This week

With Year 11 starting their mock examinations, as is usual at this time of year, our main assembly moved to an alternative rota for Years 7-10. This week’s theme focused on Peace. This follows on from our Remembrance assemblies a fortnight ago. The assemblies began with cast members from our Wizard of Oz school production speaking about their experience in the show, followed by a recording and photo montage from the production. We may now have Over the Rainbow stuck in our heads but it was sung so well by Abi and it was great to re-live the memories of the production one more time. In the assembly, students were shown music and symbols representing peace and asked to consider how they can help bring about peace in their own relations with each other. We also paused to consider all the areas of the world where war continues to affect so many.

Year 11 have reached the end of their first week of mock examinations. We would like to say how well they have conducted themselves when lining up to enter the Hall and other venues. After an intense week and more to follow next week they will still need to work hard for the final two weeks of the term. They will then get their mock results before we break up and then they should take a good break before coming back refreshed and ready to make a difference over the coming months. Well done so far to all of them. 

Catering changes

We recently tendered for a new catering contract. This has now been awarded to Aspens. On our return from the Christmas break, all of our serveries will have a new look and a new offer, new tills etc. Some communications from Aspens including sample menus can be found below, but we will be in touch with further clarification and information in due course.

We are informed that there should be no change for parents as we will still be using the ParentPay system and the cost of a main meal remains the same. Students will still use their lanyards to make payments.

It is highly likely this change will generate great interest in the School, especially at first. We will need to carefully manage everything in the first few weeks. We are redesigning our queuing system for our main servery to enable a faster flow but there are sure to be initial teething problems, so we would appreciate it if parents could bear with us.

A big change is that Aspens will be providing breakfast at the main servery from 8am. We also have major plans for the Sixth Form. Some building work is planned for the Christmas break to enable the provision of a café downstairs and a collaborative learning space next door downstairs, whilst maintaining the silent Study Hall upstairs. Aspens are also able to offer Costa Coffee so we are planning for this too. We think the café will be popular with Sixth Form students and staff alike. It will be open 8am to 3pm. We also hope our Sixth Form students will benefit from this mixed approach to the learning spaces. They will need to respect the rules for each space.

We hope all of our students enjoy the changes that are planned and we will be in touch with more information as soon as we can.

DWS Audio on Radio Kent

One of our stories has been broadcast on Leo Ulph’s show in three parts over the last few weeks.  On Thursday night Leo interviewed Mr Chappell, our brilliant Head of Media Studies, about our students and the audio work we have been doing at the School. DWS Audio has a new web address and can be found here: www.dwsaudio.darrickwood.co.uk and you can click on the link to BBC Sounds, listen to the latest story and Mr Chappell’s interview!

Congestion and pollution near the School

Our Student Travel Ambassadors would like to remind all parents/carers that, if at all possible, not to collect their children using a car. If this is really unavoidable, then please collect them away from the School to reduce congestion and improve safety. Also, please switch engines off and consider the impact on air quality.

Finally, please do not park for any time on the yellow lines near the School or stop on the zig zags by the gates.

Bromley Brighter Beginnings Christmas Collection – UPDATE 

Thank you to everyone who donated to the BBB ‘Christmas in a Bag’ campaign. You should all be very proud of the amount we collected for less fortunate members of our community. A special thank you to the Year 8 Charity Reps and Miss Bargeron, for their hard work in organising and promoting the collection.  

PFSA Update

Dear parents and carers,

Firstly, a huge thank you to the parent volunteers who were at the school production selling refreshments last week. Over the three nights we managed to raise over £200 for the School. We have also been delighted that so many of you have purchased your Christmas Trees through the PFSA Christmas Tree project. We have sold 58 trees this year, which is a record amount – thank you all for your support, we will confirm the fundraising total soon.

In other good news, following on from my appeal for willing helpers we now have 23 people signed up to our happy to help list, which is great. It’s not too late to sign up, if you are interested please click here: https://volunteersignup.org/74W37. It only takes a minute but will make a big difference to what we can do to raise money for the School. We will only be in touch with event related requests for help, and you can come off the list at any time.

Reminder: Year 7 Christmas Party –  Friday, 8th December: 7-9pm

Our next PFSA event is the Year 7 Christmas Party. All Year 7 children are invited. For just £5 per person, they will get two hours of fun and music with DJ. The PFSA will also have the tuck shop open for some Friday night treats at pocket money prices.

Open to all current Year 7 pupils, prices are just £5 per ticket and can be purchased online at: https://www.pta-events.co.uk/darrickwoodschoolpsfa/

Preloved uniform

We have had a few emails over the last few weeks asking when the next uniform sale will be, and know a lot of people would like them to be more often.

We all know that the cost of school uniforms can be very expensive, especially as many children grow out of their uniform long before it reaches the end of its life. We also understand, that while our children are learning independence, a lot of uniform can go missing. When you add to this the environmental impact of millions of pieces of clothing heading for landfill, it makes sense that we all try to lessen the environmental impact of uniform production and disposal.

The PSFA are keen to make preloved uniform available to parents as much as we can, but I am afraid (and yes you have heard this before) we need your help to make this happen. To put some context into this you may not be aware of exactly how small the PFSA Committee is? We are a small team of just 5 volunteer parents. We have a small bank of volunteers we can call upon for events/uniform sales, but the more help we have the more we can explore the possibility of running the sales more often.

So, for your diaries the next uniform sale is planned for Saturday, 20^th January 2024, but we do need volunteers for this to happen. So please, if you can help set up on the evening of the 19^th or can help sell on Saturday, 20^th sign up here: https://volunteersignup.org/9MMDP. You can also sign up here to help with refreshments at the School Christmas Concert on 15^th December.

We hope you have a great weekend,

Joanne, PFSA chair

More football success

Our U16 Girls (Year 10/Year 11) reached the quarter finals of the Kent Cup last week with a 5-2 win over Rainham (Lauryn, Darcey, and Lucy scored superb goals). The U16 girls are in to the last 64 (Round 4) of the English Schools Cup.

The U14 Girls (Year 8/Year 9) reached the quarter finals of the Kent Cup with a 6-1 win over Langley Park. They have also reached the last 32 of the English Schools Cup with a 6-1 win over Rainham. This is the furthest we have ever got in the National Cup as far as anyone can remember. The competition started with 452 schools and we are now in the last 32!

The U12 Boys are also doing brilliantly having their last 64 English Schools game on Monday against Oriel High away.

Cross Country

On Wednesday, 15^th November we took Year 7 girls and boys cross country team to race at the Bromley Schools cross country race that was meant to take place the previous week at Darrick Wood School, but due to weather had to be cancelled.

The Year 7 team members were very excited to run and represented Darrick Wood well. The best performances of the day came from Izzy who came 2^nd, Holly who came 8^th and Sadie who came 12^th.  Depending on the schools that could not make the race the 3 of them should be selected to represent Bromley in the Kent Schools in January. In the boys’ race the best performance came from Theo who came 23^rd overall.

We now move on to preparation for the indoor athletics competition, with training taking place on a Tuesday night , which everyone is welcome to attend.

Crofton Residents Association Photography Competition

Darrick Wood School Art students recently entered a Photography Competition organised by Crofton Residents Association.  The competition brief was to capture a scenic and meaningful photograph of our local area, with a brief written summary about why the location of the shot had a personal connection to the photographer.  We were very proud to submit 72 entries from our Year 7-11 students.

Crofton Residents Association and the Art Department were very impressed with the quality of photographs, the explanation of why reach student took the photograph and how each photograph connected to the local area.  The decision making was very hard, but CRA managed to pick a winner and three highly commended entries.

We would like to congratulate all the students who took part and we are very proud of the positive feedback we have received from the competition organisers.  The Art Department would like to thank the CRA for giving our students the opportunity to take part in a community competition.

Art Department Christmas Card Competition

Year 7 recently had the opportunity to take part in our annual Christmas card design competition. We were very impressed with the high standard of designs we received. Thank you to Year 7 and all staff involved with the competition.  The Art Department narrowed down the number of entries for Dr Airey to judge.  Below is Dr Airey’s chosen winning design by Sage:

Sage was today presented with a certificate and badge. Her design will now be used on Christmas cards sent by Dr Airey to governors and friends of the School.

Dates for the diary

Date	Event	Notes
Week beginning Monday, 20th November	Year 11 mock examinations	For two weeks
Week beginning Monday, 4th December	Year 13 mock examinations	For two weeks
Wednesday, 6th December	Year 12 Parents’ Evening	On School Cloud system. Information will be sent out shortly
Thursday, 14th December	Christmas Concert	Main Hall
Friday, 15th December	End of term	Early finish for students. Details to follow
Tuesday, 2nd January	Start of spring term	School starts at 8.35am as usual

Oz uniform shop