DCPS Matters
Issue 32
26th April 2018

Headmaster's News

School Uniform

Please can you make sure that your children come to school in the correct uniform. At this time of year, this applies to sun hats, which need to be the school regulation cap, with or without the legionnaire’s flap or a plain white sun hat. Coats and scarves also need to be regulation, as do swimming costumes. This is particularly important with the galas coming up. They need to be plain black or plain navy blue, no other colours please. Girls should be wearing open neck blouses, and short white socks if they are in summer uniform.

Sports Fixtures

One of the frustrations of the summer term is that we are always hostage to the weather. Hockey, football, rugby & netball can all be played pretty much whatever the weather. However, both cricket and rounders really do need, if not sunshine then certainly a dry day.

Fixtures at this time of the season are very hit & miss, but we can have glorious weather, as was the case last week. We try to plan as many fixtures as possible, knowing that we will have to cancel some and even once term has started we continue to look for other fixtures as well. We are keeping everything firmly crossed for next week’s fixtures.

Cricket & Rounders

I should stress that my comments last week concerning boys possibly playing rounders occasionally and girls playing cricket were based purely on wanting to give the children access to a wider variety of sports. Women’s sport, as you will be aware, is enjoying some high profile successes on the international stage, particularly in sports that were traditionally looked on as exclusively male pursuits. Cricket, football and rugby are all cases in point. I am very keen to ensure that we do not deny any of our children the opportunity to find at least one sport that they enjoy and to be honest, I don’t mind at all which it is. The world is changing and we need to change with it.

Summer Ball

This will be a great night and it’s not too late to register your interest. You can either put a table of ten together, make up a smaller group or along as a couple. Please see Ellie Elias or Elaine Shanley for further details.

Displays

There are some wonderful displays going up already this term. If you have time, when you collect your child ask him or her to show you their classroom and the surrounding corridors. They really do look fantastic!

Rotary Handwriting Competition

Congratulations to Orla Emmerson who has been awarded a runner up prize in the Year 1 Category of the Rotary Club Handwriting Competition. Orla received her prize at the awards ceremony on 24th April, and also got to meet the Mayor.

Isabel Chester was also at the awards receiving a prize of £30 for her story in the Rotary Young Writers’ Competition. She came 2nd in her age category (Yr 6).

Well done to everyone who entered these competitions. 14 local schools took place so it was quite an achievement.

Teachers2Parents App

You can download the Teachers2Parents App from the App store on your phone. This will allow you to have all the text messages from school in one place. There is also a Calendar which lists the main school term dates.

Last few tickets left, Deadline Tomorrow!

The PTFA are urgently seeking more 'ball-goers' in order to make this year's event a smash! All proceeds go to the school PTA funds which is why it is a brilliant event to support. For more info or to book a place or a table, please contact any PTFA member or Mrs Shanley in the school office. Your PTFA needs you!

Pupils of the Week

Week 2

Yr 3 - Oscar
Yr 4 - Ellen, Emmerson, Lydia
Yr 5 - Matthew, Charlie, Harry
Yr 6 - Eloise, Louis

Pre-School News

Squirrels Room

The Squirrels have been looking at Mini-beasts over the last few weeks, specifically Ladybirds and Snails. We have read 'The Snail and the Whale' and our favourite 'The Bad Tempered Ladybird' ! We have also made a Mini-beast Garden in our classroom and went on a bug hunt to find Snails and Ladybirds, this was so much fun!

Owls Room

The Pre-School would like to thank the PTFA for their new mud kitchen. We are making some lovely mud pies!!

The Owls had fun collecting snails and finding plants for them to eat. We have designed our snail pictures similar to the artist Henri Matisse.

Pre-Prep News

Reception

Reception enjoyed their first swimming lesson last week and they were all confident in the water.

Pre-Prep 1

Pre-Prep 1 had such a great visit to the Space Centre at the end of last term. They all enjoyed going into the Planetarium and learning about day and night and different constellations. The children enjoyed exploring in their groups and discovered lots of interesting facts about Space. Well done PP1.

Pre-Prep 2

Well Done to Iliyin Khan, Matilda Bull, Jemima Sanders, Cecilia Brutton, James Macfarlane, Archie Rathband and Joules Pritchard for gaining their LAMDA certificates. Full details are on our website.

The children of Pre-Prep 2 have been learning about capacity in mathematics and have had fun filling different containers to find out whether or not they can hold more of less than 1 or 2 litres. The children have also looked at millilitres and have identified that 500mls is the equal to ½ litre and 250ml is the equal to ¼ of a litre. The children have also collected data to create a graph based around capacity.

Who could have thought capacity could be so much fun!

Art News

Miss Belcher entered the following children's art work into the SATIPS National Prep Art Exhibition 2018 at Bromsgrove School. If you would like to view the online gallery please click here.

Sophie Tweddle, Oliver Makepeace, Jacob Morfitt, Finley Abson, Emily Hough, Isabel Chester, Freddie Fenton, Esther Belcher, Imogen Abson, William Vickers, Tilly Marsden.

Main Prep News

Year 3

Rock Detectives

Our science topic for this term is ‘Rock & Soils’. This week we became rock detectives and enjoyed exploring the school searching for rocks. It isn’t as easy as it sounds! Is it a rock or is it man-made? We found granite, sandstone, limestone, slate and marble and considered why each particular rock had been chosen for each different job. We will be learning more about different types of rocks next week and are really looking forward to our trip to Treak Cliff Cavern!

Year 4

Science, Classification

After a lovely long Easter break the children in Year 4 have been enjoying their new Science Topic and have had fun thinking about how they can classify a collection of animals. The children were asked to classify some animals into groups and explain the reasons for their groups. Most children put the animals into groups of land animals or water creatures, some added flying and non flying animals, but there were quite a few abnormalities that were within their collection (e.g. newts or penguins). Some very thought provoking stuff! Eventually they began to look at the features of the animals and there was a great discussion about animals with and without vertebrae leading nicely onto their next topic. What a practical and hands on start to their new topic!

Year 5

Year 5 have been studying sound for the past few weeks in science. We have carried out many investigations to discover how sound will travel well and how to block sound. The children had great fun using cup telephones to discover that sound vibrations travel best when the string is taut, they were very surprised that they could actually feel the vibrations travelling along the string. We then followed this lesson by investigating how to block sound and which materials would be best at insulating sound. Today we have had a series of activities that the children rotated through to find out how pitch and volume can be changed. The children have been set homework to create a fact-file that draws on all the things they have found out about sound. This is due in on Wednesday.

Year 6

In mathematics we have been investigating measurement and 6L put their brains to work solving Tarsia puzzles which involved matching measures according to how they convert between mm, cm, m and km.

On Thursday 26th April Lynda came in to DCPS to discuss transition and how to be safe online. It was a very informative session for Y6 in looking ahead and how to prepare for their move up to Year 7 in September and all children participated in an extremely mature and sensible manner.

Year 6 have produced some absolutely amazing pieces of work for their Shakespeare projects. We are going to write a special piece about this in the next newsletter once we have put the projects on display.

Yr 5 and 6 Tree Planting

The Woodland Trust kindly sent school a pack of trees to plant this spring. We have finally managed to put them in, after the snow delayed planting last term. Yr 6 and Yr 5 have planted a legacy tree, for future generations to enjoy. We are extending the wooded border along the bottom of the pitches, our new trees are planted all the way along the edge of the field. Each child wrote their name on the tree protector, so they can check on their progress for at least a few years! If you'd like to admire their handiwork, please do. The recent wet weather has been the perfect start to the trees new life here, let's hope they grow strong. As we know 'from small acorns, mighty oak trees grow' both physically and metaphorically.

To find out more about the Woodland Trust visit https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/

Please don't forget to show your children this newsletter, so that they can see the photos and news too.

Derby Arts Festival 2018

Congratulations to our Chapel Choir for winning their class at the 110th Derby Arts Festival 2018. They sang 'Lead me, Lord' and 'Homeward Bound'. They won the Ronald Jenkins Memorial Trophy once again! Well sung choir!

LAMDA Results

Once again we have had brilliant LAMDA results - for details please see our website or click here.

ABRSM Results

We have had a 100% pass rate for the Associated Board music exams in the Lent term, once again. Congratulations to all the students and thanks goes to all the Visiting Music Teachers who prepared them so well. To see the individual results please see our website or click here.

Dates for the Diary

The school calendar is available at http://www.denstoneprep.co.uk/calendar/