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Latest News From the School Blog
Pupils in 11D have been studying the topic of Time in maths lessons recently. We have worked on understanding and using language associated with time, before sequencing the days of the week and the months of the year. Today we began looking at clocks. We were all very confident at reading and showing “o’ clock”, so tomorrow we are going to progress to “half past”.
Continuing our accreditation work on the importance of hobbies, the year 10 Independent Living group took part in a ‘ gardening for pleasure’ session. John Courtley joined us and showed us how to clear and weed areas, plant smaller plants in our raised planters and large shrubs along the boarders of our sensory garden. The pupils all got well involved and learnt how to distinguish between weeds and flowers. Thanks go to John and Sara Courtley for providing the new plants and giving up their own time to support us with this. Our pupils had a great time whilst learning some new skill sets.
We are delighted to share the Social Value Certificate that our Y10, Y11 and 6th form Duke of Edinburghs Award students have received in recognition of the hours they put in during their volunteering section of their awards.
The hours put in are then equated to a financial value that would have been earned if the work undertaken was paid. You can see this year we have put in another fantastic effort!
The students worked very hard over the winter months undertaking beach cleans along the Durham coast and various environmental tasks with a project called Earthworks such as tree planting, river fly studies, land surveys, plug planting, visitor research, maintenance of historical gardens, leaky dam building and litter picking!
We are very proud of all the students efforts. Well done all!
North of England - The Oaks Secondary School -Social Value Cert 2023
Some of 10s made the most of the fabulous weather this week, and took their maths lesson outside, where they worked on their use of directional and positional language, to play an engaging and interactive game (Who doesn’t love a game of Twister?!) We of course put our own spin on the traditional game, by altering the board to include a range of additional directional language, including compass points. Pupils could clearly and confidently state directions for their peers, whilst also following those offered by their peers. Such a fun lesson!
Over the last few weeks of last term, our students and staff have been developing projects based around the topic of Eco Schools. This was part of the Rights Respecting Schools curriculum delivered in Family Groups, which is one lesson a week when the students are split across the school into mixed groups containing Y7 to Vi Form students. I had the job of awarding a prize to the best project, but the standard across the school has been fantastic, along with the fact that the breadth of areas, styles and creativity have been so diverse and brilliant, that prizes are being awarded to the top 3 projects. There were 3D models, comic books, presentations (with dances), poster displays, booklets and insect hotels! Have a look at some of the photos below and see if you can decided which ones may be in the top 3…
Mr Frew
This week within our Independent Living group we continued our work on hobbies. After having Catherine Batty in school to talk to us about Scouting, we decided as a group we would like to try outdoor survival techniques. We chose to focus on outdoor shelters. We worked in two teams and were provided with only rope and tarpaulin. Pupils had to solve the issue of how to keep the tarpaulin off the ground but low enough to provide shelter. Both teams were successful by the end of the session!
Our new science topic is all about scientific enquiry. This week we explored the world of air travel! We listened to the story of how aeroplanes were created before fashioning our own out of paper.
Next, time to test!
This morning 9H made the trip to the Farooq E Azam Mosque in Stockton.
We started off with the prep work before hand, making sure we all knew what we would be doing.
Next, we headed for the minibus and made our way to Stockton. Upon arrival, we listened to our hosts as they explained everyone is to remove their shoes before entering the Mosque. We were then shown through to the adjoining room with seats and taps, where we heard how Muslims believe they should be purified before entering the Mosque, by washing their hands, feet, arms, mouth and head.
Next we went into one of their two prayer rooms. We watched a video explaining the 5 pillars of Islam, before moving to the next room to learn about how Muslims pray.
We were all fascinated by their carpet with individual prayer mats printed in.
We all enjoyed listening about the different physical movements involved in prayer – and some of us had a go at these movements ourselves.
A huge thank-you to the Farooq E Azam Mosque for hosting us!
Today in 7T, we began learning about money in maths. Students began the topic by looking for treasure in the sand. They all worked hard to find each coin and match them to their coin map.
