We’re very excited to announce a new feature called World Kitchen. In celebration of cultural diversity, we will be publishing recipes for iconic international dishes, which have been recommended by staff, parents and students. Our ambition is for as many members of the Darrick Wood community to recreate these dishes at home and enjoy them with their family. We would love for you to take part and send in photos of your dishes. We would also love more suggestions of…
In PSHE during Mental Health Awareness Week, Years 7 and 8 were asked to think about ‘What makes you, you?’ With this in mind pupils drew silhouettes of themselves and then filled these with pictures, images and words of things that make them ‘them.’ We looked at what they like, family, friends, hobbies, skills and all the things that make them unique and special so they can celebrate being themselves. You can see a few of the pictures here and…
This week This week’s main assembly Ms Wilson-Hooper raised awareness of Children’s Mental Health Week. We hope your children watched this and are excited about our follow-up – Wellbeing Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoon, next week, activities are being arranged in place of normal lessons. Whilst we have not completely gone screen-free with this, there are lots of activities we have suggested which will give students time away from their computers and phones should they wish for this. Please talk to…
This week We have continued to enhance our online provision. We are keen to go beyond the curriculum however and are now also arranging Form Time and Assemblies across our year groups. This week’s whole school assembly was arranged by Mr Smith, Assistant Head Teacher, who is coordinating nominations for the Jack Petchey Award. Please encourage your child to watch the assemblies and to engage in the Jack Petchey Award nominations process. One of the best parts of my week…
This month marks the first anniversary of our school-based serial drama ROUGH DIAMONDS. The lockdown period has greatly interfered with our recording schedule and our plans to release a new episode every week. However, many of our students have continued to participate and we’ve even been able to record some episodes remotely. This week DWS Audio posted the 30th episode of ROUGH DIAMONDS, which you can listen to on the audio blog or on our YouTube Channel AMPLIFiED. There are many more episodes…
Congratulations to former Darrick Wood School student Nelson Hylton, who has been chosen as a guest presenter on BBC Radio 1 over the Christmas period. To read more about Nelson’s success, please see the article here from the BBC Nelson has previously volunteered at the University of Portsmouth’s Pure FM and at community station Transmission Roundhouse. He will become the first black presenter to host Radio 1’s Rock Show. Nelson’s show on Sunday, 27th December 2020 is at 9pm and…
This week It was a week where we tried to inject a bit of festive spirit by encouraging engagement in Christmas Jumper Day, so we were very disappointed that on the day itself, Years 7 and 8 had to join Years 9 and 10 and remain at home due to staffing issues on site. Those that remained did wear their jumpers, ties etc very well and I am sure we will still have raised a good amount of money for…
This week As you are aware, on Thursday I informed parents/carers of the decision to ask two year groups to stay at home today and into next week as a result of staff numbers having become too low to have all year groups on site safely. This was a difficult decision and definitely not one we would make if we could avoid it. It is far from our ideal situation. Ideally, we want all students in school, but I would…
This week In a week where a small number of our students have unfortunately received positive COVID-19 results, we have done our best in the circumstances to keep parents/carers informed. We have worked closely with public health and followed the guidelines set out for secondary schools in this situation and made decisions about who needs to isolate as a result of being considered a close contact. Even as a I write this I am conscious that none of us would…
Congratulations to all 73 Bronze Arts Award students (now Year 10) and the 7 Silver Award (now Year 11) who all passed their Arts Award! This is the first time we have entered the silver award so we are so pleased for all students, as it was a lot of work on top of their normal studies! The examiner stated how sophisticated and well put together our students work was in both levels, and how impressed they were with the…