Oakley Church of England Combined School
Love, Honesty, Respect
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We celebrated British Science Week in school with an assembly led by school staff. We led science demonstrations to wow the children including making elephant toothpaste and lighting a whoosh bottle which surprised the children and triggered a round of applause from them. We set up varying amounts of white vinegar in film canisters, added Alka Seltzer tablets and the lids. The children squealed as the lids popped off and flew into the air one at a time! There were one or two that didn’t work, providing us with the opportunity to discuss the fact that scientific discovery doesn’t always go to plan and how many things were invented by accident, or discovered whilst investigating something different. Hopefully this gave the children greater confidence to have a go at their own investigations during the week. I am looking forward to seeing the work they have produced.
We decided to make our STEM fair bigger and better this year so we moved it to the summer term. Please come along on 19th June at 1.30pm to join us.
As part of our World Book Day celebrations we welcomed Amy from West End in Schools today. She worked with each class acting and dancing scenes from The Lorax and Coraline.
Mrs Courtney said that Robins' Class 'thoroughly enjoyed acting out and dancing scenes from The Lorax. The children were so keen and excited, they forgot to be quiet until later on! The freeze frames, movement to tell parts of the story and dance really helped the children to bring the story alive. They had such a good time and it really helped them to pick out the key parts of the story.'
Owls' Class teacher, Mrs Morley, said 'The children were really engaged in the dance activity. They worked well in groups and really appreciated that, by the end of the session, they had produced a piece of dance theatre. I was impressed at how the session was structured and paced, providing a framework but also allowing space for the children's creativity.'
Phil Heard and our school drummers led our Celebration Collective Worship this morning entertaining a packed hall with many popular songs. Lots of audience participation and some parents even took to the drums to have a go. Thank you to Phil, our drummers and everyone who came along to support.
We look forward to our drummers' next performance at OakFest at 1.00pm on 6th June.
Today is Safer Internet Day, part of our Safer Internet Week. Mrs Cochrane, our ICT Co-Ordinator, gave a presentation during our collective worship and reminded our children about the importance of keeping safe on the internet.
Internet safety is part of every ICT lesson with regular class discussions about this important issue.
Links to useful websites can be found under our 'Useful Links' page under the 'Parents' tab.
https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/safer-internet-day/2020
Today we participated in Numbers Day. We came together with the whole school in the hall to take part in a trade activity in teams. Children were provided with a limited amount of equipment and money. Some equipment had to be bought from the “shop” run by two of our TAs.
The children had to produce neatly drawn and cut out 2D shapes to sell back to staff in order to earn money. The game began quietly with careful focus on creating their shapes whilst making the most of their money. The level of excitement went up as they began to make money and realised what the most lucrative shapes were. Some teams tried trading items with other teams, but many others thought carefully about whether they were offering a good deal, so weren’t always willing to trade. All of our teams had made money at the end of the game and there was a great deal of mathematical discussion taking place throughout the morning.
FOS will be hosting a fun evening of live music from 7.30pm until late on Friday 20th March. Popular covers band, The Band With No Name, will be entertaining us with a full set of their well known songs. There will be a magnificent cheese table and nibbles and full bar with real ale. Tickets available from the school office at £15 each. See attached flyer and please spread the word. Payment by bank transfer available to reserve tickets, ring the office for details 01844 238364.
We hope you can join us.