LEARNING, WORKING AND PLAYING TOGETHER FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

Welcome to Oakwood Integrated Primary School and Nursery website.  Thank you for taking the time to visit our website. 

We are so very proud of all that we do at Oakwood, every day, to ensure that we are all learning, working and  playing together for a better tomorrow. 

As a long standing member of the Oakwood family, having first joined the team in 2001 as vice-principal, then acting principal and then principal, I love that we welcome, include and nurture children of all religions and none, whilst retaining our Christian ethos.  I am particularly proud of the feeling of community, of being part of one bigger Oakwood community, that incorporates parents, grandparents, carers and friends of Oakwood, all involved in doing things the Oakwood Way.

We were the 1st school in Northern Ireland to achieve Inclusion Quality Mark Flagship status and the 1st  Primary School in Northern Ireland to achieve the Inclusion Quality Mark.

Even when our children move on to a wide variety of post-primary schools, both selective and non-selective, they tend to migrate back to Oakwood, to catch up with the staff team, to share their successes, to undertake placements and some even become members of the staff team. 

Once you join Oakwood, you embark on a journey that sees life-long friendships being forged, whilst on a path towards academic success and personal enrichment.  Our children and staff team are all the richer for having journeyed with us and in the words of Education Training Inspectorate (ETI) in November 2024:

• The vision, ‘Learning, working and playing together for a better tomorrow’ agreed by the founders almost 30 years ago is regularly revisited, and continues to drive all aspects of the daily life and work of the inclusive community in Oakwood Integrated Primary School and Nursery Unit.

• Whole-school strategic planning for improvement is underpinned by a collegial and robust process of self-evaluation which identifies relevant priorities for improvement and informs a bespoke and innovative programme of staff professional learning.

• There is a consistent and shared understanding among all staff of what constitutes high quality learning and teaching which is impacting very positively on practice and on the children’s holistic development, learning experiences and outcomes.

• Whole-class inclusive and adaptive teaching approaches and highly impactful small group interventions, enable all children to experience success and make progress from their individual starting points.

• The children are inquisitive and confident. They engage enthusiastically in their learning and have well-developed communication and leadership skills that enable them to contribute meaningfully to wider experiences and decisions across the school.

• There is a highly effective and strategic approach to, and rationale for, the wide range of well-considered internal and external collaborative networks that are empowering the school to realise its vision and live out its five key values of inclusion, high quality learning and teaching, leadership, partnerships and achievement.

Oakwood was deemed 'Highly Effective' across all 5 areas and ETI also identifed areas of highly effective practice from which others may learn.

The aspect of practice which should be shared more widely is:

• the strategic and flexible approaches to utilising staff expertise, and the creative use of curriculum time, to build capacity across the school and ensure all children have access to a broad and balanced curriculum that is responsive to their individual needs.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for visiting the website and considering Oakwood for your child/ren. 

Warmest wishes

Claire Howe 

Principal