Curriculum Weeks and Special Events

Every term we host a special curriculum week. These weeks enable us to focus in depth on specific areas of the curriculum and to enrich our learning opportunities with visits, visitors and in school events. These weeks are always popular with our children who enjoy working with other classes and exploring exciting topics. These weeks have a particular focus, such as Science week, Music week, Dreams and Aspirations week, Olympics week and are often directly linked to national or world events. Recently (2021/22) our three weeks were; Positive Mental Health week, Multi-Faith RE week and a Platinum Jubilee celebrations week. Last year (22/23) we are held a creative music week and an environmental/humanities week with additional focus days rather than a full week in the spring. The enrichment days covered Commonwealth Day, Local History, Fairtrade, and online safety. This year (23/24) we are focussing on The Arts including Art, DT, Drama in our Autumn term enrichment week, we are focussing on specific days in the Spring term such as Number Day, Storytelling week, Martin Luther King day, International Women’s day, Random Acts of Kindness. In the Summer term we will focus on Health, hygiene, sporting achievements and hopefully host a Dreams and Aspirations enrichment week focussing on careers.

Below are photographs and videos from our special weeks in addition to photographs of special events or days.

Oakerwood Experience Day!

A fantastic time had by all so far at Oakerwood. A few pics from Mrs Lyall’s groups today (20.3.24) More to follow. Today Mrs Lyall took the remaining Y6 staff and a pupil, ensuring that the full compliment were together again. A great day pizza making, completing the escape room challenge, low ropes, shelter building, obstacle course and even a blindfold obstacle challenge – fantastic team work.

London Experience Day!

As part of our aim to offer rich quality experiences, which open our children’s eyes and minds to the world around them, we took our Y5&6 pupils to London on Friday 1st December. This is an experience that we will offer very two years going forwards, previously managing this experience only once before the pandemic hit. As a culmination of our British History focus on Monarchy, which is a thread running throughout our Humanities curriculum, we visited Westminster Abbey and The Tower of London. In the Abbey the children were able to put their research into practice by actually seeing and touching the memorials to our great historical monarchs. At the Tower we were mesmerised by the Crown Jewels and completed our fact finding question trails, some of us also enjoyed a memorable tour from one of the Yeoman guards. A fantastic day, the 5am start was all worth is as we managed to see so many sights, and gave our children the opportunity to achieve many ‘firsts’. We travelled both on foot and on the underground, taking in The Mall, Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, The Cenotaph and War Memorials, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and ending with a Christmassy feel in Covent Garden.

We are so proud of our children who embraced this opportunity with positive learning attitudes. Many of them hadn’t been on a train before and lots hadn’t been to London. Their behaviour was exceptional, they were a joy to be with on this journey, and they were a credit to themselves and our school.

Happiness Trainer

Classes R, 1, 2, 3 & 4 have worked with Katie Millard, the Happiness Trainer to complete a programme over 4 consecutive weeks. Katie is a bubbly joyful person to work with who brings much joy into our classrooms. She teachers children strategies to support them with their mental health, positive outlook and happiness. We have worked with Katie for a number of years in different ways since Covid, finding that she helps our children to regulate their emotions and provides them with a toolkit to support them both in school and at home or in their community. A link to Katie’s website can be found here.

Macmillan Coffee and Cake fundraising event

Thank you for all the parents/carers who donated cakes and biscuits we had an amazing supply of delicious treats. We had a lovely afternoon and thank you also for helping us raise £424.63 for the Macmillan Charity.

Food Bank Harvest collection

We collected for the Market Drayton Food Bank again this year as part of our Harvest celebration. At Harvest time we focussed on ‘being thankful’ and giving to others. Rev Becky Richards joined us in school to lead our Harvest assembly, reading from the book of Luke, sharing the story of Jesus healing the sick and how thankful they were for this gift of life. The children shared the things that they are thankful for and we joined in whole school prayer of thanks.

Author visit

Author Sarah Griffiths joined us in school on National Storytelling day to read her latest children’s book, The Lost Voices. She shared the story with the whole school in two separate sessions for KS1 and KS2. Sarah has visited us before to read her positive and uplifting stories and we have purchased many of her books. As a local author we are delighted to welcome her to school to share her rich experiences with our children, she was able to give our KS2 children some top tips for their story writing as they are currently writing their own books as part of the Bookfest competition.

Class 5 and 6 also had a visit from Eloise Williams an author from Cardiff who has written many books, the children have been given a copy of either Honesty and Lies or Gaslight to read. The children took part in some warm up activities and Eloise also showed the children a plan using a river to help plan their stories for the Bookfest Competition.

Mother's Day lunch

To celebrate and give thanks for our wonderful mums, step-mums, carers, grandmas, nanas and grans we held a special Mother’s Day lunch. Children sat with their siblings and family members in the lunch hall and class 6, which were decorated to celebrate the occasion. The lunchtime staff did an exceptional job with the food – roast dinner with all the trimmings, followed by homemade scones, biscuits or muffins. We have received excellent positive feedback from families and children who all enjoyed this event. All the adults received a daffodil posy made by the children and staff in school as a token of our appreciation.

World Book Day 2023

This year we decided to have a whole school theme for world book day – dress as an adjective! The children and staff enjoyed guessing the adjective and putting them into sentences.

Snowy days!

Great fun was had by all playing out in the snow. Children worked together to build snowmen, they investigated the patterns and footprints and generally had a great time experiencing the winter weather.

Market Drayton Arts Festival calendar painting day

A huge thank you again to the team from the MD Arts Fest who came into school this week to paint with our children. The artists teach our children techniques and support them with ideas for painting. They are due back next week to work with the rest of our school.

Christmas events 2022

We had yet another magical Christmas time in school with visits from santa and his main elf – both in person and in a helicopter! Thank you to Hawkstone Follies and RAF Shawbury for enabling these experiences. We enjoyed creating Christmas crafts and learning about the birth of baby Jesus. Classes R, 1&2 performed their Nativity beautifully and the whole school participated in the termly Church service. Our Christmas parties were a firm favourite with traditional games, quizzes, parachute games, disco and dancing activities and a whole lot of fun. We also enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch cooked onsite by our wonderful cooks. Thank you to everyone who made Christmas time for our children so special this year.

We have shown thoughtfulness and generosity to our local community through monetary donations to Shrewsbury Ark to support the homeless at Christmas and through our food collections for our local food bank in Market Drayton.

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Grand opening of our Storytelling Chair

To celebrate the hard work, support and dedication of Mr Derek Orton, who was a governor at our school for over 20 years, we had a Storytelling Chair and seating area commissioned, to be enjoyed by our school children for many years to come. Mr Bryan Howells, from BJH Grounds Maintenance ltd, designed and hand made the chair and benches, he also made our beautiful outdoor classroom. We enjoyed a grand opening with Mr and Mrs Orton and Mr Howells, where Mr Orton read the reception class a story in the new area and then attended our celebration assembly and read a beautiful poem to the whole school. Our children gave both men a well-deserved applause and we celebrated their success.

Remembrance 2022

Reception class and our KS2 School Council members walked to the war memorial in Hodnet to lay a handmade poppy wreath. We talked about the significance of poppies and all reception children wore a handmade poppy. We respectfully observed a two-minute silence before returning back to school. Many of our children were also involved in local parades and services supporting their church or community groups such as Brownies, Cubs and Scouts. In school we observed the two-minute silence at 11am as part of our remembrance assembly.

Music Enrichment week 2022

In the autumn term we held our enrichment week with a music focus. All children had the opportunity to complete a drumming workshop learning about rhythm and pitch, make musical instruments using junk modelling and recycled materials, play as part of an orchestra, perform to others, work within mixed age groups to compose music digitally, make instruments and large scale music areas outside in forest schools, analyse music and story composition, sing and learn to sing & sign and work as part of a team to celebrate achievements. We all had a wonderful week. The musicians who visited our school commented on our schools positive learning ethos and noted how well our children worked as a team and how our pupils’ love of learning and inquisitiveness was a pleasure to see. Another wonderful week, well done everyone.

Sports games event and family picnic 2022

Our annual sports games event was a huge success this year. It was wonderful to see so many parents back in school enjoying the celebrations with their children. The carousel of 8 events culminated in 3 long distance runs, this year we had an obstacle race, a bean bag throw, a standing jump, a relay race, a javelin throw, a sack race, an egg and spoon race and a bean bag relay. The children were all competing for their house, with the totals form each event being calculated and scores visible throughout. Congratulations to the Foxes who led from the start and won this year, turning the ribbons on our school trophy to green. Well done to everyone who tried their best – it was a great atmosphere with lots of friendly cheering and celebrations.

Science Week 2022

In our science week we are focussing on famous scientists and practical investigations. We have a science shop for children to enjoy purchasing science gadgets and toys. Photos to follow.

Shropshire Sings concert 2022

Our KS1 and KS2 choirs took part in the regional concert at the Showground in Shrewsbury. All children in school practised the songs over the previous term and worked very hard to learn the complex words and remember the many songs. We are very proud of them all. The concert was a very enjoyable afternoon and evening. All children were exemplary and deserve to feel very proud of themselves. Their hard work and commitment was recognised in achievement assembly where they all received certificates and a round of applause.

Jubilee Week 2022

In Jubilee week we have been marking Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee which celebrates the 70 years her majesty has been on the throne. We dressed in red, white and blue, had a whole school photo on the field, an outdoor street party-style lunch and a coffee and cake afternoon for parents hosted by our Friends of Hodnet School. Throughout the week, we have done lots of jubilee-themed activities in class to celebrate this special and unique occasion.

Celebrating British Difference through our Multi-Faith RE week.

In Multi-Faith RE week each class studied the Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh religions. Each class visited places of worship and KS2 also has an Islamic faith leader visitor to school. We visited the Balaji Hindu Temple in Oldbury, a Sikh Gurdwara in Oakengates and St Luke’s Church in Hodnet. We worked in phases and groups to research religions, we used the topic artefact boxes to support our learning and enjoyed working with other classes to produce our videos to share our learning.

Positive Mental health week - Healthy Mind, Healthy Body

In Healthy Mind, Healthy Body week each class focussed on positive mental health and ways to keep ourselves healthy. All children have been working with Katie, The Happiness Trainer over a period of four weeks, to learn specific techniques to promote positive self esteem and to begin to develop an awareness of their own emotions and how to self regulate. This week Katie led a workshop for Parents to help them to support children at home. Katie also led a staff well-being sessions and staff meeting to support staff with their own emotions and ways to further support children in their class.

This week we had a visit from the Air ambulance training pod. The team demonstrated the importance of the air ambulance and provided patient accounts of the need to help people to get to hospital quickly.

The NSPCC came to school to deliver their annual whole school safeguarding assemblies to raise awareness of speaking out to stay safe, including PANTS. They also worked with our oldest children on specific programmes to keep them safe online and within their communities.

London visit

In 2019/20 academic year our class 5&6 children visited London for the day, primarily to see the Tutankhamun exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, but also as a one off experience to visit our capital city. We went early on the train from Telford to London Euston Station. We got the Tube to the gallery, such an exciting experience! In the afternoon we visited the Science museum, Kensington Palace Gardens and Buckingham Palace before catching an evening train home. As it was close to Christmas, one of our very talented Y6 children, William, played carols on the piano in Euston Station, and we all sang – amazing. Such a jam packed day full of lasting memories.

RAF Shawbury Garden Project

We are very thankful to the volunteers from squadron 705 who gave up their time to support our sensory garden make over project. They worked hard tidying, digging, painting, planting and generally giving our garden and sensory area some much needed TLC. We are looking forward to spending time in it now it is much more inviting. We are also thankful to them for bringing the helicopter to land on our school field and giving pupils the opportunity to climb on board! Amazing! This was part of our off timetable Environment Week. The Eco-Warriors also received a talk from the RAF team about the new helicopters and their noise pollution reducing features.