Our School, Our Week - 18 June
New Senior Team, Year Group Chat, PE ideas, LRC News.
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Denmark Road High School
Our School, Our Week
Senior Team 2020-2021 I am delighted to announce our Head Students for the academic year 2020-2021. They have come through an rigorous application and selection process culminating in a formal interview with myself and Miss Leathart. The only difference this year being the interviews were conducted via Zoom! Congratulations to Chloe Allen, Milly Cheetham, Izzy Davies, Hannah Mulligan, Eshaah Shakoor and Luke Thomas. We were impressed with their evaluations of the school and their ideas and commitment to working with us for further school improvement. An exciting year is ahead as we work with these future leaders to bring about change. Each Head Student will be linked to a Year Group and have responsibility for the following whole-school roles: Charity - Milly Cheetham Communication & the DRHS Brand - Luke Thomas Curriculum – Chloe Allen Events – Izzy Davies Student Voice - Eshaah Shakoor Houses - Hanna Mulligan
Miss Giblin
Student News Year Group Chat Highlights
Year 7 Year 7 have been keeping busy: Lois Rogers has been planting vegetables on a large scale. Arya Acharya, Olivia Bennett and Lauren Harrop and have taken some lovely nature photos. Taaibah Inam has done some artwork.
Year 8 Esme Grange saved three baby mice. Khadeeja Wasi has been planting vegetables and flowers. Zafeera Karim made a lovely cake and Sarah George painted an impressive tiger picture.
Art This is Esme Crompton’s drawn picture of her cat.
Niamh Beard participated in an online Art course. She participated in an Indian ink turtle drawing session. Mrs Williams
Physical Education Ideas for PE and Exercise
Year 12 A level PE Martha Jones and Sophie Mutlow produced a range of creative and fun Tik Tok videos to help them consolidate information on UK Sport, NIS’ and National Governing Bodies.
Year 13 It has been great to see the Year 13 community working together while on lockdown. Harriet Sanderson made this 18th birthday cake for Mary Stone in the shape of a bear… Why? Because she was the house captain for BEARLAND. Happy birthday Mary and well done Harriet; good to see house spirit still going strong outside of school.
Mrs Dunnett
Science Maisie Beames 7M has made some origami butterflies for her Science wider learning.
Mr Scott
LRC News We now have 1126 reviews by students and staff on our DRHS Book Marathon Challenge. Excellent reading, everyone. Thank you for keeping your daughters and sons engaged in this most important activity, which really underpins all other study skills. The benefits of reading, not only for widening our vocabulary and learning skills, but also for opening our minds to new ideas and putting ourselves in the shoes of others, cannot be over-estimated. Mrs Shaw has continued to support by organising the Google Forms into a weekly spreadsheet and sharing it to students and staff by e-mail and via the LRC Google Classroom. A number of students have already read beyond the 26 books originally set as a goal and we look forward to recognising their achievement. If your daughter or son is struggling to find something they enjoy, please have them contact me to see what we can find. This week is Refugee Week (https://refugeeweek.org.uk/) and therefore I would like to draw attention to some of the books about refugees our students and staff have read. I am also posting a relevant book review every day this week on the LRC Google Classroom. There are also many books about and by refugees available as e-books from Gloucestershire Libraries. Please ask if you would like a particular recommendation.
I am still running a number of Google Classrooms: LRC, Carnegie Writers, Carnegie Shadowers, Denner Blue Coat Best Book Award Group and Library Prefects and Monitors. I try to post links to reading, writing, or more cultural related content every weekday. Wednesday was a huge day in the library world: the announcement of this year’s Carnegie Medal, awarded to what is seen as the best in young people’s literature. The shortlisted books, chosen from around 90 nominations this year, are amongst the most relatable I have read for this award so far, with a diverse range of authors and subject matter. The winning book, revealed on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row programme, was not widely predicted, being very short (a novella in fact), the last book in a quartet and published in a dyslexia friendly format and font by Barrington Stoke, specialists in this area. The winner is Lark, written by Anthony McGowan. This is his third book to be nominated for the Medal and the second to be shortlisted. Anthony McGowan's acceptance speech is reproduced here: “Every writer for young people dreams of winning the Carnegie Medal. Its incredible history, the roll call of the great writers who have won it and the rigour of the selection process, makes this the greatest book prize in the world. It is also a magnificent way of connecting with readers. The hundreds of shadowing groups in schools and libraries around the country provide that one thing that writers cannot do without: a living, arguing, debating, biscuit-munching population of brilliant readers! On one level, Lark is a simple adventure story. Two woefully ill-equipped teenage boys, and their old Jack Russell terrier go for a walk on the North Yorkshire Moors. A blizzard descends and their fun day out, their ‘lark’ turns into a desperate battle for survival. On another level, the book is about the unshakable love between two brothers, one of them with special needs, after enduring family break-up, poverty, bullying and cruelty. Lark is also a story about the power of stories and the way they weave through our lives. The book ends with the words ‘Tell me a story,’ and with those words we are led back again to the beginning.” Thanks to the generosity of the PTA, we were able to acquire copies of the shortlisted books for our annual flagship reading activity, but unfortunately lockdown happened before the books could be lent out to the Carnegie Shadowing Group. Three titles are available from Gloucestershire Libraries as e-books, but otherwise we have been dependent on the videos and activities, including a fascinating look behind the scenes at what’s involved, which are available on the Carnegie website: https://carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/. The Carnegie Medal is awarded by a judging panel of school and children’s librarians, so it is very much an adults’ choice. Last year Carnegie introduced a Student award, which was a welcome innovation, and this is happening again this year. The Student Award will be announced in October, so I hope we will have the opportunity to read the books as a group and to participate in the vote. I am really looking forward to sharing this book, and the other shortlisted titles, with our shadowing group and promoting it school-wide when we return to school. Here are the shortlisted books: The Carnegie Medal 300 words writing competition is running until September: "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 ask them to contact 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. With the release of the Artemis Fowl series on Disney also comes lots of activities and competitions, including a writing competition. Please take a look here to download resources and to enter the competition: https://www.intofilm.org/promotions/artemis-fowl. “Individuals should write a creative piece in which they imagine waking up in a future world that has access to new technologies. Young people need to explain what has changed and how the technology is different to what we have now.” All entries must be submitted from a parent, teacher or guardian’s (18+) email address to be eligible to win the prize. Download the resource for full details on how to enter, including a competition leaflet to help young people with their writing. Closing date for entries is: 13 July 2020. The original books, written by Eoin Colfer, are available as e-books and e-audiobooks via Gloucestershire Libraries. One of the best means of encouraging our children to read is to model it and to let them see that reading is a valuable part of our lives, whether it’s a newspaper or a book, fiction or non-fiction, in whichever format we prefer. This Saturday 20 June is National Reading Group Day – the Reading Agency is partnering with libraries and groups around the country to read The Bee Keeper of Aleppo, written by Christy Lefteri. Gloucestershire Libraries stock this as an e-audiobook. Have a look at these sites to see what’s happening: https://readinggroups.org/ and https://readingagency.org.uk/hub/. 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 The deadline is 31 July 2020 and 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. The current deadline is 30 June 2020. Again, thank you for your support. Finally, do remember that joining your local library is free and is open to all. All library systems provide access to e-books, e-magazines and other online resources to their readers. If you’re not sure where to start, please e-mail me, and I can take a look at what’s available in your area. Here’s the link to the Gloucestershire Libraries online catalogue (just filter results by “Titles available online” to see e-books and e-audiobooks): https://gloucestershire.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/WPAC/HOME. Here’s another useful link to home learning resources 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 by emailing library@denmarkroad.org or by leaving a message via the LRC Google Classroom.
Ms Carol Cordall, School Librarian Follow the LRC on Twitter
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.
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