Best selling Author Visit

The Library team are always looking for ways to inspire students to read more. This month they arranged a visit to the school by international best-selling author C J Daugherty

Christi Daugherty is the best-selling author of The Night School, a series of thrillers for young adults. Christi visited the school along with her husband Jack Jewers, an award-winning director. Together they have created the Night School web series, the first British web series based on a young adult book. Christi spoke to Y7 students about her path to becoming an author and about the importance of writing in everything that we do.

Students were enthralled by her real-life stories of working for the Home Office in counter-terrorism and asked her lots of questions about what inspired her to write, how she comes up with the ideas behind her stories – especially the end of the book and what she would have become if she had not become an author. At the end of her talk, she signed copies of her books for students.

After her visit, her husband Jack sent the school an email saying

CJ had a great time, as did I, and it was a pleasure to meet you and the kids. Please pass on to them that they really impressed us with their questions too.

Oathall’s Tenner Challenge -Ten Pounds, Four weeks, One goal!

Oathall students have participated for the first time in the Young Enterprise national “Tenner Challenge”. The Tenner Challenge has provided an opportunity for students to set up a business for one month. Over 40 year 7-9 students participated selling a wide range of goods (see below). Each company was pledged £10 which enabled them to set up their business. They had four weeks to make as much profit as they could. Their products were showcased at lunchtimes in our school sports hall and at the Orchards shopping centre in Haywards Heath on Saturday 11 March.

At the end of the four weeks, the companies returned their initial £10 and paid £1 as a legacy donation to Young Enterprise to support next year’s event. We are pleased to report that every company made a profit. The participants are free to keep any hard earned profits but special mention should go to Modern Upcycles who have donated their profits of over £400 to Chestnut Tree House, Professional Handmade Cards who have donated £156.50 to Cancer Research, Colour Collison who have donated £100 to Woodlands Meed School and Kawaii who have donated £25 to Macmillan Cancer Research. Well done to all involved.

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Colour Collison  – Salt dough shapes and letters (Abigail Cooper,Kitty Underhill,Luke Derrick, Felicity Moore, Molly Atkinson)

Doodle Notes – Decorated notebooks and handmade bookmarks (Amy Vaughan, Katie Reed, Ella Middle)

Heart Decker – Clothing and accessories (Daisy Southerton, Keira Harris)

Kawaii – Mother’s day cards, bookmarks and knitted purses (Nicole Crockford, Rose Worsley, Olivia Morley, Ciara Ryan, Jessica Kettle)

Melodies – Plectrums (Jude Silk, Will Hagger, Henry Forrest, Sebastian Williamson)

Modern Upcycles – Upcycled a range of products ( Molly Hord, Zoe Downey, Martha Sansom)

OCC – Handmade lino cut cards ( Jessica Ruddock, Leane Roy, Hannah Hill)

OCCS – Staff car washing services (Harry Russell, Felix Carter, James Simpson)

Professional Handmade Cards – Greetings cards  (Jessica Sams, Zoe Nelson, Seren Billson)

Pure – Handmade cards, candles and jewellry (Kira Ashworth, Jamie Figurera)

The Crafters –  Stress balls ( Fionnuala Lingard, Katie Rimmer, Fatou Colley, Amy Taylor)

Revive – wooden hearts (Scarlett James, Thandi Sibandi, Holly Hughes)

Year 8 Future First Workshop

Some of our year 8 students were lucky enough to attend a workshop run by Future First, the charity that coordinates Oathall’s Alumni Association, around the themes ‘building motivation and overcoming barriers’.  We were thrilled to welcome back eight alumni to Oathall, who kindly gave up their time to talk to our students about their education and career paths, and in doing so provided valuable guidance and inspiration to the students.  We have received very positive feedback from the current and former students who took part, but of particular note:

70% of the students said they are now more confident or much more confident about being successful in the future now they have heard from former students;

82% of the students said they will now work harder or much harder at school as a result of having spoken to the former students;

76% of the students agreed that ‘the session improved my knowledge of courses and jobs that I could do in the future’;

77% of the students agreed that the session helped them understand how their school work might help them get a job in the future.

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Entrepreneurs everywhere during Tenner Challenge month at Oathall.

Oathall students are participating in the Young Enterprise national “Tenner Challenge” throughout March. The Tenner Challenge provides an opportunity for students to set up a business for one month. Each business is pledged £10 from the Tenner bank which enables them to get their business going. They have four weeks to make as much profit as they can. At the end of the four weeks, the company will return their initial £10 and pay £1 as a legacy donation to Young Enterprise to support this event for next year. Any additional profits will be kept by the business or donated to a charity of their choice.

Students at Oathall have already formed their companies and they have appointed managing directors, marketing directors and finance directors. They have all selected a product or service and are in the process of selling this to students, staff and family friends. On Saturday 11 March, students will be given the opportunity to sell their product to the wider community at a special event to be held in the Orchards shopping centre in Haywards Heath. Sp please come along to see the event. Everyone is welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rock Challenge 2017

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On the 6th of February, 56 enthusiastic Oathall students took part in Rock Challenge at the Hawth Theatre in Crawley, where we competed against several other schools and colleges.

This year our dance was called ‘The Forest Is Our Home’ and was an environmental piece about deforestation. Our performance took the audience on a journey through the beautiful and captivating rainforest where indigenous people live in harmony with the forest until logging tradesmen threaten to destroy their homes for profit. The performance describes how the indigenous people fight against the logging industry to rebuild and regrow.

Our students have worked hard since last October to put together this 8-minute dance performance. The sound and light team supported the performers with the set, videoing the performance and creating effective and atmospheric lighting designs. They were able to learn from the professionals managing the desks. Throughout the day itself everyone had a fantastic experience and by the end of the evening, we had won awards for performance, entertainment and lighting.

Speed Dating works!

Year 9 students have recently attended the annual Careers Speed Dating event at Oathall where they had the opportunity to speak to business and trade professionals from across the county and beyond.  It is organised to inspire our future workforce about real jobs; practise those all-important communication skills, and hopefully dispel some myths and challenge gender stereotypes.  This event complements the year 9 options process and students’ feedback is always very positive.

In fast paced, 5-minute slots, students asked a barrage of questions of the 30 different speakers representing a wide range of employment sectors including banking, engineering, medicine, scientific research, catering & hospitality, hairdressing, publishing, veterinary, Police, Armed Forces, childcare, nursing, law, retail, sport, performing arts and many more!

Feedback from the employers has been extremely positive.  Year 9 students did themselves proud.

Reflecting on his first experience of Oathall’s Careers Speed Dating, Mr Rod Hayler, Partner at Old Bailey Solicitors commented: ‘It was a pleasure speaking with your year 9 pupils, all of whom were impressively polite, engaged and insightful with their questioning.  I particularly enjoyed a guess from one young man who said “from the look of your suit … you must be a school headteacher”.  I can only assume that Mr Rodriquez must be a finely dressed man!’

Another first-timer was Steve Edwards, chef and winner of Masterchef Professional 2013, who said: ‘It was a pleasure to attend your event and have the opportunity to talk to and inspire the next generation.  It is a daunting task to think about what you want to do as a career and I hope I was able to give the students help and reassurance on the start of their career paths’.

Regular business representative Rachael Waters, Community Nurse, commented: ‘The students are all so receptive and keen to learn about the different roles.  From my perspective it is great to invest what is just a couple of hours to potentially inspire students to join my profession.  I met a delightful girl today who wanted to be a nurse and I know from her enthusiastic response she will one day make a terrific nurse.’

Thank you to all the business volunteers for giving up their time so generously to support our students.  It was especially pleasing that some of the participants were former Oathall students and members of the school’s Alumni Association.

 

 

 

 

New security in place at Oathall

For the last few months we have been working on a project to improve security at the school. New gates and fences have been put up and are in place as a safeguarding measure to control the access of people into the school site during the school day and at other times.The full system will be operational on Monday 6 February. 

The main access gates for students will be:

  • the top playground (from the Washington Road footpath)
  • reception forecourt (at the top of the drive). This is also the main visitor entrance.
  • large tennis court gates (on the school drive)

Normally, during term time, these gates will be automatically opened and closed at the following times:
Open from 08:00 until 08:50 – and – 15.05 until 16.00.

The entry gates are operated by a video & audio access control system linked to our reception. When the gates are shut students can request entry from the top playground or reception. Visitors to the school need to go to the reception gates to be allowed in.

Anyone still in the school after the gates have shut, for example for an after school club, can still get out of the school by pressing the gate release buttons from the inside.
Please note that the tennis court gates cannot be opened from the inside and the only way for pedestrians leaving the school is via the reception forecourt or the top playground.

Other information. (more…)

New Benches thanks to the PTA!

PTA-benchesAt the end of the autumn term, PTA chair Karen Crockford met the senior student team at Oathall for the unveiling of the new benches on the piazza and to draw the winning raffle tickets for the Christmas raffle. The weather could have been kinder but Karen stoically stood in the torrential rain with head girl Gemma Batchelor, head boy Elliot Day, and deputy head students George Brooks, Shaan Bayan, Anna Worsley and Naomi Johnson to show off the new benches.

The PTA would like to thank everyone who bought Christmas raffle tickets and contributed to raising nearly £1000. We are very grateful to all of our lovely local companies for their support in providing some wonderful raffle prizes and especially to Leaders Estate Agent for providing the top prize of an IPad.

We are delighted to see that the money parents, staff and students have raised this year has purchased nine smart new black benches providing students with extra seating around the school.

Keep calm and speak!

We are very proud of the students who took part in this year’s Rotary Club public speaking competition. This year we had 4 intermediate teams from years 7-9 taking part. They chose the following topics: badger culling, food for thought, a healthcare comparison and calming the mind. Very well done all the team members for their impressive deliveries and a special mention to Kitty Underhill in year 8 for winning the prize for being the best chairperson.