Headteacher's Update - Friday 24th February 2023
A warm welcome to Term 4 at Oakwood! I hope you all had a great half term. It was lovely to welcome all pupils back to school this week, and staff are really excited and looking forward to the term ahead.
This week, the pupils have been introduced to their new learning journeys - Geography is the driver subject this term! I have seen some fantastic learning this week, including some accurate sentence writing by pupils in Reception, who were so incredibly proud of themselves, their achievements, and of each other too. In Year 5, pupils have started this term's Design and Technology learning journey with some market research. They gathered some information from children in Reception and Year 1, recording their data in a questionnaire. I'm looking forward to seeing how this informs their final products...
In the Nursery, the children have enjoyed making their own pancake batter and tasting some pancakes too. They have enjoyed melting 'animal ice-cubes' and making tea and coffee for all the staff too!
Congratulations to this term's Year 6 Ambassadors. They collected their badges in today's assembly and were very proud to do so.
We had a fantastic Celebration Assembly. Congratulations to all of our winners! This week's Stars are...
Nursery Class - William C. for being kind and caring.
Year R Stephenson - Ezmeralda P. for super effort with her sentences.
Year 1 Nightingale - Neriman K. for settling in to her new school so well.
Year 2 Brunel - Seth S. for fantastic 'out of the box' thinking this week.
Year 3 Ashe - Ethan B. for his excellent effort across all areas o school life.
Year 3 Turing - Marley S. for his determination to improve his work.
Year 4 Logie-Baird - Daria H. for settling in to her new class and making friends so well.
Year 4 Thunberg - Alfie S. for being so dedicated to and hard working in every lesson.
Year 5 Hamilton - Sidney C. for always working hard and being kind and considerate to others.
Year 5 Pankhurst - Tililah T. for her hard work and politeness to everyone.
Year 6 Amundsen - Macy B. for her excellent determination across all of her learning this week.
Year 6 Parks - Layken H. for his improving presentation across all of his subjects.
In our Attendance Raffle, there were 221 children who had 100% attendance in the last week of Term 3. The number 62 was drawn at random and this belonged to Blake G. in Year 3, who chose a football from the prize table.
In our Attendance Challenges, our Term 3 Champions were Year R Stephenson Class and Year 5 Pankhurst Class. Both classes receive a £20 voucher. The challenges now reset for Term 4.
As you will be aware from my letter earlier this week, the NEU and its members are continuing industrial action across the country. This has an impact on staffing arrangements in school and, as a consequence, the decision has been taken to close the school to most pupils on Thursday 2nd March 2023. The Nursery will, however, remain open to children. I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused. This disruption certainly impacts our families, but it just hasn't been possible to guarantee the number of staff in school, hence the decision.
There will be an INSET Day on Friday 3rd March and therefore the school will reopen to all pupils, fully, on Monday 6th March 2023.
World Book Day will be taking place on Wednesday 1st March, and all pupils are invited to come to school wearing an accessory or outfit linked to their favourite character or book, in exchange for 50p. We are looking forward to the day!
I look forward to welcoming you in to school soon. We will have our Curriculum Events towards the end of this term, and Parents Evening taking place soon. We will write to you shortly about these.
Have a great weekend!
Ryan Laker
Headteacher
