This week

It has been a real pleasure in assemblies this week to present Subject Ambassador badges to students in Years 8-12. Along with those already selected in Year 13, these students will represent their subjects at various school events and will have the opportunity to develop their DWS life learning skills (especially leadership and communication). We are very grateful they have accepted this responsibility.

Thank you to the very many parents of students in Year 7 for attending the Year 7 Parents’ Information Evening on Thursday. We hope that the talks and workshops were helpful and will enable us to work in partnership to the benefit of the students. A copy of the main presentation and other resources will be sent to all parents of Year 7 soon. At the evening we showed a video of the Year 7 students in their first few weeks at the School including the team building day on Tuesday. The weather might not have been perfect but the children certainly enjoyed the challenges they faced and will have developed several of their DWS life learning skills as a result and therefore be more prepared for success in the longer term.

Arranging school photographs for a school as large as Darrick Wood is no small feat but everything went very smoothly on Thursday. Remaining year groups and those that missed the photographs are being scheduled for later this term.

Thank you to all students and staff who supported Jeans for Genes Day this week. We do not yet know what the final figure raised is and there is still time to make a donation via the ParentPay site. We have numerous charity fundraising events lined up for year ahead and would like to beat last year’s grand total of £6000 raised.

Please continue to send in your jars of instant coffee and tins of vegetables for Bromley Food Bank. These were promoted in our assemblies this week on the theme of What if the Harvest Fails. If most of our students brought in one jar or tin it would make such a difference to those who are struggling at the moment.

Sport

Did you know that we have all of our sporting fixtures and results available on our website? You can keep up to date via the Sports Fixtures link in the Parent section of the website (Darrick Wood School | Sports, Teams, Fixtures & Results). Our Extra Curricular Sport page shows what’s on for students in terms of sports clubs. We will also soon be publishing our full list of Clubs and Societies for 2023/24 here.

Attendance and punctuality

Attendance at school is really important – it ensures that all children make progress and reach their academic potential. Please support us with this by ensuring that your child arrives at school punctually at the start of each day, and that family holidays are not taken during term time. In exceptional circumstances we do authorise leave of absence. This must be applied for well in advance by completing the form found on our School website. However, we must emphasise that most applications are not authorised.

The NHS has provided some guidelines for parents around how to judge whether a child is well enough for school.

Please take a look at this here: Is my child too ill for school? – NHS (www.nhs.uk)

We do not expect children who are very unwell to attend school. However, children may need some encouragement to attend school if they are slightly under the weather.

When children feel unwell in school they should tell their teacher. Their teacher will decide whether they should go to the Medical Room so that a judge can be made about whether they can return to class or parents will need to be contacted.

Thank you for your support on these matters.

PSFA news

The PSFA will be holding one of its popular second hand uniform sales tomorrow (Saturday, 23rd September) 10-11am. This will be in the Dining Hall. Please come along and pick up a bargain whilst raising funds for the PSFA.

The PSFA AGM will be on Tuesday, 26th September at 7pm at the School (Bungalow Training Room). We would really welcome parents who are interested in joining the Committee and those who would just like to know more about how they can get involved. The current Chair, after several years of excellent service, is standing down. If you think you would be willing to take up a position on the Committee, or even Chair, you would be most welcome to come along. The School benefits in so many ways from the work of the PSFA, but its success is dependent on volunteers coming forward to help out.

Date	Event	Notes
Saturday, 23rd September	PSFA Second hand uniform sale	Dining Hall, 10-11am
Tuesday, 26th September	PSFA AGM	7pm, Training Room
Thursday, 28th September	Year 11 Parents’ Information Evening	7pm, Main Hall
Wednesday, 4th October	Open Evening	Students will finish early at 12.30pm to allow the evening to be prepared. There will be a delayed start the following day  Students will need to be on site by 9.45am ready for registration and then lesson 2.
Monday, 16th October to Friday, 27th October inclusive	HALF TERM BREAK