Headteacher Message

Hello all,

I hope you are all warm and well. Working in a school is never ever dull. At no point in my career have I ever been bored. It is extremely busy with highs and lows and invariably you go home feeling tired! You also experience a number of magic moments. Today it was seeing the care and kindness shown by one of our Year 6 children to one of our children with special educational needs. I have noticed that this peer support is invariably offered without prompting and talks to an understanding of need and a sense of responsibility towards others. Our Year 6 children have spent their whole time at the school working and playing alongside children from the Specialist Resource Provision and I think this experience helps them to further develop empathy and an understanding that it is important to celebrate differences.

This week I had the good fortune to meet two parents who have agreed to drive the parents association. They will need your support to do this. Next week they are holding a coffee morning at school on Friday. This will take place after drop off between 9am, and 10am. I have agreed to provide a variety of healthy snacks (cakes with some fruit in!) and I will also be there making the beverages. Please come along. Any support, however small is invaluable. Mick Hucknall once said “Money is too tight to mention.” And all schools are feeling the pinch. Any money raised will directly benefit your children. Sumru and her team did some amazing work and managed to raise £7000. We have spent most of this on books It has helped to resource our phonics scheme and provide high quality texts for all. Initially, please begin to centralise all the coins you have as we will be creating a coin snake in both playgrounds as our new money raising venture. Year 6 are working on a poster and I will send it out next week.

Have a lovely weekend.

Joe Porter

Office Updates

Lates and Absences

If your child is unwell and unable to attend school you must call the office on 0208 876 6721 or email parents@darell.richmond.sch.uk informing us of the reason for their absence before 9:15am.

Children are able to enter the school building from 8:45am, the school gates will be closed promptly at 8:55am. If your child is late for school please come into the front office to sign them in on the electronic system.

Outstanding balances

We have some outstanding balances for meals, trips and clubs. If your Arbor account is in arrears please make a payment as soon as possible to clear the outstanding balance. if you are having difficulties please come to see Miss Gavin in the office.

Communications Sent Home

Y4 Thames Young Mariners Residential Trip
Y6 (selected pupils) Netball Match invitation

Diary Dates

Y5 Swimming

12:45pm – 2:45pm

January

Y5 Swimming

12:45pm – 2:45pm

January

PSA Coin Race

9:15am – 11:00am

February

Half Term

All Day

From 14 Feb until 18 Feb

February

Wellbeing

BBC Bitesize wellbeing tips

Check out BBC Bitesize for their wellbeing tips designed for parents to help you support a healthy, happy childhood - with advice on food, sleep, mindfulness, as well as ways to look after you and your child's mental health.https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z63htrd?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=wellbeing

Young Minds A-Z

Young Minds have produced an A-Z guide which gives advice on how to help your child with their feelings and behaviour, as well as mental health conditions and life events. They’ll also show you where you can get help.
https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/a-z-guide/

Breathing exercise - Blow out a candle

Light a candle for your child to blowout. Then re light it and move it further and further away from them, so they have to take deeper and deeper breaths to blow it out. This is a great way to practice deep breathing, while making a game out of it.Encourage your child to use deep breathing whenever they
are anxious, over excited or upset. It can also help them to relax if they are having trouble sleeping.

The Reading Corner

Welcome to our weekly section of the newsletter all about reading. Every week, we will share a question (or two) with you about the book your child is reading in school. Please use these questions to help you find out a little more about what your child has been reading in school and continue to develop their love of reading.

Wonder - What do penguins eat? How do penguins keep warm?

Peake - Have you ever felt lonely before? What did you do? How could we help someone who is feeling lonely?

Weir - What do you think Mia will see when she looks out of her window? What do you think she will do?

Walker - What did the penguin see on it's adventure across the frozen coast?

Newton - What are all the things that Sadness can do if it wants to?

Thunberg - Why did Thor send Arthur on a quest?

Darwin - ‘If you could fly on the back of an eagle, where would you go?’

Attenborough -What is similar in the description of the city of Yaroslav in A Clock of Stars and the village if Gris in Girl of Ink and Stars?

Parks - How does Eldorath's relationship with the village change?

How does Clara overcome her fear of the water?

KS1 Star of the Week

Wonder Class

Benjamin - for working really hard to improve his pencil grip and letter size

Peake Class

Louisiana - for being an independent learner in maths and finding different ways of making eight. Well done, Louisana!

Weir Class

Elise - for making a fantastic start to her diary entry in English. Well done, Elise!

Walker Class

Scarlett - for Joining in with a group activity and taking turns. Well done, Scarlett!

Rashford

Princess Rakayah - for being responsible and cooperative in the group. Well done!

KS2 Star of the Week

Newton Class

Tipene - for resilience in maths. Well done Tipene!

Thunberg Class

Khaled - for settling straight back into school and being a responsible learner with excellent learning behaviour

Darwin Class

Riley - for independently taking his own maths learning forward and using new words he has learned in class.

Attenborough Class

Lina - for impressing Mrs James with her learning behaviour and resilience across all subjects. Well done, Lina!

Parks class

Hamidu- for taking responsibility and putting in the hard work to improve his writing

E Safety News

Keeping safe online

Using computers and being online can be great fun and really helpful.

But there is lots you need to be careful with and things you shouldn’t click on.

Watch the video as Pip and Declan learn how to stay safe online and who to talk to if they're not sure about something.

Follow the link to watch the video:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zfcvhbk/articles/zkcj92p

Darell Primary & Nursery School Follow

Our Year 1 weather watchers have been recording the weather conditions over a week. They have designed and made tools to measure the strength of the wind and learned to measure the temperature using a thermometer. https://t.co/aSgIo9TG6i

2 hours ago

Attendance

Overall school attendance this week was 94.2% our target is 96.8%.

Well done Attenborough class for the highest attendance of 99.5% this week.

Best for punctuality was Attenborough, Darwin and Mozart class with 1 late!

Let's do our best for next week!

Craft Corner

Fortune Teller

It doesn’t get much simpler than this – with our origami chatterbox craft requiring just a few pens and a piece of paper to do. A playground favourite, kids will love decorating this toy and playing it with all their friends and family members.

You will need:

A4 piece of paper
Colouring pens or pencils
Scissors

How to make:

1. Take an A4 piece of paper and fold one corner across to form a triangle. Press down to crease the edge.

2. Cut off the excess rectangle at the end with a pair of scissors.

3. Open out the triangle and fold the opposite corners together. Press along the edge to form a crease.

4. Open out again and, this time, fold each point of the square into the centre. Continue until you have a square.

5. Turn the square over and fold the square points into the centre again. Press the edges down to crease.

6. Now fold the fortune-teller in half. Open out and fold in half along the opposite crease.

7. Slip your thumbs and forefingers under the corner flaps. Your fortune-teller is now ready for some decoration.

8. Using some felt tip pens or coloured pencils, colour in the four outer squares.

9. Flip the square over and fill the triangles with numbers 1-8.

10. Lift the triangle flaps and write down fun dares, games or fortunes underneath.

Fold the fortune-teller back up and you’re ready to play.

Useful Links

Arbor Parent Portal - darell-primary.uk.arbor

Follow us on twitter - twitter.com/darellschool

School Uniform Shop - The Shoe Station

Newsletters

Newsletter 17 – Friday,21st January 2022