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As usual please log on to the Parent Portal and remind yourself of all the important updates and messages that have been posted this week.
Note from our Head
Dear Oakfield families,
The Year 6 children have been enjoying talks by a number of high-profile speakers as part of their Diploma. In just the last couple of weeks that's included actor and director Alice Lowe, rugby star Toby Flood and conservationist Professor Dawn Scott. The children were incredibly engaged, listened attentively and asked very thoughtful questions to help understand our speakers' career paths and the pros and cons to their industries.
Clearly Year 6s are some way off entering the world of work(!), and interests and personalities will naturally change over the years, but we find our Diploma is a very important milestone in getting children to begin to think about what they may wish to do later in life. What do they enjoy? What are they most passionate about? What do they wish to continue to develop outside of school and at their secondary school? It's not about closing off options, but also thinking about options and professions they may not even know about. What we pride ourselves on at Oakfield is instilling the right values and transferable skills so that no matter what the children try their hand at they are well-placed to succeed and make the most of the world of opportunity that awaits them.
Thank you so much to all those who are securing and scheduling these incredibly interesting speakers and we hope the children are getting suitably inspired!
Have lovely weekends everyone,
Moyra Thompson
SMOOTHIE BIKE
Both the Prep and Pre-Prep children got to enjoy making their own smoothies through their own hard cycling! By turning the wheels they blended the fruit and enjoyed their drink afterwards!
BIRTHDAY SPOTLIGHT
We have 2 weeks of Birthday Spotlights to catch up on. And aren't they doing well!
Virtual Schools Fair
Oakfield Prep supporting our families for 11+
Thank you to the Y3-Y5 families who joined our first ever Virtual Schools Fair with 14 fantastic secondary schools all presenting themselves as just some of the wonderful leaver destinations available to Oakfield children. Special thanks to those schools who recorded special videos just for the Fair including interviews with some ex-Oakfield children. It was lovely to see some familiar faces!
YEAR 6: OAKFIELD DIPLOMA
We are sharing lots of things about the Oakfield Diploma on our social media platforms - especially Twitter and Instagram - that aren't on the newsletter. So get following us!
And Year 6 parents and carers can tag us @OakfieldPrep and use the hashtag #OakfieldDiploma2021 to show how their children have been engaging with the subjects and activities which are part of the Diploma.
What amazing talks we have had the last couple of weeks from actor and director Alice Lowe, Wildlife Conservationist Professor Dawn Scott and England and Newcastle rugby star Toby Flood! We hope they have inspired the children and broadened the horizons of what is possible to achieve with the right amount of application, hard work and sheer passion!
YEAR 4
"We had to ride the bike to make the blender work. It was a little hard for me because I couldn’t reach the pedals! I loved the smoothie with banana, orange and passion fruit" Ella
"I enjoyed riding the bike and the teachers helped me out. I loved the orange, banana and passion fruit smoothie, it was delicious!" Kenzie
"My favourite flavour was apple, banana and strawberry because of the taste" Elijah
YEAR 3
Maths
In Year 3, we have been learning to order fractions with different denominators. Mr Meza divided cakes into halves, quarters, thirds and eighths to show that as the denominator gets bigger, the size of the piece got smaller!
Science
In Science this week, Year 3 were making rocks! The children used different flavoured starburst sweets to squash together layers to simulate making sedimentary rock, then they used dictionaries to apply pressure to simulate making metamorphic rock, then they heated and cooled it back down to symbolise making igneous rock! Real rocks can take millions of years to form but we managed to create our 'rocks' in one afternoon!
YEAR 2
Year 2 had fun working with fractions through practical methods.
“I know what 2/4 and ¾ is!” Rinad
“When I share 4, we each get 2”, Jacob O
“I can write three quarters as a fraction”, Anna
The children are understanding equivalent fractions too!
“If I fold my paper I can see 2/4 is the same as ½!” Zara
The children had great fun having a go on the ‘Smoothie Bike’! They had to pedal in order for the fruit to be blended. The faster they peddled the smoother their drink would be!
In ICT Year 2 are continuing to enjoy working with the program, Scratch. The children are programming their own interactive stories and animations.
These are our lovely Maasai Mara necklaces we made and designed. We were inspired by patterns and colours from Kenya.
This week Year 2 really enjoyed being creative with clay, they used their careful hands to pinch the sides. This creative length and width. The children then made beautiful indents to show patterns. They were very imaginative. We look forward to seeing how they turn out when we have sealed and painted them too.
In ICT Year 2 got to have a play with Scratch Junior. We are already very confident with Scratch 3 so this was a chance to trial our skills in a new app. The children used the sound function to create sound effects for roaring dragons and leaping lizards.
In English Year 2 have been creating Placards for our Protests as inspired from the Crayons that Quit! The drama was impressive with skills ranging from acting, to sound effects to artistic props. Well done Year 2!
YEAR 1
Year 1 have been exploring fractions in Maths. They solved the problem to share their jam sandwich into quarters so that each person had an equal part!
UPPER FOUNDATION
Dear Parents/Carers,
We’ve had a very busy week in Upper Foundation! We loved seeing the children in their fabulous costumes on Wednesday for Once Upon a Time Day! We are enjoying looking at different fairy tales and have been focusing on story settings this week. We have looked at lots of different fairy tale settings and we chose one for our own character to live in. We described it using lots of interesting adjectives. Next week we will begin to plan a story for our characters using a story map.
We have also been finding ways to make 10. We used our fingers and Numicon to begin learning about number bonds to ten. The focus for next week in Maths is time. We will be looking at o’clock and half past, as well as talking about days of the week, months of the year, the passing of time through a day, and how long it takes to complete different activities, so they can begin to understand what is meant by terms like minute, second and hour.
We were inspired by the illustrations in Julain is a Mermaid and created our own beautiful watercolour creations!
We also had our vision tests and the smoothie bike! The bike was a little too big for some of the children, but they managed to work the peddles with their arms instead!
Finally, we would like to say a huge thank you to the parents for 100% of the children having raincoats in their bags this week!
With thanks,
The Upper Foundation Team
NURSERY
What a wonderfully busy few weeks in the Nursery…
We learned all about Paddington Bear and the countries he visited, then we made lovely marmalade sandwiches. We spread the marmalade – and then we got to eat it! Yum!
We went on a Bear Hunt, singing:
“We’re going on a Bear Hunt,
We’re going to catch a big one,
What a beautiful day!
We’re not scared.”
We practised our balancing and climbing skills in Gymnastics!
We made sure we tried to put on our own shoes.
We used the interactive whiteboard to show off our knowledge.
We read our favourite books.
We loved playing in the sand.
ART
Look at these AMAZING creative examples of perspective in photography in and around Oakfield!
SPORT
House Cross-Country
Year 2 enjoyed the sunshine on Rosendale playing fields to take part in House Cross Country and represent their houses with much pride and lots of support from the sidelines!
Oakfield Bake Off
Thank you to you all for embracing Crazy Hair Day with such enthusiasm last week.
Our next Fundraising event is a virtual affair which only requires a simple click of your mouse or tap of your phone...it's The Great Oakfield Bake Off.
Our Year 6 Leavers have been tasked with immortalising an Oakfield memory in a 'baked' form.
In the absence of being able to sample their mouthwatering creations, please let your imaginative tastebuds run wild and click on the creations you think are worthy of commendation.
We're sure you will be wowed by their creativity and skill. So please go ahead and indulge in a sugary feast with your eyes!
Your support will help them raise funds for their all important send-off from Oakfield; the Year 6 Big Wave Goodbye.
HOUSE POINTS
House point this week are closer than ever, so you are doing a fantastic job, well done!
Remember the teachers are always looking for reasons to give you house points:
Are you following our 6C's?
Have you got the right uniform? Art apron? raincoat? school shoes?
Is your hair tied back?
Are you using your initiative?
Are you using your best effort?
Could you be more helpful and considerate?
All these and more will earn you house points and help you team win the trophy at the end of the year, which is only seven weeks away (excluding half term!)
The house points for this week are as follows:
4th Webster 884
3rd Pearsall 947
2nd Ruskin 958
1st Baird 976
Good Luck everyone!
Credits:
Created with images by silviarita - "raspberry blueberry smoothies" • diapicard - "birthday cake candles" • JillWellington - "amusement carousel amusement park" • derwiki - "palace london parliament" • MiVargof - "brownie pie dessert" • cocoparisienne - "sütterlin handwriting typography" • Pexels - "bread sandwich food" • Comfreak - "book landscape nature" • FeeLoona - "child tower building blocks" • shbs - "music show concert" • garageband - "abstract art background" • anncapictures - "tartan track athletics track and field" • moshehar - "step architecture outdoors"