Enjoy the read!

Emma Hooley Headteacher

Dear all,

I hope this newsletter finds you safe and well. It has been an exciting week for the school, because we have finally been able to welcome more students back through our doors. This week Year 10 have returned to school, to meet with staff and begin to re-orientate themselves back in to school life. Next week they will meeting with a number of their class teachers and then lessons will resume for the final three weeks of term. It has been lovely to see them and I am hoping it signals the beginning of some kind of return to ‘normality’, whatever that looks like moving forwards.

To help with this re-orientation, we filmed a virtual tour of the school, looking at the what classrooms and corridors look like and the new processes in place, to ensure, all of the school community, remains safe. You can access the live tour on our website, or by clicking on this link.

I want to take this opportunity, on behalf of all of you, to thank all of my staff. Since lockdown, they have ‘blown me away’ with their resilience, ability to adapt to a whole new way of working and their commitment to supporting all of our students and families, in multiple ways. I am proud of what we have achieved and continue to do so. They are true ‘role models’ to all of our students.

As always, if you would like to discuss anything with me, you can contact me at ehooley@theoaksacademy.co.uk

Ready, Steady, Cook! Year 7 and 8 have been invited to a live cooking session with Mrs Williams. Please check your emails to find your invite. You will also find the list of ingredients and equipment that you will need to have ready for a 12 noon start on Monday 22nd June. There will be points and prizes for the best creations!

The Oaks Academy News

#everydayisanopenday Tel: 01270 661223 I www.theoaksacademy.co.uk

The Oaks Academy, Buchan Grove, Crewe, Cheshire, CW2 7NQ

Friday 19th June 2020

Whole page of Stars! You’re amazing!

Unfortunately, while you’re away from the academy we won’t be able to celebrate in person, but you can still be awarded the Star of the Week. We will send you the certificate by e-mail and celebrate your achievements in the virtual world.

Your teachers are so impressed with the work and activities you’re completing at home. Here are the Stars from 5.6.20 and 12.6.20 along with the nominating teacher.

Star from afar of the Week

5.6.20 12.6.20

Subject Student Form Staff Subject Student Form Staff

Graphics Serena Saidi 7CLH Mrs Blenkley Graphics Zakir Samad 7CLH Mrs Blenkley

History Zakir Samad 7CLH Mr Frost Music Cady Herring 7CMG Miss Wright

Resmat Aaron Hill 7CMG Mrs Williams Art Cady Herring 7CMG Miss Grimes

Maths Keeley Whalley 7CMG Mrs McDermott Drama Cady Herring 7CMG Mr McGhee

German Lily Irlam 7HM Mrs Blenkley German Rhys Griffiths 7CMG Mrs Blenkley

English Jayden Smith 8EW Mrs Stewart IT Alex-Jay Senior 7HM Miss Marshall

Maths Lily Wilson 8EW Mrs Whittaker Geography Gabriel Dos Reis 7LR Miss Roberts

Music Emily Saidi 8KH Miss Wright Yr7 Resmat Marcin Brom-

boszcz 7LR Mrs Williams

Art Caitlin Brookes 8MM Miss Grimes Maths Ryan Bunn 7LR Mrs McDermott

Resmat Lauren Hill 8STZ Mrs Williams History Ryan Bunn 7LR Mr Frost

Geography Cheila Semedo 9EC Miss Roberts Photography Destinie Brown 8EW Miss Wright

Science Martyna

Rogozinska 9EC Mrs Tzabach Yr8 Resmat Emily Saidi 8KH Mrs Williams

Photography Casey Sproston 9KST Miss Wright Science Lewis Cartlidge 8MM Miss Byron

Maths Wiktoria Bielejec 9KST Mrs Piggin Science Cheila Semedo 9EC Miss Howlett

PE Wiktoria Bielejec 9KST Mrs Turner English Cheila Semedo 9EC Mrs Stewart

Music Abbie Hamilton EP Miss Ogden Science Martina Iglesias 9EC Mrs Tzabach

Hospitality and Catering

Dayton Lewis-Lord 10LW Mrs Williams English Blake Wheatley 9KST Mrs Stewart

Science Dayton Lewis-Lord 10LW Miss Byron Maths Blake Wheatley 9KST Mrs Piggin

Yr9 Resmat Mia Mason 9RT Mrs Williams

Art Lacey-Mai Harrison

EP Miss Ogden

Maths Tammin Hanlon 10CM Mrs Highfield

English Department

White Waters Writing Project

White Water Writers is a project run by Higher Horizons. Usually they attend school and work with a small group of young people to write a book in a week which is then published and listed for sale on Amazon.

With schools currently being closed they are running a similar activity digitally. Please have a look at their website and the project pack will guide you through writing a short story. It will tell you how to think of an idea, how to plot out the story, and come up with your characters. Once you’re finished, you submit them for the chance to win £50 book vouchers, and to have your work published in a short story collection.

This project will also improve your English skills, including literacy and writing. Anyone can take part, from any age group. Just download the pack, work through it, and don’t forget to send us your story!

Visit https://higherhorizons.co.uk/resource/white-water-writers-short-story-competition-y9-y13/ or click the image above to find out more.

Mrs Brindley would love to share this beautiful story written by Rhys Griffiths.

Please click the image above to read ‘The Dragons Tooth’. Well done Rhys!

Why not join in with the English department’s zoom help sessions?

Y9 & Y10 Wednesday 1.30pm

Y7 & Y8 - Friday 10am

Please check your school e-mails for further details.

To follow the English department on Instagram please visit the Student

Zone to find more details, look for #socialmedia

Free Write Friday

Last weeks task saw students asked to write a short story about friendship; the aim was to tell the whole story in no more than one page.

Below is Beth Wallace’s response to this task. A lovely story titled ‘The Travellers’ Adventure’. Please click the map picture to read the full story. Well done Beth!

Currently Y7 & Y8 are currently working on a 'Design Your Own Country' project. They are designing everything from the geographical landscape, to the people/animals that live there and the food/culture. Some examples of their work can be found on the English departments Instagram account.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

A few weeks ago we all completed work across the academy which had a link to the book ‘War Horse’ by Michael Morpurgo. Here are just a few examples of the wonderful work completed by our students.

Get creative...

Here are two lovely pieces of work. The left is by John

Bailey – Year 10 and above is by Kyra Colebourne - Year 9.

Click the images to see larger versions.

The Food Technology activity set by Mrs Williams was to create Trench Cakes. These were cakes baked during the First World War by loved ones back home to send to soldiers fighting at the front in the trenches, hence the name Trench cake.

Ellie Bennett - Year 10

Ella Twadell - Year 8

Chloe O’Connor - Year 8

Maths Department

'War Horse Week' was a really exciting week at the Oaks Academy. Starting on 18th May every subject linked their work to the text War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. The Maths department decided that they would link their work to the World War and

more specifically the work that took place at Bletchley Park deciphering and encoding important messages.

There were a range of tasks for pupils to be engaged with including morse code, pig pen cipher, ceasar shift, transposition shift, frequency analysis and the tough one the vigenere square.

Pupils sent pictures of the templates they made for the Ceasar shift, which involved circles and the alphabet, the best template was created by AJ Senior and his mum.

The hardest code to decipher was the Vigenere square. Rhys Griffiths and his dad made this easier by creating an Excel spreadsheet that did the work for you, Super impressive.

It was lovely to hear from pupils that were working with their siblings, younger and older and friends and parents.

Well done to those that made it to the top 4 leader board, impressive work. All of these pupils have been invited to take part in the Alan Turing Coding

Competition.

Amazing! Well

done to the

winners and

everyone who took

part.

Enjoy your prizes!

Golden and Platinum Tickets

School Lunches

Ticket Rewards

For the chance to win the prizes for your tickets please send them to us via the following emails: goldentickets@theoaksacademy.co.uk platinumtickets@theoaksacademy.co.uk

‘Be in it to win it!’

We have also introduced a Platinum Ticket which is awarded for exceptional work and resilience.

Tickets awarded Week beginning 1.6.20 were:

7LR Ryan Bunn

7HM Emily Griffiths

AJ Senior

8EW Leon Butler

Jayden Saka

Jayden Smith

8KH/AS Emily Saidi

Well done to everyone who received a Golden Ticket during last half term. The winners were:

Chloe O’Connor Year 8

Meg Latham Year 9

AJ Senior Year 7

Natasha Ellerton Year 8

Billy Wright Year 10

Each receive a £20 shopping voucher from Mrs Hooley.

Currently lunch times look a little different in school. Each day the students help to make lunch for everyone within the building. Last week they made pizza with Mrs White which I believe went down very well at lunch time. Other dishes on the menu have been chilli with rice, spaghetti Bolognese and sandwiches.

Staying Connected

Keeping in touch with you is so important to us, especially during this time of partial closure. We have many social media accounts to help us all connect and we are now on Facebook too!

Our Facebook Page is called The Oaks Academy follow this link to find us

https://www.facebook.com/The-Oaks-Academy-106573191063913/

Please like our page to see us in your newsfeed. To see the other social media accounts run by us visit the #socialmedia section of the website.

The Covid-19 Information page holds the most up-to-date information from the academy about our response to covid-19.

The support for Students is designed to support our students. You can find tips about wellbeing, working from home, educational resources and many more.

Website

#socialmedia

Our new virtual office contains lots of useful information about the academy including:

− Attendance information

− Bus timetable

− Calendar

− Contact information

− Holiday dates

− Our school day

− School catering

− School gateway

− Show My Homework

− Uniform

The safeguarding centre has a bank of resources which may help you including; who our Safeguarding Team are and their contact information, internet safety and mental health support.

If you feel that you need contact a member of our safeguarding team, please send an e-mail to safeguarding@theoaksacademy.co.uk You will get a reply within 24 hours.

The support for Parents section contains useful resources and links which may help to support your child and family during this time.

There have been a number of changes to the look and layout of the

website recently. Here are just a few of them, click the links and

images to explore.

You can find details about

all of our Instagram

accounts on the Student

Zone. Look for

#socialmedia

Virtual Staff Choir

The Photography Challenges are as popular as ever! The most recent challenges have been to show texture in an image and last week each day represented a different colour of the rainbow. Thank you for all your entries, these can be seen in full on the Creative Arts and Technology Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Virtual Staff Choir First Performance A few weeks ago Miss Wright set up a virtual staff choir. They have worked hard to produce a performance for you to enjoy and make you smile. Miss Wright said 'it has been a challenge but staff have worked hard to achieve this and we hope you really enjoy seeing us and watching our performance'.

The following staff took part; E Wright, E Abberley, C Grimes, C McGhee, H Stewart, R Turner, L Whittaker, L Fenner, A Brindley, C Howlett, S Tzabach, N Blenkley and L-A Bailey.

A special thank you to Miss Wright for organising, arranging and coordinating the rehearsal, recordings and mixing the sound and also to Mr McGhee for producing the video.

The performance can be seen by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i60SlYHqGSQ or click the images in this article.

Photography Challenge

Red and yellow and pink and green, purple

and orange and blue. I can see a...

What an amazing effect! Currently

the photography challenge is to take

a snap which shows off your lockdown

memories.

Visit the student zone to see the

poster and send any photos to

ewirght@theoaksacademy.co.uk

Mrs Shepherd is very impressed with your German brochure A-Jay and can see you have been working really hard. Lovely German language used and some fabulous pictures. Well done!

You’re a Star

Cory and Millie Gayle have been having woodwork lessons with their Mum.

They have made and painted a bird table, ferret playpen and a 3 tier flower

window box.

If you would like any support or just want to discuss any concerns about the mental health and wellbeing of your child or any member of the family, please have a look at the school website which is packed with useful links and information. Alternatively, please email the safeguarding team at safeguarding@theoaksacademy.co.uk and a member of the team will be happy to support you.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-imagine a kinder society - one that protects all our mental health “

Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation

Support