Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Makaton Coffee Morning

  Fri 10 Nov 2017

  On Thursday, 9th November we ran a Makaton Coffee Morning for Oakley Parents and Carers. 

   

  Oakley is approved as a 'Makaton Friendly' School. The Makaton symbols and signs are just one of the speech and language tools we use to communicate with our children and young people.  

   

  Sharing what we do at School with our Parents and Carers is an important part of extending our children's learning and promoting skills for life and independence.  The Coffee Morning was a great success with some positive feedback and a clear indication that more Makaton courses would be very much appreciated by our families.

   

  "Really useful workshop.  I'm very grateful for all the information and handy tips."

   

  "Excellent course - lovely teacher".

   

  

• Halloween Disco

  Mon 06 Nov 2017

  On Thursday, 2nd November, Oakley School had its annual Halloween Disco on the Tunbridge Wells site.

   

  It was a huge success, with more pupils than ever choosing to dress up as zombies, witches, ghosts and ghouls.  Pupils were accompanied by parents and carers and in a lot of cases, by their equally scary looking siblings!  The DJ played a very popular mix of music which had everyone on the dance floor at some point in the evening.  

   

  Thank you to all the families for supporting the event and thank you to all the staff who helped out, it wouldn't have been possible without them.

  

• How to support your child's learning at home

  Thu 02 Nov 2017

  Today's parents and carers workshop 'How to support your child's learning at home' was not only popular with parents and carers of children from Nursery age to Further Education, but very successful.  Run by two of our highly experienced SEN teachers, who shared resources and ideas with everyone, and supported by Usborne Books, the feedback (see below) about the coffee morning style session was so positive, we are going to need to run another one!  Thank you to everyone involved for making it such a positive morning.  

   

  "Loved the selection of games and books and educational resources available - very inspirational."

   

  "It was helpful to meet other parents and talk about ideas to help our children."

   

  "It was useful to find out about all the different materials that could help my son learn in a fun way."

   

  "Great idea to have these sessions.  It's so helpful for parents to speak with staff and other parents and share ideas.  Thank you."

  

• Official Opening of Oakley's Specialist Observation & Assessment Nursery

  Fri 20 Oct 2017

  Today was the official opening of Oakley School's new Specialist Observation and Assessment Nursery.  Thank you to everyone who attended; representatives from the Local Authority, Kier who did the building work, local special schools and nurseries, school governors and the local community. 

   

  Gordon Tillman, Headteacher opened by welcoming all our guests and thanking all the parties involved in getting the Nursery up and running. Claire Bingham our Early Years and Nursery Lead then gave a speech thanking all of the Oakley staff and pupils for their support and for being so inclusive with the Nursery children. She also thanked the Nursery staff who transferred to Oakley from Ravensdale, for their commitment and hard work to make the Nursery such a wonderful environment for our children.  Finally, Jared Nehra, Area Education Officer for West Kent, supported by Alan Bernstein our Chair of Governors, cut the ribbon and officially opened the Nursery.

   

  We are very appreciative of everyone's support and encouragement.  We, at Oakley School, are so proud to have a specialist Nursery and we look forward to its continuing success. 

  

• Oakley pupils enjoy Sports Discovery Day

  Fri 13 Oct 2017
  Last Thursday, 5th October our Key Stage 3 pupils attended a Sports Discovery Day at the Angel Centre in Tonbridge.  Whilst there they got the opportunity to try some new sporting activities including trampolining, gymnastics, judo, non-contact boxing, handball, sitting volleyball and basketball.  The children had a great time, as you can see in the photos, and loved the goodie bags they were given at the end of the day.  The event and Oakley School were even featured in the local press (also pictured).  Thank you to the sponsors and organisers and everyone who helped on the day, it was a huge success.

  

• Oakley replicates 'The Good Life', a small step to self-sufficiency...

  Fri 06 Oct 2017

  Continuing with the theme of Harvest and our success with Tunbridge Wells in Bloom, Class 4MN have been cooking with Oakley grown vegetables this afternoon.  Using some of our organic chillies and peppers, they have made some ‘chilli jam’; although you may not want to spread it on your toast!  

  

• Oakley celebrates Harvest Festival

  Tue 03 Oct 2017

  On Monday, 2nd October our Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 5 children and young people participated in the Harvest Festival service at Tonbridge Baptist Church. The students gave their food donations to Claire (pictured) who then told them about where the food goes and how it helps people. Everyone then said a prayer and joined in with a Harvest song. Thank you to those who supported us and donated food.

   

  Next week pupils and staff on the Tunbridge Wells site are having a Harvest Festival assembly with the Vicar of St. Phillip's Church.  All donations will be taken to the Nourish Community Foodbank afterwards.

  

• Oakley wins GOLD!

  Thu 28 Sep 2017
  This time last year we reported that we had been awarded silver in the Education category of Tunbridge Wells in Bloom.  This year we are thrilled to report that we won GOLD and joint overall WINNER with Herbilicious, who work closely with Oakley School and our students.  Our two specialist Forest Schools teachers, along with two representative students (pictured), went to the award ceremony yesterday, 27th September and very proudly collected our prize, which they then shared with all their peers in Celebration Assembly today.   We are so excited about winning that we have already started talking about how we can be even better next year!  Well done to everyone involved and thank you to Tunbridge Wells in Bloom for their support and encouragement.

  

• Oakley's first Ski Trip

  Wed 20 Sep 2017

  This year some of our Key Stage 4 pupils have been given the opportunity to attend a residential skiing trip in February 2018, staying in the resort of Pila in Italy.

   

  Oakley have been fortunate enough to be invited to join Ifield School, who have successfully been going for a number of years. Ifield School is a district Special School, similar to Oakley based in Gravesend, Kent.

   

  We believe this experience will provide our students with a fantastic social and practical learning opportunity as well as helping them develop core strength and balance.

   

  As this is the pilot year for this trip we will be taking a smaller number of pupils, however we hope to open this up to more pupils next year.

   

  If you require further information please contact Sally Maher (P.E Co-ordinator)

  smaher@oakley.kent.sch.uk 

• Oakley School does Dragon Boat Racing!

  Tue 12 Sep 2017
  Saturday 9th September was the Dragon Boat Race at Bewl Water and with the support of the Rotary Club, Oakley School entered a team of 1980's movie characters to compete against 59 other teams and, mostly importantly, fundraise!  It was a beautiful sunny day, which meant that we could dry out in between races and when it did finally rain, we were already on our way home! Despite our best efforts, we didn't make the final but our best time was 1m 27s which we felt was perfectly respectable. It was a long day but we had a lot of fun and most importantly, hopefully raised a lot of money for Oakley School. Thank you to everyone who supported and sponsored us, thank you to the Rotary Club and to everyone (staff, governors and family members) who rowed on the day.