The Curriculum - Performing Arts
Performing Arts Week
Every year, the timetable is suspended for one week throughout the pre-preparatory and junior departments in order for the children to take part in an intensive week of performing arts activities. During this week they wear a different uniform, are invited to take breakfast at school, and enjoy a whole range of dance, drama, music and art, culminating in two performances for parents at the end of the week. For the senior school, this week has evolved into a Pupil Activities Week, which enables them to become involved in a wider range of different tasks and activities over and above the core performing arts. These may include such diverse experiences as helping to build a playground hut from sustainable materials, to planning and leading their own fitness class for parents and friends at Woking Leisure Centre.
Drama
Drama forms an important part of the curriculum throughout the Pre-Preparatory and Junior Schools, with a weekly lesson taught by specialist drama teacher Anne Niven. In addition, there is an annual Christmas production and at least one other show during the year. The main School play is a major event in the Oakfield calendar, for which pupils from Year 5 upwards are invited to audition. Performed in the professional surroundings of Woking’s Rhoda McGaw Theatre, this is always a highly rewarding experience for all the participants.
Ballet
We believe that the discipline acquired through dance can last a lifetime, and as a compulsory part of the curriculum from Nursery to Year 6, ballet provides an additional and quite rigorous element to our physical education programme. Even those children who are not “natural” dancers are encouraged by our trained ballet teacher, Miss Anna, and often benefit from improved balance and co-ordination as a result of her lessons. Several girls choose to continue with their dancing into the senior school, and end of term ballet performances showcase a multitude of dance talent from very young children through to sixteen year olds. Click here to see the amazing results our dancers have achieved in the last year.
Music
From Year 2, all children learn recorder as part of their weekly music lessons, and they are also invited to a free half-hour recorder session after school on Thursdays. In the junior school, music is taught by Mrs Rosie Lipscomb, who also co-ordinates the peripatetic teaching staff, as children are actively encouraged to learn an additional instrument. Indeed, most do take up this challenge and are able to choose from piano, guitar, cello, violin, double bass, clarinet, saxophone or flute, as well as individual singing tuition. Once they have achieved a certain level of competence, girls may join the wind or jazz band. Our senior school music teachers, Lynn Carter and Kevin Weaver, are two young Royal Academy of Music graduates who teach music as a compulsory part of the curriculum until Year 9, after which a significant number of pupils opt to take a GCSE in the subject. Each year we hold a separate senior and junior music competition, and the pupil who demonstrates the greatest musical potential in each is presented with the Mansfield cup. All participants are subsequently invited to perform at an evening concert for friends and family.
Art
Throughout the pre-preparatory and junior schools, children are taught art by their form teacher in their classrooms, under the guidance of Year 2 form teacher and junior art co-ordinator Janet Cox. Each year group works with a variety of media across a single theme, with their work being displayed in classrooms and in the school hall.Seniors are taught in our purpose built studio, producingwork of an excellent standard.
Oakfield pupils consistently win prizes in the arts and crafts section of the Pyrford and Wisley Flower Show, with the school overall frequently winning the cup. In addition, in recent years we have been invited to produce a huge piece of artwork made up of small, individual items created by pupils throughout the school, for display above the altar in the Church of the Good Shepherd during its Easter services.
In 2007 15 out of 20 Year 11 pupils took GCSE Art, with the majority achieving A* or A grades. Sadly, 2007 saw the retirement of Head of Art Mary Weaver, who taught at Oakfield for 23 years. Mary has, however, generously offered to teach the current Year 11 GCSE students, while we are very excited by the arrival of Mr Lance Penny, an experienced teacher and talented fine artist who regularly exhibits his own work, to take over teaching art to the rest of the senior school.
