Scholarships News

DCPS Matters

15th February 2019

Issue 46

Message from the Custos

Congratulations to Year 6! Everyone has passed their entrance exams to senior schools with no less than 17 scholarships and exhibitions awarded to Denstone College, as well as 2 to other schools. This is a fantastic achievement and hopefully next week’s half term will see some well earned rest and relaxation for those pupils (and parents!) involved.

Next Half Term’s dates:

Monday 25th February - Football & Netball Photographs
Thursday 28th February - Yr 4 & 5 trip to Think Tank
Friday 1st March - Eucharist with Lord Bishop of Lichfield & Senior Provost
Monday 4th March - Book Fair, Pre-School and Pre-Prep Parents' Evening
Thursday 7th March - World Book Day and Yr 3 & 4 Activities based Sleepover, Dads' Supper (Brewery Tour of The Boot, Repton)
Friday 8th March - Family Breakfast (American)
Thursday 14th March - Yrs 5 & 6 Activities based sleepover
Friday 15th March - Eucharist First Holy Communion
Tuesday 26th March - Junior Play "Stone Soup"
Thursday 28th March - House Music Competition

As you know, Jerry is currently taking a break to recuperate from his recent accident and we all wish him well with his recovery. In his absence it is my pleasure to wish you all a very enjoyable half term.

Matt Elias
Custos

Honours 2019

S. Garratt	Academic Scholarship Sports Exhibition
H. Hotchkiss	Academic Scholarship Design & Technology Exhibition Music Exhibition Pendle Award from Wrekin College
A. Burton	Art Scholarship
C. Crawford	Drama Scholarship
F. Abson	Music Scholarship
V. Ball	Sports Scholarship
D. Wilson	Sports Scholarship
J. Green	Academic Exhibition
G. Whitbread	Academic Exhibition
W. Hough	Drama Exhibition
I. Spencer	Music Exhibition Drama Exhibition Music & Drama Scholarships to Abbots Bromley
Z. Ireland	Music Exhibition
N. Tweddle	Sports Exhibition

Pre-School News

Squirrels News

The Squirrels have been learning about Chinese New Year, making lanterns and Chinese drums to scare the dragons away!

Now the weather is looking more spring-like, we have been busy tidying the garden getting it ready for Spring. The children have really enjoyed their time outside, sweeping and digging to tidy everywhere up.

Owls News

We have been reading the Three Little Pigs this week and have enjoyed acting out the story as a class and making our own homes for the pigs.

At forest schools we discovered three pigs that had nowhere to live so we made them a home to keep them safe from any wandering wolves.

Smallwood Explorers is running holiday club from 18th – 22nd February 2019.

To book please click here to go to the online Booking Form.

Swimming next term

Unfortunately the swimming pool liner has perished over the winter months. We have decided to take this opportunity to refurbish the swimming pool, replacing an old water supply and drainage system and installing a new heavy duty liner. The work will commence on Monday and is expected to take 3 weeks.

Refilling the pool and getting the temperature to a comfortable level for children will take time so unfortunately this will interrupt swimming lessons during the next half-term.

We do apologise for the inconvenience caused but we can assure you that swimming lessons will commence as soon as possible.

Wishing you all a very happy half term holiday.

Mrs Stone

Pre-Prep News

Reception

Reception enjoyed learning about Chinese New Year. They learnt about the festival celebrations, the story of the New Year, and how the years were named after the animals. They made a dragon puppet, a lantern and a drum . This is the year of the Pig, so we even tried to write the word 'pig' in Chinese writing. This was very difficult!

Pre-Prep 1

Space Centre

PP1 had a great time at the Space Centre this week. The children were very excited to see space rockets, planets and control stations! The children also visited a Planetarium and learned lots of interesting facts about Night and Day. A great day was had by all. PP1 would like to say a big ‘Thank you’ to Mr Eley for driving the minibus for us. Please come and look at the photographs in the Pre-Prep department. Well done PP1, you were great on Thursday.

Pre-Prep 2

The children have enjoyed learning about the different famous people from our past in our recent topic. They are currently learning about Florence Nightingale and have been taking the role of 'Time Detectives' very seriously.

We have been using a variety of sources to gain a greater understanding of the life and times of Florence Nightingale and identifying the important things that she has done to help improve modern healthcare.

Main Prep News

Year 3

Year 3 had a special visitor on Wednesday – Tom’s nanna’s Axolotl! The axolotl are an endangered species, with less than 100 living in the wild in the wetlands of Mexico City. We researched and learnt loads of facts about the axolotl which tied in perfectly to our topics of The Rainforest and The Aztecs. Thank you Mrs Cundall for arranging Ax’s visit – we really loved looking after him for the day!

Weighing

Year 3 guessed the weights of a variety of objects, weighed the objects using a three different types of scales and then drew graphs showing the weights to the nearest 100.

Year 4

Year 4 have all worked really hard and found out some fascinating facts linked to our Science Topic: Moving & Growing. The presentations were all very clever and interactive. The new areas of learning included hermit crab moving day, personal x-rays, horse leg bones and fascinating fossils. Well done Year 4!

Sports News

City 7s update

I'm absolutely delighted to confirm that the pupils, parents and teachers of DCPS redeemed 78 tickets for Stoke City versus Aston Villa on Saturday 23^rd February. Let's hope that they bring the Potters a much needed change of fortune and everybody has an enjoyable day.

Football

The U11’s hosted Old Vicarage School from Derby in a highly entertaining football fixture. It was a five-a-side match on a reasonably large pitch and this allowed some fine free-flowing football. From the outset, we were rampant in attack and Louis helped himself to an excellent hat-trick. OVS were a threat and we were thankful to Nathan for some great saves and super distribution from the back. Matthew, Keatan and Joe were marshalling the defence superbly and releasing our pacy forward line of Finley and Bruce with ease. The Garratt brothers showed finesse and silky skills in midfield and James S was dominating with his tenacious play. We eventually ran out 7-3 winners with Finley scoring an excellent hat-trick and Seb also scoring. One of the main reasons for our victory was how well the boys listened to the advice on keeping our shape, this was really pleasing to see. Louis from Y6 and James from Y5 earned the plaudits as the star players for this fixture.

Winter watch!

Mr Emmerson set up a motion activated wildlife camera in our grounds on Wednesday afternoon for Wildlife Club, and we have had some fantastic results. They have been put on the BBC Winterwatch Facebook page so they might be lucky enough to be mentioned on the TV! If you'd like to see the videos please visit our youtube channel. Badger Video

Year 5

Year 5 have spent the last few days presenting their science projects. Once again the standard has been outstanding and we have thoroughly enjoyed listening to each child present their hard work. We have learnt so much about the different planets in the solar system, black holes and dying stars. Even images of the dark side of the moon (made out of Oreos). Thank you all so much for your brilliant effort. Enjoy the break!

Year 6

Firstly, congratulations to all the Year 6 pupils for passing their entrance exams. Mr Bettaney and I are extremely proud of all of them and the success they have achieved. As a reward for all their hard work we arranged to take them to watch How to Train a Dragon 3 at Uttoxeter Cinebowl and all the children had a wonderful time. The trip was generously funded by the PTFA and we are extremely grateful for their support. I would like to thank the PTFA members who do so much to help us provide opportunities like this for the children.

Last week, Miss Bennett also arranged for visitors to speak to Y6 all about the Romans and the children enjoyed finding out about what life was like in Roman times and investigating real-life Roman artifacts.

We hope you have a nice restful half term Year 6, you deserve it!