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!