Respect Aspire Achieve Enjoy

It has been an extremely full and busy year at Oathall and, as we reach the end of the summer term, the time seems to have flown by. 

We started the year with the opening of our splendid new maths and science block and we concluded just yesterday with our excellent annual Games Day. In between, there has been an extraordinary array of activities and opportunities to which the students have shown their usual exemplary commitment.

The posts that follow give an indication of the breadth of activities undertaken over recent months at the college. I am so grateful to all staff involved in securing the very best of experiences for our students throughout the year. 

We now approach the end of term and the entire school community is looking forward to a well-deserved break. Thank you for your continued support. 

On behalf of the governors and staff of the college, I wish you and your families a wonderful summer. 

Mr E Rodriguez

Designing for the Future

Race to the line is a fun nationwide indeed international scheme where Year 7 students design a rocket-powered car and race against other schools. All year 7 students were involved racing their rocket cars across the tennis courts.

The winning group of Philip Williamson, Demi Boswell, Tobias Hockaday and Lucy Reeves were invited to design and race their cars against other local schools. 

Building the car

Checking their work

The finished car

Mr D Anderson

Junior Maths Challenge Success 2019

Pupils at Oathall achieved 6 gold, 20 silver and 17 bronze certificates in this year’s UKMT Junior Maths Challenge  improving our results from last year. Over 260,000 pupils from across the UK sat the Junior Maths Challenge with roughly the top 6% receiving a gold certificate, the next 13% silver and the next 21% bronze.

Students with the highest results are invited to sit a follow-on competition: up to 1200 top JMC scorers are invited to take the Junior Mathematical Olympiad and the next approximately 7000 take the Junior Kangaroo. Daniel Reed (8VMT), Oliver Faulkner and Niamh Chapman qualified to the next rounds where Daniel and Oliver achieved a merit from the Junior Maths Kangaroo. Congratulations to all three students!

Further information about the Trust and its activities is available at www.ukmt.org.uk

“The Maths Challenges provide material to provoke student’s mathematical thinking and test their problem-solving skills in an accessible and yet challenging way. Many congratulations to Oathall Community College on their success in the Junior Maths Challenge; it is great to see achievement in mathematics recognised.”

Rachel Greenhalgh, UKMT Executive Director

Sample question from this year’s Junior Maths Challenge (answer on UKMT’s website)

Gill scored a goal halfway through the second quarter of a ‘teachers versus pupils’ netball match. At that point, what fraction of the whole match remained to be played?

A  ¼ B ⅜ C ½ D ⅝ E ¾

If you could work out the answer to this problem and you will be a year 7 or 8 student next year, then you may have the desired skills to succeed in this competition. Oathall’s maths faculty also runs the Intermediate and Senior Maths Challenges for years 9, 10 and 11 with similar success.  Letters will be sent home soon with more details about these competitions. For more information, you can ask your teacher or speak to Mr Leonard. 

Miss M Calleja

Physics outreach at the University of Sussex

In June, twelve Year 10 triple science students attended a schools lab at Sussex University.  This really is like a personalised open day – they carried out experiments beyond the scope of the equipment at Oathall, visited a research lab and had a talk from a PhD scientist, took part in a careers’ challenge and had time to explore the university campus.  It really was a fun and inspiring day. 12 more students will make the trip in July.

Alex Drane, Thomas Huxley and Okan Erdem examine alpha particle trails in a cloud chamber.

Grace Bartlett, Jess Ruddock and Kitty Underhill calculate the density of air.

Mr D Anderson

Crawley Taster Day 2019

21 year 10 students recently attended an excellent Taster Day at Crawley College and all found the day very useful and informative.  They enjoyed trying two different subjects in one day as well as having a tour around the college.  

The taster sessions chosen were:- Plumbing, Early Years & Childcare, IT, Health & Social Care, Creative Media, Beauty, Art & Design, Engineering, Electrical Installation, Hospitality, Travel & Tourism, Business & Engineering.

Our students particularly enjoyed getting involved in the practical activities, so much so they would have liked the sessions to have been longer!

Crawley Open Day

Crawley Open Day

Crawley Open Day

Crawley Open Day

Crawley Open Day

Crawley Open Day

Mrs K Ferros

Considering our Environment

Year 10 Geography students recently travelled to Brighton to investigate how the quality of life and environment varies between two areas. Students tested environmental issues such as air and noise pollution, litter, traffic and overcrowding as well as looking at the quality of housing and availability of green spaces.    The work carried out on this field trip will be crucial for completing paper 3 in the GCSE exams next year.

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Mrs K Garrick

Amazing Book Awards

The Sussex Coast Amazing Book Awards, or ABA for short, is the fastest growing Young Adult book award in the UK. It is completely led by Student Voice: only students chose which five books make up the shortlist and only students vote for the winners. This is the third year that Oathall has been part of this truly amazing book award and we can definitely say it won’t be the last. 

We had a record number of 25 students attending the monthly after-school book-club meetings where we discussed the books. Some questions we pondered were

• What do we think of capital punishment after having read Moonrise by Sarah Crossan
• How is Maslow’s pyramid of need relevant to the heroine in The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James
• Does humanity have the right to cause the extinction of another species to secure its own survival as described in The Extinction Trials by S.M. Wilson
• Does the goal justify the means – a question posed in Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen

Despite the heavy sounding subject matter, we had an absolutely brilliant time at the book club meetings and were very excited to send off our votes: will they correspond to those of the 50 other participating schools?! We were all very much looking forward to attending the ABA Presentation Evening where most of the authors would be present and the Bronze, Silver and Gold winners would be revealed. 

The presentation evening was held at Worthing High School and we were very proud of our students’ beautiful behaviour on the train journey there and back. Thank you to Mr Mills and Mrs Sullivan for coming with us and a special shout-out to Mr Mills, who read all five shortlisted books! We were very pleased to find that the Gold Award Winner was S.T.A.G.S., who was our runaway favourite too! After the presentation, we had a chance to meet and greet the authors and get our books signed (every participant in the book club was gifted one of the shortlisted books by Oathall library). 

At our very last meeting, the students were asked to fill out a feedback form: all said that they would want to ‘do’ the ABA again and they all gave it a 4 or 5 out of a possible five. The next ABA book club will start in early 2020 and all year 9s will be invited – make sure you don’t miss out!

Vip winners Fatou with her guest Holly alongside authors MA Bennett and Matt Killeen

Short-listed books

Oathall students with winning author MA Bennett

Oathall ABA participants and staff

Ms K Fogarasi

Map Making with an eye on History

In Humanities, students were invited to enter a Historical Map Competition.  They were challenged to produce a map of a historical journey such as those undertaken by Shackleton, Lindbergh, Cook and Scott.

Our impressive winner, who received a prize, house points and a certificate, was Jacob Grey in year 8.  Worthy runners up, who also received house points and certificates, were Emma Stephenson, Emma Smith, Arianne Stevens, Emily Jones, Peter Silk and Alex Main – all in year 7.

They are pictured with Mr Moore, Head of Humanities who awarded the prizes.  Congratulations to them all! 

Budding cartographers

Mr D Moore

Modern Foreign Languages

Students have had a very busy term in languages. We have been looking closely at different ways to practise and learn vocabulary and www.quizlet.com has certainly proved to be popular with lots of students.  If you are looking for some language practice in the holidays, we would definitely recommend vocab retrieval tasks (via quizlet). Perhaps you could watch a film or a programme in French, German or Spanish (Netflix is great for this) or try a language learning app such as memrise or duolingo.

Students in Year 7 and 8 have had lots of speaking and translation practice also this term. Here are some Year 8 students playing Snakes and Ladders with a focus on developing students’ ability to both recognise and be able to actively produce the future tense.

Year 9 and 10 students are really looking forward to their school trip to Spain and our exchange to Traunstein in Germany. We’ll have much more to report about these visits in the Autumn. We wish all of our Year 11 students good luck with their results and we’re very excited to see that some of our students are continuing to study languages at A-Level!

Mrs L Sandford

Public Speaking

The English Faculty celebrated the end of term with their annual year 7 & 8 public speaking competitions. The year 8s spoke on “Let Me Persuade You” and year 7s spoke on “Let Me Tell You About”. The students spoke confidently and knowledgeably on their chosen subjects and we were grateful for the Haywards Heath Rotary Club providing us with a guest judge on both occasions.

Year 8 winners were as follows:

1st place Mollie MacConnell: Fairtrade is not fair.

2nd place Niamh Chapman: The dark side to social media

3rd place Jacob Grey: Stop climate change

Other finalists were: Anna Beddingham, Tom Underhill, Rebecca Wallbank, Victoria Schou, Tom Grey, Matty Mackay and Beth Cromie

Year 8 Public Speaking Finalists

Year 8 Public Speaking Winners Jacob, Molly & Niamh

Year 7 winners were:

1st place Eirlys Jones: Transgender

2nd place Georgia Bartlett: Gender Pay Gap

3rd place Vincent Mitchell: Peter Capaldi as Doctor Who

Other finalists were: Josie Cox, Jana Hall, Violet Hawkey, Jess Tingley, Taylor Tomlin, Ava Burnage, Mia Osbourne and Jess Thomas

Year 7 Public Speaking finalists

Year 7 Public Speaking winners Vincent, Eirlys & Georgia

Well done to all the students who took part in lessons and in the final. They did themselves and their teachers proud.

Ms P Sullivan

Creativity through Photography

GCSE Art & Photography Exhibition 2019

Earlier this term we celebrated the achievements of our Year 11 Art and Photography students by creating an exhibition of their exam projects and final pieces. The work showed off a breadth of study in terms of starting points, ideas and use of media. We continue to have exceptional talent at Oathall and it was lovely to have the private view attended by so many visitors. Many thanks to all of our exhibitors, hospitality and catering students for making canapes and to everyone who attended.

Photographs displayed on easels

Made by our GCSE catering students

Photographs displayed on the wall

Visitors taking a closer look

Students talk through their work

Photography collections

Mrs M Toal

Creativity through Enterprise

Virgin’s Make £5 Grow

Our Year 7 students are currently taking part in this exciting opportunity which helps them to build their enterprise, mathematics, team building and financial skills.

Students have recently been planning their products/services and pitching to staff. Teams that are selected will be given £5 per student and begin to market and sell their product or service.

Students will be selling to the whole student body during the penultimate week of term. We are excited to see their businesses grow!

Virgin’s Make £5 Grow

Virgin’s Make £5 Grow

Virgin’s Make £5 Grow

Mrs L Griffiths

Creativity through Food

Oathall Bake-Off

Each year, the Rotary Club sponsors the Oathall Bake-Off competition. This year’s competition theme was the Rugby World Cup – Japan 2019.

17 students entered by baking a cake at home and sending in a picture for consideration. These entries were then judged on creativity and skills with 8 being selected to enter the final competition.

The competition took place on Tuesday 4 June with competitors being given 4 hours to bake & decorate their cake from scratch. The cake ingredients were provided by the Rotary Club & the decorations were provided by the students.

Students that made the final: 

Poppy Southerton, Lola Armstrong, Nicole Crockford, Esme Brigden, Jessica Tingley, Abigail Kirbell and Freya Josephs. 

At the end of the competition the cakes were judged by a panel made up from WI members, Kate Kent and Julia Vokes, Mike Hoare and Nigel Vokes from the Rotary Club, Emily Hughes and Emma Brown from Oathall’s catering team, as well as Emily Brock, three times previous Oathall Bake-Off winner.

Cakes were judged on appearance, skill level, taste & texture as well as on creativity and originality. The winning cake came top in all of the criteria. The judges were particularly impressed by the original use of Yuzu a Japanese flavouring in the filling as well as the creativity and professional finish.

Winner, Georgina Hull

Every person who entered received a whisk and wooden spoon with the final entrants receiving an apron and recipe book. The top three entries also received gift vouchers as their prize. 

A display and information about the event will also go up in the WI tent at the South of England Show. For more photographs, see the front page of the school’s website.

Mrs V Slater

Creativity through the Written Word

What the Dickens?

Year 7 began their new Dickens unit in a way that would make the infamous author proud: with creativity. Each group had a choice to show off their knowledge of Mr Dickens: design a T-shirt for Dickens fans, create a colourful and informative poster, write a dramatic scene, or create an information sheet about Dickens. As always, the students tackled the task with innovation and enthusiasm. Their work explored Mr Dickens’ infamous works as well as his remarkable life and showed insight into this seminal period in history.

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Ms L Fisher

Creativity through Music

This has been a busy term for the Music Department as our GCSE students prepared for their final performance exams, made finishing touches to their compositions and prepared for their listening exam. We will miss their musical presence in the music department and at our performances, and in the words of ABBA Thank you for the music!

As part of the “Tenner Challenge” Molly Hord, very ably supported by friends and parents organised a “Classics and Cake” afternoon concert in April. This featured AMAZING performances by students and was followed by a simply scrumptious afternoon tea. Thanks to Molly’s leadership and the support of all who played, baked, served, transported instruments in and out of the hall, organised the sound, compered the event, and arranged for charity money-doubling. We raised close to £1000 of the £5000 needed towards the purchase of a new baby grand piano for the hall.

Next up for our Oathall Musicians was the Power of Music Festival which took place on Saturday 22nd June at the Orchards in Haywards Heath. Our Choir, Bands and Orchestra joined forces with a number of local Primary schools to form a mass choir, accompanied by in house arrangements by Mrs Mac Taggart and Mr van Galen of Proud by Heather Small, A Million Dreams by Pasek and Paul and Secret Garden’s You Raise Me Up. It was a truly joyful experience to be a part of a performance by over a hundred young musicians ranging in age from 7 to 15. The Oathall ensembles presented a number of independent performances which were very much enjoyed by the audience, we are very proud of the students’ musical approach and by their support of each other on stage and behind the scenes – true Oathall spirit in action!

We were also thrilled to see Oathall students playing in the amazing Hangleton Brass Band performance and with the superb Ensemble Reza Orchestra performance which followed our gig.

We are now very busy preparing for the Summer Concert, following a record 38 auditions of numbers for the performance which will be held on the 10th July at 7pm and look forward to seeing many of you there.

Guitar players

Drummer

Mrs C MacTaggart

Creativity through Art

GCSE Art club

This has continued to be well attended by our ambitious Year 10 students this half term to support them in developing their ideas and final pieces for their coursework project ‘Animals and People’. They have been inspired by seeing a variety of excellent final pieces produced by year 11 students for their final exam. 

Year 9 Art club

Congratulations to Milena and Amber who started up a Year 9 Art club in May which they run on Tuesdays after school.

Amber

Year 9 Art Club

Milena

Lino Printing Club

Year 7 and 8 students are working on a reduction method lino cut and print. This involves breaking an image down into component parts and cutting away the lino and printing colours at each stage to build up a whole image. This is a challenging and complex process and the students involved have shown great enthusiasm and achieved fantastic results.

Mrs J Smith-Hashim

Aiming High

Shadowing the Carnegie Awards

The Carnegie Award is given to the best novel written in English published the previous year. At Oathall, we want our students to know they are capable of reading at the highest level and reading the best books out there. We want our students to read books that challenge them, that excites them and that enriches them which is why we decided to start a new book group

Mrs D Perrin

Some of the Carnegie Shadowing group with Ms Fisher

Ms L Fisher

Accelerated Reader

Well done to the top readers of year eight who have scooped the Word Millionaire certificates in their end of year assembly. It good to see that students are more accustomed to reading in their spare time and on the whole always have a book to hand throughout the school day.

Year 8 Accelerated Reader awards

Similar congratulations to the top readers of year seven who have scooped theor Word Millionaire certificates, presented after the yer seven Public Speaking competition.

Year 7 Word Millionaires

Combined, both years groups have read 194,117,372 words in 3,817 books. These figures are tracked when students successfully pass an Accelerated Reader quiz. Well done to them all.

Not sure what to read over the Summer? Why not take part in the Oathall Reading Challenge which started on 24th June and runs through the summer un Friday 27th September. Click here for the sheet.

Ms A Chinn

Gifted & Talented Art Masterclass

Year 7 and 8 students were invited to attend a gifted and talented Art Masterclass recently. Forty students came along so the room was buzzing! In just over an hour students created A3 colourful studies of animals, focusing on mark-making and layering effects through printing. Well done to everyone who attended.

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Advance Maths Support Programme Competitions

In July, Oathall will welcome representatives from the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme that came to run the Summer Snacks Maths Competition. The exciting team competition will run for 16 teams of four Year 9 students and will be used to select the team of students that will enter the Regional Maths Feast competition next year. The Year 10 Maths Feast is an enjoyable and challenging team competition testing mathematical, team-working and communication skills. The format of the competition changes slightly so that the rounds remain interesting and exciting.  Every year, Oathall enters one or two teams to the Year 10 Maths Feast Competition with great success.

The competition usually follows the form of a banquet with at least four different rounds or courses, including an amuse bouche, entree, main and dessert rounds. Each round was different with activities that challenged our Year 9s’ maths comprehension and problem-solving skills, together with more practical rounds where they had to build shapes and interpret diagrams. 

The Advanced Mathematics Support Programme will also run the Dragon Quiz problem-solving competition for our Year 8s. This team competition follows the form of a relay where students in year 8 attempt to solve 20 problems. Students will take a card at a time with a problem on one side and a part of a dragon body on the back. If they get their question right they can take their card to form a dragon. The longest dragon wins!

Good luck to all students entering this competition!

Mrs L Griffiths

Building Skills through Physical Activity

Champions!

Congratulations to the Under 13 Girls Cricket team who played in the Sussex Chance to Shine tournament yesterday at Poynings. I am delighted to say that they beat Ratton, Chichester free school, Patcham, Millais, Sackville and Downlands on their way to being crowned champions.

Under 13 Girls Cricket team

Under 13 Sussex Stoolball Tournament

27 students from Year 7 & 8 competed in the Sussex Schools Stoolball Tournament at Plumpton Green. We had a fantastic day with all of the girls making their own contributions either batting, bowling or fielding. We played teams from Ringmer, Downlands, Uckfield, Beacon, St Pauls, and Sackville.

A special mention must go to the Year 7 team who made it through to the semi-finals narrowly being beaten by Downlands. Well done to Charlotte White and Amber French for fulfilling their roles as captains excellently. 

Rounders

Congratulations to the U12 Rounders Team who have started the season off on a high! They beat St Pauls 22 rounders to 31/2 and 111/2 to 6. Well done everyone! 

Year 9 & 10 Trip to The Festival of Sport

Over 50 prospective or current GCSE PE students attended a trip to Chichester University to take part in the Festival of Sport. The day gave students the opportunity to try over 40 different activities including wheelchair basketball, golf, trampolining and blind football. They also had the opportunity to attend seminars on sports science and sports psychology. 

Getting to grips with the holds

BTEC Dance workshop

The Year 10 BTEC Dance students continue to work extremely hard being put through their paces by an external Dance specialist to learn the set work for one of their modules. They have had an incredibly positive start to their course and we look forward to seeing them perform at the Oathall Performance Festival in July. 

GCSE PE Athletics Assessment

The Year 10 GCSE group visited K2 to take part in their GCSE Athletics Practical exam in June. There were some outstanding performances from all students across all track events.

Special mention to Josh Ballinger who performed outstandingly in the 3000m and Lewis Monks who looked incredibly powerful over 200m. Well done to all of you who attended. 

Take your marks…!

Ms Z Froud

First Aid

Year 10 child development group completed their first aid course recently and did really well. It was a 2-hour session over two lessons. They thoroughly enjoyed it and fully participated in all the practical elements. They covered burns, breaks, bandaging, choking, asthma, CPR and mouth to mouth plus using the defibrillator machine.

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Mrs S Kirkpatrick

Primary School Leadership

Primary School Leadership

Ms Z Froud

Primary links- Art RSPB Project. 

Respect Aspire Achieve Enjoy

We are now approaching the end of the spring term at Oathall.  This, our latest Teaching & Learning bulletin again provides an insight into the breadth of activities and achievements over the past weeks.

It was a privilege, once again to see our very talented dancers perform at the annual Rock Challenge held at the Hawth Theatre in Crawley; a beautifully choreographed and executed piece.

Our public speaking teams have continued to make progress in the national Youth Speaks competition with both intermediate and senior teams performing brilliantly at the district finals.  I am delighted to see that the intermediate team will continue to the regional finals to be held in Marlow. Congratulations to all involved.

This spring term has been a particularly busy one: STEM students building a drone for the Mid-Sussex engineering challenge, the ski trip, author visits, maths challenges and competitions, the race-for-the-line challenge in Science week are notable.  We have seen sporting successes too winning the county indoor athletics as well as our U12 hockey team becoming winners at district level.

May I wish all the Oathall Community and enjoyable and restful Easter break.

E Rodriguez

Headteacher

Dedication recognised

Ms L. Gyngell

Congratulations to Charly Dickson and Amy Stowe who have received the Rotary Club Community Award for the fantastic work they have been doing to improve Mental Health at Oathall. The girls have worked tirelessly this year leading assemblies, creating posters for tutor rooms, liaising with local charities and organisations and supporting peers suffering from mental health issues.

Oathall and other schools

In Music

Mrs C Mactaggart

Mrs Mactaggart and Miss Ledwidge said how proud they were of the conduct of our students and particularly in the way that our musical leaders Carla Mukasa, Jennifer Wood, Molly Hord, Bea Carter, Dan Read and Oscar Tarbox led the vocal parts during Dona Nobis Pacem, supported by the rest of the choir. Short videos of some of the songs were uploaded to the Oathall Performance Twitter page.

In Maths

Mr J Leonard

Y10 Maths Feast Competition

Y8/9 UKMT Team Maths Challenge

On Stage

Mrs C Avery

Rock Challenge 2019

On Monday 25th March, students from Oathall took part in the 2019 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 ‘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.

Our students all performed magnificently, every single one giving 100% effort.

With special thanks to Holly Hicks, Isabelle Hateley, Lilly Moffett and Kate Woodhams. 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 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
Award of Excellence for Soundtrack

Behind the scenes at Rock Challenge

Mrs C Mactaggart

Milena Karwat designed and drew the beautiful ballerina, (Odette or Odile?) who appears to be dancing through a shattered mirror.

The Sound and Light Tech crew worked very hard with Mr Van Galen to design effective lighting and to build and strike the set on the night. We were very pleased to have been awarded a certificate of excellence recognising the behind-the-scenes team for visual enhancement, musical soundtrack, crew and lighting to compliment those won by the dancers.

On the Sports Field

Miss Z Froud

Each district of Sussex was represented by their respective area winners so the competition was very tough with the winners being declared the top indoor athletics team in the County.. Both teams represented both Oathall and Mid-Sussex impeccably and  I am delighted to say that the Year 8 Boys team won Gold and the Year 7 Girls team won Bronze.

Visitors to Oathall

Inspirational Speaker, Baz Grey, 

Author, Jenny McLachlan

Jenny also found time to share her lunch with students from our Battle of the Books club (who have been reading one of Jenny’s books, Stargazing for beginners) plus our Creative Writing club members. She also signed copies of her books that students had purchased, writing a personal message to make their book really special.

The Tenner Challenge

Mrs L Griffiths

A big thank you to those of you who came and supported our Tenner Challenge students at lunchtime recently. So many stalls sold out really quickly and have already got pre-orders in for the next sale.

British Science Week

Mrs J Pringle

This year Oathall celebrated British Science Week in style. The theme for the week was Journeys so we were able to include loads of cross-curricular aspects from Geography to English lessons.

Year 7 spent the week designing and making Rocket Cars as part of the Race for the Line venture. We were able to take part due to the kind sponsorship from the Civil Aviation Authority – International Group so a big thank you to them.

The students were asked to focus on making the cars as light and streamlined as possible as the winning entry will be invited to take part in a regional final. I know that Year 7 then enjoyed racing them across the playground. I am delighted to announce that Windston group from 7c2 designed and made the winning car.

In our classes we got into groups of four and we were given a foam block. With that foam block we had to create a car but the were certain areas that we couldn’t cut. We had to make sure the car was streamline so it wouldn’t drag. But if the car was too thin then it wasn’t allowed to race.

Over the course of a couple of days we cut down the foam blocks to the right shape we wanted. Once we had finished that, we were allowed to paint a design on them and put the wheels on.

On Tuesday 26th of March we raced our cars. Our cars were attached to a wire, which helped them to go straight. We then put a micro bit in. A micro bit counts how long it takes for the car to get to the other side in milliseconds. After that a rocket was put into the back of the car. The rocket was then lit which caused the car to race to the other side. Racing the cars was really fun and exciting, especially when the rocket went off. Thank you to Mr Streamer and Miss Pettingel for being our expert rocketeers.

Jessica Rimmer

As well as forming part of British Science Week this activity fitted in really well with the Forces unit that Year 7 has been studying this term.

Year 8 and 9 spent Science Week studying the journey of Sir Ernest Shackleton. They looked at how he made his way through the Antarctic and carried out experiments to find out ways to purify the water that they would have had access to ensure fresh drinking water for the team.

The students were also encouraged to enter the Key Stage 3 Science House competition – researching their science icon. The winners will be announced shortly after we have been able to read through the large number of entries.

Year 7 and 8 Crest Awards

Mrs J Pringle

This term a group of Key Stage 3 scientists have been studying for their Bronze Crest Awards. These are National Awards and involve choosing, planning and carrying out an investigation into an area of science that interests them.

The investigations have ranged from the ideal recipe for Bath Bombs to the ideal surface to show fingerprints to conditions needed for ultimate seed growth.

This club is open to any interested Year 7 or 8 students.

During the week a number of our Year 9 students were selected to take part in Biology Challenge. This is a national competition organised by the Royal Society of Biology testing students knowledge and understanding of biology in and beyond the curriculum.

I am delighted to announce that the following students were all in the top 5 scoring Oathall students.

• Sarah Bewick
• Ella Tingley
• Bethany Thomas
• Theo Billson
• Michelle Lin.

We now have to wait until mid-April to find out if they have achieved National Bronze, Silver or Gold certificates.

Learning solidified using video and drama

Ms S Madeddu

Homework comes in all shapes and sizes and we are especially pleased when students think outside the box and create something special for their homework.

Enjoy Sue’s video guide to Barcelona.

Explore With Sue!

Ms Z Holmes

Students from 7B2 – Mrs Edwards’ and Mrs Holmes’ Year 7 History class – take part in a role play to learn about the importance of the murder of Thomas Becket. This is part of their studies on challenges to the power of the king in the Middle Ages. The students were very enthusiastic and this activity resulted in a deeper understanding of this significant event.

Respect Aspire Achieve Enjoy

It was such a pleasure to have been in the college hall earlier this term to witness the orchestra bringing together the musical talents of the young people from 5 local secondary schools. The quality of sound resulting from more than one hundred young musicians was something to behold. My thanks go to Mrs Mactaggart and all those involved in producing this wonderful event at Oathall.

This latest bulletin again highlights the breadth of experience at the school. This may well, of course, be through the usual curriculum subjects but significantly sees students engaging with opportunities beyond the classroom. The “Tenner Challenge” is particularly exciting and I am looking forward to hearing some of the students pitch their ideas after the break.

My congratulations to the junior team for winning the latest round of the Youth Speaks public speaking competition who now move on to the district finals. I wish the intermediate team every success at their competition next week. Sporting successes have also been notable over this term; well done to all involved.

Movement to Music

Mid Sussex Orchestra Day at Oathall Community College 

Mrs Mactaggart

Oathall musicians joined forces with musicians from Downlands, St. Paul’s, Warden Park Academy and Burgess Hill Academy to work on learning and performing five pieces of music in just one day!  We are very privileged to have several experienced instrumentalists and musical directors in our local schools who, between them organised the event and conducted the pieces as well as providing expert support for the strings, brass, woodwind and percussion sections in the orchestra.

The aim of the project was to enrich and broaden the musical experience of our orchestral players by providing them with an opportunity to play in a symphony orchestra under the direction of expert musicians in a positive, inclusive and social environment. This aim was well supported by West Sussex Music and musicians from Ensemble Reza, violinist Andrew Thurgood and cellist Sarah Du Bost-Carvalho.

The final performance at the end of the day was fabulous and was well supported by parents and friends. Students mentioned how exciting (and a bit scary) it was to see their head teachers in the audience as well and Mr Rodriguez remarked on how proud he was of Oathall’s musicians.

Feedback from all was very positive and plans are already underway for a repeat performance in 2020. Some comments received were:

“Congratulations to you all for a fantastic day indeed. I am very impressed with the quality of the concert the orchestra gave after only a half day rehearsing together”;

“I found the idea to join forces between all local secondary schools in a big orchestra a fantastic one and a great success (including the different conductors for each piece).”;

“It was brilliant and inspiring to work with you all…”;

“That was the most fun ever!”

“My students mentioned how much they enjoyed the experience of being conducted by different people! Each had different approaches and I think this has been hugely beneficial to them”.

“Many congratulations on achieving such a valuable and high-quality musical experience for your young musicians. It was a real treat to be at Oathall this afternoon to witness the fruits of your labour – it was a powerful image seeing 100+ musicians in performance. I’m sure it’s an experience that none of the pupils will forget”.

Youth Speaks

Ms C Slade

Movement in Science

I have really enjoyed this half term’s topic as it has been really interesting and fun to see the applications!’

Words in Motion

Shakespeare Whoosh! Words flying across the library.

Shakespeare Raps

Ms Fisher

Another one looked out for thy danger,

Another one fell ere he could ev’n think,

Let me go along! Me and a stranger,

No coward will run when their world will shrink.

Hey! Finally I’m gunna get the last,

Quickly now another one bites the dust!

As always, our Oathall students expressed important issues with creativity, sensitivity, and flair.

Students will be bringing their entries in after half-term and displayed in the English corridor for all to admire.

Words are lifted off the page thanks to innovative ways of presenting poems.

Walking-Talking Mock session

Ms Evans

Delving deeper into Mathematics

Mrs Griffiths

In Maths our Year 7 students are currently following a mastery curriculum. The mastery approach ensures that students acquire a deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of the subject. Students at Oathall are being challenged by a deeper analysis of the mathematical content and by applying the content in new and unfamiliar problem-solving situations. In our most recent unit of work, we are investigating fractions. Students are getting a deeper understanding of the topic through a variety of questioning and teaching techniques. Our students are also being supported in their understanding of fractions by using our new equipment bought with the money fundraised by the OPTA.

Learning from the Workplace

Visiting Jeremy’s 

Mrs Slater

Recently, Year 10 Hospitality and Catering students visited Jeremy’s restaurant at Borde Hill, click here to find out more.

The Tenner Challenge, a national competition for young people aged 11 – 19.

Mrs Griffiths

The Maths Faculty is delighted to be taking part in this year’s Tenner Challenge, a national competition for young people aged from 11 – 19 years. 

Taking part in the Tenner Challenge will help our students to develop crucial employability skills and financial experience alongside an important insight into how core curriculum learning will serve them well in this fast-changing world of work. Students will work in small groups to come up with a product or service they believe will grow into a successful small business. Students will pitch their ideas and one group will be chosen from each class to be part of the challenge. Each student from the winning group will then be given £10 from the Tenner Bank and this will be used as start-up capital to get their enterprise off the ground. Students will be pitching their ideas after half term!

Visit from Alumni

Mrs Griffiths 

Sporting Prowess

Ms Froud

It may be too frosty or wet to use the sports field for athletics, but that doesn’t stop our athletics students from competing. Recently, the Under 12s athletics team took part in the Mid-Sussex round of the County Athletics Championships and were thrilled when the Year 7 girls’ team won the event! The boys’ team came a credible 5th and we are proud of them both.

Both teams celebrating together

Year 8 boys on winning the 1st round of the indoor athletics competition at Sackville

Linking Learning

Book Clubs

Mrs Perrin & Mrs Fogarasi

Two new book clubs have started recently in the library, aimed at taking a deeper look into specific titles to enhance and enrich students’ understanding and enjoyment of reading fiction.

The Amazing Book Awards club is for Year 9 students and follows the fastest growing book awards programme in the UK, click here for more details. The club meets monthly after school on Mondays until 3rd June, after which the group will go to the finals at Shoreham Academy. It has been a hugely successful club in the past and we are thrilled that three of our year 11 students have loved it so much that they are still attending and reading the books. We aim to build lifelong readers and these three prove that happens.

Following the delivery of our free books from BookTrust, we have set up a book club for Year 8 students. Following a similar pattern to the ABA club, it meets monthly and looks at five different titles. They are Boy 87 by Ele Fountain, A Good Day for Climbing Trees by Jaco Jacobs, Star by Star by Sheena Wilkinson, The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson and Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes. In June, we will collectively decide our favourites, probably by having a Balloon Debate, giving students the opportunity to use their powers of persuasion to keep their book in the air.

Respect Aspire Achieve Enjoy

We have had a busy start to the autumn term and our latest teaching and learning bulletin provides an insight to much that is new in the school.

Significantly, I was so pleased that our new Maths and Science block opened on time for the start of the new academic year. This major project has seen these critical facilities in the school completely transformed. The recent formal opening of the block was an excellent event and I am so delighted that Sir Paul Nurse FRS was able to attend as our guest of honour. Discussing science and sharing practical experiences with a Nobel laureate are not everyday experiences and will certainly become a cherished memory for all involved, both staff and students. The evening welcomed many visitors to the school including a number of parents and donors who had supported the school so generously through our recent PTA organised crowdfunding event.

Our whole-school ‘Drop Everything and Read’ (DEAR) programme is really turning Oathall into a ‘Reading School’. Pioneered by Ms Chinn in the English faculty, an almost eerie silence descends on the school during those allotted periods when students and staff take out a book from their bags and read. Developing a reading culture is critical in so many aspects of learning and I am delighted to see how quickly this practice has become embedded in the school.

In many ways, DEAR is part of a strategy to enhance our school culture. Very much on that theme is the ‘Them and Us’ project launched by Mr Parry earlier in the term. I am really excited by the potential of this work and look forward to seeing this develop over the coming weeks at Oathall.

A celebration of Whole School Activities

Drop Everything And Read, otherwise known as DEAR time, happening around the school.

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“Them and Us” Launch

Mr M Parry

This week, we have launched the “Them and Us” programme at Oathall. It is an exciting project being run in hundreds of schools across the country with the intention of helping young people understand those who are different to them. It focuses on 3 areas – Kindness, Respect and Living Without Harm. We will be focusing on Kindness and Respect with sessions being run in tutor groups to explore the importance of treating everyone with kindness and respect. Projects will be running throughout the school year such as “Random Acts of Kindness Week” when students will be encouraged to carry out small acts of kindness to anyone and everyone. Staff and students are excited about what this will do to our school atmosphere and community as a whole. It has already begun with students helping staff pick up litter without being asked, teachers, receiving gifts from students and a little hum of excitement which feels like it could develop into a roar any day!

Thanks go to this group of students who picked up litter without being asked.

Using the new Science & Maths Building (SAM)

Ms E Costelloe

Full circle farms project

Ms A Murray

We started our ‘Full circle farms project’ two weeks ago.  Tom Morphew, who is a former Oathall student, asked us to get involved.  He runs his own sustainable food company that uses waste from top London restaurants to make compost.  He then grows amazing vegetables, spices and herbs with this compost to sell back to the restaurants to use as ingredients in their tasty meals.  In our first week, we planted over 4000 seeds!  It has been great to start to see the seeds growing and we are looking forward to tasting the finished product.  Tom has recently appeared on Saturday Kitchen on BBC One to talk about his company.

National Poetry Day

Ms P Sullivan

On 4th October our students celebrated National Poetry Day in the style we are accustomed to: with one of our termly Open Mic Sessions! 

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Students from across the years came to read out poetry – some that they had written themselves and others that have been published. There was a fantastic array of poetry and excellent readings, with a couple of brave souls reciting their chosen poem from memory.

Well done to everyone who took part and thanks to David and Josh in Year 10 for setting up the sound system for us.

Freshers Fair

Great to see a Harry Potter bag at the Library stall!

Investigative, creative and physical learning throughout our faculties.

In Music 

Mrs C Mactaggart

In Science 

In PE 

Ms Z Froud

Year 8 gymnasts explored different forms of sports acrobatics and partner and group balances this half term to produce an outstanding final piece for their assessment. They showed maturity, teamwork, focus and resilience to perform some stunning balances.

The Under 12s played their first game of the seasons (and for some their first ever game of Football) at Burgess Hill Academy last night and secured an emphatic victory 7-1. All players were marvellous, Player of the match was Ella Chatfield who scored 5 goals!

Under 12s football team

Under 14s football team

The PE department’s extra-curricular programme has had a fantastic start with great numbers of students from all year groups attending a range of clubs from Dance to Football and Fitness to Frisbee. Here are the Football girls after a training session in the sunshine. Keep it up, girls!

Football girls

Continuing with their creative journals that they began over the summer, many Year 7 students created their own Coat of Arms in English lessons. The students drew inspiration from famous Coats of Arms, such as Queen Elizabeth’s and Meghan Markle’s. Ultimately, each student’s Coat of Arms exemplified their unique origins through symbols, colours, and mottoes. The students explained each part of their Coat of Arms in writing and then displayed their finished work using a gallery experience during the lesson.

In Music

Year 7s have gotten off to a cracking start in the Music Department at Oathall and we have been delighted to welcome them as new members of the school orchestra, various choirs and our Jazz Band. They were treated to a wonderful performance by one of our school bands as well as watching a presentation from West Sussex Music teachers designed to introduce the instrumental and vocal lessons on offer to them at the College.

In the library

2018: The Year Of Engineering – Women In Engineering Conference – Mathematics

Mrs P Gaston

Our wonderful group of students stood out for their excellent prior knowledge, their teamwork and their great respect for the highly acclaimed lecturers, speakers and organisers. 

Students had the opportunity to meet leading Female Engineers from Universities, from Industry and from the Engineering division of the Army. They had a chance to develop and use Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics during a series of practical workshops. There was also time to visit the Royal Engineers Museum during the day

The students were accompanied by Mrs Gaston & Mrs Ransom who were thrilled to report that Oathall students were “totally engaged in the subject and interesting & polite company for the day”. A number of the organisers made a point of complimenting our students on their behaviour and positive attitude. A truly great experience!