WAMS of the Week!

The Year 6 Team are delighted to announce the children we think deserve a mention this week:

6NR:

Saif A:  has settled in super quick and has already shown that he is a kind and considerate individual.  From day one he has been brilliant!  

Bethany W: has shown that she is an outstanding learner.  All the teachers have been impressed with her attitude in class and how hard she works.  

6MW:

India D:  has been supremely organised every lesson and has been helping around the classroom showing a lovely caring attitude.

Josh M:  is growing in confidence and is not only taking part in lessons well but contributing loads too. 

6JB:

Tom C: has shown an excellent maturity in his learning and organisation over the last week which has impressed the teachers.

Kayleigh G: has spent time helping new members of the school to settle in.  She has been very conscientious and helpful and we all appreciate her kindness.

6EJ:

Jimi O and Thomas H:  have been very kind by helping other pupils to find any missing belongings and we’ve noticed this selflessness.

Holly: has really started to show what she is capable of in Year 6 and has impressed the teachers with her sentence work in English recently.

6TH:

Emily D: has not only been at her creative best in English but she has also been very proactive learning by even asking for extra work!  Can you believe it!

Tommy A: is showing a very positive attitude to his maths while also being very organised with his monitoring roles in his class.

Congratulations to all the names above and to those who are continuing to do their best.  We salute you!

The Year 6 Team 🙂

Headteachers Blog – June

Dear all

It seems quite a time since Activity week.  I visited London with a group and had a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting time. I was not aware of the scale of the Harry Potter studios. My youngest daughter is an avid fan of the books and has visited a few times. I understand why now.  I received my Master’s degree at Exeter University the day JK Rowling received an honorary degree from them. I shook her hand but am not sure she would recognise me now!!  The feedback from the week was very positive and there were many new successes and experiences for our pupils.

Last week, I visited Bovington Tank Museum with Year 8.  I was amazed how it had developed from the last time I was there.  It was an excellent educational visit and re-enforced for me the need for us to develop this type of visit more widely.

Yesterday saw another Dorchester Middle School Sportsday.  Huge thanks to Mr Roberts, Miss Clements and the team for organising such a fantastic day.  The pupils all participated fantastically.  Of all the schools I have worked in, DMS Sportsday wins hands down.  Well done everyone!

Summer Term

A rather damp start to the summer term. One of the favourite questions I get asked by pupils at this time of year is ‘When can we go on the field at lunch time, Mr Chadwick?’ My reply at the moment is ‘When it finally stops raining’. However, we cannot complain too much as the weather over the Easter break was lovely!

You should now have received information regarding where to access our Ofsted visit report. We were delighted that the school was seen in such a positive light. Pupils, parents, staff and governors are justly proud of our school and this came through during the Ofsted visit.

The team that inspected us were impressed with many aspects of our practice. They were also skilled practitioners and gave us good pointers for improvement. I believe a healthy school is always trying to improve and we certainly are always striving to do that.

There is a busy half term ahead with Year 6 and Year 8 exams and then of course Activities Week.

 

 

 Dear all

I keep getting ‘told off’ by colleagues for not regularly updating my Headteacher blog.  I really am going to try and improve on this and take inspiration from Mrs Ray who is relentless with her blogging!

It was a delight for me to travel from Wimborne to Dorchester today, in the light.  We seem to be through the worst of the wet weather and there are hints of spring in the air. 

This is a crucial time for academic progress for our pupils.  They are now fully embedded in their year groups and subjects.  They will start to work towards assessments in the summer term building on all their hard work through the year. 

 I would reiterate that although we do have set parents evenings, parents are welcome to contact the school at any time to engage in dialogue with myself or other members of staff.  For logistical reasons, we ask that this is well planned so communication can be positive and helpful.  The three main ways we seem to do this are through meetings, telephone calls and emails. 

 I will write again soon, honestly!

 

 

Welcome Back

Headteacher Update: September 2013

Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome and welcome back. 

The term has started really well.  It has been pleasing  to see how well the Year 5’s have settled.  It is always a great thrill to see the new Year 8’s taking up their responsibilities to the Year 5’s.  I feel sure this will be as successful as always this year. 

We welcome the following new staff:  Zoe Marshall, Finance Officer, Lottie Elsdon – Cover Supervisor/Sports Coach, Kyle Critchell – Cover Supervisor/Sports Coach, Eryn White – TA, Helen Enever TA, Sally Miller – Mths 1:1 Support Assistant. 

Having undergone significant training, Miss Still is leading a Forest Schools project which we hope all pupils will be able to benefit from over the course of the year.  It is about developing outdoor skills which have a range of benefits for our pupils.

Last week saw 301 pupil taking parts in Sports extra-curricular activities add to that those pupils attending music, art, forest schools, autograph hunters, war-hammer, garden club – I am always grateful to staff who give up their time to enable these extra-curricular activities and I hope you will encourage your children to attend the ones they may enjoy. 

The first PTA meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 25^th September 6.30pm.  Many of the previous members were Year 8 parents whose children left us at the end of the year.  We would really welcome any new parents who feel they would be able to join us.

Paul Chadwick

End of Exams!

 

 

We have now completed our KS3 and KS2 exam weeks.  I have to say, I am extremely proud of the attitude of our pupils towards their exams.

Traditionally at DMS we see standards rise rapidly from Years 5 to 8. It is one of the many positive features of a Middle School.  Moving schools can be tricky. Getting to know the new environment, meeting new friends and teachers is sometimes difficult. I am sure you are aware; we work hard at making this process as smooth as possible both from Year 4 to 5 and Year 8 to 9.  In education systems that do not have 9 – 13 middle schools pupils move onto a large secondary school at the age of 11 which I feel is very young.  In the Middle School pupils feel secure, safe and settled as they make their transition through the year groups. This enables pupils to make excellent progress in Year 7 and 8.  By the time pupils move to Hardyes aged 13 they have reached a level of maturity that enables them to cope with their move to the ‘big school’ ready to continue their learning journey.

 

Well done pupils and staff!  Long live Middle Schools in Dorchester.

 

Finally good luck to all for next week’s activities.

 

Summer term underway ….

Dear all

We are now well into the start of the summer term.  We have enjoyed a little bit of warm weather, enough anyway to get us onto the field at lunchtime.  The snacks at break-time are proving to be an asset for both pupils and Local Food Links.  Year 5 had very successful trips to Streetwise last week and I was delighted on the comments received regarding their excellent behaviour.

We are now approaching exam time! As I have mentioned before, I think all adults in children’s lives have an important role to play helping them to best deal with exams.  Some pupils need focussing, whilst others need calming.  Thank goodness we are all different!  After exams is activities week and I do hope that pupils will be able to look forward to this week of enrichment.

Looking forward to working with you for another successful term.

Paul Chadwick

Headteacher

Headteacher Blog

Welcome back.  I hope you had a successful half-term.

We now embark on a very short half-term (5 weeks), taking us up to Easter.  It is always encouraging for the school community to enjoy increasingly long days of sunlight.  It lifts the spirits.  All we need now is a little warm weather and we will be firing on all cylinders. 

I write this having just finished my morning tour of the school.  I have to say, I am delighted with the atmosphere and commitment of both staff and pupils. It creates an excellent environment for learning.

Mr Chadwick

Spring Term

It has been a good start to the spring term but a very cold one.  As soon as snow is mentioned in the air, Head teachers every where start studying the weather forecast regularly.  The prediction at the moment for this week is that light snow is arriving on Friday at Midday and becoming heavier during the afternoon.  This could well lead to quite a disrupted end of the week.

My view is that the safety of everybody is the most important consideration.  The south of England does tend to struggle when even light snow falls.  I do appreciate that it happens so rarely the counties cannot be resourced like those where it happens more regularly.

We will keep you as informed as possible if we do have to close and will work with you on any specific issues you have.  We will not close the school and ask everyone to leave without suitable arrangements being in place.  Equally we will not send pupils away who arrive unaware that we have had to close.

In short, we will work with you as closely as possible for the benefit of your children.  I hope we do this in all aspects of school life.

Mr Chadwick

HEADTEACHER END OFAUTUMN TERM

Head teacher Blog Last week of the Christmas Term

I led two assemblies this week one for Year 5 and 6 and one for year 7 and 8.  I chose to do the ‘great egg trick’. This is where with out the use of hands an egg is flipped in a glass. This is achieved by imparting an explosive blow (exhale of breath) which raises the egg out of the glass, flips it and lands back in the glass the other way up.

On both days I had the assembly, I practiced in my office with a very high success rate. In both assemblies I failed!  It changed the message in the assembly for me from ‘things are possible even if it is difficult to see how sometimes’ to ‘to succeed you must be free from the fear of failure’ We must all strive to have a go at difficult more challenging things. If we are in a supportive learning community we can try our best, fail and try again. Eventually this will lead to progress.

People have different opinions on tests whether they be end of year SATS or end of Year 8 assessments ready for Thomas Hardye. In my opinion if the test is leading us to teach the right skills (broadly I think they are) I see no problem in striving to do the best we possibly can as a school and as individuals. If we fail to achieve the goal we set our self no problem at least we tried and our supportive learning community will know we gave it our all. We will reach our goal next time or may be the time after that.

I wish you all a peaceful Christmas.