As soon as the last child left on the last day, contractors moved in to do some of the work which we're having done over the summer break...
Our new library was opened earlier this term!
It's in the Key Stage 1 building, and forms part of our Linkway which will join the two buildings later on this year.
Mrs Handley-Garland (and some of her family!), Mr Barrett and Mr Chafe have worked really hard to move all the furniture and get everything set up. Children from all classes have already been visiting, borrowing books and doing research.
We think it's a really special place to be and looks amazing!
We also dug out some old photos - (going back to 2003) - which show the old junior library being set up. This slideshow goes right up to "moving out" day this year, so it's a real history of our library!
Look what's happening...
Over the Easter break, we're pulling apart Green Base and putting it back together again in a different order...!
We'll have a brand new primary library for the whole school, and a new corridor which will help us get from one building to the other more easily.
Thanks Daryl at Tynwood for all your hard work while we are away!
Our KS2 Studio Committee had great fun today creating digital art which we're going to use to display in the Art Studio!
We used a Fractal Generator program which uses complex mathematical equations to make designs and create colour.
We hope you like the results!
Preparations are under way to create our fabulous new primary school-bringing KS1 and KS2 together. Building work is already under way. Unused toilets in KS1 are being removed to create a new resource area. Take a look at the progress so far:-
Over the next few weeks, keep your detective hats in your pockets and a close eye out for any changes.
By Nicole and Bronte.
Ever wondered what happens in our buildings when the holidays come and the children aren't here?
Well, here's a quick glimpse from behind the scenes in the junior building...
Firstly, our computers have gone away to have some major work done to them ready for the merger into a primary school... then the computer suite was taken apart and the carpet ripped up!
By the time the children come back in September, we'll have a new carpet to replace the one damaged by our heating leak, and the computers will work much faster!
As Oakwood Junior School prepares to become part of Oakwood Primary School in January 2014, we've found these old photos of the building being constructed back in 1978.
The school opened as Oakwood Middle School on 1 September 1978.
As you can see, it all looks a bit bare - the trees and bushes on the site are not as mature as they are now!
There are also some photos from lessons - do you recognise anyone? If so, please get in touch: info@oakwoodlive.net.
(You can also go back to 1984, and have a look at the Junior School Prospectus!)
The school councils of Oakwood Infant and Junior Schools have chosen our logo competition winners.
They chose two designs and then a designer used their ideas to come up with our new logo.
The new logo will be on uniform ready for September and will be used by Oakwood Infant School and Oakwood Junior School.
If the two schools become a primary school, then the new school will use the logo too.
Congratulations to Sam, Ben and Ollie on their winning ideas!
We are pleased to announce that we expect the school to be open as normal on Tuesday 15 January.
We are very sorry that we had to stay closed on Monday, but as I said yesterday, the sudden cold snap over the weekend meant that the classrooms were bitterly cold. Even wrapped up warm, this was uncomfortable, and would have been for children.
Heating engineers were on the school site from 7.30am on Monday and stayed all day. (If you're interested in the technical detail of what went wrong, please see below...)
I can only apologise once again for the inconvenience this has caused, but even though the heating system has been out of action for a full four days, we have remained open for three of them. As many of you know from previous snowy weather, closing our school is the very last resort. We hope that the system will carry on working properly and we don't get any deep snow!
The heating was working fully from about 2pm on Monday and it was due to stay on all night, so we expect the school to be warm for Tuesday morning.
Thank you for your support.
What went wrong:
A separate fault, exacerbated by the major leak from last week, meant that a fail-safe pressure device in our boiler room was not allowing the heating to stay on before it automatically shut off. This device could not be over-ridden, and so was completely replaced on Monday.
The replacement for the pressure device which failed, now working properly.
We are sorry to report that Oakwood JUNIOR School will have to remain closed today, Monday 14 January.
After engineers spent most of Thursday and Friday digging up corridors and restoring heating to the site, the system failed completely again over the weekend, and has left classrooms as cold as 7°C. This is too cold for children to sit, even in coats.
We expect engineers to be on site again today and will keep you updated via the website, and via text message if necessary. We will also update the school answerphone.
Oakwood Infant School is open as normal.
Many apologies for the inconvenience this will undoubtedly cause.
We have engineers on site today looking into ducts which haven't been opened for over 10 years to track and track down our leak! Our lovely carpet in the shared areas is being torn up!
Nothing yet...
The school is fairly warm today and we'll keep you updated!
You can also read our letter from 9 January, about the problem and about wrapping up warm...!
Oakwood Infant and Junior Schools have been working together to make the school site safer for pedestrians, cyclists, prams and buggies and scooter users who arrive through the gate near to the driveway.
A lot of people crossed the car park to get to the Junior School or the Cycle Store because that was really the only way to go.
Now, there's a clear way to go, with a fence separating the path from the driveway. There's also a proper zebra crossing and a new path linking the Infant School path to the Junior School.
Thanks to Long and Dibden Fencing, R and D Surfacing and David Deane at Southampton City Council for working with us on this project.
One of the photos has the Junior School House Captains recreating a famous pop group's album cover! Leave a comment telling us what it is and you might win a prize!
You'll also notice that the fencing along the front of the schools along Sandpiper Road has been finished. This completes a project to replace the fencing around the entire schools' site which has taken about five years and cost about £125,000.
There's not been a quiz for a couple of weeks, so this one is particularly hard!
The answer isn't on the blog, but somewhere inside the school building!!
How many silver cars has Ursus Wehrli tidied up?
You will have to be really eagle-eyed to spot the answer to this...
Don't leave your answer as a comment - fill in this form instead.
We were very lucky to receive 30 free tree saplings when we ordered resources with our Sainsburys Active Kids vouchers. Sainsburys teamed up with the Woodland Trust to provide schools across the UK with free tree or bush packs. The tree packs have been funded by donations from Sainsbury's 'Woodland' brand of free range eggs and chickens.
We have a range of trees: cherry plum, hazel, dog rose, black thorn, dogwood, elder and crab apple.
Yesterday, Year 4 spent the afternoon planting the saplings around our school field. Well done Year 4 - you did a great job. Everyone really enjoyed it, take a look at the photos to see for yourself.
They have been marked with plastic markers in the hope that they don't get stepped on! They are very small and fragile at the moment!
We will look forward to observing them grow and identifying which trees are which. Maybe in the future we will be able to use the fruit grown on the trees in cooking at school.
Long before Oakwood Junior School was built, this area was all open woodland. The houses and the schools were built by cutting a big section out of Lordswood, which you can see on the aerial photo below...
The creatures which lived in Lordswood before the building started are still at home here, which means we get to see the most amazing woodland spiders, especially in Autumn. This one has made her home right outside the Admin Office windows...
If you have wondered what the Portakabins outside both schools are at the moment, they are home to Dave and Matt who are busy replacing all of our lights. (I don't think they sleep in there, though!)
The old lights were very old, getting dirty, buzzed a lot and they have stopped making bulbs for them, so we had to do something quickly!
In some rooms, the old ceilings have had to come down too so that the new lights can fit in new, square tiled ceilings.
The new lights will also help us get even greener!
We are already one of the most energy efficient schools in the city with a DEC Rating of "C" (54).
This is an improvement on our first rating of "C" (63) last year - we might even be a "B" next year!
Year 4 and 5 have had a fabulous fun-filled day!
We began the day with some tricky teambuilding events, from the Blindfold Trust and Square, to Straw Towers and the Spider's Web!
In the afternoon, we had some interesting visitors arrive from Liberty's Reptile and Raptor Centre! We were introduced to a hawk, vulture and Tawny Owl. All of which enjoyed flying around the school hall. They often flew very close to our heads!
We then met some of the reptiles from the centre and learnt a lot about them:
Archie, the Tawny Owl:
Garibaldi, the Leopard Gecko:
Year 6 enjoyed making a healthy vegetable curry as part of our 'Millions' topic. We learnt lots about food in other counties.
We learnt that in India, one of the staple foods is rice and lots of people are vegetarian. We decided that making a vegetable curry would reflect the diet of many Indian people.
We thought the curry was fantastic and lots of us wanted seconds!
What an exciting week! Years 3 and 4 had the opportunity to work with a "Poetry Slam" workshop earlier in the week. They wrote their own poems and performed them with actions. Year 4 even extended this by reciting some poems using our new Macbooks, using Photobooth software.
Today, Years 5 and 6 were lucky enough to work with Ali Sparkes, local author of the "Monstermakers" and "Shapeshifter" series of books, as well as many others. She was our special guest at the grand opening of our story garden that the Year 5 children have been working hard on over the past few months.
She was honoured to be asked to officially open the garden, and then to be the first person to read from our Story Throne. She read an extract from her forthcoming book, "Frozen in Time", which will be available in paperpack in January 2009.
Wooden Tiger came along, as well as Sue Bence, Literacy Advisor for Southampton. When Ali finished reading, some of the Year 5 children read their own writing about the garden and performed some poetry for us all to enjoy.
We are very proud of the children who have all worked extremely hard on our new garden area, and we hope you all agree, it is a fabulous success. We hope the whole school will be able to enjoy the new area, both at break and lunchtimes as well as during lessons.
You may remember last year's Year 4's work on improving our quiet space garden area in the playground. We made stepping stone mosaics, carved benches and a story throne, and created mosaic "season stones".
However, all work had to stop for a while, because of the replacements to our main perimeter fence. The good news is, that's all complete now, and we are back on track for finishing the garden before half term!
Today, three boys from Year 5 learned how to use a spirit level, watched while sand and cement was mixed and set the stones in the cement themselves!
Keep checking the blog for further updates, including next week's grand opening!
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