Newsletter January and February 2020 - Secondary School Highlights from Mr. Bull

A busy and interesting term for our staff, students and parents; however, I have been impressed by our community’s ‘blitz spirit’ showing stoicism and determination during a difficult time.

We kicked off the term back in January with our Progress Review and Target Setting meetings. Our students have made excellent progress in and out of the classroom in the last term. I also appreciate parent feedback on the event via our survey which we have already analysed and discussed improvements for next year as a Senior Leadership Team.

I would like to congratulate our Year 11 and 13 students on a successful round of mock exams to prepare them for this year’s summer exam period. We are very impressed by how the students approached them, which bodes extremely well for the summer exams.

The DCA organised a Secondary disco which I know our students enjoyed immensely, and it was great to see so many staff and parents volunteering to support these events which couldn’t run without their help.

The Year 13 students presented their Extended Essay’s in our annual ‘CoffEE’ morning, which were all very impressive. They have worked extremely hard, and there were some interesting topics presented and discussed. Thank you to all the parents that attended and showed their support.

On the week beginning 21st January, the DCIS Secondary Art Department organised and ran an Arts Week to celebrate and explore creativity and artmaking in its various forms. The week involved lots of exciting opportunities such as Textile workshops, art industry discussions and printing workshops held by our very talented Artist Teachers. Year 9 GCSE Art students also received an extraordinary opportunity to work with Gill Saul, a visiting artist who worked with them on their current 3D sculpture project. Throughout the week, students were also invited to contribute to the ‘Big Draw’ outside of the DT room, which was also a huge success!

We also saw our first ever staff performance on ‘The Spot’ this term. Students had voted for the members of staff they wanted to sing a selection of student chosen songs in a karaoke-style show in the Red Dot Restaurant with all proceeds going to charity. Myself, Mr Jury, Mr Mainstone, Mr Lindsay and Mrs Hyland topped the voting and took to the stage today at lunchtime. Despite our performance, we raised nearly $500 for the Tanzania project. A big thank you to the staff and Student Leadership team for their support. I think we can safely say that none of us will be leaving the teaching profession to take up careers in music!

As you will understand, there were more things planned for this term that I had hoped to speak of; however, we have all had to adapt and be flexible, given the current situation. I would personally like to thank our excellent staff and students for their support during these new and challenging times.

We hope to be able to re-arrange as many of the events and activities that have had to be postponed this term and will do our best to ensure our students do not miss out.

I wish you all a restful and healthy half term.