Assemblies

Last week we were treated to a wonderful performance by Khloe on the piano. This week, Culture Week assemblies were launched by a fantastic performance of the Samba Club, led by Head of Music, Mr Rees.

Mr Guest, Head of History and Politics, was then joined by students from the EDI Society to explain the reasons why the students had asked for a Culture Week. Events through the week were promoted with a view that all students would appreciate the chance to celebrate the huge range of cultures and backgrounds that make up our Darrick Wood School. Culture week events culminated in today’s own clothes day where everyone was encouraged to wear clothes celebrate our different backgrounds and encouraged conversations to support learning about these. We are very grateful to Guillermo, George, Vincent, Jasveer, Zachary, Matthew, Caleb, Ayaan, Brandon, Abdullah, Niamh, Britaney and Maro who performed at or led our assemblies this week. We were also so impressed by the students who took part in the Fashion Runway in the Main Hall on Friday lunchtime. It felt like a major moment in the history of the School where truly indicated how much we value our individual differences but also how great it is to be part of one Darrick Wood community.

Throughout the month of February the rainbow flag has been flying from our mast and in assembly today students had the opportunity to reflect on the LGBTQ+ community and the struggles for equality and inclusion over the years. As today was 1st March and St. David’s Day, the flag was then changed to the Welsh flag as we aim to fly the various British Isles national flags on such days. It was, however, a day of celebration for all cultures and backgrounds and we are so proud of how our students in the way they embraced the ideas behind Culture Week.

Film Studies

‘On Friday 23^rd the Film Studies department accompanied the current A-Level cohort to The British Film Institute in Waterloo. The day was focused on the documentary ‘Amy’ by British film maker Asif Kapadia. The documentary is part of our curriculum, and follows the supremely talented musician Amy Winehouse and her tragic life. Pupils were given the opportunity to take part in a Q&A with the director himself to gain a wider understanding of his film making style and process. All students were engaged and were a brilliant representation of our school.’ 

DWS Audio

Last night BBC Radio Kent broadcast another play written and performed by four of our Year 10 students (Catherine Hayes, Amber Ranaldi, Olivia Stanton and Lilly Bennett). You can listen on BBC Sounds via our own audio blog – DWS Audio on BBC Radio Kent – DWS Audio (darrickwood.co.uk)It’s a fabulous play and we’re really proud of all of those involved!

In addition, this week we learned that another play – written and produced by two of our sixth form students – has been selected for this year’s UK International Audio Drama Festival. ‘The Christmas Present’ written and produced by George Norris and James Monaghan will be showcased at a week-long event in Canterbury later this month. This is a fantastic achievement.

Year 9 ‘Penny a Page’ Reading Challenge

As a school we are passionate about young people developing their reading skills. This week the Year 9 assembly focused on the academic benefits and the pleasures of reading. Mrs Heather shared the synopsis of two fantastic books. Year 9 students are being encouraged and challenged during a two week intervention. From next week Year 9 students should be aiming to read a minimum of 100 pages across the two weeks, this equates to just 7 pages a day! Students should get sponsored for a ‘penny for every page’ they read. The monies raised will go to the ‘Read for Good’ charity who provide free books and storytellers for all major children’s hospitals in the UK to improve the education, wellbeing, and social opportunities of ill and hospitalised children. Over the next two weeks students will have the opportunities to listen to staff members reading pre recorded extracts from recommended books. Students will also be given additional reading time within the curriculum and will all spend time in the Reading Realm. This challenge incorporates World Book day on Thursday 7^th March and the Scholastic book fair.

We are also running two separate competitions within this challenge – an individual prize and a tutor group prize. This will be monitored by the total monies raised. Students are encouraged to collect their sponsorship money and then the total payment can be made via parent pay by Wednesday 20^th March.

Year 9 Elective Curriculum Showcase

On Monday, Year 9 students celebrated their achievements within the Electives Curriculum. The showcase assembly was a fantastic way to demonstrate the success of this curriculum initiative. The assembly started with a video montage of the various tasks and activities which take place across the curriculum. This enabled all students to observe what each elective offers. We were also able to celebrate by watching live student performances in both Music and Musical Theatre. Students also presented their produced work in both Film Studies and Photography. Students had the opportunity to verbally present to the year group and we are encouraged by the quality of their public speaking skills. The assembly concluded with 26 students being rewarded with £5 Amazon gift cards for their hard work and enthusiasm. Teachers found it very difficult to decide on the winners as there has been such high quality engagement from our students. The students will move on to their third rotation next week.

Year 8 Humanutopia

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, Year 8 students were out of their usual lessons for a day in the Main Hall with their year-half, run by a group called Humanutopia. We started each day with a very personal session where some brave members of the year group volunteered to share some experiences that have shaped them into the people they are today. This was a very emotional morning; we were very impressed by the courage exemplified by these selected students as well as the respect shown by the rest of the cohort in their responses and support of their peers.

For the rest of the day, Year 8 were mixed into smaller groups that they do not usually work with to work through some challenges and think about our futures whilst a little out of our comfort zone. We also had some brilliant Sixth Form volunteers and our Form Tutors as role models to support us. Throughout the day, Year 8 were encouraged to think about how their choices and behaviour impact them, as well as their peers, and how the most important relationship they have, is with themselves. Lots of students shared their thoughts and opinions with each other, and we ended the day with some shout outs; it was fantastic to hear students recognising peers for how far they had come throughout the day as well as adults in their lives who have been positive role models to them both in and outside of school.

The Year 8 team are very proud of how students engaged throughout this and hope that the students have continued to reflect upon the experience!

The Scholastic Book Fair returns to Darrick Wood

At Darrick Wood School, we are passionate about reading for pleasure and believe every child should have access to a reading book they enjoy!  The Book Fair offers books for all ages and reading levels, priced from £1 and up. We are offering free book vouchers for all students on free school meals. As World Book Day approaches, all students will have the added opportunity to use World Book Day tokens to buy books (available at most supermarket checkouts and WHSmith’s).

The Scholastic Book Fair is running from Thursday 29^th February to Thursday 7^th March. Along with World Book Day Tokens, there are two other ways to pay:

1. Buy your child Book Fair Gift Vouchers in advance here: https://bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/gift-vouchers These are the best way to pay – you can buy them now and give to your child.
2. Your child can bring home a Wishlist with the books and prices listed. You can then pay the total amount for the books you want online here Find school – Scholastic Book Fairs and choose Darrick Wood School (not the Juniors or Infants!)

Enjoyment of reading is associated with both reading achievement and achievement in general (Merga, 2018). We hope the book fair will support a genuine, lifelong love of reading by empowering students to make their own book choices and improving the accessibility of books.

Sixth Form Art Workshop at Eltham College

The second after-school Art Workshop at Eltham College was on Friday, 23rd February and it was a workshop on plaster  casting.  This was a new technique for our students to be able to try, and they created unique pieces of artwork that linked to Egyptian and Aztec cultural carvings. Our Sixth Form artists enjoyed the plaster casting, as it got them to experiment in creating different mark making with different materials and tools.  Well done to all the students, as it helped them to take more risks with their artwork.  The third and final workshop will be on life drawing.

Rugby Report – Riddlesdown 34 vs Darrick Wood 28

We travelled westwards, in search of evenly matched opponents – and we found them! No doubt the disjointed travel plans, minimal warm-up time and urgent toilet search on arrival contributed to our slow start. Such a slow start that we were 7-0 down within five minutes, despite winning a crucial scrum on our line, Riddlesdown’s gameplan of spinning the ball wide was playing to our weaknesses. Darrick Wood’s awakening was prompted by some of our leaders putting in some big hits – notably Alex who spent the whole afternoon showing great hunger for big hits both with and without the ball. The scrum which had promised much early, then got a little wobbly and losing one against the head allowed Riddlesdown to spin it wide and score their second – 12-0 down and all that talk about what Chis and Sid did to them seemed a delusional, distant memory. It could have been worse as Riddlesdown’s fly half missed a simple penalty in front of the posts. With Amari suffering a leg knock, things were becoming increasingly disjointed, much to the despair of the coach who kept yelling stuff about putting phases together. Fortunately, the message got through, and following a lovely, flowing backs move that made good ground into Riddlesdown’s 22, a series of probing attacks were finished by Hayden – who penetrated the defensive line thanks to a lovely running line from deep. Daniel’s conversion took the score to 12-7 and it seemed we had got back into the game. However, with our defence narrowing, Riddlesdown’s dangerous left winger replied almost immediately exploiting our coach’s questionable selection decision to play our strongest looking player on the wing, 17-7. It nearly got worse as the right winger got in on the act, but for an amazing try-saving tackle from Hayden who managed to dislodge the ball before he could ground it.

Half time arrived and Amari had recovered enough to go back on, whilst Malachi could now, with ears taped up, take to the field. A few home truths were shared in the huddle and we started the second half in much livelier fashion, with others now joining Daniel’s livewire approach and much better use of forward pods bringing a greater structure to our play, Kiryn even broke the line at one stage. Structure brought points, as Hayden grabbed his second score and Nathan’s conversion narrowed the gap to just 17-14 – game on, we thought, but once again, Riddlesdown’s response was to work the ball wide again and, after a move featuring, to their credit, some pinpoint long passing, they went over to extend their lead to 8 points. Back came Darrick Wood, exerting pressure on Riddlesdown’s line and while they repelled our big runners (Alex, Ezra, Rowan, Rohan and others), they had no answer to ‘the slippery kicker’ himself, Nathan, who snuck over out wide, then converted his own try – back to 22-21. However, now came the sucker punch as an excellent 50/22 kick from Riddlesdown’s fly half gave them a lineout 5 metres from our line, and, with our communication issues coming back to haunt us, their short throw to the front of the lineout went uncontested and they grabbed another try. Further exerting their dominance, through superior fitness (as our forwards and backs began tiring), they managed another try in the corner and opened up a 34-21 lead. Heads didn’t fall and Darrick kept knocking on the door, to be rewarded, with the last play of the game, by a try. We could have had one two minutes earlier had Dan not mistaken the 5-metre line for the try line, but with our rucks working well, we kept the ball, with super-sub Josh responsible for some great carries, and a lovely long pass from Amari out to Chris on the wing gave him reward for another fabulous game. It wasn’t enough to secure the win, but the final score of 34-28 showed two well-matched teams who had crafted a good game, even if the quality of handling on display wasn’t always perfect. Hopefully, Riddlesdown will be coming over to us on the 27^th March for a re-match on the Field of Dreams – the boys are hungry for revenge.

Squad:

Ezra M, Alex I, Rowan B, Jake C, Rohan G, Connor P, Seb K, Kiryn F, Henry H, Kian T, Brandon A, Dan S, Amari O, Steve C, Michael T, Malachi O, Chris B, Nathan J, Nathan S, Josh L, Hayden T

PSFA – Showtime 

The PSFA would like to remind you about our upcoming fundraising event, ‘Showtime’ on Friday, 15^th March, at 7.30pm. All profits from this event will be shared between Darrick Wood PSFA and a local charity which will be chosen by the students.

Tickets are just £12 for adults and £8 for *children and are available here: Darrick Wood School PSFA (pta-events.co.uk) . More information can be found on the poster below and on our social media channels. *Please note, all children must be accompanied by an adult.  

Tables can seat up to eight people so please do invite your family and friends to come along as well, or just come on your own to enjoy what promises to be a fantastic evening with our West End trained performers. A small licensed bar will be available on the night or you are welcome to BYO drinks and snacks.

We are also still asking for any raffle prizes that you may be able to donate. Please drop these into Main School Reception marked FAO PSFA.

Thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you there!

Darrick Wood PSFA

Dates for the diary

Date	Event	Notes
Week beginning Monday, 4th March	Year 13 Pre-Public Exams	Students not in lessons Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (with the exception of some BTEC lessons)
Monday, 4th March to Thursday, 7th March	Scholastic Book Fair in the Reading Realm	In Reading Realm
Wednesday, 6th March	Year 9 Options Evening	Main Hall, 7pm
Wednesday, 6th March	Artist workshop	During the school day and after school – selected Sixth Form students and KS3 Art Club
Thursday, 7th March	World Book Day	Special events all week
Thursday, 7th March	Belgian trip – parents’ meeting	Dining Hall 2, 5pm
Wednesday, 13th March and Thursday, 14th March	Year 10 Art mock examinations
Wednesday, 13th March	Year 10 Oxbridge event for selected students
Wednesday, 13th March	Year 9 author talk and workshops
Thursday, 14th March	Year 11 Music GCSE Performance examinations
Thursday, 14th March	Year 9 Parents’ Evening	4.00pm to 7.00pm on School Cloud
Friday, 15th March	Red Nose Day	Wear an item of red of a RND item with uniform
Friday, 15th March	Year 12 Health Day
Friday, 15th March	PSFA charity event “Showtime”	Main Hall, 7.30pm
Friday, 15th March to Sunday, 17th March	Netball Tour
Wednesday, 27th March	Year 8 Parents’ Evening	4.00pm to 7.00pm on School Cloud
Thursday, 28th March	Last day of spring term (Friday is a Bank Holiday)