Denmark Road High School

 

Our School, Our Week

 

 

Student News

Year Group Chat Highlights

Year 7

Year 7 and 8 have mainly been chatting to support each other with their challenges, their work and their transition towards Years 8 and 9.

Esme Crompton did some amazing sketched with her new art pens.

Annabel Reed made some elderflower cordial.

Miriam Chibane attended a peaceful protest.

Freya Espley made an emoji quiz to keep her friends entertained.

 

Year 8

Maisie Willmore made a dragonfly out of glue and recycled plastic.

 

Year 9

Year 9 have been showing support for anti-racism campaigns and promoting safe ways to show their support.  Amy Larkman-Morrey has been particularly proactive on this issue.

 

Year 11 Artwork                                                       Year 8 Artwork

Rachel Egan                                                             Tilly Walters

Mrs Williams

 

What is the point of Poetry?

Poetry is an important art form to study at any age. It is a way to discover how language and symbol systems work, and to help in the expression of emotion, aesthetics, and to see what is beautiful about the world. 

Poetry by Heart send out Poem of the Week emails to help you to discover new poems to enjoy together and they offer fun ways of sharing them out loud and by heart. Sign up with them and they will send you an email once a week in term time with a link to a poem to share and an activity to try with it. Here is the link:  https://mailchi.mp/poetrybyheart/poemoftheweek  

We will be taking part in next year's Poetry by Heart competition - and this would be a great way to prepare to take part. If you sign up, please let Mr McMahon know so he can track how many people are involved.

Mr McMahon

 

Chess online

We can't play chess over the board at the moment so all tournaments are online. I've played in quite a few tournaments with my local chess clubs and have won quite a few virtual medals. 

Also, I have been part of a team of 4 players, playing in the 4 Nations Chess League which is a National competition. So far I have helped my team win every match and get to the top of their group and we are hoping to come top of our division. 

I have also competed in a Women's International competition where I have represented England and played against other countries such as Austria, France and Switzerland. 

I have enjoyed playing lots of chess online in my free time over the last few months, so I can keep practising for when we can play again with our school chess team.

Jaime Ashworth 8H

 

 

Year 9 GCSE PE

Students have been getting creative by designing their own skeletal system using household objects!

Mrs Davidson

 

LRC News

Our DRHS Book Marathon Challenge now stands at 1077 reviews from both students and staff.     Thank you for keeping your daughters and sons reading and please see the link below to Gloucestershire Libraries’ catalogue, where there are e-books and e-audiobooks galore.  As always, Mrs Shaw has organised the Google Forms into a weekly spreadsheet for us all to view and sort by author, title, genre – and even tutor group, so that students can see what’s popular in their year group!  This week I would like to highlight some of the books students have enjoyed which are written by diverse authors: eg Aisha Bushby, Malorie Blackman, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Angie Thomas, Elizabeth Acevedo, Onjali Q Rauf, Jason Reynolds, Sita Brahmachari and Randa Abdel-Fattah.  There are many more on our shelves and I am working on updating a guide to these authors and works.  I am always happy to recommend books to students (or parents, come to that!) so please contact me if you would like further information.  And after doing all that reading - please remind your daughters to submit their reviews on the Google Forms – 8BE is still in the lead!

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Do remind your daughters and sons that I’m running a number of Google Classrooms: LRC, Carnegie Writers, Carnegie Shadowers, Denner Blue Coat Best Book Award Group and Library Prefects and Monitors.  I aim to post links to reading or writing related content every weekday, so if your son or daughter would like to comment on these at all, please ask them to do so. 

The Library Prefects are working on a couple of new projects this term which I’ll be letting you know about once plans have been confirmed! 

A reminder of the Carnegie Medal writing competition (I’ve already had a couple of enquiries about this!)  The organisations which run the Carnegie Medal are holding a competition which needs just 300 of their best words!  Details are as follows:

"Imagine you had the opportunity to spend the day with your favourite character in their fictional land. What would you want to do? Where would you go? Who would you want to meet?"

If your child is interested in this competition, please have them ask me for details of our Carnegie Shadowing Group name, so that they can enter. All entries should be emailed to competition@alcs.co.uk  before Monday 14 September 2020 to be in with a chance of winning.

Barnes Children’s Literature Festival is running through to Sunday June 14 – you do have to register for events, but they are free to view: https://www.barneskidslitfest.org/

There are also daily author interviews still being added to https://radioblogging.net/ if you haven’t yet tried it out.

There are a couple of ways you can support the LRC from home.  One is by nominating us for the National Book Tokens’ competition to win £5000 of book tokens for your school library:  https://www.nationalbooktokens.com/schools   Every nomination counts!  Thank you.   The other is by considering a purchase with Scholastic Book Clubs:  https://shop.scholastic.co.uk/schools/denmark-road.  The LRC benefits in that we receive credit to the value of 25% of orders which we can spend with Scholastic on resources for our students. 

Finally, just my usual reminder that joining your local library is free and is open to all.  Every library system provides access to e-books, e-magazines and other online resources to their readers.  If you’re not sure where to start, e-mail me, and I’ll take a look at what’s available in your area.  Here’s a link to all the resources for home learning that Gloucestershire Libraries has gathered together:  https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/media/2098016/online-resources-for-parents-and-teachers.pdf.  Of course, our own online resources – incredibly useful for research and non-fiction work - are still available via the LRC’s Google Site (Online Resources page) for all students to use.  If your son or daughter can’t remember how to use them, please have them contact me on library@denmarkroad.org or via the LRC Google Classroom.

Gloucestershire libraries catalogue:  https://gloucestershire.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/WPAC/HOME 

Ms Carol Cordall, School Librarian

Follow the LRC on Twitter   @DRHS_LRC and Instagram   drhs_lrc

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Visit the “Treasures of the British Library”

From Magna Carta and Shakespeare to Ada Lovelace and The Beatles. Explore some of the world’s most exciting, beautiful and significant books, manuscripts and sound recordings.

Telling the remarkable stories of over 2,000 years of human experience, the Treasures of the British Library Gallery gives you a peek into the wonders of our vast collection:

Get a taste of what’s inside the Gallery in their accompanying Treasures website.

Virtual Royal Three Counties Show

The annual Royal Three Counties Show, 12-14 June, is going virtual for the first time ever in June 2020, with heaps of countryside fun to be enjoyed from home.

For more information and to attend the virtual event, visit royalthreecountiesshow.co.uk.

 

 

Correction:

In the last newsletter we incorrectly stated that Annette Farrimond had passed her LAMDA Grade 3 Acting.  She did in fact pass her Grade 4 Verse & Prose Speaking.  Congratulations Annette!

Mrs Di Tomaso

 

 

Finally, Follow me @DenmarkRoad365

Please follow me on Instagram at drhshead and Twitter @denmarkroad365.  You will see a snapshot into DenmarkRoad365 and the life of a Headteacher at one of the most amazing schools in the country.