Dear Parents/Carers,
Such a very busy summer term, but an immensely enjoyable one, which has been made even more memorable by having so many opportunities such as our joint Platinum Jubilee celebrations and Sports day where we have been able to celebrate with our Oaklands’ families and community together again.
We are very pleased that we decided to have sports day a little earlier in June, especially with the extreme heat we are experiencing at present.
Earlier this term our choir took part in a performance of ‘WASMA Afloat’ at the Hexagon in Reading. It was an incredible experience for our children to be able to say that they have performed so well on stage at this theatre, taking part with other Wokingham Schools. This was our first time at this event and WOW – such wonderful singing, musicians, solos, readings, storytelling, and dance routines. Our amazing dance routine was choreographed by Mrs Yeatman. It was a very proud moment for me to be in the audience at such a wonderful concert involving our talented children. My thanks go to Mrs Broadhurst, Miss Noad and Mrs Yeatman for all their support with this event.
This was an exceptional year with the return of the Crowthorne Carnival. It was fantastic to see such a large crowd lining the roads along the procession’s route as our children, from every year group from Reception to Year 6 represented a different era. The costumes, props and music throughout were amazing. Our children were truly outstanding in their flashmob performance to the song ‘Celebration’ – we were all definitely very cool with our gang! I felt very cool too once I reached the Morgan recreation ground with a much needed, refreshing spray from our ghostbusters and their super soakers – I am amazed that they still had water left for me.
We also took part in the Schools’ Music Festival as part of the Platinum Monarch, Music & Mayhem Years in the beautiful setting of Wellington Chapel. Members of our choir clearly enjoyed all the rehearsals and the evening event, smiling throughout and singing beautifully (with actions) and this was a thoroughly enjoyable and very proud moment for both myself and parents in the audience. My thanks to Mrs Broadhurst, Miss Noad and Miss Davidson for all their support with this wonderful evening.
Year 6 Trophies
Congratulations to the following children who were awarded trophies at our Year 6 Leavers’ evening on Wednesday 13th July:
Sports: Edward T and Lois G
Oracy: Suvali S
Teale: Alfie JWell done to all Year 6 children and staff for a brilliant play ‘Pirates of the Curry Bean’. It was a fantastic musical demonstrating great humour, incredible singing, teamwork and professionalism on every level.
A big thank you to everyone who attended the performances and kindly donated to our charity collection for The Cowshed, who do so much for families in crisis and have supported people within our local community. Overall, a phenomenal collection of £240 was raised.
Our congratulations to our following winners of the Daisy Trophy this Summer term:
Daisy Trophy: Caoimhe in 5N and Joseph B in 3M
Finally, on behalf of the School Community I would like to wish all our Year 6 children a very happy, exciting and successful move to their respective secondary schools – you have been a great year group and we are all so very proud of you.
With our very best wishes to all our families for a safe and happy summer break. I look forward to seeing you all on our return to school on Monday 5th September, when we will be continuing with our approach to the beginning of the school day by allowing children to enter their classrooms between 8.40 and 8.50 am.
Mrs Hazel West, Headteacher
News from Year 3
We have been incredibly busy this term in Year 3!
One of our biggest topics this term has been the Ancient Egyptians. We have explored many areas of the ancient civilisation including beliefs, pyramids and exploring whether we think the curse of Tutankhamun was real! We then used our research to write some fantastic information texts about pyramids as well as creative diary entries as archaeologist Howard Carter. All of our hard work culminated in a fantastic Egyptian Day. It was great to see the children all dressed up, complete with their own Egyptian broad collars and their hand-sewn scarab beetle designs.
We have finished our English topics for the year by reading The Tunnel by Anthony Browne. We loved exploring the pages, finding the links between fairy tales and other well-known stories. We then wrote our own versions of the stories to show off all of the fantastic writing skills we have learned this year.
In Maths, we have been working hard on securing everything we’ve learned this year. We have been working on problem solving, word problems alongside practising our times tables and written methods of calculation.
For our RE topic of Sikhism, we had a fantastic trip to the Gurdwara in Slough. We were blown away by how enthusiastic and respectful the children were during this trip. Their engagement and recall of the key facts they had learned was brilliant.
This term, we have had lots of amazing sporting activities. From swimming lessons to athletics, we have been able to practise a range of different games and skills. We have been so lucky to have been able to go to Pinewood Gym for an excellent afternoon of gymnastics as well as taking to the water at Horseshoe Lake for paddle boarding in July. The children also thrived in their first Junior school Sports Day, showing fantastic sportsmanship.
The children have worked so incredibly hard and we have been so proud of the progress they have made. We’d like to thank you for all your support this year. We hope you have a fantastic, restful break over the Summer holiday.
All the best, The Year 3 Team
News from Year 4
This term has certainly been action packed with lots of exciting activities for the children to experience during their last term in Year 4.
As part of our ‘Animals’ unit in science, the children have been learning about the human digestive system and they investigated what happens to food by making a model of the digestive system. The children were enthralled and disgusted in equal measure as they simulated some bread’s journey from food in a ‘mouth’ to being excreted!
Last month, we arranged for a visit from a local Rabbi, who talked to the children about Judaism, his beliefs and some of the ceremonies and festivals that are celebrated in his religion. He commented to us that the children were ‘impeccably behaved’ and a credit to the school, especially as it was a very hot day when he came to see us.
In June, the children took part in the first ever government times tables check, and we are extremely proud and pleased to announce that on average the children scored a very impressive 20 out of 25, which, considering that they had just 6 seconds to type their answer, is a fantastic result!
Both classes thoroughly enjoyed their visit to Horseshoe Lake to have a go at Stand-Up Paddle Boarding. Those that were a little nervous beforehand did extremely well and had a great time.
As part of our geography and art unit, the children have learnt about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. In order to gain some insight into what it must have been like for him, the children tried to draw a picture whilst laying on their backs under the tables and drawing on paper stuck to the underside of them!
Finally, in pairs, the children made cubes and electronic circuits which they then turned into Iron Man heads with light up eyes. The children really enjoyed this activity with many of them mentioning it in their reports as one of their highlights of the year!
Year 4 Team
News from Year 5
What another busy term Year 5 have had!
In English, we have been studying 2 books: The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan and Boy in the Tower by Polly Ho-Yen. When we started reading The Lost Thing, a mysterious lost creature appeared in our classrooms causing much commotion! We then designed and created our own lost things using junk modelling, wrote character descriptions and finally wrote a prequel to the book, which we presented in the style of Shaun Tan. Whilst reading Boy in the Tower, we wrote a series of newspaper articles about the Blucher disaster and concluded the topic with a TV news bulletin, which we filmed and put together using iMovie.
In Maths, we have been busy consolidating our knowledge from this year’s topics and using it to solve reasoning and word problems. We have been impressed by the children’s perseverance and eagerness to complete challenges. A highlight of the term was our orienteering Maths lesson, where the children had to solve fraction and decimal problems to navigate their way around the course. The combination of Maths and PE proved to be very popular with the children, who were very enthusiastic about the task.
In geography, we have been studying rivers. We started our topic by investigating the path of a river through a series of photos and used subject-specific vocabulary to identify key features. We then used atlases to locate famous rivers of the world, which we labelled on maps. The topic concluded with a fabulous trip to the River Pang at Rushall Farm. This field trip allowed us to experience the river practically – from spotting river features, including erosion and deposition, to making measurements of the river depth and flow in the river. We went pond-dipping where we used a flow map to identify the different creatures. The children enjoyed the experience of wearing waders whilst exploring the river- a refreshing end to a very hot week!
On Monday 4th July, we had a fantastic trip to Wellington College as part of our local history study. Mrs Jones gave us an informative tour of the school, including the Chapel where we had to spot various elements in the stained-glass windows. We learnt a lot about the life of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, and performed a biography of his life back at school.
Other highlights of this term have included a visit to Pinewood Gym; swimming at Harmanswater; a Maths Challenge at Luckley House School; paddle boarding at Horseshoe Lake and a fire safety talk from Crowthorne Fire and Rescue.
It has been a thoroughly enjoyable year this year and we would like to take the opportunity to thank the children for all of their hard work and the parents for their ongoing support of the school. Have a well-deserved break over the holidays.
Year 5 Team
News from Year 6
We have had a fantastic Summer Term which built up to the final SATs exams. We were extremely proud of how the children tackled these exams and showed many of the Oaklands Mindset qualities. They all worked exceptionally hard in the run up to the exams and gave their best efforts throughout the week. We could not have asked for more.
In English, we have spent the term studying the book The Nowhere Emporium by Ross Mackenzie. The book is a fantasy novel about the adventures of Daniel Holmes who time travels with a mystical shop. Within the shop, rooms of wonders are created by using imagination. As part of making the story come alive, we turned our book corners into the Nowhere Emporium, filling it with many interesting objects. For our final piece of written work, the children chose and wrote about an adventure in their own created wonder.
Following SATs, we moved onto a project to house the local gnome population – Gnome Homes! The project covers a range of mathematical skills, such as shapes and measures, sequencing, and calculations. The children needed to use their problem solving and reasoning skills to solve a series of tasks that followed on one from the other.
Inspired by their enjoyable trip to Legoland and their electricity topic in Science, the children designed and constructed their own fairground rides as part of a DT project. They firstly had to measure and saw their own wood to create a jinx frame to form the base. They then had to add all the electrical components and decorate it to make it into a themed ride. This project was aided by our new DT/ICT topic – Crumble. Crumble uses software programming to control switches and sensors to turn on lights and buzzers.
As a fun-filled event for the end of the year, each class throughout the school went to Horseshoe Lake to try out paddle boarding. Year 6 were extremely lucky with the weather as it was some of the hottest days so far this year. During our time on the lake, we played lots of games and some of us spent more time in the water than on the board!
The final event of the Year 6 calendar was of course the Leavers’ play – The Pirates of the Curry Bean. The children have absolutely loved performing the play and have excelled themselves, with many of them taking on new roles at the last minute.
They have been a fantastic year group and we will miss them very much. We wish them all the best as they move on to their new adventures at secondary school.
Year 6 Team
Other News From Around The School
Crowthorne Flower Festival
As part of Crowthorne Carnival, we took part in the Flower Festival with our fantastic piece being organised and created by Mr Hopley, who leads gardening sessions with the children every week. The children produced some brilliant artwork to support the vision of ‘The Longest Journey’ showcasing key events during the Queen’s reign. We are very lucky to have Mr Hopley’s support as a school to develop the children’s love of gardening and produce wonderful displays like this for the local community.
Summer Self-Care
The summer holidays offer an opportunity to recharge, but some young people may find themselves struggling without the structure and support of school.
The Anna Freud Centre have created ‘Self-Care Summer’ packs for primary and secondary schools, featuring a range of creative activities based on self-care strategies which other young people have found useful in helping them stay mentally healthy.
Primary-aged activities include ideas for spending time with friends, animals and pets, mindfulness, sport, drawing or painting, and writing things down.
There are also suggestions for school staff. Adults who look after others need to look after themselves too. 😊
Local Community Information / Activities and Events
For information on activities and events taking place within our local area including an “Identify the Trees” competition and a consultation which is being launched by Wokingham Borough Council into their latest Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP) click here.