Students rise to the Tenner Challenge

5th April 2019J Godbolt

Enterprising students at Oathall Community College have raised £1586 for charities by participating in Young Enterprises ‘Tenner Challenge’. Over four weeks students use £10 pledges to get their student business ideas off the ground and make as much profit as they can.

This year, 18 teams made up from over 40 students in year 8 and year 9 took part. Teams provided a range of services and products such as chocolate pizzas, car washing, gardening services, arts and crafts and dog-walking. Students could sell their products & services to friends and family as well as at lunchtime fairs in school. Students commented that the challenge had taught them a lot about being independent and that it gave them a good experience of the financial & marketing side of running a business.

At the end of the four weeks, the teams returned their initial £10 and paid £1 as a legacy donation to Young Enterprise to support next year’s event. Students donated £1586 of their £2309 profits to their chosen charities.

Mrs Laura Griffiths said,
It has been remarkable to see how well the students have taken on this challenge. Their dedication and commitment has been fantastic. They have shown how well they can work together in a team and have overcome obstacles they have faced. It has been a great experience for them to see what it is like to run a business of their own taking into consideration costs, advertising and profits. I am very proud of what they have achieved and that a huge amount of their profits went to such fantastic charities

Digital Detox

25th March 2019J Godbolt

Students at Oathall have taken part in a 24-hour digital detox and raised money in support of the charity Blind Veterans UK at the same time.

In the lead up to the detox, tutors delivered a programme of sessions during afternoon registration on the topics of cyber-bullying, online safety and how to spend more time ‘screen-free’.

Rock Challenge 2019 ‘Black Swan’

8th March 2019J Godbolt

On Monday 25th March, around 50 students from Oathall took part in the 2019 Rock Challenge Competition. This was the culmination of 7 months hard work and dedication from the performers, stage crew and lighting team. The achievement from each and every student was outstanding.

Oathall’s performance this year was titled ‘Black Swan’. This was a contemporary, street dance fusion piece that explored the physiological and psychological struggles of a mentally delicate dancer and her strive for perfection, only to find herself struggling to maintain her sanity as she descends into madness from the pressure of perfection. To succeed, she will have to transform herself into something she has never been.

The Rock Challenge was established in order to combine the benefits of taking part in a large scale dance production with involvement in a positive ‘ drug-free’ activity.

Although Oathall did not win, the students’ performance was recognised with awards gained in the following categories

• Award of Excellence in Lighting
• Award of Excellence for Entertainment
• Award of Excellence for Visual Enhancement
• Award of Excellence for Stage Use
• Award of Excellence for Costuming and Character
• Award of Excellence for Soundtrack

Performance faculty enrichment leader, Mrs Avery said

I am proud that at Oathall the Rock Challenge event brings students of all ages, backgrounds and gender together in order to work collaboratively on a brilliant production. The students take charge not only of choreography but costumes, sound, lighting and scenery.

I would like to thank every student who took part in and contributed to this year’s production, you were all a pleasure to work with. Finally, thank you to all the parents & staff who kindly support dance at Oathall and help to encourage our students to achieve amazing things.

 

Oathall’s Sporting Superstars

15th February 2019J Godbolt

It has been a fabulous sporting start to 2019 for Oathall’s PE teams. We have been successful against local schools in Football, Futsal, Indoor Athletics, Indoor Cricket and Hockey to name but a few.

Here’s a quick summary of some of the highlights

The U12 boys’ hockey team (pictured above) played in the annual tournament in Crawley with 5 other schools, with a combination of U13 and U12 teams. Despite being the youngest team present they finished unbeaten with 4 wins and 1 draw.

Our Indoor Athletics teams were successful in the Mid-Sussex round of the Countywide indoor athletics competition with the Year 7 Girls & Year 8 boys winning their rounds.

The Under 12 Girls Football team have completed all of their West Sussex league fixtures and have finished the season unbeaten.

Keep up the good work everybody!

If you need a reminder of our Autumn successes in the performance faculty catch up with their newsletter here.

Youth Speaks public speaking success

11th February 2019J Godbolt

On Saturday 9th February our Junior Public Speaking team travelled to Cranleigh with Ms Slade for the next round of the Rotary Club’s ‘Youth Speaks’ competition. The team, made up of Molly, Matty and Tom had already secured a clear victory at a local level and were now facing the District Semi-Finals. This was a larger heat with a total of 6 teams, all fighting for one place in the District Final.

All three students brought their A game and proved from the outset they were serious contenders. Speaking on the theme of ‘Welcome to our World – a unique insight into the world of teenagers’ the team delivered a confident and faultless entry. Not only did Molly take the award for Best Speaker, and Matty for Best Chair Person but the team also took the overall prize, securing a place in the District Finals in March.

Commenting on their performance Ms Slade said,

I am really proud of our team’s achievement. The hours of rehearsal and the time and effort they had all put in was evident as they delivered their speech. I am looking forward to the next round and wish them the best of luck.

 

Speed dating for career inspiration

14th January 2019J Godbolt

How do you get over 200 Year 9 students to find out about a wide range of careers? Get them to go along to a Careers speed dating event!

Students in Year 9 have just taken part in our annual Careers Speed Dating event, during which they had the opportunity to speak to a wide range of professionals and representatives from the world of work.

This event is organised to inspire our future workforce about real jobs; practise those all-important communication skills, and hopefully dispel some myths and challenge gender stereotypes. Small groups of students were given 5 minutes to meet and learn about the occupations of each of our 26 visiting professional guests representing a wide range of employment sectors including banking, engineering, surveying, medicine, hairdressing, publishing, veterinary, medicine, uniformed services, scientific research, sport, nursing, physiotherapy and more. Feedback from the employers has been extremely positive. All our year 9 students were enthusiastic and made a good effort to ask lots of interesting questions.

One of the many positive comments from attending guests was: ‘The pupils were an absolute pleasure and without exception friendly, polite and chatty.’

Hairdresser Jade Laker from Pruners commented that refreshingly it was the boys that seemed more interested in hearing about her career than the girls!

Dr Sarah Bruce reported how impressed she was at how engaged and well behaved our students were during the session.

Thank you to all the business volunteers for giving up their time so generously to support our students.

Love in a box

17th December 2018J Godbolt

This year, as part of the ‘Them and Us’ project, Oathall students and staff have been putting together Christmas boxes of gifts and food donations to give to charity. We have chosen to support the YMCA DownsLink Group through their “Love in a Box” scheme. This charity works predominantly with young people who are homeless or in supported housing and they also offer counselling services which our students can access. These boxes ensure that every young person the YMCA DLG work with has something to open at Christmas and will hopefully show that our students and staff have been thinking about them and will continue to think about them during what could be a difficult or lonely time of year.

There has been a terrific response from the school community with gifts ranging from the basics, like toothpaste and soap, to warm winter clothing and a tent!

The ‘Them and Us’ project is all about bringing down barriers and helping young people to understand the importance of kindness, respect and living without harm. We are looking forward to carrying out further projects like this in the new year.

Sir Paul Nurse opens Maths and Science building

2nd November 2018J Godbolt

On Friday 9 November, Headteacher Mr Edward Rodriguez was delighted to welcome Sir Paul Nurse FRS, Nobel Prize winner and Chief Executive of the Francis Crick Institute, to Oathall to formally open the newly refurbished maths and science faculty building.

As well as formally opening the building, Sir Paul hosted a question and answer session with students where he was asked about his career in science and questions were put to him on scientific topics.

In cutting the ribbon to officially open the building, Sir Paul thanked our parents for their fundraising efforts and said that promoting the importance of maths and science was

“Looking to the future; the future of your children but also the future of your children’s children”

Some of our students filmed the evening’s proceedings and have put together a video edit of the event.

 

In a statement on the completion of the building, Edward Rodriguez said,

“I am extremely pleased to welcome Sir Paul Nurse to Oathall to formally open our newest facility. From the start of this project, we have been driven to create classrooms and laboratories and provide resources that will inspire our students to further develop a passion for maths and science. We want our students to experience these subjects through the skill and enthusiasm of our teaching staff, combined with cutting-edge technology and a truly inspiring learning environment. This effort has been encouraged by many different individuals and organisations. Notably, WSCC, who financially backed and supported the project and the successful crowdfunding campaign run by the PTA which raised over £30,000 to fund additional exciting teaching resources.

Having such an eminent scientist visit the school and meet our students is a real honour and a fitting way to celebrate the achievements of all who worked so hard to complete this project.”