Oulder Hill Community School

Oulder Hill Community School

Oulder Hill represented Rochdale in the Greater Manchester Schools Badminton Competition last week and were very unfortunate not to qualify for the latter stages of the competition. They finished third overall in their league beating St Thomas More High School (5-0) and narrowly being defeated by Failsworth Sports College of Oldham (the eventual winners) 4-1, Cheadle Hulme School (3-2) and St. James’ School of Stockport (3-2). All the players performed exceptionally well and were a credit to the school and the borough of Rochdale. The players involved were: Daniel Harrall, Tom Smeeton, Nathan Colclough, Adam Deaville and Oliver Greenwood. Well done lads!

The Year 7 Girls Football Team played their final league matches last week at Matthew Moss. They lost both of their games but they played their best and they enjoyed it! Well done to the team: Lydia Halley, Lauren Doyle, Abbie Holt, Katie Clarke, Chloe Davies, Alanah Percy, Faluq Arfan, Saira Parveen, Danielle Howarth and Amber Lawton-McNamara. A big thank you to the parents/carers, family and friends who attended to support the pupils!

Congratulations to the Year 9 five-a-side football team who have got through to the finals of the Rochdale Schools’ Competition. They beat St Anne’s 4-1 and Hollingworth 2-1 to reach the next stage of the competition. The players involved were: Brandon Coughlan, Joe Wrest, Will Moore, Luke Straszewski, Daniel Cryer, Owain Harrison, Steven Nairn and Jamie Ogden. Mr Pickles’ Player of the Tournament was Steven Nairn for scoring some superb goals and making some vital tackles throughout both games.

On Friday 24 January our Year 8 Gifted pupils had their ‘Space day’ enrichment event and they all had a very good time. Pupils learned about some of the fundamental Maths and Science behind space exploration, the solar system and space travel. They had the opportunity to build and launch rockets, visit an inflatable planetarium and they attend a ‘Space Show’. They even got to sample astronaut food which went down a treat! The pupils really benefitted from this event and they were very enthusiastic and articulate about what they had learned.

On Saturday 25 January 65 Year 9 students took part in the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award first practice walk from Hollingworth Lake. The route, a round trip to Ogden, took approximately 3 hours. Unfortunately those students walking in the afternoon had to endure extremely bad weather and were remarkably cheerful on their return. The second part of the day was in the comfort of a classroom where students covered the value of team work and emergency procedures. The students present were a credit to the school. A special thank you goes to all the staff who kindly volunteered their time and to Hollingworth Rowing Club for the use of their room.

Our next ‘Drop Everything and Read’ (DEAR) session will be taking place on Tuesday 4 February between 1:30 and 1:55pm. The aim of DEAR is to create a culture of reading for pleasure and to eradicate the stigma attached to reading. Students and staff will be taking part, and they will be encouraged to read from a variety of materials including books, newspapers and magazines.

A big thank you to all parents and carers who attended Year 7 Parents Evening last week.

The first Parent Forum of 2014 will be taking place on Thursday 6 February from 6:00pm. New and existing members are welcome to attend.

A reminder that there is a Parents’ Meeting for the students going on the Battlefields trip to Ypres, Belgium on Thursday 13 February. The meeting starts at 6:00pm and will be taking place in the LRC. Please bring the consent forms and behaviour contract with you if they have not been handed in yet. Many Thanks, Mrs Tarran, Trip Leader.