In today’s Head’s Blog I want to convey my sincerest thanks to you, our parents and carers, for your patience, understanding and relentless support to your child and to all of the staff at DHSB.
It has been an extremely difficult time over the last academic year and we appreciate how hard you have worked to juggle the challenges of your own professional and family lives to support your child through the ups and downs of the last year.
I also appreciate the cooperation and positive feedback that you have given to the staff at the school, this has been appreciated.
We should be incredibly proud of all our young people, they have brought buckets of energy, laughter and fun to DHSB over the last year, their behaviour and attitudes have been excellent at all times and they have shown great empathy and compassion to each other and the adults in their lives. They have also shown great maturity and responsibility in helping keep our community safe within all the Covid-19 guidelines and I can’t thank them enough for everything they have achieved over the year.
Finally, I would like to celebrate the teachers and support staff at DHSB, they really have worked tirelessly to keep things running smoothly and normal for your child, we would be the first to say that we haven’t always got everything perfect this year but having personally spoken to so many students and parents I know that our staff have done a remarkable job. I would like to thank them for their absolute dedication and commitment to do the very best for our young people.
We know many of you have enjoyed watching our virtual whole school assemblies this year.
Please take time to reflect on the year and look forward to September by watching our final assembly at this link.
Summer Treat
A big thank you to the Devon Vintage Ice Cream Van for providing ice creams for DHSB staff and students yesterday - a very welcome treat for all!
Student News
Very well done to Morgan Martin 8N who was invited to perform at The Glove in London yesterday at the Poetry by Heart national finals.
Ms Davarian said, "We were delighted to attend the Poetry By Heart finals in London on Monday 19 July. Having won the regional round, Morgan was invited to attend this wonderful celebration event and to perform onstage at the Globe with the other finalists. It was an exciting and uplifting day with student performances across age groups along with special guests including Michael Rosen and Simon Armitage. The students were treated to a performance of 'As You Like It' by Shakespeare on Sunday evening before a packed day of activities at the Globe on Monday. Morgan gave a confident performance of 'The Arrow and the Song' by Longfellow and although he didn't win KS3 overall, he did DHSB proud. Thanks to Poetry By Heart for a wonderful celebration event and a perfect way to end the school year".
Poetry by Heart added, “We're so pleased that you enjoyed it and well done to Morgan - incredible achievement to reach the national finals. We hope to see you again next year”.
Student News
Very well done to Matthew Newton 11E who competed at the English Schools Athletics Championships last weekend (triple jump). Matthew achieved a very commendable 12th place - many congratulations.
Summer Olympic Games
All our best wishes are with former student Dave King as he travels to Tokyo to compete at the Olympic Games (110 hurdles). Being invited to compete at the games is a fantastic achievement - well done Dave - do your best and stay safe and well.
We’ll endeavour to keep everyone updated throughout the games via the school Twitter account @dhsboys. Please also follow Dave @daveking_
We understand the 110m hurdles heats are scheduled for Tuesday 3 August at 19.10 (11.10 BST) but we will try to confirm this.
Moths to a Flame
Students in school have been participating in a national project called Moths to a Flame.
Ms Flack said, “Moths to a Flame is a Plymouth based organisation that wishes to produce 20.000 moths for an art installation to be displayed at Glasgow's botanic gardens during COP26 in November 2021. It is a mass participation art project engaging thousands of people in creative activity and conversation inspired by our energy systems, relationship with nature, and the climate emergency. Students are making moths from old plastic milk bottles and decorating them with messages using UV pens”.
Ms Flack added, “I heard yesterday that The Box in Plymouth will be running a 'Moths To A Flame' session during the summer holidays when the artists who have organised the whole project will also be there to run the activity. Just thought I would share with you how great it feels that DHSB have already taken part in such a brilliant project”.
PTFA Photography Competition and Calendar
I am delighted to announce the three cash prize winners in our PTFA photography competition. Sending my congratulations to them and to the runners up! The winners are:
1st - Joseph Dennis 7W
2nd - Arran Pannell 11N
3rd - William Wilkinson 6LME
Runners up:
Elyas Hall, Matthew West, Otto Malm, Abdulla Al-Saedi, Oliver Pentecost, Joshua Croot, Max Robins.
The standard of entries was amazing which made the task of judging the competition very difficult. Our thanks to Mrs Burdon, who teaches art, for agreeing to do this for the PTFA. She did a great job!
The winning photographs will feature in the DHSB Academic Calendar which we sell to raise funds for the school. This is a fantastic quality A4 calendar, dated September 2021 to August 2022.
Features include: Week A and Week B shown School holidays and non-pupil days (other key dates not included this year due to the uncertain current climate) Some historical DHSB dates Space to write your own entries Central hanging Price: £8.00 If you would like to purchase one please do so through MCAS. They will be distributed in September. On another note, our PTFA meetings are moving to Tuesdays and our first one of the year will be on 28 September at 6.00pm. We would love to see you there. You will receive a warm welcome if you are able to make it. I am optimistic that we will be able to hold them at the school again (with the possibility of Zoom too) but exact details will be sent out nearer the time. We have six meetings a year. Thank you from the PTFA for your support and I hope you have a lovely summer. Beverley Kinsella PTFA Liaison
1st - Joseph Dennis 7W
2nd - Arran Pannell 11N
3rd - William Wilkinson 6LME
Link to Parent Survey from Virgin Care (vaccinations)
Virgin Care (VCSL) administers the vaccinations for HPV & DTP/MenACWY at DHSB. As a provider of this essential NHS programme they are continuously striving to improve the service for all involved and would really appreciate it if you could provide feedback through a short survey. If you could please spare a few minutes to complete the survey following the link below it would be really useful to the team and very much appreciated. Many thanks.