Respect Aspire Achieve Enjoy

As we approach the last few days of term before we break for the Christmas holidays, I look back on what has been a very busy and no doubt long autumn term.

We close the term with a number of traditional events at the college; our wonderful Christmas concert, certainly the best yet, our Christmas lunch as well as the splendid ‘carols in the barn’ this week. 

Last weekend saw the official opening of our new fitness gym. This is an amazing facility, enabled through a partnership with SwitchGym, that will benefit countless Oathall students for years to come. 

The current building work was temporarily suspended to avoid disturbing our year 11 students as they undertook their mock GCSE exams. Despite this, the various projects are progressing well and we look forward to seeing the first of the new windows being installed over the coming months.

The bulletin that follows once again gives an insight into the rich curriculum experienced by students here at Oathall. As always, I am impressed by the level of commitment and enthusiasm by which the young people engage with all that is on offer to them. I am, of course, indebted to the staff and volunteers at the school who give so much of their time to enable these activities to take place; thank you all.

At this time of year, we take stock of all that has taken place over the past year as well as look forward to all the exciting opportunities that the new year might bring. May I take this opportunity, on behalf of myself and all the governors of the college to thank you for your continued support and to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

E. Rodriguez

Headteacher

Working across the school

Cross-Curricular activities

Modern Foreign Languages week

Oathall celebrated the European Week of Languages which took place during the week starting Monday 4 November. All the students took part in a range of activities. Many students entered the European cake competition and there was an amazing array of creative examples of cake-making. No doubt the judges, the headteacher and Ms Gyngell, had a difficult decision choosing a winner.  All entries were highly recommended.

On Tuesday, Year 8 students took part in a language competition where they were required to ask members of staff whether they could say ‘thank you’ in any language indicated on a card. Teachers enjoyed showing off their linguistic talent. The students, on the other hand, loved testing their teachers!

Year 7 students participated in a Eurovision song contest and represented the language they are learning. Some of the groups were outstanding in their performance. It was very pleasing to observe that students enjoy singing in a foreign language. We would like to thank parents who also got involved in practising at home. The winning group is Monsieur Henri’s 7cfr1 class.

Many students have participated in cross-curriculum activities. In History, they studied the impact of the Norman invasion on the English language. In English, students were encouraged to discuss quotes about the use of languages and the advantages of communicating in more than one language. Other groups focused on creative writing, they had to describe the atmosphere of a French market. In DT, students cooked some European dishes. In the library, students enjoyed completing quizzes about European facts and famous people.

M. F.Henri

MFL Enrichment Leader

Art & Design Technology Cross-Curricular Week

Recently, the whole school has taken part in our cross-curricular week on the theme of patterns and structures in design. All students took part in a tutor time quiz to identify the different markings on African animals’ skins (natural patterns in design).

In History, students looked at Medieval Castle design. Students were given a brief to design a castle for William I and his men in 1066. Here are some pictures of some of the work that was produced.

In Languages, the students were looking at phonics and patterns within them.

We all enjoyed the week very much.

Mrs S Kirkpatrick

Art & Design Technology leader

Youth Speaks

Thursday 28th of November Oathall was proud to host the first round of this year’s Youth Speaks competition in connection with the Rotary Club. This year brought about a new challenge as the structure of the competition had been ‘revamped’ under a new title of ‘Youth Debates’. However, Oathall rose to the challenge entering two teams in each division. It was a tense competition, especially for our Senior teams who were facing each other for a spot in the next round! All of the students involved, from those speaking, to the researchers and to the rest of the Critical Thinking Society who supported them, worked around the clock in the lead up to the competition. A special mention must also go to the three understudies who stepped up at the last-minute to ensure all teams could compete. All of our hard work paid off as Oathall won a barrage of awards, including Best Opposer, Best Proposer and Best Chair in both divisions as well as sending a team from each division into the next round. After a place at regional finals last year we have our sights set high as we move into the next phase of the competition. Well done to all involved, and to the parents who listened to the many endless rehearsals!

Click here for photos 

Ms C Slade

SENCO

Building skills for life

Financial skills

The students in the Maths faculty have been linking their Mathematical skills to Maths in real life. Our aim has been to teach finance; a crucial topic for all students.

Having a say

Libraries are places of information, whether that is found in traditional non-fiction books or the knowledge readers gain when reading stories. This month, the main event in the library has been our Mock General Election. Students were challenged to come up with their own political party and manifesto featuring the issues they are passionate about. It was mainly aimed at our older students who are not far off voting age in an effort to educate them how the UK’s voting system works however, I was delighted to see one party formed by three students from year 7 who spoke well.  Students had to register to vote, hustings took place on Election Day followed by a secret ballot. The buzz this event created has been inspiring, young people are finding their voice and learning about making informed and educated choices.

Congratulations to the Big Dave Political Party who narrowly beat the Modern Reconciliation Party by two votes.

Students also voted for the main political parties which stood in Mid Sussex and the results were a win for the Liberal Democrats, followed closely by the Labour party who narrowly pipped the Conservative party and the Greens were last.

Coincidentally Politics for Beginners published by Usborne recently won the 2019 School Library Association’s Information Book of the Year. 

Drop Everything and Write

Alongside our successful daily dose of Drop Everything and Read, once a fortnight Oathall students engage in Drop Everything and Write. Choosing from a range of topical prompts, students explore their ideas through poetry, transactional writing, and fiction. This past term has seen an ode to a mobile phone, a story about a Halloween that went awry, an opinion letter about the importance of celebrating difference, and the childhood favourite letter to Santa. The faculty have been overwhelmed by the students’ creativity and enthusiasm. We look forward to continuing DEAW next term and providing our budding writers with more inspiration to nourish their imagination.

Scientific Exploration

Another busy term in the Science faculty has flown by with students settling in well and working hard in the new school year.

 

Science club is running every Week A on a Wednesday lunchtime and new members are always welcome. Our able year 11 prefects have been on hand to help with fun practicals like making sparklers.

We are keen to share our facilities with local primary schools and this term Blackthorns visited with some year 6 students to do some enrichment science. They had a go at a chromatography experiment,  making slides and using our new microscopes. Again our year 11 prefects were on hand helped teach each session.

All of year 7 and 8 took part in the National NHS Competition – we will be sending off a selection of the best pieces of work for the finals and helped raise awareness of the large and diverse range of careers that there are in the NHS. Fingers crossed from some prizes!

Ms E Costelloe

Head of Faculty (Science)

Learning from the past

The Humanities Faculty was delighted to receive over 100 entries for our recent Year 7 First World War Poetry Competition.  The standard of entries was extremely high and students should all be congratulated on their sensitive and moving pieces of poetry.

After much deliberation, we chose three winners and five runners-up who have all received certificates and prizes, as well as winning house points for their House.

Winners and runners-up

Year 9 historians have been doing an in-depth focus study on WWI this term. To remember the fallen and put their learning into context the students have written their own poems or reflections on poppies. Year 9 students have shown great maturity when learning about this topic and many have extended their learning over the past few weeks by researching into their own family history.

Poems on poppies

Ms Z Holmes

 

THE BIG SING 2020

Musicians at Oathall had a very exciting day leading primary students from 5 local schools in our annual Big Sing. We performed and recorded arrangements of Giant and Hey Mr Miller conducted by Welsh tenor, Andrew Rees. Much fun was had by all and the singing was absolutely wonderful, a very talented group of students!

The Oathall musicians had a great time performing at the Winter Power of Music Festival 2019. A highlight was ‘Giant’ which had the audience dancing along.

Our year 11 band, Sinister Tea Party, now well-known in the town, also performed to a great reception by the audience.

Mrs C MacTaggart

Teacher of Music

Teamwork through sport

I am pleased to share with you that following 4 rounds of football trials two Oathall students have been selected for the Under 12 Mid Sussex Football squad. This is an outstanding achievement and we wish them every success in their representation of both Oathall and Mid Sussex in their up and coming fixtures. Congratulations!

 

 

 

 

 

A slightly different celebration of Oathall students today but definitely worth some praise. The Under 14 Girls Football team was defeated by Hazelwick recently 4-0. What was most noticeable and commendable was the fact that this was the score after 20 minutes, what followed was a further 40 minutes of grit, determination, teamwork and monumental effort which resulted in no further goals being conceded and us actually being the better team. It was as pleasing for me to be a part of as a win! Please congratulate the girls who all showed great character.

 

 

 

 

 

Please congratulate the boys’ Badminton team who came a very respectable 3rd in the Mid Sussex badminton tournament last evening. The top 3 teams were so close all came down to the last match in which we narrowly lost 15-13. A win in that game would have secured Gold. That said, a really high level of Badminton played with excellent sporting etiquette made for a really enjoyable evening.

Great wins for our two U13 Hockey Teams against St Paul’s. A 10-1 win and an 11-3 win with great team performances from all our players. They played some wonderful hockey and showed great support and fair play throughout. Well done to them all.

Mrs Z Froud

Year 9 Hockey

Superb numbers for this age group with well over 20 players representing the school in matches home and away against Sackville. The team played some really great hockey and their inclusive and supportive approach is really inspiring and wonderful to see.

The whole squad is looking forward to matches against Hazelwick, Tanbridge House and St Paul’s next term and the County Tournament which will be held at Hurstpierpoint College this year.

Year 10 Hockey

This is also a very strong year group with their first match a win against Sackville. Unfortunately, their second game was cancelled by our opposition but with matches against Ardingly College, Sackville, Claremont in Hastings and their county tournament day.  The team looks set for a very good season.

Mr A Mills

Teacher of PE

Promoting enjoyment and confidence with reading

Have you ever wondered why schools invite authors in to speak to and work with students? In June of this year, the National Literacy Trust said this:

“To mark National Writing Day, we’ve published a new report today which shows that author visits to schools have a positive relationship with children and young people’s reading skills, and their enjoyment and confidence in reading and writing.

Our report found that pupils who had an author visit this academic year:

• Were twice as likely to read above the expected level for their age (31% vs 17%)
• Were more likely to enjoy reading (68% vs 47%) and writing (44% vs 32%)
• Were more likely to be highly confident in their reading (37% vs 25%) and writing (22% vs 17%)”

Students in Year 9were recently privileged to hear author Sue Cheung talk about her book ‘Chinglish’. The book reflects Sue’s upbringing as a first-generation Chinese immigrant to the UK in the 1980s in Coventry. She talked about the difficulties she faced with language barriers both at school and at home. Her mum spoke no English and although her Dad did, he was a distant parent. We later learned how he was actually much more than that too. 

Sue Cheung with our student librarians

Our students were enthralled. Sue is a witty and engaging speaker and she explained that humour and her drawings had been her way of coping with fractured family life. We had also invited our students from other years for whom English is not their first language and they appreciated Sue’s story particularly from that perspective.

Towards the end of Sue’s time with us, she answered questions from the students ranging from ‘who was your favourite author as a child’? (The answer was Sue Townsend, author of The Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4s) to ‘what was it like growing up over a Chinese takeaway’ and ‘do you talk to your Dad now?’

We have two copies of her book in the library but in reality, they are never available because students are constantly borrowing them! What a delight.

In March 2020, we shall welcome former Haywards Heath resident Patrice Lawrence to Oathall to celebrate World Book Day and Sue’s visit has already got students fired up!

Mrs D Perrin

Librarian

Respect Aspire Achieve Enjoy

We approach the end of a very busy and long first half of the autumn term.  The bulletin that follows highlights just how varied the programme of learning has been and once again, just how involved the Oathall students are to all that is on offer to them.  Our new ‘Super Curriculum’ is challenging our students to extend their learning beyond the classroom and it has been such a pleasure for me to have so many examples of outstanding work shown to me and to be able to recognise so many students for their efforts. 

We, of course, welcomed a new year group to the Oathall community as the term started in September and it has been a delight for us all to see how quickly they have settled into the school; it is right that this particular bulletin has a particular focus on them also. 

I wish everyone a restful half-term break 

E Rodriguez 

Headteacher 

Rugby World Cup Maths

The Maths faculty has been celebrating the Rugby World Cup in recent weeks. Students have been taking part in lessons that link Maths to the great game of rugby. 

We have learnt about how we collect data and then how we can represent that data in many different ways. KS 4 students have been able to link this work to cumulative frequency diagrams and Trigonometry. Students have really enjoyed linking Maths to this real-life environment.

Mrs L Griffiths

Oathall Reading Challenge

Students of all year groups were invited to take part in the Oathall Reading Challenge in July in an effort to get some competition going between our bookworms. The challenge involved reading 20 books in 20 categories between June and September. The 14 students below managed to complete this mammoth task and have been awarded book vouchers to spend at the Scholastic Book Fair happening 18-21st November.

Emma Hord, Niamh Chapman, Poppy Southerton, Tasha Lawrence, Isla Mustin, Jemima Brigden, Mia Wendt, Molly Hord, Esme Brigden, Ebba Wilson, Isobel Dupee, Sarah Bewick, Anna Bedingham, Bea Carter.

Ms A Chinn

Poetry Open Mic

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

We had almost 50 students from across the year groups take part. Some read a poem that they had written themselves and others that have been published. There was a fantastic array of poets and excellent readings, with a couple of brave souls reciting their chosen poem from memory and one being read in Spanish. Sadly we had more students than we had time to hear, so some read their poems in class instead. We made sure they still gained their house points and credits!

Well done to everyone who took part and thank-you to Jason and Josh for setting up the sound system for us.

Ms P Sullivan

Focus on Year 7s

Year 7 Club Fair

Year 7 Drama at Oathall 

Year 7 students have been working on creating characters for the circus and developing performance skills such as mime, use of facial expressions and body language. Working in groups they’ve explored how slapstick comedy can be linked into a mimed circus performance and developed their characters to show the emotions they could be feeling in different situations. Students have created some wonderful freeze-frames showing different emotions and their assessment pieces are taking shape nicely!

Year 7 Book Club

The Laugh Out Loud Book Awards (the Lollies) celebrates the best and funniest children’s books in the UK and Ireland, voted for by children. The Awards have been running since 2016 and this is Oathall’s second year participating. Students had the opportunity to sign up at the Year 7 Club Fair (which was run by our Year 9/10 student librarians). The twelve students are reading the four short-listed titles and then discussing them before voting for our favourite title: the UK winner will be announced in January 2020.

Mrs D Perrin

Year 7s ‘Get into Music’ Assembly

Music assembly

Our term got off to a great start with teachers from West Sussex Music and Love Music Schools, along with two of our senior students Joe and Matthew, coming in to perform to our year 7 classes in the Get Into Music Assemblies. Students had the opportunity to meet the teachers and hear them sing and play their instruments with many Year 7s opting to begin learning an instrument. 

Year 7 Science

Science club is now running for Year 7 in a Week A lunchtime and they are ably assisted by our Science prefects. So far the year 7s have enjoyed making slime, designing their own sparklers and lighting methane bubbles in their hands (should not be tried at home!). 

Next term we will also be launching a Year 7 and 8 Homework Club on Tuesday lunchtimes where students can come and ask our older students for some help if they are stuck or need a hand with a piece of work. GCSE Clinics continue to be available after school for our GCSE students. Please don’t forget the revision guide order deadline is the 9th November.

Library Skills

Year 7s have been finding their way around the library by means of a Scavenger Hunt. Based on what they’d learned in their library induction lessons, students had to find the answers to a series of questions by walking through and around every corner of the library. Questions ranged from “Is the Book Returns Box blue – Yes or No?” to “how are the books in the Fiction section organised”. Only by going to every part of the library were they able to complete their task. Each class did really well and should now be confident about what we have in the library and how to find what they need.

Mrs D Perrin

Inspirational Geography homework

The geography team has seen some fantastic homework produced this half term.  

In Year 8, making a volcano model is one of the most popular tasks and the variety of models produced is a testament to the creativity of the young learners at Oathall. 

Isobel Dupée explains, “My mum and I worked for ages, doing the paper mache, painting and glossing it and lastly finding the perfect formula for the bicarbonate of soda recipe.

I completed a lot of research to help me label my model fully, my knowledge of the key terms for this topic has improved no end. “

In Year 9, students have been learning about Tourism and how it can provide jobs and improve the wealth of an area. However, when large numbers of visitors go to one place this can have both positive and negative impacts on the area. Students were asked to design their own tourist destinations in any medium they wish, some choose cake! 

Tourism island

Mrs F. Hatchard

Science news

Students have made a great start to the school year and we have been impressed to see them engaging enthusiastically in their learning in Science.

House Challenge week will see our Key Stage 3 students taking part in an NHS national competition to raise awareness of the range of careers open to people. We are looking forward to seeing and submitting their entries!

Mrs Pringle is planning a full year of enrichment opportunities for our students and we look forward to keeping you posted over the coming months of what we are up to.

Mrs J Pringle

Learning from the Professionals

Students had a great day out at the fabulous performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto at Glyndebourne. We had lunch in the beautiful gardens before the performance and met up with Eric Gautron, Technical Director and one of our Oathall parents! Another family connection with the cast was noted and students were also lucky to meet Madeleine Shaw who played Madalena after the performance! Madeleine was able to advise our young singers on breath control so Mrs Mac Taggart is looking forward to hearing this in action at the Big Sing before the end of half-term.

Mrs C Mac Taggart

Macbeth trip

On the 16th October, a group of year 10 and 11 students went to see a performance of Macbeth at the Chichester Festival Theatre. The production starred John Simm as Macbeth and Dervla Kirwan as Lady Macbeth.

Ms A Chinn

Focus on Animals

Oathall Farm Animal Care

Students from the new Year 10 animal Care group have been working offsite with sheep.

Spring may be a distant memory but our farm pigs are welcoming new piglets this autumn, We have Roberta, a Saddleback sow who has had her first litter and she is proving an excellent calm mum, ideal for a school farm. Hannah Chatfield, a year 10 farm Team Leader has been getting to know the new saddleback piglets.

Sports Ambassador trip to Blacklands Farm

On Wednesday 9th October Mid Sussex Active organised a trip to Blacklands farm for all the sports leaders that have been selected to be Sports Ambassadors from Warden Park, Sackville, Imberhorn, The Burgess Hill Academy, Oathall, St Paul’s and Downlands. They were chosen to be a sports Ambassador as they have shown excellent leadership qualities through the last year and excellent role models.

At Blacklands farm, the pupils had the opportunity to take part in a variety of team building activities such as climbing, problem-solving, archery and abseiling. The pupils had a fantastic day and have learnt a variety of skills that they will now use to help deliver festivals for the rest of the academic year.

Textile Club ‘Endangered’ competition entries

The competition is run by the David Shepherd Wild Life Foundations. It’s open to anyone under the age of 16. To enter you have to create an exciting mini-exhibition/display made from anything, but recycled materials if possible. It should reflect the theme ‘endangered’. Students in the textile club are working in 2 groups; the younger students are making an underwater scene and the older ones are making a jungle scene. We will then join the two to make one big piece.

Mrs V Slater

Focus on Mentoring

Visit to Blackthorns Primary

Language Mentors

Our Language Mentor scheme is up and running again this term. Our wonderful year 11 linguists work once a week during tutor time with our talented Year 8 language students. The aim is to develop Year 8 students’ confidence and mastery of the language whilst also developing Year 11 student’s leadership skills. Our Year 11s plan and organise activities which complement the teaching and learning in the classroom

Mrs L Sandford

Focus on the Outdoors

Mud Run

Last week a group of year 7-9 pupils went to Bedes Secondary school to take part in a mud run.  There were lots of obstacles on the way round that were really hard work and tested our stamina! We had loads of fun and especially enjoyed the slip and slide.  

Please congratulate the Under 12 girls football team who played their first home fixture of the season recently and beat Oriel High School 7-4.

Player of the match voted for by the opposition was Ella Crudington who scored 4 goals!

Next game, St Pauls!

Under 12 Football team

Under 13 girls football team

Player of the match voted for by the team was Yasmin Williams.

Boys Under 14s rugby team

Our boys Under 15s rugby team recently had a great win in the District Cup!

boys Under 15 rugby team

Focus on Clubs

Photography Club begins

Year 9 Photography Club started this week (16/10/19). Students took photoshoots and experimented with photoshop techniques responding to the themes ‘Levitation’, ‘Cloning’ and ‘Framing’. Many had not used DSLRs or Photoshop before but were able to produce some fantastic results. 

Music Clubs and Performances

Oathall musicians have been having fun and developing their skills in the lunchtime and after school clubs as can be seen in the photos. We have been rehearsing for a number of performances, the first of which will be our Big Sing event where our choir, bands and orchestra will be performing with 5 local primary schools under the direction of Welsh tenor and director of Coro Nuovo, Andrew Rees, who will be leading the event with Mrs Mac Taggart and Mr Van Galen. 

Pianoman Scholarship Masterclass

We would like to congratulate pianists, Ben, Isla, Min and Agalia for their brilliant performances in the Pianoman Scholarship master class. The class was led by concert pianist Richard Meyrick who was able to offer valuable insight into the approaches to performance and improving technique for the young musicians. We are looking forward to hearing much more from them in the concerts over the coming months.

Summer reflections

Our Year 9 and 10 students had a great opportunity to visit Spain last summer and experience the language and culture in the Catalan seaside-resort of Callela.

After getting off the coach in the rain, we all quickly settled in rooms and we were welcomed by our PGL leaders who briefed us about all water-sport activities.

Our excursions included a visit to the magnificent city of Barcelona.

Our first stop was the world heritage site, Park Güell, a public park composed of gardens and architectonic elements. The park was designed by Antoni Gaudí, a renowned architect, whose style was inspired by organic shapes and analysis of geometry.

Then we made our way to Las Ramblas, a renowned pedestrian street. Kiosks selling flowers, newspapers and souvenirs lined the street, along with performers, and pavement cafes.

Finally, all students had an opportunity to go shopping and had to use their best orienteering skills to get to la Sagrada Família, the infamous and still incomplete church designed by Antoni Gaudí.

All students also enjoyed a very relaxing day at the Waterworld theme-park where they experienced the most thrilling rides! We then headed for the picturesque town of Tossa de Mar where we all bought our souvenirs and gifts for families and friends.

We are very proud of our students who really tried hard to speak Spanish throughout the trip, to try the local food and enjoy the cultural sites.

‘Our hotel boasted a delicious breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet accompanied with a range of traditional Spanish foods, such as croquettes, Spanish omelette and paella.  The Spanish lessons we had while on the trip were very engaging, such as matching the description to the teacher and trying our best to translate reggaeton song lyrics to English. These language skills we learnt were put to good use when we went shopping for souvenirs for our families (and when buying all the ice cream!). Between the visit to the picturesque seaside town of Tossa de Mar and the beautiful excursion to Barcelona, we all had a fantastic time.’ David Wheatley 11VCDS

M F Henri

 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!