We are sorry to say that our Oaken Grove Crossing Patroller, Wendy, will be leaving us at the end of this academic year due to relocating to another part of the country.

Wendy has not only kept our families safe to and from school but she is also the friendly and cheery face on the way to school; come rain or shine.

As Wendy is not employed directly by our schools, we have approached her employer at RBWM to get more information on appointing her replacement. More information will follow when we have an answer.

For now, if you cross Oaken Grove, make sure to say hi to Wendy and help make her last few weeks here enjoyable; she has loved being part of our community!

Wow, what a fun packed few weeks our Bumblebees, Caterpillars and Dragonflies have had! We have been continuing our project on 'Journeys' this term and have been reading the story Paddington Bear, talking about the exciting journeys that he has been on! Having learnt that Paddington Bear always has a marmalade sandwich kept under his hat for emergencies, the children were all delighted to find out that they were going to 'have a go' at making their own sandwich just like Paddington! The children made one marmalade sandwich and one jam sandwich, talking through the steps they needed to go through to make the perfect sandwich! Before the children tasted it, they predicted which sandwich they thought they might prefer. Following this, we recorded their favourite on a class tally chart. Jam was the winner for all three classes although many of the children have said that they now liked marmalade after trying it with their friends! 

Our Early Years have been learning about some famous explorers such as David Attenborough and Ellen MacArthur. Inspired by their learning, the children became explorers in our woodland area! The children have been reading maps, building boats, using binoculars and they even worked as a team to build dens outside. This was a real challenge but also great fun! The children showed such great collaboration and perseverance! 

We were very lucky to have the arrival of our caterpillars a couple of weeks ago. The children have been learning about the life-cycle of a butterfly and many saw the butterflies hatch out of their cocoons which was fascinating! The children have been butterfly spotting in the woodland and also observing and discussing other insects that they can see using magnifying glasses and non-fiction books. The children came up with some fitting names for our class butterflies and we waved each one goodbye as we let them free into the world! 

This week our Early Years children have been learning all about the coast. The children were enthusiastic to share and discuss their own experiences of visits to the coast and created their own postcards for their family member or friend. They also created some beautiful watercolour paintings using techniques they have learnt such as pointillism. It is wonderful to see the children taking good care as they paint with accuracy and creativity. We also had a listen to coastal sounds and imagined we were by the sea! We then used our previous leaning about vehicles to discuss how we might travel to the coast by land, sea and air. 

Our Bumblebee, Caterpillar and Dragonflies were excited to welcome their grown up's in to the classroom on Monday 9th and Friday 13th June. The children have been learning all about London as part of their project and their challenge was to create their very own London Landmark. On the Monday  afternoon the children built their Landmarks with their grown up's and/or teachers using a range of techniques and materials. We were SO impressed with the thought, teamwork and creativity that went into designing and assembling the Landmarks. Throughout the week the children refined, painted and decorated their models ready to display them on Friday 13th at the Early Years London Landmark Exhibition. Both events were a huge success and a wonderful opportunity to work together and celebrate the children's learning throughout their project on 'Journeys'. The London Landmarks looked truly AMAZING so thank you to everyone that was involved! 

Key Stage 1 were visited by Zoolab last week. They started their class workshops in Year 1, as they have continued to explore how animals adapt to their environment in order to survive, such as meerkats and elephants. Lottie from Zoolab brought some amazing animals with her!  She brought along with her Pip the tortoise, Darth Vader the scorpion, Filip the Madagascan hissing cockroach and even a phython!  She told us so many interesting facts about each animal and the habitat in which they are naturally found in.  We had the chance to ask lots of interesting questions and observe the animals up close.

Then Lottie made her way to Year 2 to deliver the workshop: Oceans. We embarked on a submarine which took us right to the bottom of the ocean! We explored each layer of the ocean with the help of Finley the fish who kept us company on our exciting submarine ride. We also explored a range of creatures related to animals we would find in each layer which included a python, cockroach, scorpion and a bearded dragon?. We were able to touch, stroke and hold some of the animals. The Zoolab Ranger was very impressed with our vast knowledge about our oceans and the animals we find living in the different layers.

This term our project so far has focused around explorers who have been on adventures across different continents. So far we have looked at Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Karen Darke, Robyn Davidson, Ibn Battuta and Sir Edmund Hillary. We have also focused on The Gambia and looked at the similarities and differences between it and The UK, including how water is used.  We have also been learning and retelling the story of Meerkat Mail and adapting it in order to write our own stories about an animal travelling around the world. 

In science we have continued to investigate animals that have adapted to their environment, including meerkats, elephants and tigers. We really enjoyed learning about how these animals are so suited to their habitats. 

We have also been exploring food miles and where different foods come from. We really enjoyed making our own fruit salads using fruit from across the world! We thought they were delicious!

In maths we have been focusing on numbers to 100 by applying what we already know about numbers to 10.  We have been investigating how to partition 2-digit numbers into tens and ones and placing the numbers from 1-100 on a number line by making our own. We have had lots of fun being creative and using our classroom resources to show our learning!

In outdoor learning we have loved the sunshine! We had great fun using our water tray and enjoying our new and improving outdoor space! We have loved spotting the tadpoles in our school pond and are eagerly waiting to see when we might see a frog!

After half term we held our Wonderful Water! Magnificent Middle, focusing on science.  Following on from all that we have learnt about the layers of the ocean we researched and designed our own food chains and reflected on how each plant or animal in the chain is necessary for the health of our oceans.

Next, we considered a range of animals, plants and objects in order to group them into those that are alive, dead or have never been alive.  We had some interesting discussions and used the acronym 'MRS GREN' to help us think about the seven life processes.

Finally, we conducted a fair test experiment to determine which material would help ice to melt the fastest.  We made our predictions and then timed how long each one took using felt, a plastic bag, tin foil, paper and cotton wool to wrap the ice in.

On the 6th June we celebrated World Oceans Day with a special Zoom - read more about this further on.

In maths we have been busy learning how to use a range of positional language to describe directions and the positions of objects. 

Over the last few weeks, we have been focusing on our Inventor Sticky Knowledge and exploring different ways to join materials together to support us in our design, make and testing boats activity. This included the flange, L brace, split pins, tape, glue, tabs and many more!

In conjunction with being busy boat builders we have been learning about how boats have been used throughout history. We started by learning about HMS Titanic and how it now provides a great habitat for marine life in the North Atlantic Ocean and also how boats were used to help rescue troops from Dunkirk during World War Two.

Yesterday, we tested out our boats on the English Channel (a.k.a a paddling pool!!) and evaluated how well our designs, use of joins and waterproof materials had worked. It was great fun!

We are now SO excited about our trip to the beach on Monday!