Oak Trees

Summer Term Second-Half Theme : Language

Summer Term Theme: Transport and Trade

Celebrations for the winners of the Solar Toy Design Competition

Following the decision of a panel of judges from Belltown Power, a group of Solar experts from Wimborne St Giles were invited to join a fun filled day at Emmanuel Middle school. Our winners had already shown their capabilities in designing a Solar powered toy. Now they would match their skills with other local children to design, test and race Solar powered cars. Thanks to Tracy from Solar Education and a team of Year 7 experts from the Emmanuel School Science Department, the end of term celebration went brilliantly well. The only slight disappointment was the English weather which prevented the timed races taking place to close the event. Instead, each team has an opportunity to race the cars back at their own school and enter timings for the final winners to be announced.

We want to thank everyone who took part, with a special Thank You to Tracy. Tracy has been working hard behind the scenes before and after each event to make sure that everything went smoothly and to help us develop our understanding of Solar Power in our world today and to be a part of the project in Verwood, with Science and Geography opportunities outside the classroom.

Workshop to Design a Solar Powered Toy

It was an exciting day when we welcomed Tracy, who works with the Solar Farm in our local area. Previously we met Tracy at the farm and found out all about it. Later she came to school to help us calculate how much electricity we use and to start to think how we can all reduce our carbon footprint. On her latest visit we were able to share all we have been learning in Science about electrical circuits and to explore how these are used in toys that get their power from the sun.

We had a great morning evaluating a range of toys from simple hand-held insects that managed to vibrate in our hands, to cars, roundabouts and musical boxes that came to life when the sun shone. If we looked closely we could see where wires, motors and other intricate parts were connected to solar panels somewhere on the gadgets.

Now we have the exciting task of designing our own toys, making sure we give detailed notes about what materials it will be made of and exactly how the solar power will work. Later this term some of us will be joining Tracy for a busy day of Solar powered buggy building! Here are some photos to give you an idea of our experiments...

Tag Rugby Festival

How quickly the Summer Term sports events come around. This year our first festival was to play in the Wimborne Pyramid Tag rugby festival, hosted by QE school. It was a pity that the weather did not try to be like Summer but thanks to the loan of a gazebo from our PTA, at least we had shelter from the rain and drizzle between matches.

We played a series of games throughout the morning and play-offs in the afternoon, winning or drawing every match. Our hard work and learning of rugby skills and rules was evident throughout, great determination was shown by all.

On return to school the children gave many enthusiastic reports of the day. One told us that scoring a try was the best bit, someone said that teamwork was what they would remember. Keira was thoughtful before she answered, 'Just being there'....How grateful we are to all who organised the event, behind the scenes and on the day, including the QE Sports Ambassadors who helped to run the event and the dedication of all our families who came to cheer us on.

Our final session at school each Friday is a celebration worship. Miss Hattersley presented each child with a certificate to remember their involvement and achievement in such a huge local event.

Flute Recital

Flute Recital, St Patrick's Day, 2016

To conclude our recent flute lessons we were delighted to welcome so many family and friends to a short recital on Thursday afternoon. Our performance started with a welcome to Mrs H. Reeves from Dorset Music service who has been teaching Oak Tree Class for a 10 week period linked to a National initiative, 'Music for All'. Next, a number of children introduced the skills we have shared. It was soon time to play and our audience were able to hear:

Bangers and Mash

Hot Cross Buns

Cowboy Swing

Merrily We Roll Along.

It was a resounding success with children showing perfect posture, good tone and an ability to follow the music notation in front of us. The afternoon ended with a presentation of flowers as a big thank you to Mrs Reeves for helping us learn one of the trickiest instruments available for our age group.

'Fly on the wall' morning

'Fly on the Wall' Maths morning in Oak Tree Class.

Each term we reserve a special date in the diary for parents and carers to join our first session of the morning. After our regular spelling group work, parents could come and be a 'fly on the wall' for our Maths session. Mums and Dads soon found themselves becoming integers and helping children to understand the vocabulary of maths. Next, we returned to our current topic on multiplication and division but with a twist... We were learning about how our times table knowledge can help us in real life situations. Using an interesting range of products, from milk cartons to flower pots and Lego bricks we were able to describe what we had in front of us using multiplication. One large flower pot was 4 x taller than the mini flower pot that we use as a shaker for dice in our Maths games. Interestingly, we even had a giant hot cross bun which proved to be 6 x the weight of a regular sized hot x bun. These investigations helped us see the scale of one thing in comparison to another and gave us plenty to think about.

Netball Champions!

The Spring Term Netball Festival hosted by Cranborne Middle School.

An excited team of Oak Tree children set off for a local festival to try out our team skills, Working Together, Sharing Together and Growing Together. We were met by a helpful team of Sports Leaders from Cranborne Middle school who took us through a warm-up and helped to umpire our games.

For the first time in a long time we got through to the final and won!

 Oak Tree class have been busy trying to 'Get caught reading...' This challenge has seen children reading in some weird and wonderful places, out in the fields, on a rocking horse, and in the pulpit at church. When a skip was delivered to school following recent refurbishment work we couldn't resist the photo opportunity. The children have come up with the slogan that we should not skip our reading time as it is so important. Each child has now been issued with a voucher to spend for World Book Day, either on a special book printed for the event and suitable for their age range, or towards a more expensive book of their choice.

 On Thursday 3rd March the school gates opened as usual but waiting to come in were a magical collection of book characters. Mr Willy Wonka was here, with bars of chocolates (one containing a golden ticket). Other characters from Roal Dahl were close behind including George and Danny from other books where children are the main characters. Fantastic Mr Fox came too, how clever that he showed us what had happened to his tail. Many characters were from much loved tales such as Alice, Mary Poppins and a lone Dalmatian. Some characters came from modern children's literature, Tracy Beaker, Mighty Mart and Melissa. Several characters appeared from the Harry Potter stories and found three of the staff had the same idea! The head teacher had disappeared down a rabbit hole for the day and the class teacher came as Mary Berry!

We had a really exciting day in school. Perhaps the best part is knowing that with our well stocked library and class resources, every day can be book day. See latest news for more pictures.

We are Dragonologists!

This term we are  learning how to use the language of information texts. We have enjoyed studying 'dragonology' and finding out all about these rare and beautiful creatures. Click the pages below to find out more! :)

Year 8 Maths ambassadors visit!

We welcomed a return visit by Mr Hilder and the team of Maths ambassadors from Cranborne Middle School. A challenge was set to solve a number puzzle involving a series of consecutive numbers arranged in a 'V' formation. Some of us even tried more when we got home...