OG Historians take a trip to Bolton Museum

Today, the OG Historians went on a very exciting trip to Bolton Museum to learn about our locality. We spent the morning exploring different artefacts from Bolton’s past. We looked at images that showed Bolton in 1700, 1800 and 1900 and looked at the differences. We explored the lives of Samuel Crompton and Richard Arkwright and found out what they invented. Overall, it was an excellent morning and will really help us when we study our local history units in class. 

 

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Christmas Performance

We have really enjoyed an exciting Christmas performance today! Our Year 5 djembe drum players and brass players performed songs they have been learning over the Autumn term. Our school choir also sang beautifully for us. We enjoyed celebrating Christmas with this big assembly altogether in the hall. 
We would like to wish all of our families a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. We will return to school on Tuesday 9th January 2024.

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Pantomime Smiley Reward

Today we were very lucky to watch the Cinderella pantomime in school for our Autumn 2 Smiley Reward. The performance was fabulous and we joined in with lots of singing and dancing. Thank you Miss Harvey for this lovely treat!

 

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Wheelchair Fencing

This afternoon we were visited by Justine who does wheelchair fencing for Great Britain. She told us about her accident and recovery and how she got into training for competitions and events. Her first competition was in the World Championships! She has competed in the Paralympic Games and travelled the world. She is now training for the Paralympics in Paris in 2024. She showed us some of her fencing equipment and gave us a demonstration. 

 

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Choir brightening the darker mornings,

Christmas Cheer from the Choir. 

The children performed a selection of Christmas songs, to show case their fantastic talents. This morning during the start of the school day. They again wowed us with their beautiful harmonies. 

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Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge

A selection of our Key Stage 2 children were selected to take part in the Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge, an international challenge organised in over 60 countries and designed to get students all over the world excited about computing.

Each participant answer questions that focus on computational and logical thinking. It is a very tough challenge, and we are exceptionally proud to have a high number of children who achieved either a Merit or a Distinction. Merit places a child in the top 50% of children internationally who took part and Distinction places them in the top 25%.

Well done to everyone who took part!

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Choir Performance

This morning our amazing choir performed outside of school. They showcased some of the Christmas songs they have been working on alongside Mrs Hudson over the past few weeks. Everyone did an amazing job and should be very proud!

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Welcoming Drumming performance

Children from Year 5 this morning brighten up your day! With an entertaining performance showing you their drumming skills they have been learning this term. I hope they made you smile and put a spring in your step.

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Art Parent Morning

This morning, our families were invited to an Art workshop, followed by a visit to their child in class, to observe how art is taught at Oxford Grove. A range of art skills and techniques were being modelled as well as various art strands such as drawing, painting and mosaic. We would like to say a big thank you to all of our families who attended this morning. We hope this was an informative and useful morning.

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Online Safety Workshop Winners!

A big congratulations to our laptop winners! These families won the raffle for the parents/carers who attended our Online Safety workshops last week. We hope you enjoy using your brand new laptops at home!

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Remembrance Day assembly

Today, myself and the OG Historians led an assembly all about Remembrance Day. This is a special day on the 11th November where we stop to think about the people affected by wars. We particularly remember the fallen soldiers from World War One and two  who fought for our country. The OG Historians told the children all about how we wear poppies on Remembrance Day to show our respect. We do this as after the fighting had ended after World War One, poppies began to grown on the battlefields.

How can we honour the fallen soldiers?

We can hold a one minute silence on the 11th November where we can reflect on the sacrifices made by many soldiers in war. Many people also choose to lay poppy wreaths at war memorial site as a sign of respect to the soldiers who have lost their lives.

See pictures below:

How can you show respect on Remembrance Day?

What did you learn from the assembly?

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Online Safety Workshops

Today we have had a full day of online safety at Oxford Grove! We have held workshops for Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6. During the workshops, we talked specifically about gaming, social media, apps and the risks of artificial intelligence.

During the afternoon and after school, we also ran workshops for parents/carers. These workshops tied into the same messages that were given to our children.

Please remember that we have many different resources available for you as parents/carers relating to online safety, including our password protected Parent Area and the Online Safety Hub (please click the links to access these). If you need further support with online safety home, please speak to the School Office.

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Computing Open Morning

Today, our families from KS2 were invited into school to attend a Computing Workshop followed by a visit to their children in their classrooms, to watch them taking part in Computing lessons with their teachers.

We had a focus on Computer Science, where children were coding to create their own programs. We also talked about our online safety curriculum and how we empower children to keep themselves safe online in a variety of ways. 

We would like to say a big thank you to all of our families who attended this morning. We hope this was an informative and useful morning to help you understand what children are learning about in Computer Science, and also to support you to keep your children safe online at home.

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Black History Workshops!

This week, Key Stage Two have been lucky enough to have high-quality Black History Workshops tailored to each different year group.  First, the children looked at what makes up their cultural heritage. For example: the food they eat, where they were born and the music that they like to listen to. The children have learned all about how black people have been discriminated against in the past and the negative impact that this had on society.

The children in Year 5 and 6  took part in a range of games and activities to learn all about famous, influential black figures in the UK, who have have a positive impact on society and stood up for the rights of black people. The children even got to create freeze frames to represent an influential black figure that their group had.

Year 3 and 4 took part in an exciting quiz to understand their cultural diversity to celebrate the features that make them unique and special!

The OG Historians were lucky enough to attend additional Black History sessions at lunch time where they were able to create songs and play games to check their understanding of what they learned in their workshops.

Questions:

What does ‘discrimination’ mean?

Can you name any influential black figures that we looked at? What did they do to stand up for black people?

What did you lean from the workshops?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Early Reading open morning ..

Today, our families from EYFS and KS1 were invited into school to attend an Early Reading Workshop followed by a visit to their children in their classrooms, to watch them taking part in reading lessons with their teachers. This was a fantastic opportunity to provide our families with support and strategies to use at home when reading with their children. 

We would just like to say a huge thank you to all of our families who attended this morning and we hope this was an informative and useful morning to support you at home with reading with your children. 

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Phonics Workshop

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Football Vs Homophobia

Today, Oxford Grove had a special assembly all about treating people with equality. Equality means treating everyone fairly no matter what they look like, who are they are or what they believe in. We learnt about homophobia and how this is linked to football. This assembly used football as a means to communicate messages of inclusion to our children. 

What did you learn from this assembly? What did you enjoy the most?

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SATs Information Session

We have really enjoyed having Year 6 parents in school tonight for our information session about SATs! We hope all parents have found this session useful and have enjoyed coming into school this evening. 

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Welcome back!

Welcome back everybody! It has been wonderful to see all of our children back in school.

Here are a few dates for your diary over the next few weeks to help you get back into the school routine.

  • Sports Afternoons – every day this week at 2:00pm, starting with Year 6 on Monday 4th September
  • Class assemblies – weekly at 8:40am, starting with Year 6 on Monday 11th September
  • Tuesday 12th SeptemberEYFS and KS1 interactive resources workshop for parents/carers 3:00pm 
  • Thursday 14th SeptemberOnline Safety workshop for parents/carers 2:00pm 
  • Tuesday 19th SeptemberKS2 interactive resources workshop for parents/carers 3:00pm 
  • Monday 25th SeptemberSchool Photographer and Parent Conference
  • Monday 2nd October SATs and transition meeting for parents/carers 5:00pm 

Please see our website calendar and newsletter page on the school website for further dates and details.

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Anderton Centre

This week, Year 6 have had a fantastic time at the Anderton Centre. We took part in many different activities such as paddle boarding, orienteering, crate stacking and  low ropes. Take a look at some of our pictures… 

 

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Leavers Assembly

Year 6 celebrated their time at Oxford Grove with their leavers assembly. They showcased their memories of their journey through school.   All the children were presented with their record of achievements which is a record of all their amazing work throughout school! Well done year 6 we will miss you 🙂 

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Our charity walk!

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part in our charity walk for WaterAid.  It was lovely to see everyone coming together to raise money for such an important charity. In total, Oxford Grove have raised £1034 for Water Aid – which is absolutely brilliant! This money will go a long way to improve the quality of life for so many families around the World who are less fortune than us.

It was lovely to see some year groups chanting their target words and spellings as they completed their portion of the walk. See pictures below …

What was your favourite part about completing this sponsored walk?

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Boys’ Choir Performance

An amazing well done to Mr Martin and his boys’ choir who performed for our parents and carers outside school today! Thank you to everyone who came to watch!

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Summer Fair (Work Related Learning)

Thank you to all of our families who attended our Summer Fair (Work Related Learning). The children had a fun-packed day researching, designing, producing and evaluating their products.

Due to the weather, our event had to be held indoors but this did not stop our families enjoying all of the stalls and games. Take a look at some photos from the event:

Also, a huge congratulations to our three winners of Guess the Weight of the Cake, Guess the Name of the Teddy and Guess How Many Sweets in the Jar!

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School Games Mark 2022-2023

Well done to everybody at Oxford Grove for achieving the School Games Mark – Gold award for yet another consecutive year. An amazing effort by all children and staff!

The School Games Mark is a Government led award that focuses on recognising schools who show commitment to physical competitions across the school and the wider community. At Oxford Grove, children from a range of year groups have the opportunity to attend competitions, both those within school and with other schools across our cluster, covering a wide range of sports. 

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School council’s assembly about anti-bullying!

This morning our fantastic school councillors held an assembly all about anti- bullying. They informed us all about what we should do if we are being bullied at Oxford Grove. First, we looked at the different types of bullying and what each of these are. Then, our councillors told us the different steps to take if we feel like we are being bullied. We need to stay calm, inform a trusted adult and do not suffer in silence.  

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Transition

Our classes have now started transition! Children have moved into their new classrooms with their new teachers and are starting to get to know the expectations for the next year.

Our teachers are working hard to ensure that children are prepared for September. Transition is taking place full time each week over this term. For the final week of term, children will return to their old class teacher in order to spend time with them before breaking up for the summer holidays.

If you would like more information about our transition, please see our latest newsletter sent out in May: (click to view larger)

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Coronation Celebrations!

We have had a fantastic day celebrating the coronation at Oxford Grove!

We took part in lots of coronation themed activities and were lucky enough to take home some amazing coronation commemorative items. 

We also enjoyed our special coronation themed dinners!

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Thank you from Urban Outreach!

Thank you to all of our families for your kind Easter egg donations! Here is a thank you message from Urban Outreach.

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Easter Eggs for Urban Outreach

A huge thank you to our amazing families who have brought in Easter eggs for us to donate to Urban Outreach food bank.

Our School Council presented the eggs to Urban Outreach in assembly today.

These eggs will be given to families who are struggling so that nobody will miss out and every child can have an Easter egg.

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School Choir’s Official Recorded Tracks

Last week, School Choir visited a real recording studio in Manchester! They had some of their very best songs recorded and mixed professionally to create expert tracks. 

Please click the videos below to hear the tracks:

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Fundraising for Action Aid

Today we were so proud to welcome staff from Action Aid charity into school to present them with a cheque for our fundraising day organised by the School Council. 

The money raised will be used to support people in Turkey and Syria who were affected by the recent earthquake.  We raised over £762 in total – well done, Oxford Grove!

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OG Historian’s Project

Oxford Grove are pleased to be taking part in a local history project with Bolton Museum. We are taking part in a project called Class of 37 where we read essays written by girls in Bolton in 1937. Our job then is to rewrite our own essays and compare the similarities and differences. Then, our essays will be kept in the museums archives for 100 years when, in the future, another school will be reading our essays! We are working with real life historians Claire and Hester to complete this project 🙂 

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School Choir at the Recording Studio

Our School Choir have been so lucky today to be able to visit a recording studio in Manchester!

It was an amazing experience to be able to go and see where professional singers record their songs, and we recorded some of our own songs as well –  ‘Walking in the Light’, ‘This Is Me’ and ‘Heroes’.

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We are OUTSTANDING!

We are absolutely thrilled to announce that following the recent Ofsted inspection, Oxford Grove has secured OUTSTANDING in every area!

We have made a short video with the reaction of the children when they heard the news:

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Happy World Book Day!

Happy World Book Day from all the staff at Oxford Grove!

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Thank you from the Rainbow Trust!

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Online Safety Competition

All entries to be handed in by Monday 20th March.

We will choose the very best five entries to be sent to Bolton Schools ICT to be judged alongside entries from other schools in Bolton.

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Times Table Rock Star Winners

Well done to our top scorers and fastest rockers in Time Table Rock Stars over this last half term!

Here are our winners from Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4 – amazing!

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School Council Fundraising

Every year, our School Council choose charities to focus on for our school fundraising efforts. The Rainbow Trust is an excellent charity that works hard to support families who have a seriously ill child. This can be a very difficult time for everyone in a family, and the Rainbow Trust offers a family support worker for each family to give them the help they need.

Today, we were very excited to hand over a cheque for £301.70 to the Rainbow Trust. A wonderful lady from the Rainbow Trust came to receive our cheque and to talk to everyone in school about the work that the Rainbow Trust do.

Well done to everyone for raising so much money!

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STEM partnership with Smithills School

Oxford Grove are very excited to be getting involved with a new partnership with Smithills School which will be starting this year. 

This project will help us to improve teaching, learning and engagement with STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). We will be linking with and supporting other local primary schools within this project, alongside providing further curriculum enhancement opportunities for our children. 

Watch this space for more!

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A visit from King Charles

King Charles came to visit Bolton! Oxford Grove were so lucky to be able to send some representatives from our school to see him.

Children from our School Council and our Language Ambassador group lined the streets to wave to our King.

What an exciting, once in a lifetime opportunity!

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Family Learning

Our Family Learning course has begun!

Every Monday, parents and carers are invited into to work with our tutors from Bolton College. Our latest course focuses on Early Years and Key Stage 1 English, including communication, speaking, listening and storytelling.

Our families are enjoying learning how to support their children with their learning in school with activities that they can do at home.

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A visit from our local PCSO

This morning, we were visited by our local PSCO. She came to talk to us all about knife crime as lots of us have been hearing different stories on the news. We were amazed to find out how many crimes happen in one day. We discussed when it is legal to carry a bladed article and when it would be illegal. Can you remember  when it is legal and when it is illegal? 
Did you know that 85% of people who are illegally caught with a bladed article are sent to prison for their offence? 
We talked about Reece Tansey (a local boy who was unfortunately killed through knife crime) and became aware of the consequences of the actions of the boys who committed this offence. We learnt how important it is to not carry offensive weapons. It is really important that we tell a grown up if we witness crimes being committed as you can get in trouble if you do not. 

Some of us even took part in a drama activity where the pupil was being bullied. The boy decided he was going to take a knife to school with him. The PCSO asked him why he carried the knife and he replied with the statement for self defence. In the scenario, the bully was about to punch the boy and we discussed how lots of times the victim would sometimes rely on the knife to support them. The consequences of this would be prison which would prevent you from becoming what you want to be in the future. We highlighted how it can affect your future. What have you learnt from this assembly? 

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Musical Performances

We have had a very busy week at Oxford Grove full of amazing musical performances! This morning we had some of our amazing Year 5 children playing their brass instruments alongside Mr Dunkley at the front of school. We also had Mr Martins Boys Choir singing us one of their Christmas songs as we arrived.

Then we had a brilliant music assembly with performances from Mr Bamford and his drummers, Mr Dunkley and his brass players and Mr Martin and the boys choir. The whole school came to watch and even got to join in with some of the songs!

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Family Learning

Our latest Family Learning course will be taking place next term, starting on
Monday 16th January.


This will be a Stories and Reading course, based on traditional tales. This course will
support you as parents/carers to help your EYFS or KS1 child with their English,
including speaking and listening, and communication and language.

The course is run by tutors from Bolton College.

The course will run for four weeks until Monday 6th February.
The course timings are 9:00am until 12:00pm.

The course is aimed at families of children in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2.
All adults from our Oxford Grove family are welcome, including parents, carers, grandparents and those will little English.

If you are interested in attending our family learning course, please speak to Mrs Thompson or the School Office.

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Big Bolton Carol Concert

Thank you so much to everybody who came along to the Big Bolton Carol Concert on Monday! We all had a fantastic time celebrating on this wonderful evening. 

Oxford Grove School Choir were featured on ITV! Click the picture above to view the video on our Twitter feed.

Please click the pictures below to view full size.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our families for all of your support this year. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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Oxford Grove taking part in World Record Attempt for the largest group of Carol Singers! 🏆

carol concert image

We are all excited to be taking part in the attempt to break the current Guinness World Record for the largest group of carol singers on Monday. The current record is 25,272 singers! 

  • 146 children from Oxford Grove taking part.
  • 654 children and families supporting the event.
  • 6 coaches have been organised to transport children and families who required transport to and from the venue.
  • 31 staff members from Oxford Grove supporting.

Oxford Grove will be there!!

More Information

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Reading open morning

This morning, Oxford Grove hosted our Reading open morning. We invited our families in across school to come and join in our Guided Read lessons! Mrs Taylor-Johnson spoke to the parents at the start of the day to inform them about some of the amazing opportunities we have at Oxford Grove in English and how we promote a ‘love of read’ for all. Our families had a opportunity to explore our English curriculum page and the fantastic Reading Buddies told the parents about their role within school and how they support their children too! Take a look at some of the fabulous photos from this morning and thank you so much to all the families who were able to attend!

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Bebras Computing Challenge

In November, a select group of our Key Stage 2 children took part in the Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge.

This challenge is organised in over 50 countries and designed to get students all over the world excited about computing. Each participant answer questions that focus on computational and logical thinking.

Many of our children were awarded a merit (which means they were in the top 50% of children in the UK who took part) or a distinction (which means they were in the top 25% of children in the UK).

We are also exceptionally proud of one of our Year 6 children, who achieved in the top 10% of children in the UK!

Well done to everyone who took part!

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