Oaks Primary Academy Newsletter
Issue Ten 11/06/2021
Message from Mrs Tipple
Dear all,
I hope you have enjoyed the lovely weather that has continued since the half term break. Following on from that, I have some reminders to continue to ensure the safety and well-being of all children:
Weather - Please remember to apply sunscreen to your children before they come to the academy and to send in a water bottle and sun hat if required. Conversely, sometimes the sun can be shining but the air can be cold so be mindful of whether a coat is required or not.
Gates - Please consider the language you are using when standing near either of the entrance gates to the academy. You may think you are being discrete and that only your group can hear but often the pupils hear some very inappropriate (and sometimes distressing) language. Also, please do not bring extra members of your family or friends to the gates with you to adhere to current guidelines. IMPORTANT - Ensure you have full control of your children. They should be with you at all times and must not run down the vehicle entrance drive.
Uniform (including PE kit) - We are incredibly grateful to you all for sending your children in looking so smart in their uniform and PE kits. The children are really proud of how they look and collectively look a fantastic team. We will continue to work together on this and are currently looking into good quality recycled uniform sale.s.. The Government recently passed a new law on the cost of school uniforms. Parents still have to buy all parts of the prescribed uniform but(rightly so) the law is there to ensure schools work to keep costs of uniform at a minimum and quality at a premium. It impacts mostly on secondary schools but we are always conscious of the importance of this. We have listened to feedback from parents in the past and worked with Brigade to improve both the cost and quality of our uniform and have minimal items with a logo so that special offers on other items can be taken advantage of.
School Standards Minister Nick Gibb said:
"School uniforms are important in establishing the right ethos in a school. They also help to improve behaviour and a sense of belonging and identity. But we want to be sure they are affordable for parents."
Have a lovely weekend in even more glorious sunshine🌞
Stars of the week for 11th June 2021
Ducklings
Year R
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
Year 6
Congratulations to all of our fantastic winners of Star of the Week. They have each demonstrated our Learner Profile Attributes in abundance and are deserving winners. We cannot wait to see who will win the awards next week!
PE Update
The children at Oaks have leapt straight back into PE. It had been fantastic to see children using skills learnt in PE across the curriculum, even at breakfast club and lunchtime.
Year 6 have had an extremely busy start to the new term. They have taken part in sessions with Dom from FSF, the daily mile and had their first swimming lesson since pre-covid.
Well done to all!
Mrs Palmer
Ducklings Update
Ducklings have had an excellent week back, the children have returned with such positive attitudes. We have particularly enjoyed being in the outside area in sunny weather this week.
Please remember to provide a hat, a bottle of water and to apply sun cream at the beginning of the day. If your child is staying for the full day, please provide sun cream to come into school to be reapplied throughout the day. Although it is warm, the children will need to continue wearing appropriate footwear, we spend lots of time outside being active so shoes need to be supportive with a front and back.
Many of the children have enjoyed construction using the woodwork bench this week. We use protective goggles and learn how to use the tools safely.
Some of the children worked together to make a chalk obstacle course. We used our conferencing skills to think about how we can represent movements with symbols. Here you can see the symbol for turn!
The sun has provided some great learning opportunities for Ducklings. We discovered that umbrellas are not just useful for rainy days, they can be used to created shade too!
Reception Update
We have started the term by exploring our new inquiry about how we can express ourselves. We spoke about all the ways we can communicate and how we communicated and learnt through lockdown. The children could tell me all about communicating through the telephone, laptops and Ipads but were less familiar with communicating through letters and postcards which is understandable in these times. To get the children familiar with the format of letters and postcards, we explored the story 'The Jolly postman'. The children loved seeing who each of the letters were for.
This week in maths we have been exploring, comparing and measuring the height and length of each other and different objects. We have found out who the tallest and shortest person is in the class when we compared our heights. We then used masking tape to see how long we were and measured the masking tape using our feet.
Year 1 Update
Sparrows have settled extremely well back into school life. We have begun or final inquiry of the year 'The Arts can help develop creativity and imagination'. We have started our inquiry by learning what it means to be creative. We have been researching famous inventors and have had a go at recreating iconic inventions and designing our own! We even made a model roller coaster made out paper straws! We have also been linking creativity and imagination to our class text Audrey the Amazing Inventor. Through Audrey, we have linked some learner profile attributes that represent a successful inventor. We believe a fantastic inventor needs to be a risk taker, knowledgeable,a thinker and an inquirer. We have really enjoyed our new central idea this term so far!
Year 2 Update
Blackbird Class have jumped back into learning in this new term. We had an unexpected visitor on Monday and wrote a newspaper article about what happened. Logan's work is below for you to read all about our exciting start to the term!
Alien Invasion by Logan
On Monday 7th June at Oaks Primary Academy, an alien crash landed in Blackbirds Class! Why? No one knows.
The alien left some clues on paper which were written in Maths language so the children had to crack the code. The alien accidentally left slime everywhere too! The code said that the alien needed cold weather to survive as well as fish to eat and salt water to drink. Blackbirds decided it could live in Antarctica because the continent has salt water, cold weather and fish to eat.
Year 3 Update
by Keira, Poppie, Zoe, Madeleine, Gracie and Molly
This week has been busier than ever! The half term holidays just disappeared into thin air faster than you can say the word 'school'! However, this very busy week has been awesome because we got to see our friends and teachers again as well as doing lots of fun learning. We have mainly been learning about different countries and their cultures.
Through our inquiry, some of the countries we have looked at have been: Germany, Romania, Austria and Bulgaria because the River Danube (the second longest river in Europe - 1700 miles) flows through them into the Black Sea. We also looked at Istanbul in Turkey as this is where the main character, Tom, from our book cycled to. We then had agency to choose a country to research in more depth. After completing lots of research, we created a double page information text. We are all really proud of our work and realised that we have been great inquirers and communicators as we had to find answers to our own questions and communicate this information in different ways.
We have also really enjoyed PE this week. We have started to learn about the rules of tennis and how to control a ball!
Year 4 Update
by Lilly, Ellie-May and Tyler
We have had an incredibly busy week in Blue Jay class! We have shown lots of our Learner Profile Attributes and different Approaches to Learning.
We have been thinkers. As part of our central idea about how people can take action and change we have looked at our school environment. We have chosen a few key actions to take.
We are hoping to redesign and give the Oak Room a makeover, encourage more wildlife and minibeasts to make Oaks Primary Academy their home and develop a kitchen garden.
This week we received a reply from Mrs Tipple about our ideas for the Oak Room. She has set us a challenge to help her visualise the space. So we have been drawing our designs and are looking forward to sharing our ideas with her. We would like to encourage more children to use the area, have some quiet spaces and have a variety of activities to do there.
Another space we felt we could improve was the area near the kitchen. We have been tasting salad items to see which veggetables we like and which we were not so keen on. We are then going to try and use this information to decide what we would like to plant in the 'kitchen garden'. We have got different types of lettuce, radishes, spring onions and some tomato plants. We were definitely risk takers when we tried some of the salad items, surprised ourselves and discovered new foods that we like!
We have also been planting sunflowers, sorting the minibeast hotel and we helped to move it. A bug hotel is like a home for bugs, a cosy spot for them. We hope to plant the sunflowers to encourage bees and other insects into the area and use the minibeast hotel!
We have made sure we are focused on our self-management skills to make the most of our learning time and are really developing this skill.
Year 5 Update
This week in Kingfisher class we have been learning about different techniques in tennis with our PE teacher, Mrs Palmer. We participated in many activities that improved our hand and ball skills as well as teamwork. Within our PE and throughout our learning, we have been communicators and risk takers because we supported one another in our mistakes and we communicated effectively to create a positive environment.
Once a week on Tuesday, we take part in a run which supports a charity named the Book Trust. We joined Year 6 to run one lap of Mangravet Recreation Ground in hi-vis jackets to make sure we were seen and safe. The weather was on our side this week, so it made it even more enjoyable!
In Spanish we are feeling far more confident with our conversations and have spent time linking key phrases and speaking in full sentences! This week we learnt how to discuss items of clothing, our preferences and were even able to write the full date in Spanish with no support at all!
We are absolutely loving our class book Holes and are coming towards the climax of the tale, the suspense is gripping and the protagonists face a Mountain to climb (literally and figuratively)!
We have been working with clay to produce both imprints and models of the Yellow Spotted Lizard from our book.
Year 6 Update
We love the coach!
Ready to swim!
In the first week of Term 6, we went for our first swimming lesson together since Year 4! During our first lesson, we were learning the backstroke. It was very different at the leisure centre and there is a new one way system, but we had so much fun being back in the pool! Some of us hadn't been swimming at all since Year 4 and we really had to use our thinking skills to remember what to do! We loved finishing the session dong handstands and other tricks in the water!
Year 6 have started to prepare for our PYP exhibition linked to our new Central Idea: International Mindedness can promote a shared humanity. The Exhibition is something new that each Year 6 class will do in Term 6 every year to showcase their attributes and skills that they have learned throughout their time at Oaks. We are going to make our own groups and each group will come up with a theme they want to inquire into. Then we will present these in an interactive way with our families and our community.
Every Tuesday, Year 6 and Year 5 are going to Mangravet Recreation Ground to walk a mile or more. We are attempting to walk the entire distance from our school to our link school, Sele School in Malawi (7124 miles). The school is not as privileged as we are and we want to support them. The walk’s purpose is to create a fundraiser for the other school as they do not have the sports equipment we have.
PE Days for Years 1 and 6
Just a reminder of the following for this term:
Year 1 will be doing PE on a Friday morning instead of a Thursday morning.
Year 6 will be doing swimming on a Thursday so there will be no PE on a Friday. Year 6 can also wear their PE kit every Tuesday this term as they will be walking to the local park.
SEND
Dear Parents/Carers
You may have been made aware by school or a professional of a service called Kooth. Kooth is designed to support the wellbeing and resilience of young people and is available for 10-25 year olds in Kent. Kooth is running free online parent information sessions in June & July. The sessions are designed to help you understand how Kooth can support your child with their mental health and wellbeing. Each session will cover:
A Presentation on Kooth
A Live tour of the Kooth site
An opportunity for Questions & Answers about Kooth
Kooth provides a safe, secure means of accessing help via the internet. By accessing Kooth, young people can benefit from:
● A free, confidential, anonymous and safe way to receive support online.
● Out of hours’ availability. Counsellors are available from 12noon to 10pm on weekdays and 6pm to 10 pm at weekends, every day of the year on a drop in basis.
● Online Counselling from a professional team of BACP qualified counsellors is available via 1-1 chat sessions or messaging on a drop in basis or via booked sessions.
● Discussion Boards which are all pre-moderated allow young people to access peer to peer support.
● Online Magazine full of moderated articles many of which are submitted by young people offering advice and guidance on a huge range of topics.
● No referral is required. Young people can register for kooth independently at www.kooth.com
Mrs Featherstone
SENDCo
Community Liaison Officer
Dear parents/Carers,
Please find information below for some free online workshops.
Places on these workshops can be booked through Eventbrite via the links provided.
Getting the best out of meetings
This workshop aims to empower parents/carers and young people to confidently participate in education, health, and social care meetings.
You will learn how to:
use good communication skills to influence outcomes
confidently share your views
plan and prepare for meetings
Wednesday 7th July 2021 10.30am – 12.30pm
Eventbrite booking link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/getting-the-best-out-of-meetings-tickets-152335117437
Review Meetings
This workshop aims to empower parents/carers and young people to feel confident in participating and having a say in review meetings.
You will gain an understanding of:
the Educational, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) annual review process
how to prepare for review meetings
what to expect at the annual review of an EHCP
Thursday 17th June 2021 6.30pm – 8pm
Eventbrite booking link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/review-meetings-tickets-152321318163
Mental capacity and decision making post 16
This workshop is for parents/carers, young people and practitioners to understand the changes in decision making for post 16.
Based on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Code of Practice you will gain an understanding of:
young people’s rights to make their own decisions (from year 9 onwards)
The principles of mental capacity
where to get further information
Thursday 24th June 2021 10.30am – 12pm
Wednesday 14th July 2021 6.30pm – 8pm
Eventbrite booking link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decision-making-post-16-and-mental-capacity-tickets-151970017413
Special Educational Needs (SEN) support in the early years, mainstream schools and colleges
This workshop is for parents/carers, young people and practitioners.
Based on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Code of Practice you will gain knowledge and understanding of:
The definition of Special Educational Needs Support
The ‘graduated approach’ to supporting children and young people with SEN
The term ‘reasonable adjustments’
The term ‘best endeavours’
Thursday 8th July 2021 6.30pm – 8pm
Eventbrite booking link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/special-educational-needs-support-in-early-years-schools-and-colleges-tickets-151989658159
Options for Post 16 transition
This workshop is for parents/carers, young people and practitioners to understand options for post 16 transition.
Based on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Code of Practice you will gain an understanding of:
post 16 transition options and the term ‘preparing for adulthood’ and how it starts in year 9
post 16 education and the support that is available in mainstream colleges
the transfer of decision-making rights to young people
Friday 9th July 2021 10:30am – 12pm
Eventbrite booking link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/options-for-post-16-transition-tickets-156251270757
For further information about our workshops, please see our website:
Cashless system for Olive Dining
Thank you to all parents and carers who have logged into My Child At School and paid for their child's school meal. We are aware there are a few teething problems which we are looking into and will revert to those parents in due course.
If you still require log-in details for My Child At School, please contact the school office on office@oaksprimaryacademy.org.uk and these can be emailed to you.
After School Provisions
We have been asked by several parents about recommending an after school provision who can collect from school. We are unable to do this as we do not personally know these groups but we are happy to support any working families who may require after school provisions wherever we can. To help us determine the potential need we are asking parents and carers to complete the survey below in relation to a possible after school provision. If the demand is there, we will ensure we look into this on behalf of our parents and carers.
Please click the link below to complete the survey:
Post-Covid Celebration Day - Wednesday 14th July 2021
On Wednesday 14th July, we will be having a post-covid celebration in school. Further details to follows.
The Academy will close at 2 pm and pupils in Years R - 6 will need to be collected at this time. Details of which gate to collect them tbc. Children in nursery will stay until their usual time of 3:15 pm.
Key Dates for Terms 5 & 6
Please see below key dates for Term 6:
14th June: Class Photos
21st June: Year 6 Reform, Restore and Respect Workshop
12th July: School Reports to go home
14th July: Celebration day Years R-6 finishing at 2 pm
20th July: Last Day of Term
21st July: Inset Day
Labelling School Uniform
Can you please ensure you label ALL of your children's school uniform. This includes the full PE kit. In doing this, it will ensure that we are able to return any lots items to the rightful owner.
Our Nursery has extended its hours!
15 hours
Monday - Friday: 08.45 - 11.45 or 12.15 - 15.15
30 hours
Monday - Friday: 08.45 - 11.45 or 12.15 - 15.15
*Your child can stay for lunchtime activities for a small additional daily cost.