Number 9 May 2019

Dear Parents/ Carers,

I am delighted to see the rehearsals for “Into The Woods Jr” have started and that students are

enjoying preparing for our next showcase. We are also into the season where lots of young people will

get to go on Duke Of Edinburgh Award expeditions, and residentials. I am very grateful to staff on

residentials, expeditions, competitions and rehearsals for giving up their time in the evening and

weekends to ensure success for all.

As you will see in this newsletter we are in the mid-

dle of Plant Sale time, with sixth form students

showing off their great work experience skills that

they have developed. Some of our catering stu-

dents have also been developing their skills by ca-

tering for training events in college. Their food

was delicious.

Alongside this it is great to see students

preparing for and completing exams confidently.

Phase one of the redevelopment of the courtyard has been completed and is a resounding success for

students. We are now planning for phase two redevelopments, the refurbishment of The Lodge to a

life skills base and The Portage to a support centre base for students. All of the building develop-

ments over the last few years have been funded from donations, grants and trust grants. None of it

has been funded by the money allocated to run the school. Indeed that does not even pay the staff

wage bill. Consequently having run a deficit budget last year, to protect provision for students, I have

asked the Governing Body for consent to run another deficit budg-

et. They have agreed to this.

Clearly this is neither ideal nor sustainable and I will continue to

argue with the County Council and the DfE for a properly funded

school system. If anyone can help with fundraising or works for a

company that could help develop a project at Oak Grove College

please contact Sharon Kettlewell the Business Manager.

I am delighted that the college has recently been the only school in

West Sussex to be awarded the Gold Autism Awareness Award.

There will be some staffing changes in September, the most no-

ticeable of which will be the retirement of Will Shand who has

been the Deputy Head at Oak Grove College since it opened

2005. He has given many great years’ service to the students, fam-

ilies, staff and college and we will miss his humour, skill and tenaci-

ty in providing the best for all. Thank you for your continued sup-

port of the college and I wish all students completing exams the

best over the next couple of weeks.

Phillip Potter

Headteacher

Save the date Friday 5th July. Friends of Oak Grove College Family BBQ. Ticket details to

follow.

In the meantime ‘Calling all business friends’, we are looking for local businesses to support

and donate prizes for our BBQ and sponsorship of the raffle tickets. If you

know of anyone or are able yourself to support this, please contact us.

Friends of Oak Grove College are a group of staff, volunteers and grandparents.

We help raise money to fund those little extras for the students here at Oak

Grove.

Any support you can give is always greatly appreciated.

Monday 13th May - Thursday 23rd May 6th Form Plant Sale 10 - 2pm

Friday 17th May INSET day

Friday 17th May Functional skills exam Level 1 and 2

Friday 24th May Whole school sponsored walk, last day of half term

27th May till 31st May Half Term

Monday 3rd June First day for students

Thursday 27th June Leavers Graduation 6—10pm, last day for all year 11

students

Friday 28th June Last day for year 14

Friday 28th June Last day for all leavers from Year 12 and 13.

Wednesday 3rd July Transition New Parents Information Evening 6pm-

7:30pm

Friday 5th July FOGC Family BBQ 5pm till 8pm

Wednesday 10th July and Thursday

11th July

College production of ‘Into the woods Jr’ at the

Connaught Theatre.

Monday 22nd July Sports Day

Tuesday 23rd July Last day of term

Dates for the diary

Parent Drop-In Mornings at The Rosie Every first Wednesday of the month, the Café run by the Sixth Form stu-

dents hosts a parent/carer coffee morning. This gives parents and carers

the opportunity to share experiences, issues or worries informally with oth-

ers. Parent networking can be a powerful support system.

Please come and join us if you can.

Wednesday 5th June 10am—12:15

Wednesday 3rd July 10am—12:15

Friends of Oak Grove College

Superheroes Triathlon Fundraiser

Saturday 17th August Keep this date free and watch out for the letters

inviting you to sign up for your distance.

Super sprint 150m swim. 3k bike and 1k run/push

Half distance 400m swim 5k bike 3k run/push

Full distance 700m swim 10k bike 5k run/push

All in the lovely setting of Dorney Lake

Superheroes triathlon 17th August.

You should have received letters about this event and if you haven't and want to take part please

contact cmoyle@oakgrovecollege.org.uk. This is a sponsored event so if you are not taking part

then perhaps you could sponsor those who are by following the link below

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/oakgrovecollege

.

DofE Bronze Award: Well done to Rakhar, Alessia, Ellie, Harvey, Tara,

Jacob and Shona. All pupils completed and passed their expedition section

which culminated in a two day canoeing activity and one day camping in

Chichester. All pupils showed fantastic teamwork skills and were able to

support, encourage and motivate each other to be a great success.

Congratulations to all.

Sport without boundaries cross country event

Congratulations to the 7 students who took

part in the first SEND cross country event.

They all completed a mile with Callum coming in

1st, Toby 2nd and Luca 3rd in the boys KS3

event and Jodie 1st and Erin 2nd in the girls

event. This meant they walked away with the

school trophy as well.

Courtyard/Play equipment Oak Grove College is very pleased to announce we have a new surface and new play equipment in

our courtyard. The old surface was cracking and had many patched repairs, and the equipment

had worn away and broken, and was unusable. In consultation with the students and staff new

equipment was chosen, purchased and installed during the Easter break.

It is thanks to doantions from:

Thomas Cook, The Body Shop, National Lottery Awards for All, The Bernard Sunley Charitable

Foundation, DHS Cycle Project and The Friends of Oak Grove College that we were able to pro-

vide a new surface and new play equipment, which is proving to be very popular with the students.

Before: New play equipment:

Our next step is to raise funds for phase 2 of improvements, to provide a quiet seating area with

ramp for wheelchair accessibility, sensory equipment, play equipment and continue with a new

surface along the whole of this area of our courtyard.

To be able to carry out phase 2 the college needs to raise approximately £40,000. If you would

like to help in any way to raise this funding please contact the Business Manager at Oak Grove

College by email at:

businessmanager@oakgrovecollege.org.uk

Koa residential to Hindleap Warren In March and April students from Koa and Koa 6th form visited Hindleap Warren for an activity

break. The students had the opportunity to try a huge range of activities, including climbing, ab-

seiling, zip wire, canoeing and archery. The students were amazing at trying these new activities,

and we were so proud of all of the students who came with us. A big thank you goes to all the

staff who made this trip possible, both at Oak Grove College and Hindleap Warren. We are look-

ing forward to planning our trips for next year!

This term Animus are in Australia for our topic. We have been meeting the wildlife, listening

to the didgeridoo, wearing our cork hats and taken on a Bush Tucker trial. Next week it is our

residential so seven students will be off to the New Forest where they will be doing a range of

activities. This will be a fantastic trip as it is every year and we look forward to sharing tales

from this residential in the next newsletter. Water skills is an incredibly important part of

our curriculum and something all our students love. As well as being a lot of fun it is also very

important to the health and wellbeing of Animus students. These benefits range from the

warmth and buoyancy of the water, decreasing muscle tone and movement , which assists with

the movement of joints, which is more difficult on dry land. Movement in the water and water

pressure can support efficient lung function, and the multi –sensory environment helps stimu-

late the senses while also supporting self-regulation. All our students get to swim at least once

a week and I think it fair to say would swim every day if they could!

Wedding Bells

Finally we would like to say a huge congratulations

to our wonderful member of the team –

SOPHIE who is getting married at half term. We

are all so happy for her and wish her a

fantastic day and honeymoon.

Our Avatar star goes to Georgia for her resili-

ence after her surgery. She is always smiling

and is enjoying spending time with her friends

in the playground!

Budding animation and film maker Lexi Brooke

created an amazing short thriller/horror film

completely independently at home. The short

film had staff hooked, the theme and storyline

were well thought out and kept the audience

guessing; the special effects were of A'Level

standard. This piece was created to be entered

as coursework for Lexi's film studies GCSE

that he is completing on top of his other ac-

creditation at Oak Grove College. Well done

Lexi - the cliff hanger has us all waiting for

episode two!