The month of May has brought a raft of successes in competitions for Oathall’s students.

In languages, Robyn in Year 8 and Edward in Year 9 took part in the UK wide Anthea Bell Translation Competition. This is a UK-wide translation competition organised by Queen’s College, Oxford University, this year the jury received over 3,600 entries from 16,000 students. The judges remarked on the high standard and fantastic creativity on display from our students. Robyn translated from Spanish to English while Edward translated from German to English, both of them working on literary texts. The names of the winners will be published on the official website of Queen’s College on the 5th of June.

And in maths, 6 of our Y9 students went along to the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme inter-school Y9 picnic at Ardingly college. This competiton involves teams of students undertaking a number of rounds of maths challenges and problem solving. Our teams came 1st and 3rd.

On 21 May, Oathall’s second Youth Speaks internal public speaking competition was held at the school. Our students once again captivated the audience with their confidence, research skills, and thought-provoking debates. The winners were:

Best Team: Eleri, Phoebe, and Tallulah. These first-time speakers tackled the ethics of dark tourism and 9/11 with impressive maturity.
Best Proposer: Joe, our future comedy star, had the audience in stitches with his winning proposal.
Best Opposer: Caitlin displayed incredible adaptability, even reworking her speech last minute on student loans.
Best Chair: Erin kept a cool head and ensured a balanced debate on phones in schools.
Special Recognition:

And a special mention should be made for all our year 7s taking part. Their dedication to Youth Speaks and the progress they’ve made is truly inspiring.

Congratulations to everyone involved!

Cases of measles are rising across England, including among children and young people. The symptoms of measles, along with more information about the virus, can be found on the NHS website.

The Department for Education has published new advice for managing measles outbreaks, including advice for parents on what to do when they suspect their child may have measles.

Parents are advised that children with diagnosed measles should stay off nursery or school for at least 4 days from when the rash appears. More information on how to respond to rising cases of measles can be found by clicking here or on the image above. 

We have been contacted by Ofsted today and they have told us that an inspection will take place this week on Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 September.

You can find an Ofsted guide for parents here which gives you all the information that you need about the inspection process.

In addition, you please click here to see a letter from Ofsted, telling you about the Ofsted Parent View survey.

Ofsted Parent View asks parents for their opinion on some aspects of the school, including the progress made by your child, the quality of teaching, how the school deals with bullying and poor behaviour. It also provides a free-text box for you to make additional comments, if you wish. The inspectors will use the online survey responses when inspecting the school. I would encourage you to complete this survey if you are able to do so.

Letters about the inpsection have been sent home by email and students have had assemblies today to let them know about the process.

Congratulations to Oathall students who are celebrating excellent GCSE results. Students have seen impressive outcomes across all areas of the curriculum and results are significantly improved on 2019 results. (The last comparable set of GCSE data.)

In English, 83% of students achieved a grade 4 or above whilst in mathematics 80% of students achieved a grade 4 or higher. In science, 80% of students achieved 2 good science GCSE passes.

There were some exceptional individual performances with more than 17% of the cohort achieving 7 or more passes at grades 7, 8 or 9. Moreover, 31% of all grades awarded were 7 or higher with 80% of grades awarded at 4+ (nationally 68%).

Students of all abilities have excelled and achieved results of which they should be very proud. It is clear that their progress and attainment is significantly positive.

Headteacher, Edward Rodriguez said,
“I am delighted to see how our students have performed in their GCSEs. They have faced and met the challenges and performed well over the entire range of subjects. They deserve their successes today.”