Follow Us
Email Us
Call Us
Co Durham, DL16 7DB
theoaks@durhamlearning.net
Latest News From the School Blog
9H continued our topic of first aid. We recapped cuts and bruises, then moved on to learn about how to treat burns. We watched a video from St John’s Ambulance, then role-played treating staff members.
Once again, 9H proved themselves to be fantastic first aiders, will calm treatment with smiles all round!
I am delighted to share with you all this post celebrating our DofE Gold Award achiever Aaron!
He worked through his Gold Award over 2.5 years in 6th form, overcoming many personal challenges along the way. On completing his award Aaron was invited to Buckingham Palace to celebrate his achievement along with other Gold Award participants.
 
It was a fablous day for Aaron. This was his first trip to London and to be invited inside the Palace grounds, see Prince Edward, who gave a great speech congratulating all the attendees was an experience we are sure he will never forget. He took a walk around the beautifully kept palace gardens, enjoyed a cup of tea and a special cupcake and a game of nought and crosses. There were inspirational publc figures talking at various points throughout the event and the Royal Marine Regimental band entertained us, playing tunes from musical theatre shows (one of Aarons passions!)
The Duke of Edinburghs Award scheme is totally inclusive and the latest mission ” Youth Without Limits” is now well underway and proving that the scheme is open to all who wish to take part. It is a challenging scheme, however extremely rewarding and a great accolade to have on a CV!
We are incredibly proud of our first Gold Award holders at The Oaks and look forward to celebrating more in the future!
We hope you enjoy looking through these pictures of such a special day.
Mrs Irvine
  
   
   
   
   
 
  
  
  
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
  
This term in Preparation for Adulthood, we have been learning about first aid. This week we focused on identifying and treating bruises and cuts. Students all had a go locating injuries on screen, and then moved to treat the staff’s injuries.
Bedside manner was a definite 10/10, and all injured staff were well treated and smiling by the end!
We continued our work on forces and air resistance today, and followed up our experiment of creating the most air resistance for a parachute to creating the least. We looked at how engineers design planes that are streamlined and aerodynamic to reduce the air resistance acting upon them. Mrs Dove set the class a task to see who could make to most aerodynamic paper plane. Pupils were provided with some visual stepped instructions to follow if required, but the task was open ended to allow pupils to create their own unique designs also. We of course followed this up with a challenge to see who could fly their plane the furthest. Easten was our overall champion with an outstanding streamlined and efficient design!
As part of our Safety 999 topic in PFA, 7T took a trip to Spennymoor Police Station.
We explored custody cells, equipment and even got to start the sirens on the police van.
Everyone had a great time.
Please see the attached letter which includes a link for parents to add their comments.Ofsted Letter to parents
Following on from our exploration of air resistance, 10s spent today looking at how air resistance can be useful to slow objects down. We looked at this through the use of parachutes. Pupils were tasked with creating a range of parachutes. These could be varying shapes, sizes and created from a range of materials. We then tested them out to see which group had created the one that fell the slowest ( ie the one with the most air resistance acting upon it.) Mr Pilmoor kindly helped us out with this by bringing out the cherry picker, so that we could drop them from the highest point possible in school.
As you can see some groups created some fantastic designs and could talk confidently around the Science that explained how some worked better than others. a great job done 10s!
Throughout the last term, 8W have been learning about the people that help us in the community. To see this in a real life context, 8W had visited the Spennymoor police station to see our local police force.
8W learned about the roles that the police force have and how they can help us. We got to look around the cells and police cars, they even let us turn on the sirens!
8W had a great time and we look forward to another visit from our local PCSO.
On Friday, 9H took part in bikeability. We all had a fantastic time!
7T had a great afternoon today showing off their skills and taking part in Bikeability.
This half-term, 9H are working through the science topic of Rocks and Fuels. This week we examined different rocks and labelled their properties. We discussed colours as well as rough and smooth, bigger and smaller.
We introduced the rock cycle, and are ready to explore how the three different kinds of rock (sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic) are created next week.
As part or our NOCN Independent living accreditation, some of our year 10 pupils have been completing a topic around the importance or having hobbies and enjoying leisure time within our lives, to support positive mental health and well-being. As part of this Mrs Dove has asked a number of guests into school to talk about their hobbies and the services they offer to our young people in the area. First up we had Catherine Batty join us today, who is a Scout leader, and has been attending the scouts groups for the last 15 years having won many awards, and visited many countries (taking part in Scouts events with thousands of others from all over the world!) along the way.
Catherine started by giving us a short talk about how she got into scouting and the sorts of activities they would complete.
The pupils then got to see the sort of items she would take on her travels and expeditions and got to try some of these out.
Catherine showed the pupils her uniform and discussed the badges she had displayed.
The pupils then got to see how to set up a one man tent and had a competition to see which team could put it up the most efficiently.
Finally the pupils had the opportunity to learn some camp songs around the ‘fire’.
Our young people thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon and would like to thank Catherine for joining us today!
