This week

We are very grateful to Alex and Annie who spoke with clarity and confidence on behalf of the Sports Council at the start of assemblies this week. Extra-curricular sport is going from strength to strength at Darrick Wood School and members of the Sports Council have been responsible, with staff, in raising its profile and promoting the benefits of being involved in school sport.

Assemblies all week focused on books and reading, culminating in Thursday’s World Book Day. Students considered the power of books, the reasons why at various times some books have been banned in some places, but most importantly how reading can simply be such a pleasurable experience. 

On World Book Day, students across the School participated in a range of activities which celebrated reading.  Teachers shared books linked to their subjects during lessons resulting in some very interesting conversations.  Many students entered a competition gathering the names of teachers who came to school dressed as a literary character.  There were some wonderful costumes!   Congratulations to the winner of the competition, Poppy.  We hope she enjoys spending her £10 National Book Token. All parents/carers received an email with a link to a digital token enabling them to get a World Book Day book or a discount on a book of their choice. Thank you also to our Reading Coordinator, Ms Jacobs, for running another very successful Scholastic Book Fair in the Reading Realm.

A big thank you to everyone who visited and enjoyed the Book Fair.  It was another huge success as students spent a total of £1,253 and raised £689 for the School to spend on new books. On Friday last week, the Book Fair coincided with Culture Week and students in the Reading Realm shared beloved stories and books from different cultures, which was lovely to see. We are proud to see the strong passion for reading in our school community. The event was inspiring for those who love reading as well as those who are reluctant readers, and we look forward to running the next Book Fair soon. Happy reading!

The reading fun continues next week when Year 7 students join together in the Hall to participate in a range of book related activities during one of their English lessons.  We are also very excited to welcome the award winning author Manjeet Mann to Darrick Wood on Wednesday. She will be talking to Year 9 students about her journey as an author as well as running creative writing workshops. 

Year 9 are doing fantastically well having recorded over 10,000 pages read across the first four days of the Penny-a – Page Challenge! The aim is for each student to read a minimum of 100 pages across the 14-day challenge and obtain sponsors to raise money towards the Charity ‘Read for Good’. We look forward to sharing their progress and the money raised soon.

Well done to Year 13 who sat their final mock examinations this week (“pre-public examinations”). They will have worked hard for these and will of course be waiting for the results. Whatever the results show, as always with assessments, it is mostly about what you can do to improve and setting out a clear goals for the weeks ahead that will make the difference in the run up to the summer examinations. We wish them the very best of luck.

All of our students have been completing review sheets in their books over the past fortnight, evaluating what they have done well and how they could improve. We would appreciate parents/carers speaking to students about this and promoting reflective skills such as these as often as possible.

Year 9 Options

Year 9 Options Evening on Wednesday was incredibly busy – a full hall for the introductory speech (preceded by excellent music provided by our talented musicians). Everyone was then able to meet with subject teachers and leaders to find out about the compulsory subjects and option subjects. Careers advice, SEN and IT were all on hand for further support. Thank you also to the PSFA for providing refreshments. Students have until Monday, 25th March to submit their options choices.

Toilets

As mentioned in previous bulletins, we have been concerned about how a significant minority of our students have been treating our toilet facilities. Some parents/carers will have received letters from the School regarding their particular child’s involvement. In line with other schools, especially since the pandemic, we have considered many different ways to counter this including CCTV over the basin areas, removing the mirrors, and the installation of doors and locks on the entrance of each space. The doors and locks will mean that only selected facilities will be available during lesson time for those who truly need them. The rest of the facilities will then be opened at break and lunchtime. We are now beginning the programme of planned changes starting with the installation of the doors and locks and removal of mirrors. We are aiming for this to be completed in time for next term. Once ready, we will explain clearly to students what the expectations are. Our plans are to ensure that students act responsibly, prioritise lesson time over toilet time, treat all school facilities with respect and the toilets only for what they are intended to be used for. CCTV installation will be the next part of the programme and we will embark on a programme to improve the overall environment in these spaces and expect them to remain pristine!

Reminders

• Parents/carers may have noticed an increased presence of parking enforcement officers on Lovibonds Avenue after school this week. This is in response to requests from the School and residents for greater enforcement of the parking restrictions which are in place to support safety of the children who go to the three schools along this road. If you have to come into school by car, please park away from the school site and with consideration for our neighbours (not across driveways).

• The School day starts at 8.35am. Those arriving through the gates after this time will be recorded as late.

• Please check your child still has that pencil case full of equipment and are making good use of it daily. We last wrote about this before Christmas and have noted some students are in need of a reminder.

PSFA Showtime

Please do come along and support the PSFA fundraiser ‘Showtime’ next Friday, 15^th March. Our West-End trained performers will be entertaining us all, cabaret style, during the evening with songs from Hollywood movies and musicals. 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.

Please see the attached poster for further details and the link to the tickets is here: Darrick Wood School PSFA (pta-events.co.uk) 

Thank you to those who have already donated but we are still collecting any raffle prizes that you may be able to give. Please drop these into Main School Reception marked FAO PSFA. All donations will be gratefully received.

We really hope to see loads of you there!

Darrick Wood PSFA

Dates for the diary

Date	Event	Notes
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	SchoolCloud
Thursday, 28th March	Last day of spring term (Friday is a Bank Holiday)