A baking challenge from Mrs Mahoney

This is for a message for all our Oakwood Primary children and families.

I love baking with my children, Sophie (9) and Edward (6)!
Edward and I would love you to try baking a carrot cake like we did. We have baked this recipe quite a few times as it always comes out well and we think it is delicious. My mum, who is an amazing cook, uses this recipe now and she has tried many carrot cake recipes over the years!






Baking is a great activity for all the family. As well as enjoyment, there are extra learning opportunities for children in the form of reading, writing, maths and science!

In addition to using the measuring scales to measure the ingredients, here are some of the maths questions I asked Edward as he was baking:
• How many grams are there in 1kg?
• 100g add 150g
• Double 250g
• What fraction of the 500g bag did we use?
• What is 4 tablespoons of butter in grams? 14.3g x 4?


Don’t worry of you do not have the exact ingredients. We used:
• All white self-raising flour as we didn’t have wholemeal.
• 1 tsp nutmeg and 1 tsp cinnamon instead of 2 tsp mixed spice (or you could leave out the spice)
• Golden caster sugar instead of icing sugar
We used an electric mixer to make the icing topping but you could also whisk it by hand.
The carrot cake also works well in a round cake tin!

We hope you enjoy the egg yolk in oil video – we thought it was very interesting!
Also, Edward usually says no to cracking the eggs but agreed to do it if I filmed him! He did really well!

Good luck with your baking! Have fun!

Christmas Dinner

Once again, we were able to provide all children who wanted it, a free Christmas Dinner.

Thank you to City Catering, and especially Julie and her amazing team in our kitchen for another fabulous feast! The puddings this year were particularly impressive!

Oakwood Groundforce Day

On Wednesday we were joined by volunteers from the Ordnance Survey and some willing parent helpers to dig, cut, chop, pull, push, heave, jump away from frogs, sweat and generally work every muscle they have to prepare some of our outdoor areas for the start of something new. We are so thankful to each and everyone of them, without their hard work we would not be where we are now.




Over the next few months classes will develop their areas, spend the money we raised from our Move'athon and our donation from The Barker Mills Foundation. There may even be another Groundforce day! Ask your child about their area for more information.

Y6 Prom

It's that time of year again!

Everyone in Year 6 has come back to school one last time to say goodbye and good luck to their friends. (And maybe shed a tear or two!)

We will be adding to the Year 6 Prom photo album during the evening.

Y5 and Y6 cricket tournament

We were very lucky to take part in a cricket tournament ran by Taunton college at the Sports Centre. We had a really lovely day!

Y6 Go Plastic Picking

This afternoon, Y6 (and a few parents) picked up their pickers and refuse sacks before heading out into our local community. The groups divided the Sandpiper road loop and all the closes and paths up and spent an hour and a half plastic (any other waste) picking.

In 90 minutes they collected a staggering amount of plastic, glass and metal waste. There were audible gasps on the playground at the end of the day when parents saw just how much rubbish had been collected from our local community. The biggest offenders were: plastic sweet and chocolate wrappers; alcohol bottles and cans; and drinks bottles. A shopping trolley, a tyre and a bicycle were also found!

It's great to know that the bags and bags of litter are no longer a danger to the wildlife and our local community but Y6 were sad to see the amount of litter people had left in the area they live.

5FL @ Oasis Academy

5FL had the best morning at Oasis Academy this morning. We took along our cat mummies to see Tracy Lyons and her amazing art studio. She taught us how to use mudroc and cover our mummies safely and brilliantly. Look out for 5BW's visit and our finished pieces!

And the winners are ...

Can't believe our wonderful Jude's ice-cream is now over. And the winners are ... Frozen Fever!! Congratulations to them and all of our wonderful Year 5's. They have worked so hard and we are really proud of them. Thanks to Jude, Jack and Theo for this amazing opportunity.

Rights Respecting School Week

Last week, we had a focus on our Rights Respecting School learning.

As a Rights Respecting School, the Unicef Convention on the Rights of the Child is threaded through all of our learning at Oakwood. We have whole school, class, playground and restaurant charters which remind us of our rights and how we can respect them. We learn about our rights in assemblies and in our lessons. Our whole school PSHE theme for this half term is 'This is Me', and we are learning about ourselves, and how our words and actions portray our character.

Last week, we learned more about the rights of children in other countries, particularly those children who, for one reason or another, are forced to leave their homes. We also took part in the Send My Friend to School Campaign. This year, the focus for this is 'Let's Unlock Education for Everyone'.

Our learning included reading books, completing research, drama and freeze frames - to name but a few. Every child has also written to our MP as part of the Send My Friend to School campaign, and we will be sending off our letters very soon.

Jude's Ice- Cream Flavour Testing

Year 5 have had a great time yesterday afternoon taste testing flavours for their Jude's Challenge. Yummy!!

YR and Y5 get Spacey!!

What a day Year R and Year 5 have had. Their first part of the day was having the very special opportunity to visit Southampton University's astrodome. This was brought from the university to our school hall. Both year groups learned all about stars and galaxies, having our very own planetarium at school! The second part of their day was spent sharing each others learning all about 'Space'. A really lovely day. All pupils were exceptional today :)

People Who Help Us

Year R have had a great time learning about the people who help us in our community. For 5 weeks we have done some fun activities, check them out.

We would like to say a BIG thank you to our visitors, it was great seeing you!

We ended our topic with a dress up day finale.

Junior Road Safety officers

Meet our two new Junior Road Safety Officers! Last week they completed their road safety training and are now our school experts!

Y5 and Y6 Dance Workshop at Redbridge Community School

A group of year 5 and year 6 children had a great time taking part in a dance workshop at Redbridge Community School today. Maybe we will see them on 'Strictly' one day?

Y5 and Y6 Athletics

Over the past three weeks Y5 and Y6 have been attending an indoor athletics event at Redbridge School. The children competed in field and track events. They were brilliant and worked their works off! Our overall placing in the city was 7th. Go Oakwood!

OSA Christmas Fair

The OSA Christmas Fair was a brilliant community event once again! Of course we want it to be a successful fundraiser (we'll let you know how much we raised soon!), but the most important things was that it was so well attended, and it was a reminder of just how lovely our community of children, parents and staff is. Everyone had a smile on their face! (Spot yourself in the video!)



Thanks to every one of you for the part you played in making it so. Special thanks as usual to the OSA Committee, particularly Gill and Gary, who go out of their way to make sure the whole thing comes together, Julie and Kelly in the kitchen, and to Martyn and the cleaning team for getting everything spick and span again.

(Thank you to Lidl for providing the food!)

Oakwood from the Air!

Many thanks to Steve Trent, one of our parents, who came to take a whole school photo with his drone on Friday!



While he was up there, he took some amazing video! (We hope he'll be able to come back in the summer when the weather's better!)

The RNLI Visit Key Stage Two

Brian Masters from the RNLI came to present an assembly today about the RNLI and being safe in the water. Year 5 were then lucky enough to have a workshop with each class. This fitted in well with our current topic - Iceberg Ahead.

Naomi House Visit Year 5

Year 5 were very lucky today to have a visit from a Jane a volunteer at Naomi House. She came in to receive our cheque of funds we raised from our Jude's ice-cream sale. We raised a total of £316.30!

Y5 Question of Faith Day

Year 5 have had a wonderful day with Teresa and her team from Southampton City Mission (SCM) learning all about 'God'. Where we can look for him? and What represents God? Have a look at the photos below.