Denmark Road High School

Our Week

Picture of the Week:

Antarctica Explorer in School!

Key stage 3 at DRHS were extremely privileged to be the first school visited by Captain Louis Rudd on his return from Antarctica. He is the first British person to trek across Antarctica unaided and he told them all about his experience in our assembly today.

8BE had a question and answer session with Louis during their Geography lesson. An amazing experience!

A big thank you to Beanie Farrimond for setting up this link between the Army and DRHS.

Praise you!

I have recently delivered assemblies to Years 7-11 highlighting the importance of being given and accepting praise. Our students achieve amazing things, yet all too often they rush from the stage following a performance, or shy away from applause, or fail to recognise that the work they have just completed has progressed in standard from their last piece. We have revised our Praise system in school following consultation through Student Forum, the outline of the process can be found on our website in the 'Policies' section.   Staff in all lessons across all subjects are encouraged to award between 3 and 5 House Points each and every lesson. This will improve the level of individual praise we are giving and as we will be celebrating the totals by House each term we also hope to further the House competition spirit within the school.

Consequences

Now, I am sure it won’t be necessary but……we also need a consequences procedure. I wrote to you earlier in the year explaining that we felt our behaviour points system was not quite what we wished for, so we have revised this too. The procedures emphasise the fact that actions have consequences, and that our first response will always be to have a ‘learning conversation’ with a student to encourage them to modify their actions in future. The procedure can be found in the 'Policies' section of the website.

Book Week

The LRC has been a hive of activity this week, thanks to Mrs Cordall for all the events she has designed and held. Yesterday students enjoyed the fun of the World Book Day character parade and a today a ‘Drop Everything and Read’ session. Students have been encouraged to vote for the Twenty Before Eighteen, Denmark Road’s list of books that should be read before reaching that milestone age. The week has also seen the launch of our third annual Battle of the Books, a House Competition for Years 7 and 8.  House Teams of up to five students will be competing.  We have also started to look for Year 8 Team members for the Denner/Blue Coat Book Award, our joint reading project with Tommies. Students in Year 9 or above will be invited to take part in the Carnegie shadowing groups following announcement of the shortlist on March 19.  

Photos will be on the photo gallery on the website on Monday of this week's events.

Pancakes into pounds!

A huge well done to the charity committee who raised £186 for 'Wish upon a star' on Thursday.

The main hall was crammed full of students eagerly queuing to buy their pancakes and it was fantastic to see the charity committee all working as a team - Year 7s all the way through to the Year 11 organisers.

What a success! Well done!

Trench Life

Year 9 recently created pieces that represented trench life and warfare. It was great to see how their knowledge was built upon this week in lessons when I visited Mr Hathaway’s class. Students were taught how to analyse sources from the World War, using the ‘POBCAM’ technique his students ably assessed reliability of the sources offering opinions with evidence.

Take a look at Facebook to see the photographs.

School Choir performance in Birmingham

Those of you who have had the pleasure of attending our school carol service will know the delight of hearing our choir perform. If you would ike to listen to their performance please join our Facebook page where you will find it posted.

Amazing Individuals: Khadija Dilnawaz

Khadija has been awarded 1st place in the Talent 2030 National Engineering Competition for Girls for her age category.  She will be awarded with a certificate and £1000 (£500 for Khadija and £500 for our school) at an awards ceremony being held at the Big Bang Fair in NEC Birmingham on 16th March.  Many congratulations on such a wonderful achievement!

Year 13 Mocks & Mock Results Day

In preparation for their final A level examinations Year 13 have completed Mock examinations this week. I am sure they will be looking forward to some rest this weekend. Many thanks to Mrs Steele, Mrs Morris and Miss Cook who have organised the period such that it replicates the actual examination session as much as possible. Our thanks now to staff who will be providing students with vital feedback from these examinations to support all students in making further progress.

Parents have been invited to join us on Wednesday 20th March for the Mock Results Day so that they will know what happens and how we and they may support their sons and daughters on the actual results day in August.

Parking on Oxford Road next week

International Women’s Day

As today is International Women’s Day I thought I would share an article with you forwarded to me by Mrs Cordall of the LRC. It tells the story of  Women who conquered the cold in corsets and billowing skirts. It serves to remind us all that everyone faces challenges, that some challenges are harder than others, but with resilience, planning and determination facing challenges and achieving our goals are possible.