We are extremely proud to be part of a wonderful community, that allows our students to thrive and develop both inside and outside of the classroom. We work closely with our local community, on a variety of social action projects that allow our students to give back to where they belong. Our work within the community begins before students arrive at OHA, during their 5 years an OHA-er and beyond into university and the workplace.
Our extensive range of facilities are available for community use and our parent partnership group are always working on new ways to forge strong links across our local community.
Our past students are encouraged to stay in touch with OHA through our social media links and through our wider alumni programme. Once an OHA-er always an OHA-er.
Below are a sample of the social action projects that we are currently involved in #iwill Project
The Garden School Project is a great method of improving mental health, social skills, and wider engagement in environmentally friendly activities. This is by supporting students in a twelve weeks course which allows students to develop their gardening skills and begin to understand a different learning environment away from that of a classroom. Students have the opportunity to learn about the process of gardening from planting a seed, to harvesting it, and cooking in the Food Technology classroom.
We currently have three separate Garden School groups taking part in this project at one given time.
The Reading Leaders programme is a great way of improving literacy attainment and wider engagement across the curriculum by training older students to support younger ones for whom reading is a challenge. The Reading Leaders programme is designed to train, support and credit young people to help students at least two years younger than themselves improve their reading skills, attitude towards reading and reading confidence.
We currently have ten Year 10 students supporting Year 7 students once a week.
Our Eco-Narrative Days are a great way of improving literacy attainment and wider engagement across our Primary Feeder Schools. The day involves students from our local Primary Feeder Schools bringing approximately twelve students who would benefit from a day of working with some of our iWill Leads writing, producing, and creating an anthology of eco-friendly stories.
We currently offer these days to all Primary Feeder Schools.
Every year we have a Transition Week which runs, normally, during July. One of these days is dedicated to promoting a sustainable and eco-friendly environment and what we, as young people, can do to develop this. This involves students coming together and producing a presentation, a poster, and a speech which they then articulate by the end of the day as a whole year cohort.
Our iWill Project has been lucky enough to gain another grant, this time, from the Wildlife Trust. With this grant we have decided to create a sensory garden which can support all students who need this intervention.
This is currently a work in progress and we hope to open the sensory garden in Autumn 2022.
Once a month our iWill Leads carrying out a Litter Picking session where they walk around the academy grounds collecting litter and disposing of it in the correct places. Additionally, students collect any unused paper and recycle this at our local household waste and recycling centre in Burslem. This ensures students are understanding the importance of recycling and promotes a greener, tidier area in the community.