central also to Year 3 is comprehension skills- getting children to infer and read between the lines. There is also a focus on authorial intent-why has the author chosen that word, what does the author want the reader to think, what technique has the author used to draw us in etc. For these reasons we encourage parents to try to find time to read with their children as much as possible-even with more independent readers.

Reading roundabouts happen everyday in Year 3 with children working on different reading skills each day-including a fun read in the book corner and exploring different literature like the children's newspaper First News.

Reading Logs are an important way of evidencing what the children are reading and gives the children a sense of achievement on their reading. Time is always given in school for the children to record their independent and class reading. Reading logs are checked once a week by the class teacher and we ask that they make 4 entries a week.

Our Class Novels this half term are: 'The Twits' by Roald Dahl and Once  by Morris Gleitzman. 



We base our English work around our WW2 theme. As well as continuing to embed key grammatical skills, spelling patterns and ensure fluency of handwriting, we also write our own WW2 diary which is inspired by 'My Secret War Diary, by Flossie Albright: My History of the Second World War 1939-1945 by Marcia Williams .





This term we will be consolidating key number skills from Year 2 and ensuring that all children have a secure written method for addition and subtraction. They will be presented with lots of problem solving opportunities so that  they can apply these key skills and use their mathematical reasoning in different real life situations.  WW2 will also play a part of our maths problems when we solve devilish WW2 inspired word problems, crack secret codes and work out recipe quantities for our WW2 cooking.

We try to make sure that, as well as making brains ache, maths is fun and engaging. Central to this is the use of maths games, songs and ICT. Children will often access specific online resources via our Google Classroom

Logs



Logs are an integral part of Year 3 homework and we ask that children work on a different log for no less than 10 to 15 mins at least x3 a week. We also ensure that children have opportunity within school time to work on their logs. The logs system not only supports key English and Maths skills but allows children to achieve them through a series of small steps which installs confidence and a sense of pride when they achieve the different badges. The Year 3 teaching team do our very best to test children's logs daily, in dedicated curriculum time but often in breaks and lunchtimes. We are always impressed with our children's enthusiasm for their logs and but this can mean that we have children waiting to be tested. We have reminded children that it is not only their Year 3 teachers that can test them, but that any adult in the school.

How we work though and test children on their logs will be exemplified in our upcoming Year 3 and 4 phase afternoon on Monday 10th October.

Home Learning



This year your Year 3 child will bring home a range of home learning tasks from reading comprehension and maths tasks to mini projects. We greatly encourage parental involvement in your child's homework: often a home learning task might be a speaking and listening activity centered around talking to an adult about their learning and researching topics a little deeper. Homework tasks are usually given out on a Wednesday and collected in/discussed/shared on a Monday. There are times - like when children have been on a trip - this might change but we endeavor to ensure that ample notice for any task is given.


PE

Tuesday -Multi-skills (outside)
Thursday- WW2 dancing-Jitterbug and Waltz (inside)

Dates for your Diaries

Tuesday 4th October- 3LD to Testwood Lakes
Wednesday 5th October- 3NM to Testwood Lakes
Thursday 20th October-Year 3 VE Day Tea Dance

Year 2 Learning Ranger Workshop

As part of our twisted tales topic we had a visit from The Learning Ranger! We took part in a traditional tales workshop. We had to make some Granny Cakes because the Wolf had stolen them all from Little Red's basket. We also had to make some new shelters for The Three Little Pigs and make new willow leaves for the beanstalk because Jack was stuck at the top! We had lots of fun learning outdoors!

Wednesday 21 September 2016

Curriculum Bulletin: Year 2

Image result for once upon a time clipart

Twisted Tales

English

  • To write a recount of the summer holiday
  • To become familiar with traditional fairy tales so they can write the story of The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood. This will enable the children to write their own twisted tale by the end of the topic
  • To write a recipe of Little Red’s cakes for Granny following on from the visit from The Learning Ranger
  • To use and recognise four sentence types: command, statement, exclamation and question.

Maths
  • To read and write numbers in words.
  • To understand place value and be able to partition numbers to then use as an addition and subtraction strategy
  • To compare and order numbers using < > = signs
  • Count in steps of 2, 3, 5 and 10 from 0 starting at any number, counting both forwards and backwards.

Topic
  • To design and make a purposeful product; a basket that Little Red Riding Hood could use.
  • To use create an Asian inspired fairy tale setting using newspaper as the background, black paint and one colour.
  • To learn The Three Little Pigs blues song, to add instruments to the song and perform.
  • The Learning Ranger is the visitor for the topic. The children will be using willow to make leaves for Jack’s beanstalk, cakes for Little Red Riding Hood to take to her granny and a shelter for The Three Little Pigs.

Homework
  • We will be setting homework weekly to inform you of the spellings that we expect the children to practise and learn for their spelling test on Monday
  • We will also be letting you know about the things your child has been learning to do in that week, so you can practise at home if you would like to.


Days to remember
  • Library is Tuesday. Please make sure your child returns their book within two weeks.
  • PE is Thursday and Friday. Please make sure your child has a full PE kit in school, including suitable footwear.
  • Please ensure your child has their reading log in school so it can be checked weekly by their teacher in guided reading lessons.

Curriculum Bulletin: Year 6



English

Daily independent reading time - We give our Y6 children daily independent reading time to give them an opportunity to read more!

Please make sure children have their reading book with them everyday.


SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar)

We will be working on:

  • Word classes
  • Sentence structure
  • Punctuation needed for the Y6 curriculum

Class Text
  • Street Child (An adventure story set during the Victorian Era)
Writing
  • We will complete a range of Street Child inspired writing and drama activities including: Letters, Diaries, debates & role play.
  • We will write mystery stories inspired by the animation videos ‘Alma and Road’s End’.


Maths We will be working on:
  • Place value including numbers up to the value of 10,000,000
  • Rounding numbers to any degree of accuracy
  • Multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000
  • Using negative numbers
  • Dealing with decimals
  • Efficient strategies for calculation in all 4 operations


Topic

We will be learning:
  • The difference between the lives of the rich and poor
  • The life and reign of Queen Victoria
  • Electricity and circuit building
  • Study of famous Artists and their work


Homework
  • Homework will be set for English and Maths on alternate week by your child’s set teacher.
  • Homework will be set on a Thursday, and due in the following Thursday
  • Reading logs will also be check on a Thursday.
Dates for the Diary:

Curriculum Bulletin: Year 1

Image result for wonderful me

  • This half term we will be learning all about our ourselves, especially our five senses.
  • We will learn to identify, name and label the basic parts of the human body and say which part of the body is associated with each sense. 
  • As well as learning that our senses are important, we will also learn about significant people in history that have had problems with their senses such as blindness or deafness. In particular Helen Keller and Louis Braille
  • During the topic, we will investigate each of our senses through a variety of fun experiments. Take a look at the investigations we did last year.
  • In our art lessons we will be using different mediums to create self portraits and pictures of what we like.
  • We will be exploring how to use our bodies and voices to create and compose music.



  • There will be whole class reading everyday and we will have the opportunity to respond to stories we have listened to. 
  • Reading in small groups will happen once a week. The title of the book we have read will be recorded in our reading log. Please make sure these logs are kept in our book bags.  
  • We recommend reading at least four times a week at home and recording this in our reading logs. In return we will gain a house point. 
  • A really useful reading resource to use at home is Oxford Owl where you can sign up for free. 

Image result for phonics

Phonics
  • Phonics is taught everyday to teach us how to read and spell. 
  • During the summer term all of us in Year 1 will be screened on the phonemes in the English language. We will have to read some real words and some pseudonyms (fake words) containing the various phonemes. 
  • Some really useful resources for practising phonics at home are:
  • Phonics Play 
  • Mr Thorne 

Image result for writing  clipart

Writing
  • We will be practising our independent writing skills by writing for different purposes. 
  • Each week we will be given different cursive letters to practise to develop our handwriting skills. 
  • When we write we must remember our nuts and bolts. 

 


Maths
  • We will be focusing this half term on our number skills.
  • Skills we will be practising include:
  • Counting forwards and backwards to 20.
  • Reading writing numbers to 20 in numerals and words. 
  • Consolidating mathematical language such as: plus, more, total, add, equals, less than, take away, smaller than, greater than. 
  • Ordering numbers to 20.
  • Number bonds of numbers within 10.
  • Some useful maths games can be found here

Days to remember
  • PE is taught every Monday and Thursday. Please make sure a PE kit is in school for these days. 
  • We have the opportunity to go to the library and change our books on a Tuesday.


Year R have begun their learning journey

Year R have had a really exciting start to their year and have even been staying for lunch.
We are almost ready to start full time after exploring all of the areas of the base.
Take a look at some of the fun things we have been doing.

Curriculum Bulletin: Year 4


  • During this topic we will use our history skills to explore Roman Britain and the invasion.  We will compare and contrast from then and now  This will be taught through drama, role play and cross curricular activities. 
  • We will also be visiting Fishbourne Roman Palace and the children will take part in our Roman Hook Day. 

Reading


  • Reading logs are being taken in to be checked every Friday.  We love to see the variety of books that you are reading. Don't forget all the different things you can read e.g. newspapers and annuals or information posters on a day out.
  • At school we are trying to listen to all the children read and enjoy reading together.
  • Reading little and often will really help improve the children's reading. 
  • We will be learning how to read a text using our skimming and scanning skills ready for note taking.

Writing


  • We are writing our own Roman Soldier Handbook (non - fiction). This will include learning about adverbs (doing words), rhetorical questions and words that join sentences.
  • Looking at the layout of the text and the important parts.
  • Every week we will be focusing on our handwriting and working on our handwriting logs in class.

Maths


  • We are learning about Roman Numerals up to 100.
  • The place value of numbers up to 4 digits.
  • Ordering numbers from highest to lowest etc.
  • Brushing up on our mental maths skills and timestables making sure we know them inside out!
  • Using and applying our number skills into investigations and problem solving. 
  • Keep up the logs practice (we always like to conga when a log is achieved)!

Homework and PE
  • Weekly homework will be handed out on a Friday and given in on a Wednesday. 
  • We have PE on a Wednesday and a Friday.  Please could PE kits be in everyday!

Tuesday 20 September 2016

Year 3-Yes we can!

What a GREAT start to the academic year for Year 3-they certainly have impressed all their teachers! They have shown themselves to not only be determined and hard-working but also kind and caring with a great growth mindset.

It has been a busy start to the term with several children already achieving logs, had work in the Gold book or shown to other adults. Their brilliant work is already on display in the classrooms and shared areas so please feel free to come and take a peek.




Curriculum Bulletin: Year 5

Iceberg Ahead! 


  • During this topic will learn about the maritime history of Southampton
  • We will use our geography skills to explore the intended route of the Titanic and plot this on a map
  • We will learn about life on board the Titanic, and what jobs were available on board
  • We will find out about the different classes of passengers
  • We will use a variety of historical sources in order to discover more about the Titanic; discussing whether they are primary or secondary sources and how this affects their reliability
  • We look at where the events of the Titanic fit on a timeline with other significant events in history
  • We will visit Southampton Boat Show to compare modern day boats to the Titanic, as well learning about importance of Southampton's present day maritime culture. Have a look at what we got up to last year here
  • At the end of our topic we will celebrate our learning with a Titanic day, where we all dress up and perform our historical dance, which they would have done aboard the Titanic. Take a look at the fun we had last year and some inspiration for your outfits here

Reading 


  • This term we will be promoting the importance of reading for pleasure
  • Developing our skills of using a text to retrieve information
  • Answering questions using P.E.E. (point, evidence, explain)
  • Comparing different books by the same author
  • Looking at a variety of historical texts to inform our topic work

Writing



This half term we will be using the context of writing a diary in role, as a Titanic passenger to develop the following skills:
  • Descriptive writing using: alliteration, personification, adjectives, similes and metaphors
  • Using prepositions in a piece of writing
  • Using time conjunctions 
  • Focusing on the planning stage of writing by exploring different ways in which we can plan
  • Using paragraphs to organise our writing (using TiP ToP to help us)
  • Using a dictionary and thesaurus to improve the vocabulary we use in our writing

Maths 




  • Revisiting place value (including decimals), and it's importance in maths
  • Understanding and ordering negative numbers
  • Roman numerals- both reading and writing
  • Counting forward and backwards in powers of 10, from any given number- you could use this game to help practise 
  • Written and mental addition and subtraction methods
  • The relationship between addition and subtraction (inverse operations)

Learning at home
  • Reading Logs are checked on Mondays and we expect to see 4 entries a week
  • Keep working hard on your logs and we will test you as much as possible in school, but please make sure your logs are in school everyday
  • Weekly homework will normally be set on Thursday and due on Thursdays
  • This half term's homework is a Titanic project, a great opportunity to get creative and show everything you have found out about the Titanic. This is due in on the 14/10/16 ready for the exhibition on the 19/10/16  

Monday 19 September 2016

Under 10 6-A-Side football tournament

8 children represented Oakwood at the yearly Wide Lane U10 6-a-side tournament today.

With it being so early in the year the children have not even had time for a training session - so were learning how to play with each other as they played. The passing on show from Team Oakwood was very good and they created some excellent goal scoring chances in all of their games. However a lack of team practise did show as the team struggles to work as defending and attacking units.

All the team did very well, and there were some impressive individual performances. Special mention to Player of the day, Fin.

Oakwood's results were as follows:
Oakwood 0 - 1 Springhill
Oakwood 1 - 1 Hollybrook
Oakwood 0 - 0 Bitterne Park
Oakwood 0 - 4 Newlands

Y6 Wacky Races

During the first week of term Y6 children were set the challenge of creating a vehicle to compete in the end of week Wacky Race.

Children working in groups to research, design and build their racers from a range of materials. They built battery powered circuits for their engines, and worked tirelessly to improve the speed and performance of their cars.

Nearly all racers got off the start line...even if they didn't head straight down the track.

Friday 16 September 2016

Curriculum Bulletin: Year R


  • During this topic we learn to use our senses to explore different objects.
  • We learn about babies and growing up, how we change and the jobs adults do.
  • We think about our families, drawing and labelling them and talk about how each family is different, but have the same love.
  • We will create dens during ‘Explore and Discover’ time with the help of the Learning Ranger, just like last year!
  • We read the book ‘Our Amazing Body’ and we learn how to label our different body parts, by sticking them in the correct place on the picture. Sing songs at home to help learn the names of different parts of the body like ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’
  • We begin the ‘This is me’ bag so we can really get to know all of the children in the class as the year goes on. Here is Mr Taylor showing Year R his ‘This is me’ bag last year.

Reading
  • We learn to hold a book correctly, turn the page from left to right and recognise some initial sounds/ high-frequency words.
  • We learn to write our first names and name the letters correctly.
  • We mark-make during 'Explore and Discover' and begin using the Writing Table and Book corner on our own and begin ascribing meanings to these marks we make.
  • Don’t forget to sign up to Oxford Owl for FREE, to have access to lots of our Oxford Reading Tree books online.

Maths
  • We learn to recognise numbers to 10 by ordering numbers, counting objects reliably and writing them in different ways. This is a good game for matching numbers counted to the correct digits.



  • During this topic we read ‘The Little Red Hen’ together and act out the story. This is what we did last year.
  • We look at the different seasons and think about the changes that happen for each one.
  • We make autumn collages using objects that we have collected. Here are some autumn activities to inspire you at home.
  • We label our autumn pictures using the initial sounds for each.
  • We ascribe more meanings to our mark-making during self-initiated play.

Reading
  • We begin to hear initial sounds in words when working with adults and pointing them out in the books we read. This game will help match initial sounds to pictures
  • We begin singing the alphabet and put the letters into the correct order, naming them correctly.
  • We develop an enjoyment for books by listening to stories and make suggestions about how they might end.
  • We begin to hear rhymes.

Maths
  • We continue to consolidate recognising numbers to 10, counting, ordering and writing the numbers.
  • We learn to continue simple repeating patterns and begin creating our own using autumn objects like the repeating patterns on this site


Keep an eye on our posters each week for more specific updates and phonics sounds being taught to each group.

Tuesday 6 September 2016

Oakie Bear reminisces about his trip to Canada....

Oakie has had a wonderful time this summer exploring Ontario, the central part of Canada. After carefully packing his bag and exchanging his pounds for dollars, he flew 8 hours to Toronto. Some of his visit highlights are when he fed the Chickadees, Blue Jays and chipmunks while on a walk; visiting orchards in Niagara-on-the-lake (and using 'honesty boxes' to buy fruit); seeing parts of the famous 'Welland Canal'; looking at the Niagara river and Falls (where he bravely went up to the falls on a boat and got his fur soaked); hiking in the woods of northern Ontario (on the famous 'Bruce Trial' which was full of mosquitoes); and then visiting Toronto and Toronto Island. The weather was about 35-40 degrees so poor Oakie was a bit hot with all that fur! He noticed that everything was written in english and french, because it's a bilingual country. He really loved the colourful money and especially loved the 'Loonie' and 'Toonie', which are 1 and 2 dollar coins. His favourite treats to eat and drink were 'poutine' (fries with cheese and gravy) and a 'double double' coffee. He is now trying to get over his jet-lag in time for when school starts. He can't wait to see you all again! A beintot!

Click the photo to have a look at the slideshow.