Mrs Scarth's Start of Term Letter - Spring 2
Posted 7th March 2025
6th March 2025
Dear Parent/Carer
Start of term message from Mrs Scarth
The children have made an enthusiastic start to this half-term and have already enjoyed opportunities above and beyond the classroom. Our wider curriculum offer is one that we are immensely proud of, being recognised and praised by Ofsted. It is one that enhances the learning experiences for all our pupils, and one that continually brings joy to learning. We always celebrate learning both in and outside the classroom through our latest news on the school website, which we hope you are regularly alerted to and follow. This term, we have lots of exciting things planned and below is the Spring 2nd half term calendar of events for your information.
Cycling
Y5 started their Bikeability courses last week and it is lovely to hear the positive feedback from the instructors about how well they are doing. The Bike Bus continues to grow in popularity and on Friday it was great to see so many of our pupils and parents cycling along Beechwood Grove to school with huge smiles on their faces.
Penathlon Challenge Champions!
Our school participated in the Panathlon Challenge, an exciting and competitive sporting event that brought together seven schools for a day of friendly competition and teamwork. The event featured a variety of activities, including new age curling, a target throw, boccia, bowling, basketball shooting, and a parachute game. Our team, consisting of Jack, Joshua, Ralphi, Jacob, Teddy, Adeline, Alex, and Jessica, displayed exceptional behaviour, resilience, and determination throughout the day, contributing to our overall success.
The entire team was encouraging and cheered each other on in every activity, no matter the outcome. Their enthusiasm was contagious, and it kept the energy high all day long. They celebrated each other’s successes, big or small, and worked together to overcome any challenges they faced.
Our participation in the various activities was impressive, and the team excelled across all events. The new age curling, target throw, boccia, bowling, basketball shooting, and parachute game all required skill, strategy, and teamwork, and our students rose to the occasion. Their hard work and determination paid off, and we ended the day with the highest overall score, claiming victory over the other six schools.
As a result of their exceptional performance, all our children received gold medals and certificates, which they accepted respectfully. Despite their victory, they remained focused on the positive experience of the event and the joy of participating with their friends. In addition to the individual medals, we also took home the trophy for the school with the most points overall.
It was a fantastic day for our school, and our students demonstrated the true meaning of teamwork, perseverance, and sportsmanship. We are incredibly proud of how each child represented our school and how they worked together to achieve success.
Miss Bakes
World Book Day
We've had a lovely World Book Day 2025, with our children sharing, recommending and reading great books throughout the day. We've enjoyed 'Book Blankets' in classrooms, an online author talk with the great Michael Rosen himself, reading with our partner classes across school, book quizzes, and book 'speed-dating'. A real highlight this year has been sharing book recommendations by writing them on each others' T-shirts and notepads. We really hope this will encourage everyone to borrow or buy some of them so we can 'book chat' about them in the coming weeks. This year, every child at OJS was able to use their WBD £1 voucher to choose a free book provided by our wonderful local independent bookseller, Imagined Things. As always its been a delight to see the diverse and thoughtful WBD costumes around school from The Cat in the Hat to all of Beatrix Potter's famous bunnies AND Mr MacGregor!
Mrs Wilkinson and Miss Starrett
Courtyard Area
Our new area between the courtyard and playground is finished and ready for our students to use. It will be equipped with a couple of buddy benches for use during break times. Thank you to all of the children and staff who brought in pine cones to decorate the bottom of our new cherry blossom tree. This will provide beautiful, pink flowers in spring and shed brilliant orange and coppery red leaves in autumn.
A huge thank you to Oakland Tree Care Services for their generous donation of mulch, which will help reduce weed growth and retain soil moisture around our new tree. They provide services in the local area including tree felling, topping and lopping, hedge trimming, fencing and turfing.
Mr Gray
https://oaklandtreecareservices.com/
Oakland Tree Care Services Ltd | Professional Tree Services Leading family-run tree surgeons offering professional tree services. Expert advice and competitive pricing on tree and garden maintenance.
PTA
Thank you to our fabulous PTA who organised the popular movie nights this week. Over £600 was raised! They also organised the Golden Ticket chocolate bars for World Book Day which were hugely popular. This new event has raised almost £300.
Continue to look out for further notices about PTA events through the rest of the school year.
OJS on Social Media
After much reflection, we have decided to move away from X, and close our school account.
We know that social media can be a vital tool to keep friends and families of our school updated on special events. We will therefore be launching our new Facebook and Instagram accounts before the Easter break. We will share more information once these pages are formally launched.
For any other information, news and dates, please consult our website.
Thank you for continued support.
Yours sincerely
Mrs Estelle Scarth
Headteacher
