Activities & Clubs

A picture speaks a thousand words. Students in the photography club learn the art and technique of photographing with a single-lens reflex camera. The objective here is to teach them the nuances of focus, shutter speed, aperture, etc. Students are also given darkroom basics to supplement their knowledge.

Visual language is one of the important ancient languages and plays an important role in a student’s development. In OAKLEY, art is an important subject and the Art Department is equipped with ultra-modern facilities, including studio spaces, labs, and dedicated areas for painting, printing, tie and dye, and many more art forms. Students take keen interest in this subject and some of them even pursue it as a career.

Keeping students’ interest in art in mind, we plan to introduce Batik and Sculpture in OAKLEY

Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world from grilling food over an open fire to using electricity and baking in various types of ovens, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions and trends. The ways or types of cooking also depend on the skill and type of training an individual chef possesses. Cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. Preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans. It may have started around two million years ago, though archaeological evidence traces it no more than one million years earlier.

Cooking food follows a pattern which commences with the purchasing and selection of materials, their handling, processing and the ultimate presentation of dishes. There are many methods of cooking, most of which have been known since time immemorial. These include baking, roasting, frying, grilling, barbecuing, smoking, boiling, steaming and braising. A more recent innovation is microwaving.

Various methods use differing levels of heat and moisture and vary in cooking time. The method chosen greatly affects the end result because some foods are more appropriate to some methods than others. Cooking is an essential life skill that can be learnt at any stage of life. When recipes are put together, the kitchen is a laboratory involving air, water, fire and the earth.

At OAKLEY, it is our endeavour to make students learn all life skills and hence, we  have a Cookery Club as part of our extra-curricular activities. The OAKLEY Cookery Club is in session every Saturday and the members — our little chefs —are baptised into the world of cooking as we teach them the basic culinary etiquettes. They are familiarised with various culinary tools and appliances as also the distinct styles of cooking.

It is also emphasised that cooking prevents many food-borne illnesses that would otherwise occur if the food is eaten raw. When heat is used in the preparation of food, it kills or inactivates harmful organisms, such as bacteria and viruses, as well as various parasites, such as tapeworms and Toxoplasma gondii. Food poisoning and other illnesses from uncooked or poorly prepared food may be caused by bacteria which get killed as the food is cooked. The sterilising effect of cooking depends on temperature, cooking time, and technique used. Cooking increases the digestibility of many foods which are inedible or poisonous when raw.

Cooking is an exacting and time consuming art and it was made evident to students that those who cook at home; be it mothers, grandmothers, or servants, do not have an easy task. Students appreciate the effort their mothers put in to feed them on a daily basis and their admiration will be obviously visible.

The Cookery Club is a vivid platform where members not only learn the art of cooking but also realise the enormity of task that their mothers have at home and hence learn to value and love them more than ever before.

The Quiz Club in OAKLEY has been quite active and efficient in igniting young minds to consistently raise the bar in Quizzing.

During the SUPW activity every week, the students are motivated to seek knowledge, to widen their horizons, and be confident enough to take on greater challenges in the quizzing sphere.

The students prepare and take turns in hosting a quiz each week. The process has made them avid readers, knowledge seekers, and smart thinkers with excellent analytical skills.

The club intends to continue inspiring the students to develop a passion for quizzing, gaining and sharing knowledge

Chess is a game of mind and talent and it’s truly a sport for all. Playing chess is a great way to enhance your mental capabilities. Chess club is one of the most active clubs of the S.U.P.W clubs at OAKLEY where every Friday afternoon and on Saturdays, the student members of the Chess Club along with the teachers-in-charge have informal chess training sessions.

Students are equipped with basic skills and strategies for playing at an international level. Students who have achieved the required standards are encouraged to participate in chess competitions at inter-school and community level. Basic rules and regulations of the game are taught to those students who have had no previous experience of chess.

Through playing chess, students are able to cultivate a hobby which stimulates the mind towards proactive and rational thinking, encourages decision making skills given the challenging environment, and also inspires self-discipline since it’s time-bound in nature.

Drama is a collaborative form of fine art that sees live performers presenting the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through a combination of gestures, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. Keeping these traditions of drama in mind, the students of the Dramatics Club at OAKLEY meet on Saturdays to hone their thespian skills. The club consists of six students who meet either at the library or the rock garden.

The students were involve in various activities such as Campus cleaning, gathering stationery items for students of Government school, preparation for the social service day, making of paper bags, etc.

Throughout the year, the social service club performs various activities to help the environment, as well as other people in general. The activities included:

• Paper Bag making — the students learn to make paper bags using old newspapers. The bags made by students will be distributed to small merchants in the locality.

• Distribution of stationery items to the government school — the club members take initiative to provide  notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, and rulers.

• Spoken English classes — senior students of the Social Service club conduct Spoken English Classes for parents/students of lower grades

Oakley is keen on improving communication skills among the students. To get good at public speaking, reporting on current events, and making effective arguments, speech and debate is the club for Oakleans. Through speech and debate, they’ll have the opportunity to compete locally, regionally, and nationally in a variety of events that span from acting to intense 45-minutes debates. Those who do speech and debate really do fall in love with it and are often found in suits competing at tournaments on weekends.

OAKLEY provides an opportunity for the students who have interest math, statistics, or numbers, students can consider doing math competitively by joining Mathletes. The club will be a great way for you to get ahead in their math classes and possibly compete with a team once they are  ready.

Robotics professionals are in high-demand in today’s tech companies, where machine learning and artificial intelligence are hot topics. OAKLEY offers a chance to join robotics club to see if students can discover their passion in this field because it could set them up for a lucrative career in the future.

For the students who have interest and passion towards scientific research OAKLEY offers STEM CLUB. Students will be able to participate in science fairs, learn about the most ground breaking studies in various fields, and possibly network with various scientists working in actual labs.