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Headteacher's Update - Friday 24th February 2023

Fri 24 Feb 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

Headteacher's Update - Friday 10th February 2023

Fri 10 Feb 2023

Welcome to this week's 'Weekly Update', and the last of Term 3!

Firstly, a huge 'Thank you' to all of you who have joined us for one (or more) of our Curriculum Events this week. We saw so many of you, and this means so much to the children - they really love sharing their learning with you, and are proud to do so. The workshops were brilliant! I was invited to a couple, including some brilliant rocket-making in Year 1, with moving parts. It felt very special to have pupils and families working and learning together.

We welcomed two special visitors to Oakwood today - Mr Tony Blaker QPM, the Chair of Aurora Trustees, and Ms Martha Burnige, Interim CEO of Aurora. They joined us for our celebration assembly, and helped to present some of this term's awards. They both commented on how polite all of the pupils were and the quality of the work they saw, both in books and when shared in assembly. We look forward to welcoming them both back soon.

As well as our 'Stars', we awarded lots of Attendance Certificates, including our 100% Termly Attendance winners - nearly 150 this term. We also said 'Well done' to some of our pupils who have had a real shift in their attendance at school. We wanted to acknowledge this improvement.

In our '3 Week Attendance Challenge', there were 159 names in the draw, each with 100% across the three-week period. The number 53 was drawn at random. Ronnie in Year 2 had the lucky number, and won a Crazy Golf voucher for the family - perfect for half-term!

'Well done' to all of our certificate winners this week. Our list of this week's 'Stars of the Term' can be found on the Bulletin, as well as a photographs of our 'Stars of the Term'.

I have been very privileged to see some very special work this week. Across the school, we have been publishing our writing, and this has resulted in some high-quality, final pieces. Today, I saw some work from some of our Year 6 pupils, which was very impressive.

Finally, 'Thank you' for your continued support of Oakwood. Term 3 has raced by - we are halfway through this school year, with lots to come, including, hopefully, some longer, brighter days. I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of our pupils, their families, and all of our staff, a very happy and safe half-term break. I will look forward to seeing you all when we return to school on Monday 20th February 2023.

With my very best wishes,

Ryan Laker

Headteacher

Headteacher Update - Friday 3rd February 2023

Fri 03 Feb 2023

Welcome to this week's Weekly Update!

'Well done' to all of our pupils who have supported Number Day at Oakwood. We have seen some brilliant outfits, including home-made calculators and UNO cards. A great effort from everyone! We've enjoyed lots of number activities throughout the day, including our 'What do you think?' posters around the school. Your donations have helped the NSPCC charity. So, 'Thank you!' We'll update you with the amount we have raised next week!

Our pupils in Reception have been practising their cutting skills and recognising 2D shapes to make a 'shape face'. They have also been using patterns to design fruit-kebabs.

In our 'Celebration Assembly' today we looked at some of the learning that Year 5 Hamilton Class have been producing this week. We looked at some of their work on mixed numbers and improper fractions, portal stories and their Mayan masks. Thank you to Hamilton Class for sharing with us all. 'Well done' to all of our certificate winners. Our full list of this week's 'Stars' can be found on the Bulletin. We will be awarding our Term 3 'Stars of the Term' in next Friday's assembly.

'Congratulations' to two of our pupils in Year 5. Lola-Mai and Blake both received their 1,000,000 words certificate in today's assembly. A great achievement to have read one-million words in a school year. They have been inducted into the Word Millionaire 'Hall of Fame' in the library.

Next week, we have our Term 3 Curriculum Events. We have been getting ready for the events and we hope you will be proud of the work that the children have produced this term. We hope you will be able to join us and look forward to seeing you.

As always, do check our Bulletin and Facebook page for this week's updates!

Finally, Thank you for your support during this week. I fully appreciate that Wednesday's school closure will have caused our families disruption, but I am grateful to you for your understanding this week.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Ryan Laker

Headteacher