There are still three weeks until the end of term and such a lot to squeeze in before the summer holidays. Whilst not all of our traditional events of this time of year have returned since the pandemic, next week sees the full return of our Year 7 induction day, new Year 7 parents’ welcome evening and of course Sports Day. To top off a busy week we also see the return of our annual Dance Production. This week was…
This week In assemblies this week the topic was Right Speech. The assembly started with the familiar phrase, “Is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?” Students were asked to reflect on whether, when they speak or post online, they follow this simple rule. From the looks on many faces, it would seem they do not always do this. This is no surprise – we know when we are still growing and developing, finding our way in the world,…
This week and next The first week back from the half term break has seen the continuation of the public examinations and we are immensely proud of how our students have conducted themselves throughout this period. For the wider school, having the examinations take place for the first time in three years is a somewhat welcome and re-assuring step back to ‘normal’ school life, including staying quiet close to examination venues in order to give those taking the examinations the…
This week With public examinations taking place in school for the first time since 2019, we are really proud of how our examinations year groups have conducted themselves so far. They now need to get the right balance between further revision and rest over the half term break. Thank you to the rest of our students for their cooperation in remaining quiet near our examination venues. This week’s assemblies have been based around the theme of life being a journey…
Recent news It has certainly been an eventful couple of weeks. Last week was of course dominated by the burst water main. The matter was not helped by the fact that the leak was very close to other services into the School, so digging down to the faulty pipe was difficult work. We were fortunate the contractors were able to get things back in order in the time that they did. It is never an easy decision to close the…
This week Assemblies this week focused on a theme that many parents/carers might relate to – money and the cost of bringing up a child. Whilst the real message was that children are priceless to their parents, students were asked to appreciate what parents/carers do for them, what they sacrifice and research that indicates it can cost around £200,000 to bring up a child from 0 to 18. Fortunately, education in the UK is free and students were able to…
This week The theme of assemblies this week was Time. This was illustrated through a consideration of time travel (1980s nostalgia through the story of Back to the Future), reflections on the relatively short time of human life on Earth compared with over 4 billion years of Earth’s existence and finally on the invention of accurate clocks in the 18th century to aid navigation when travelling the world by sea. The story of clock accuracy is a fascinating one (if…
This week Parents/carers might have read or heard the headlines that nationally one in ten teachers is currently absent and at Darrick Wood the past few weeks and this week in particular we have experienced a similar level of staff absence, largely as a result of COVID-19. There has been more than one occasion where we have come very close to having insufficient numbers of staff on site and where we have had to consider sending at least one year…
Parents’ Evenings Following on from Options Evening, last week we held an online parents’ evening which we hope will have provided further information to help parents/carers support Year 9 students through the sometimes difficult choices they have to make. They should also now have access to our online resource with videos to supplement the booklet that has been distributed. Dates of remaining parents’ evenings are provided below. Pre-Public Examinations Well done to all of Year 11 for completing these assessments….
This week World Book Day was the theme of our assemblies all week. Here students were inspired by hearing the story of a teacher who overcame difficulties with reading when young to eventually become not only avid reader but even a Teacher of English! The assembly encouraged everyone to read more because books open up worlds that we might never otherwise experience. We might never climb Mount Everest, but we can read about it and learn from this. We might…