DCPS Matters
Issue 30
9th March 2018

Headmaster's News

Record Breakers!

You will have seen in both my last newsletter and my most recent blog just how well our top year performed in their entrance exams this term. They really did pull out all the stops and produced some remarkable results. I can now also confirm that in the past four years our children have been awarded no fewer than 71 scholarships and exhibitions to senior schools. This is comfortably the most successful, sustained period in our history and I really do take my hat off to all of the parents, teachers and most importantly, the children who have contributed to this. I must also stress that it is not just those who gained these awards who should be congratulated, but the rest of each year group who supported and pushed these children to achieve so much. I know that one or two missed an award by a whisker and while this is always frustrating, those boys and girls can feel incredibly proud of how well they have done in their own right.

Winter Wonderland – in Spring!

Last week’s weather was the most extraordinary that I have ever seen in this country. I have certainly never been cut off from civilisation before and while this only lasted for a couple of hours on Friday before a very kind farmer and his JCB came to the rescue, I really do feel for those of you still without water and do hope that this has been restored by the time you read this newsletter.

I really do want to thank all of the staff who managed to get in on Thursday last week and who were willing to give it a try on Friday as well. Also, many congratulations to those children who got in on Thursday. It was not surprising that we didn’t see anyone on Friday! I should repeat that we never close the school. We have at least three and currently four members of staff on site and our head chef lives at the bottom of the driveway, so we will always be able to feed and look after the children. However, I should stress that in really severe weather conditions this could be all that we have, logically if this were the case then we would have very few children as well, but we cannot operate the pre-school without the required number of adults, so do sometimes have to close this part of the school.

We also recommend that parents take heed of the advice of the AA or the emergency services and if this is that it is not safe to drive then stay at home and enjoy a snow day. We stay open because I have always felt that it does not seem right if the only reason you cannot go to work is because your child’s school is closed.

Reports

This term’s reports will contain effort grades and very brief comments from me and the form teacher. Year 3 -5 parents will have the opportunity to receive detailed comments on your child’s progress from parents’ evening and Year 6 will have both a parents evening and a full report next term. This is the first year we have tried this and at the end of the year I would be very interested in any feedback from you.

Another Scholarship!
Congratulations must go to our Year 6 pupil Uma, who has been awarded an Art Exhibition to Denstone College. This brings our Year 6 total to 21 scholarships and exhibitions. We are so proud of her and all the other pupils who worked so hard.

Burton Competitive Vocal Festival
Congratulations to Isla in Year 5 for entering the solo singing class in a well known Burton Singing Festival last week. She came third which was a fabulous achievement.

Claim to Fame
Jacob spotted James on CCBC last week. He was on Sam and Mark's Big Friday Wind Up!

Pupils of the Week

Week 8 & 9

Year 6 - Jonathan F, Eloise W, George B
Year 5 - Christian B, Will V
Year 4 - Jude J

Pre-School News

Squirrels Room

We have had a magical World Book Day today! All the Squirrels dressed up as their favourite book character, made magic hat biscuits and read 'Keith the Cat with the magic hat'. We all enjoyed a lovely buffet for our lunch and a tour of a wonderfully decorated main prep!

Owls Room

Pre-Prep News

Reception

For World Book Day, Reception have been reading "Room on a Broom". They have enjoyed doing a variety of activities and work. We decorated biscuits and cakes to eat on the day. It was a fun week and we finished by dressing up as "magical characters".

Pre-Prep 1

PP1 had such a great day on Thursday celebrating World Book Day. We chose 'Winnie the Witch' as our focus for the week and enjoyed reading lots of funny stories about her and doing lots of great activities. The children had lots of fun measuring and making explosive magic potions, character descriptions, decorating cakes and biscuits plus lots of art and craft activities.

Well done PP1 you have had a great week and your costumes were fantastic!

Pre-Prep 2

PP2 have had a wonderful treat this week thanks to the PTFA. All children in Reception, Pre-Prep 1 and 2 have enjoyed a Lego workshop day. They created an amazing Lego village including houses with gardens, streets with cars and track with trains. The children found it extremely interesting, challenging and most importantly fun!

Move over Witchy, Cat, Dog, Bird and Frog, the children of Pre Prep 2 have clambered aboard the broom from their World Book Day book 'Room on a Broom.' The children have rewritten parts of the story and painted an amazingly magical 3D picture. We have been transported back in time to visit the Three Witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth to recreate the iconic witches chant. They have had lots of fun decorating cakes and biscuits with spooky spiders for an afternoon tea party held in the Hogwarts's dining hall.

Main Prep News

Year 3

What a fantastic day we had at Cadbury World! We learnt lots about the Aztecs and how important chocolate was to them. We also learnt about the Cadbury business which supported our previous history topic of the Victorians. The children were an utter delight: listening carefully, being polite and well-behaved. We also got to sample some lovely chocolate!

Year 4 - World Book Day Mystical Creatures

There has been lots of magical fun and games in school, following the Sorting Ceremony in the School Room, Year 4 needed to assist the school in a "treasure hunt" as lots of mystical and magical creatures had escaped from one of the classrooms and a full scale search around the main school was necessary prior to break!

After eating edible chocolate frogs at break, Year 4 have been using their wonderful imaginations to think of their own mystical creatures and have had to work hard in three workshops. In one, they made posters putting their ideas onto paper, adding special features and magical gifts that their creatures have. Another workshop "Care of Magical Creatures Class" was creating a brochure of how to care for their creature, top tips and helpful hints of how to keep the creature happy and content (today, this lesson took place inside Hagrid's hut). The last workshop was actually modelling their mystical magical beast/critter/animal out of clay using materials to make each one special and magical.

There have been some very creative creatures along with some great detailed descriptions from each child about their chosen creature and the brochures have made us giggle with how we should look after them.

"This one is a pig fairy, its half unicorn and half peregrine falcon!" (Max).

"This is blob! It blows out eggs through its mouth and the eggs hatch into new blobs" (Tilly).

Thank you to Mrs Emmerson-Friend and Mrs Wason for such a fun day! Please do come up to the Year 4 classroom to have a look around the hall at the top of the stairs to see their creations!

Year 5

Year 5 have had a fantastic World Book Day. Firstly, thank you so much for the fabulous costumes, the children looked brilliant and really took on their roles as wizards and witches. We have been applying our maths skills of 3D shapes to make very complicated pentagonal “Honeydukes” chocolate frog boxes. The children worked incredibly hard, cutting, scoring, folding and constructing and were rewarded with a real chocolate frog to put in their box. After break we had our potions lesson. Mr Snape was his usual miserable self and hurled insults at the class to try harder! The children had to create a recipe for a potion of their choice. They then wrote up their recipe on old parchment. We’ve had a magical day!

Year 6

Thank you to all Year 6 pupils for coming in their marvellous, magical themed costumes for World Book Day take two! You all looked fantastic and we had an excellent day wand making and having a Harry Potter Day.

The U9 Cross Country Team at Twycross House School this week

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

Facebook and Twitter
Thanks goes to those parents who have written us some amazing reviews on Facebook. It really makes a difference to our marketing effort.

www.facebook.com/denstonecollegeprep
www.twitter.com/denstone_prep

Many thanks

Mrs Warrilow

Dates for the Diary

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