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5 February 2016

Everyone Succeeds


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Here is the half termly update on the progress we are making as a school towards our current priorities and to ensure that we strive to achieve our strategic vision that ‘Everyone Succeeds’

We have targeted the most significant challenges since September and have formed our School Development Plan which you can read here.

Priority 1: Students achieve the highest academic outcomes

Emphasis on ensuring all students are challenged and make excellent progress in lessons

We have been spending lots of time in lessons over the last half term gaining evidence to show we are making progress towards our priorities. As a result we have been able to intervene and support students and staff in their areas for development. We have also been able to see all the fantastic things that happen in lessons at DHSB.

Increasing the opportunities for rewards

With thanks to our students and staff we will be introducing many additional rewards through the House system in the near future. Students will be recognised in the following areas of school life; this list shows examples of the rewards which will be in place in each House.

Citizenship

Student of the month Overall student of the autumn term Overall student of the spring term Community duty award (half termly)

Effort and Attitude

Commendations (termly) Behaviour (no levels and few behaviour points) (termly)

Attendance

100% attendance (termly) 95% attendance (termly)

Improvement in Academic Standards

Most improved commitment to learning (yearly) Most improved academic achievement (yearly)

Priority 3: Leadership at all levels

Peer to peer support and academic mentoring has given extended leadership opportunities for students and staff

Following the recent evaluation of our peer academic mentoring programme we are delighted to say that due to its success with great benefits for both the mentor and mentee we are now in the process of recruiting and training many more Sixth Form students. We have updated the programme so that, in addition to being recommended to receive mentoring by staff or parents, students can now self-refer for any subject if they feel they need help or support for a period of time.

We shared this with all students last week in assembly and the programme is accessed by a Google form on our website http://www.dhsb.org/parents-students/

We hope to provide support for all our young people however priority will be given initially to Key Stage 4 students.

Priority 4: Collaboration and Community

Enable families to support their children through regular engagement events

We really do value the communication between school and home and over the years have worked hard to develop a wide range and effective lines of communication. This year we want to provide more opportunities for you to come into school and just before Christmas we sent you information of all our future events.

There is no expectation for you to attend them all, please just come along to the evenings that will be helpful in supporting your needs.

Here are some of the events happening in the next six weeks; please watch for the sign up arrangements coming soon.

10 February Assessment information for Year 9 25 February eSafety information evening with Ken Corish (all year groups) 15 March An introduction to the Learning Commons (all year groups) 17 March Modern Foreign Language support for Year 7 23 March Assessment information for Year 7

Priority 5: Creative and Entrepreneurial Spirit

Maximise income generation through existing and new ventures

We have just created a new social enterprise group of students and staff volunteers. Our ambition is to create a small start-up company to scope the potential to take our bespoke platform Homeworky to market as a product and service within education

It is very early days but the venture, whether successful in ‘market’ terms or not, will be a fantastic learning opportunity for our students and staff.

We are also planning a Crowd Funding project at www.crowdfunder.co.uk (the UK’s largest crowdfunding website).

Our funding project is to build and develop an outdoor classroom at DHSB. You may have heard about this before as a group of students and staff at the end of last year spent time planning, designing and researching this project.

We will be communicating details of this to parents and the wider community after half term.

 

 The Wizard of Oz

Audiences have been wowed this week by the outstanding performances of The Wizard of Oz.

These have demonstrated the dedication and pure talent of our students and staff to be able to perform at such a professional level.

Thank you to our directors, stage band, lighting, sound and stage crews and of course our performers.


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Senior Maths Challenge

Well done to our Senior Maths Challenge team (Kris Turner, Jonathan Christie, James Vickery and Lucas Booker-Munoz) who competed at the national finals in London this week.

Mr Huq reports, “The team started training at the end of October for the regional heat at Coombe Dean School. We won that comprehensively by only dropping two marks out of a possible 180 with Ivybridge coming second and Plymouth College in third place. Training then resumed after Christmas with three lunch times every week being used to practice the group, cross number and shuttle relay rounds… The national final saw a total of 86 teams attend the competition at Lindley Hall, part of the Royal Horticultural buildings in Westminster, London. The poster competition is separate to the STMC competition and the boys were glad to get that out of the way as it is never their favourite part. Round one was the group round and the team scored 51/60 but a few teams got maximum marks. However, the DHSB team then went on to get 66/66 in the cross number and 60/60 in the relay round so only dropping nine marks out of 186. An excellent score but not enough to get a podium position although eighth is the best the school has ever achieved and the highest for a state school at the competition this year!”


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Art2Day

This annual celebration of work from secondary schools across Plymouth showcases the rich talent and diversity of work from the city’s budding young artists. This year there will be work on display from Harry Futcher, Alex Diamond-Rivlin, Monica Mekael and Tommy Barclay.

The exhibition will be open to the public at the following times and admission is free.

Venue: Cube3 Gallery, Portland Square, Plymouth University

Dates: 5 February to 18 March 2016

Time: 10.00 to 17.00 Monday – Friday

Information, Advice and Guidance

There is always lots of useful information in the weekly Blogs written by Ms Moreton, our Information, Advice and Guidance Co-ordinator.

Living for Sport

We were pleased to welcome Heather Fell to school this week. Heather is working with a group of students as part of the Living for Sport programme.


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Sports Update

It’s been a week of football at DHSB with Mr Manley saying how pleased he was to see so many Year 7 students at football training.


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Our Year 8 team beat Stoke Damerel in an 8 – 4 epic game in the Plymouth League, and there were two wins for the Year 9s v Plymstock School (5 – 1) and against Teignmouth School in round two of the Devon Cup.

Unfortunately the Year 10 team lost their Devon Cup match. Mr Manley said “Great effort from all involved”.

Events Update

10 February – Year 9 Assessment Information

11 February – Year 10 Parents Evening

15 – 19 February – Half term break

22 February – First day back following the half term break (B week)

25 February – eSafety evening with Ken Corish

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