Oxley
Primary School
The School Council’s main project this year is based on working towards a Beyond Bullying award as part of the Leicestershire County Council’s Anti-Bullying Team. To ensure this is a main focus, the School Council – headed up by our two co-chairs this year – meet regularly and discuss how we can improve our Anti-Bullying stance and raise awareness of the importance of working together to continue creating a safe and happy environment. After A LOT of discussion and lots and lots of meetings, our incredibly dedicated group created our brand new Oxley Charter consisting of every classes’ thoughts and ideas. More information can be found on our dedicated page from the top menu but here is a picture of our latest display where every child and member of staff have signed the Oxley Pledge to Reach Out, Speak Loud and Stand Up!
In October, our new school Council had discussions about how they could raise awareness of charity work and helping others. After much debate, they decided that this year, Oxley Primary School would be supporting a local charity right here in Shepshed called Steps: a centre of excellence dedicated to enabling children with motor disorders and their families.
The school Council decided to do this in order to help everyone at Oxley understand where our money goes that we raise as a school because, even though we talk and have assemblies about events such as Children in Need and Comic Relief, sometimes it is hard for us to have a realistic view of how this money is used. By forming this partnership, Steps have promised they will stay in regular contact with us and let us know how the money we have donated has been spent.
At the beginning of the month, Janet and Natalie from Steps came to see Oxley and delivered an assembly about how unique Steps is and the extraordinary impact it has on many local children and families. Sadly, they also shared with us the rising costs of running such a vital charity and how they rely solely on fundraising and grants to generate this income.
On Friday 18th November, we were proud to say we raised an incredible £292 which went directly to STEPS via our JustGiving page. In January, some members of the School Council will visit the centre and in March, we will have another fund raiser. The school Council would like to thank each and every member of our School Community for their generosity!
In April, we began to discuss how we could bring houses back to Oxley. Previously, we had houses based on trees but this time we wanted something a little different. Our first job was to speak to our classes to get their ideas. We then had a long discussion together and voted on the best ideas as a school council. We were extremely excited to announce that our new houses would be based on the four elements: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth!
Our next job was to launch a school competition to design each house symbol and we were excited to see all of the entries from every year group across the school – this is why we love our school! After much debate, we finally decided on our four winners and they were announced in assembly. We are also lucky to have a great artist in Year 6 who offered to work alongside our winners to create a uniformed set of symbols.
In March, we celebrated Red Nose day by dressing up and raising funds as no matter how small we wanted to help people live free from poverty, violence, and discrimination. We had just raised a significant amount for Save The Children so we kept it relatively small this time around. However, we were pleased to realise that this year, the charity was also supporting people in Ukraine, and those attempting to cross the border. We raised a great amount of £111.
I’ve heard about the war in Ukraine and I really want to help so I suggest and beg you to consider doing a dress down day where everybody brings in a pound (or more) so they can wear what they want for a day. I beg you to consider this message seriously as I only want to help.
William (Tigers Class)
In March, we raised a phenomenal £1,158 in our first big fund raising event. Last week, one of our Year 5 friends wrote a letter to Mr Caldwell to ask him if there was anything we could do to help raise awareness of what was happening in Ukraine. We had an emergency meeting and came up with the idea of wearing blue and yellow for a £1 donation. Our teacher helped us set up a JUSTGIVING page to make things even easier. We knew we had a great school but we never imagined just how much we would raise! We would like to thank everyone who donated for being so kind. We all looked fantastic wearing yellow and blue and three members of our school council spoke confidently in assembly on Friday. Together, we have shown true kindness in coming together to spread a positive message.
In November, Oxley – led by Mrs Reeve – applied for funding through the Tesco Community Grant to help turn an unused area of our playground into a wonderfully creative and fun-filled nature area for us all to enjoy. Thanks to our wonderful Oxley Community, who placed their blue counters into our section in stores, we can finally reveal we have been awarded £500! The fantastic Mike Harrison visited our school in early March and awarded us the biggest-sized cheque we’ve ever seen! Thanks Mike and all at the Loughborough Tesco .
In September, we set about our mission to help our teachers improve reading across the school. We had several meetings about what we could do and decided that we needed to make improving our library a priority. We spent weeks talking to our classes and quizzing them on the types of books they wanted to read. We also asked our wonderful PFA for a kind donation towards our new books. After they agreed, we began buying lots of new fiction and non-fiction books. We now also have a new library system where we scan books in and out – just like a proper library!