Following the application and selection process, we are delighted to announce the appointment of the new senior student prefect team. Our school captains are Honey and Nathan. The Deputy School Captains are Scott, Phoebe and Amy.
I am pleased to share with you the report written by the OFSTED team who visited Oathall on 15th March.
This was the first ‘short’ inspection since OFSTED’s last visit in October 2013. The inspectors looked closely at specific aspects of the school’s provision and the key headline is that the team have found the school continues to be graded as ‘good’.
There are number of strengths identified by the inspectors, not least that:
• The college staff and leadership team has maintained the good quality of education
• The school is supported and challenged well by its skilled governing body
• The majority of students are meeting the challenging targets set for them
• The procedures to keep children safe are rigorous
I am pleased that the inspectors concurred with our own evaluation of our performance and in particular the areas for improvement identified through our own development planning. We are clear that the progress of some of our more disadvantaged students needs to improve and we are very much focused on implementing a number of strategies to support their learning.
I would like to thank all the college staff and indeed students who performed so well under such close scrutiny.
May I also thank all of you who were able to complete the online parent survey for OFSTED. As the report indicates, parents and carers are very positive about the school, in particular, the support given by staff.
Edward Rodriguez
Headteacher
Last Friday, six teams from Oathall, Warden Park Academy and St Paul’s Catholic College took part in the final stage of the Mid Sussex STEM challenge. Both Oathall teams got through to the final stages where they had to present their business plan for their electric bikes to a panel of judges in a ‘Dragon’s Den’ scenario. Both teams presented well, answering some really tough questions from the panel which included local MP, Sir Nicholas Soames. At the end of the presentations the Oathall team, ‘The Cycling Five’ were victorious with the ‘Hairy Cyclists’ our other team taking second place.
The students were presented with a shield by Sir Nicholoas Soames at Mid Sussex District Council offices on Friday 23 March.
Sir Nicholas said: “I was thrilled to present the Mid Sussex STEM Challenge Award to Cycling5 from Oathall Community College in Haywards Heath, whose other brilliant team the Hairy Cyclists were runners up. It was a remarkable display of skill and business acumen in the design of an electric bike.”
Well done to all the students taking part and well-earned victory.
We are proud to announce that two of our students; Phoebe Davies (Year 10) and Jamie Christie (Year 11) have received a Youth Community Service Award from the Rotary Club Haywards Heath.
Jamie and Phoebe received the award for ‘exceptional work in the Community and dedication to others’, thus upholding the Rotary motto of “Service above Self ”. Congratulations to Phoebe and Jamie for the work they have done as volunteers and fundraisers, both within their local community and the college itself.
On Tuesday 30th January, students from Oathall took part in the 2018 Rock Challenge Competition. Although we weren’t placed this year, the achievement from each and every student was outstanding. This was the culmination of 7 months hard work and dedication from the performers, stage crew and lighting team.
Our performance this year was titled ‘Is it in my head’. This was a contemporary piece looking at aspects on mental health. The concept was based on the on the quote;
‘We are so accepting of any body part breaking down, other than our brains. That is ignorance, pure ignorance. That world has created a world that doesn’t understand depression, that doesn’t understand mental health’.
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. I am proud that at Oathall the Rock Challenge 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, scenery and video direction.
The actual Rock Challenge day is a blur of pre performance nerves and energetic preparation. The students are able to watch other schools rehearse as well as take part in mass warm up, dance sessions and competitions. Each school gives a performance of 8 minutes which seems to go by in a flash following all the hard work and anticipation. Our students all performed magnificently, every single one giving 100% effort. It is always a joy to see how the all students work together as a team, and really reflects the ‘community’ aspect of Oathall.
I would like to thank every student who took part in and contributed to this year’s production, you were all pleasure to work with. With special thanks to Kaytlin Smith and Florence Gaskell in year 11, their hard work and commitment did not go unnoticed. Thank you also to all the staff who gave their help to the running of the event.
Although Oathall did not win, yet again we swept the board gaining awards in the following;
• Award of Excellence in Lighting
• Award of Excellence for Concept
• Award of Excellence in Entertainment
Finally thank you to all the parents who kindly support dance at Oathall and help to encourage our students to achieve amazing things.
15 girls in Year 8 spent the day meeting and talking to inspirational women yesterday at a special STEM for Girls event held at the AMEX stadium in Brighton. The event organised by Albion in the Community gave groups of girls from schools across Sussex the opportunity to meet with women who have built successful careers using their knowledge of STEM subjects. The event is part of a programme which aims to increase the number of girls choosing STEM subjects at school and as future careers.
The following girls attended the event along with Maths teachers Ms Calleja and Mrs Gaston:
Scarlett Billson, Fatou Colley, Isobelle Deeble,Zoe Downey, Simonne Gautron, Nicola Harris, Milena Karwat, Charlotte Jones, Meg Kneller, Fionnuala Lingard, Ella Otero, Grace Owen, Isobel Robinson, Hannah Taylor and Bethany Thomas
On Friday 12th January, year 9 students attended the annual Careers Speed Dating event where they had the opportunity to speak to business representatives from across the county and beyond. It 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. This event complements the year 9 options process and students’ feedback is always very positive.
In fast paced 5-minute slots, students asked a barrage of questions of the 32 different volunteers representing a wide range of employment sectors including banking, engineering, medicine, hospitality, hairdressing, publishing, veterinary medicine, uniformed services, scientific research, sport, childcare, retail, nursing, architecture, physiotherapy and many more!
Feedback from the employers has been extremely positive. Year 9 students did themselves proud.
Reflecting on his first experience of Oathall’s Careers Speed Dating, Jon Parry – Geologist commented: ‘I was genuinely impressed by the level of engagement and enthusiasm of the students. Thank you for inviting me to take part in the experience, which was both enjoyable and rewarding.’
Sarah Breeze – Architect, said: ‘The students had some great questions. Many were interested in creative subjects, especially art and design technology, and we discussed various careers that are linked to these. They were also interested in university life and also travelling as part of a job.’
Claire Batchelor – Primary School Teacher (and former head girl at Oathall) commented: ‘The students were a credit to the school and showed interest and respect the entire time. It made me feel proud to be a teacher, and after selling the profession to the students I came away remembering why I do the job.’
Thank you to all the business volunteers for giving up their time so generously to support our students. It was especially pleasing that some of the participants were former Oathall students and members of the school’s Alumni Association.
In October 2013, Oathall took part in a project which meant the school benefited from the installation of a Sky View weather station on the school premises. The station is installed on the roof of the sports hall and records a great deal of information about our daily weather including temperatures, rainfall, and wind speeds. We now have 4 full years of weather data and so we can begin to make some year on year comparisons and record the highs and lows of our main weather indicators.
2017 did not experience any record lows or highs but the cold winter and early spring meant we had 35 days where temperatures were below 0C. This is the most days of sub-zero temperatures that we have recorded in one year. We had a mini heatwave in June where we had two days where temperatures rose above 32C. This is the only year where we have recorded temperatures this high in June. The highest temperature we recorded was on 21 June where the temperature hit 33.5C. It was a wet year as well with 66 days where rainfall was recorded over .1inch and 153 days where rainfall over .01in was recorded.
So, no significant records for 2017 but you can always keep an eye on the latest weather at Oathall in 2018 by following the link from the website here.
