Oak 2025 - 2026

Welcome to Oak Class!

In Oak class we have ten wonderful pupils supported by myself, Hannah, Janette and Shamyana. We are all working towards a mixture of qualifications, which include Functional Skills, PDP bronze & gold and Personal Progress. This year we are proud to announce we are working alongside The Kings Trust, to deliver their Personal Development and Employability course – looking at modules in health & wellbeing as well as enterprise. All of these qualifications will allow us to undertake lots of fun, practical and engaging activities that will provide us with skills for the future.

In college we put a big focus on Preparation for Adulthood, building up our independence skills and how we’ll use these in the future. As part of this, we complete daily jobs around the college, take part in weekly in-house work experience with the site team & in forest schools and also have plans to take part in some work experience out in the community.

We have the opportunity for pupils to plan, shop for and then prepare their own lunch daily – if you think this would be an option you would like for your child, please contact me to discuss how it works. Pupils in college are also welcome to wear their own clothes if they wish to.

In the Spring term, we had a range of practical modules for our PDP accreditation. Such as, upcycling and restoring a variety of furniture with Julie on a Tuesday afternoon. We also looked at how wages, taxes and pensions work as part of our number modules. As part of our enterprise project, we expanded our breakfast menu, which proved popular on a Friday morning. Every Wednesday over the Spring term we went swimming at Nick’s Swim School in Longridge.

We’ve got a busy Summer term planned also! We’ve got a big push towards our Functional Skills exams in both English and maths this half term – working on our examination tips and tricks – such as reading the question carefully and double checking our answers. We’re coming to the end of our accreditations now, finishing off the final pieces. We’ve saved the best till last, as we explore a range of yummy cooking experiences, including milkshakes, cookies and pastries. For those of us heading on the Bendrigg residential trip – we’re all excited to be getting stuck in with lots of adventurous outdoors activities! Look out for an update in the next newsletter with plenty of pictures. We also begin our new round of fundraising and enterprise in the Summer term, as we plan towards a bigger residential trip at Bendrigg next year.

If parents or carers have any queries, feel free to contact me on our class email: oak@hillside.lancs.sch.uk

James and the Oak Class team.