June 12: England Deaf Olympic Football Team
Mark Gill coaches the England Deaf Olympic Football Team. He came in to explain why the Olympic values are so important to them.
See his PowerPoint Presentation (or PDF version)


Oct 11: Rob Roy Visit
On 12th October, Rob Roy visited Red Oaks. Rob Roy (aka Robert Farmer) is a Deaf Australian performer. He is well known to Deaf communities around the world and regularly performs to both deaf and hearing audiences across the globe. He spoke with children about his travels around the world and about the similarities and differences between countries and cultures as part of the school's 'Are We One World?' enquiry. Children also had the opportunity to put their own questions to Rob about his globetrotting experiences and discoveries.
'Click here to watch Rob Roy's "Aeroplane"

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July 11: SIGN TO SING WORLD RECORD
Guinness World Records™ have confirmed that the World Record was smashed in February 2011 at the Sign 2 Sing event. The new World Record is now 94,489 people all signing and singing at the same time!! That's a lot of people!
WELL DONE EVERYONE WHO TOOK PART!

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May 11: Signing Choir
Red Oaks Signing Choir got themselves back into the swing of things after the Easter break by reaching for the stars. They learnt, practised and filmed 'Reach' by S Club 7 in one lunchtime! They were so enthusiastic and really aspired to reach their goal. Fantastic!

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Jan / Feb 11: sign2sing -
World Record Breaking Attempt!

A World Record Breaking Attempt took place on Wednesday 9th February for the most people signing the same song (I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing), in BSL, at the same time. There were over 50,000 children taking part all over the UK. Children from Reception through to Year 4 were involved. The event was organised by SignHealth, a national charity who run schemes to improve access to healthcare and health information for profoundly deaf people. They raised some much needed funds to enable them to continue their work.
Click here for some of the photos

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April 10: NDCS Listening Bus Visit

The NDCS Listening Bus visited on 22nd and 23rd April.
All the children in Miss Stratford, Miss Menzies and Mrs Major's classes had sessions on the bus. Click here to see more

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Nov 09 - Sign a Story

Sign a story with Year 2
As a class we worked together to write a story about a boy who likes fishing and who found a surprising, magical creature at the school pond. We learned the story by heart, using some pictures and BSL signs to help us remember the important parts.
We are not reading any words!
Click here or on the image to see

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Dec 08 - 'Awards for All' Success

Red Oaks is delighted to have been awarded £10,000
by 'Awards for All - England' to promote Deaf awareness and British Sign Language across the school community, purchase resources to support the learning of BSL, and to establish a Deaf-hearing theatre project and signing choir.
More information to follow shortly...

Thanks to Mrs Menham and Miss Parker for their hard work in putting together the successful bid

Click here to read the news article in the Swindon Advertiser and here for an online version

and here for the original newspaper article

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Aut 08 - Being Deaf

Sam Wollaston, a journalist who writes for the Guardian, spends 24 hours with one of the Red Oaks families: Ramon Woolfe, Louise Fitzgerald and their three children, all of whom are deaf, and discovers what it feels like to be the one who can't understand.

Linda Woolfe, Ramon's mum, is our BSL tutor.

Click here to read the full article on the Guardian website
or here for the article on the Red Oaks site