Oak Meadow is a primary school in Ashmore Park, a housing estate on the north east side of Wolverhampton, a city in the West Midlands region of England. Our school has both infant and junior classes. The school was built about 30 years ago on the edge of the estate.

There are about 400 children at our school, in 14 classes, with two classes in each year group. The children start in Foundation class when they are 5 years old and leave to go to secondary schools at the end of Year 6 when they are 11 years old.

Many people work at our school. There is a Head Teacher, deputy Head Teacher and 15 teachers as well as nursery nurses, classroom assistants, secretaries, dinner ladies, cleaners and a caretaker.

On entering the school you first have to see the school secretary in the school office. Our school secretary knows lots of information about the school and helps children, parents and visitors everyday.

In our reception area you can sit on comfortable chairs. On the walls there are tiles on which the children hand painted their self-portraits. There are even tiles showing the teachers in the school. There is the “Roll of Honour” showing the names of the children who have produced excellent work in school.

As you walk down the corridors you will see many interesting displays, showing many different things from around the world. Here you can see a display all about The Buddha and Buddhism, one of a number of displays about different world religions.

On the left is the display of tactile materials – everyone is invited to feel this display!

Here is one of the colourful displays about the different regions of the world. This one celebrates the colours and styles of Africa.

Our school has 14 classrooms, 6 in the infant school and 8 in the junior school. They are big and bright with large windows. The walls are decorated with our work and lots of colourful posters. There is a school office, first aid room, staffroom and Head Teacher's and deputy Head Teachers rooms.

We have a small school library where we borrow our books to read or study. To manage all the books (there are over 6000 items available to use) we have a computer which scans the bar codes on all the books and tapes which we take out or return. The computer also has a scanner that scans our thumbs so we don’t need library cards to use the library.

There are two halls, one is used for PE (Physical Education) including gymnastics and dance, and the other is used for creative arts including assemblies, and drama and music lessons. Every year we put on performances at Christmas, Easter and in the summer. We all wear costumes and sing and dance under the set of stage lights bought for the school by the Friends of Oak Meadow. On the left a year 5 class enjoy a dance session run by a visiting teacher from Coppice School High School for Performing Arts, and on the right the Mayor of Hamelin discusses the Pied Piper.

Here a year 6 class try out their own compositions on percussion instruments. Children throughout the school also enjoy recorder and violin lessons as well as their singing and music making. This year 6 group are composing their ”school blues”

We have a computer area where children can use their computer skills to complete their school work or surf the Internet using the Wolverhampton school’s broadband connection. This year 5 group are searching a database to find out information about common mammals. The children use ICT equipment in their classrooms too, as well as the interactive white boards; they use digital cameras, computer sensors, floor turtles and microscopes.

We have all kinds of lessons at school, some of which are exciting to take part in. Each year group studies a different topic in their history lessons such as the Ancient Greeks, Tudors, Romans and the Victorians. To help them understand what life was like at different times in history we act them out in school. These year 4 children, taking part in a “Victorian school day”, are making sure their sums are correctly written on their slates before the strict teacher checks them – none of them want the cane!

We have different kinds of practical lessons too. We create some wonderful art work (Please click here to see some of our work in our on-line art gallery) and make all sorts of things in our design technology lessons. We enjoy the help from outside companies and associations. Here, some children are making sandwiches with help from Warburtons bakery’s demonstrators. “This one needs a spot of mayonnaise!”

In the centre of the school is the dining room where the children eat their school meals or sandwiches if they bring them. The walls are covered with pictures of funny sea creatures, here are the octopus family.

Every day the cooks serve a range of healthy food. At Christmas they cook a special Christmas dinner too! “Can I have the roast dinner today, please miss?”

We have separate infant and junior playgrounds where there are areas set out for play, and sitting areas with benches and tables. On the junior playground the children love to play with the games equipment including volley ball, basket ball, hand ball and ten pin bowling.

We have a large school field on which we play football, cricket and rounders. The field joins the playing field of the local secondary school, called Coppice High School, and our cross country course winds round the whole area.

We also have a small environmental garden with a pond, a bridge, and play apparatus for the reception classes. Around the school we have planted trees and bushes to attract wildlife including an area of silver birch trees, a prickly hawthorn hedge, conifers and mixed tree areas.