Oakie and Sam's Holiday.

Over the summer holidays, Oakie Bear and Sam went to stay with Miss Torjussen. They had a wonderful time exploring Devon and the weather was beautiful! Some of their highlights were going for lots of long walks through the fields, looking at all of the farm animals, visiting little villages and going to the seaside. They stayed in a lovely cottage and enjoyed relaxing with cups of tea, chocolate cookies and playing games. Oakie and Sam had fun playing hide and seek... can you spot Sam up high? Oakie and Sam even made a new friend, Kofi the dog!

Oakie and Sam are excited to be back at school to see all the children again.


 

Sam's Half Term Fun!

Well, I'm certainly making the most of my holiday time!

This half term, I was lucky enough to join Bronte and Amelia and their family on a lovely skiing trip in not just one, but three countries in Europe!

Here you will see me enjoying time on the boat from Dover to Dunkirk followed by soaking up the view from St. Michael's Bridge in Ghent, which is in Belgium. I also fitted in time to have a lovely waffle!



Next, I made friends with a street seller who sells 'cuberdon' sweets (or 'little noses'), I am on a boat trip along the Leie river and then I am visiting friends who work as volunteers at a printing factory in Selters, Germany. You will see the biggest printer in Europe. It prints 110,000 magazines an hour!



In the next photos, I spend more time with friends in the printing factory and I even took the time to have my teeth checked to maintain good dental hygiene! The house that I am sat in is in a different country - this time, I'm in the Czech Republic!



Then things got really adventurous - I tried my hand at skiing! I also got to grips with the local currency - 1000 Czech koruna is worth £30. I finished off my week with a visit to Karlovy Vary which is famous for its thermal waters which shoot out from underground! Some people drink the waters out of special cups for health benefits!



Thank you for letting me share your holiday with you Bronte and Amelia!

Sam's Summer (Part 2)

And he thought he was coming home for a rest!

Hot on the heels of a wildlife trip to Sri Lanka, Sam was on a plane to Barcelona in Spain.

This time, however, it wasn't animals he was looking out for, but beautiful buildings instead.

As well as lots of Roman buildings in the Gothic Quarter, Barcelona is famous for more modern buildings designed by an architect called Gaudi. Barcelona was also home to the 1992 Olympic Games.

Listen out for more information in an assembly soon...



Sam really has made the most of his summer holidays! Now he's ready and raring to go for the first day of term tomorrow! See you then!

Sam's Summer (Part 1)

Sam has had an extremely busy summer, with lots of stories to tell!

His first trip took him to Sri Lanka, a tear-drop shaped island off the south coast of India.

He started off in Colombo, the capital, which is next to a beautiful beach:



However, Sam isn't one for sitting around, so it wasn't long before he was off on some adventures. His first stop was a tea factory. Tea production is one of Sri Lanka's biggest industries - the climate provides perfect conditions for growing tea leaves:





He then went for a walk in a National Park called Horton Plains which is high in the mountains, 1800 metres above sea level. This park sits in the 'wet zone', and he was lucky to avoid a monsoon!



He walked for 8 kilometres to see 'World's End' - a magnificent view overlooking the land below:



It wasn't long before he gave his feet a break, and instead of lots of walking, he sat in a jeep to go on several safaris. Have a look at some of the animals he saw:



You might also have noticed the wave sculpture and memorial - listen out for the story behind this in assembly soon.

To finish his trip, Sam sampled some of the local highlights - a food market, drinking from a king coconut, visiting the elephant transit home and seeing a local turtle hatchery.



After a holiday like this, he needed to come home for a rest!

Hooray for the High 5 netball teams

Team A have had a great start to the Southampton Netball League, winning 4 out of 6 games. They have worked very well as a team and improved a lot since the first training session.
Results are as follows:
Oakwood A v St Monica A
                 3 v 2

Oakwood A v St Monica B
                6 v 4

Oakwood A v Bassett Green A
                1 v 8

Oakwood A v Sholing Junior A
                 7 v 4

Oakwood A v Sholing Junior B
                11 v 0

Oakwood A v  Heathfield
                 1 v 2

Well done to Team B for a great effort and sportsmanship in all their games.
Players' of the matches have been Tom, Jack and Ellie. Fantastic!



We look forward to the remaining matches beginning 17 January where Oakwood A will play Oakwood B!

Match report by Oakwood A players' of the matches so far: Abbie, Cassidy and Morgan.

SAM and ODO Visit Assembly

SAM and ODO visited assembly yesterday morning and reminded us of their important messages.

SAM's message is that School Attendance Matters.


ODO's special message is that Odd Days Off can lead to bad habits which will be a problem when you're older and have a job.



Our current whole school attendance is 96.3%, which is really good news. Keep up the good work!

Hej från Sverige!

Hej!

(That's how you say "Hello" in Swedish!)

I went to Sweden during the summer holidays to a little town called Värmdö, which is near Stockholm, the capital city...



As you can see from the map, this part of Sweden is made up of thousands and thousands of little islands, so there's lots of water... - change to the satellite view and zoom in for a proper look round!

What do you think the Swedish words on the safety ring in my photo mean?

from SAM



PS I am in both photos, I'm just a little harder to spot in one of them!

SAM at the Zugspitze

Hello! I hope you are enjoying your holidays!

Today, I travelled through the inside of a mountain on a train in Germany, sat in some snow in the middle of summer, went on a cable car through the clouds and walked into another country!



The Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Germany - it's in the Bavarian Alps.

(Have go with the buttons on the map to look around and see a satellite view...)

It's normally covered in snow as lots of people go skiing here in the winter. To get to the top, you can either walk - that takes two days and it's not good if you have paws - or you can go on the special railway line which goes through a tunnel inside the mountain.

You can then go on a special cable car down again.

Here is the view from the very top. On a clear day, you can see into four countries...



...but for a special prize when you get back to school, email me at sam@oakwoodlive.net to tell me which other country I walked into at the very top... (There are clues in the pictures...!)

See you in September!

Where is SAM?

Hello Everyone! SAM here!

I have been taking advantage of the school Easter holidays to have a few days away and here are a few picture "clues" to where I've been.

If you can tell me where all five places are, you can win a £5 Book Token to spend...

(Here's a clue - I didn't have to fly anywhere on an aeroplane to get to these places!)

If you know where all the places are, don't leave a comment on the blog, because everyone else will see your answers. Just send me an email at sam@oakwoodlive.net.

School opens at 8.50am on Tuesday 20 April - see you then!

Oscar and Sam in the Snow

I was very disappointed that school was closed on Thursday, but SAM and I made the most of the time by making snowmen!



Later on, we had a hot drink and logged onto E-City and did some school work! You can too - just use your school email username and password!

It was good to back on Friday!

House Captains 2009 - 10

Not many people know this, but Mrs Di Maiolo, who works in our office, also works for Southampton City Council when they have council elections!

SO... she was the perfect person to organise the elections for our House Captains!

Firstly, she and Mrs Worley told us in assembly about how elections work.

On election day, she made sure everything ran smoothly and then counted the votes...



...and today, she announced the results and the Mayor of Southampton, The Right Worshipful Councillor Elizabeth Mizon, met our newly elected House Captains!

Well done to them all!

SAM in Mexico

SAM says:

I met up with an old friend again the other day when Mrs Hamilton came into assembly to tell everyone about her trip to Mexico last summer - and to tell us why she's going again this year...

I spent last summer working on the dumps on the outskirts of Mexico City - for me, it was just a couple of weeks, but for many families and children, it's their home.

They live on the dump, with no access to clean running water, education or doctors.

I went out to Mexico with a charity which takes health workers, dentists and other care workers out to the dumps and provides check ups to the families who live there.

You can see some of the conditions and the help we provided in the photos below...



Mrs Hamilton and her family are there again this summer with the charity, so next time you turn on your tap, or think about school, or go to the doctor or dentist, please spare a thought for the families they are helping.

The Most Important Meal of the Day!

It's a busy week for Year 6!

There are End of Key Stage tests every day, starting with Science today.

It's really important to have the right start to the day when you have a hard-working, hard-thinking morning ahead of you, so everyone was very lucky that Vaudin's Breakfast Bar was open for business this morning (and will be all week...!)



On the menu: juice, cereals and toast, but more importantly, a chance to de-stress and chat with your friends.

Over 40 children took part this morning and we expect it to get busier during the week. (We already have six toasters on the go - not sure we can plug any more in!)

Thanks to everyone who helped and good luck with the tests, Year 6!

Come on Number 7!

Everyone had a great time at the OSA Race Night on Friday!

Here are Mrs and Mr Worley deciding which horse to back in the next race...



Parents and children from both Oakwood schools came along shouted VERY LOUDLY for their chosen horses...



...and Mark the DJ made sure everyone knew what was going on. (Mostly, this meant adults paying lots of money to Mrs Handley-Garland and Mr Chafe and then not getting it back - the schools will get it all later!)



Even SAM joined in - he and the children played with special Race Night tokens to see who had the most at the end of the evening. Joseph and his Mum are looking after him here and they seem to have a lot of tokens already!

Alla i ddim siarad Cymraeg!!

Here's Right-hand SAM, just over the border in Wales!

He's feeling happy because he's off on his holidays during the summer break, not during term time, but he's a bit worried that he can't speak any Welsh!

Not to worry, he's only here for a couple of days.

I wonder what his twin brother is up to?

SAM says: "What do you think the Welsh at the top of this post means?"

SAM and SAM say...

Here are SAM and his twin brother SAM, also having a wash for the summer holidays, this time at Mrs Handley-Garland's house.

They are both really pleased because SAM (on the left) is off around Europe with Mrs Rogers, and SAM (on the right) is off to Wales!

They're even more pleased because SAM stands for School Attendance Matters and, this year, our attendance has gone up to 95.1% which is just above our target!

Aurora won the House Attendance Cup with 95.5% attendance.

Well done, everyone!