Newsletter Friday 12th January 2024

Ditcham Newsletter - Friday 12th January 2024 Dear Parents Welcome back, I hope you all enjoyed a good break over the Festive period. Its good to be back in school and to have the sound of laughter, chatter and music filling the corridors. Reversals are well underway for our school production, Grease. Tickets should be on sale next week for this ambitious and colourful version of the popular movie. There has been talk of a car, American 'Ditcham Diner' and roller-skates being involved!

In this week's newsletter, alongside some great updates from Dragonflies, Juniors and Seniors, you'll find useful information regarding our new-look After School Care provision by CM Sports, along with some details about our extensive Extra-Curricular offerings. Please do take a moment to read through the notices at the end of the Newsletter.

With best wishes for the weekend Graham Spawforth Headmaster

Junior Merit Winners Congratulations to all the Junior merit winners for this week!

Headmaster Awards Congratulations to the Seniors who have been given a Headmaster Award!

Dragonflies

Winter Walks Dragonflies have been out and about exploring the winter wonderland that is Ditcham Park - nothing beats wrapping up warm and going into the woods to hunt for bugs, sticks and signs of winter!

Maths has been a big part of this week's play-to-learn with fun games to build up numbers and match blocks to Numicon. We took our number work outside into the woods and also in our making and creative play - maths by stealth!

Our little Dragonflies love Yoga too and this is a great way to teach them about balance (emotionally and physically), quiet moments and just breathing. And... relax......

Wishing you all a lovely weekend, wrap up warm, its going to be chilly!

Kylie and Claire

Juniors

Middles Go Wild! A midwinter nature challenge.

Congratulations to pupils in Middles who took part in the 12 Days Wild nature challenge run by The Wildlife Trust, encouraging us to do one wild thing a day. Their acts were small random acts of wildness to help nature or to support wellbeing - like recycling the Christmas tree or feeding the birds – or ways to connect to the natural world, like walking in the woods or admiring the beauty of a winter sunset. We were hugely impressed by the diverse range of outdoor fun :)

Jane O’Hara

Lowers Learning Stage Craft Lower Juniors have loved learning about playscripts, through studying A Jumble for the Queen, all about Elizabeth 1st visiting a house in Kent and the chaos that creates for the staff. They Hot Seated the characters, showing a great understanding of their backgrounds, when answering well-thought out questions. Part of Alice in Wonderland was also performed, to highlight an understanding of stage and character directions; before writing their own scene for A Jumble for the Queen, which was later performed to the year group.

Rachel and Louise

Timestable Teasers for Lowers

Lower Juniors have been sharpening their timestable skills, learning all about arrays, factors and factor pairs. they enjoyed using counters and multi-link cubes to cement their understanding - not to mention drawing factor bugs on the classroom doors and window!!!

Rachel and Louise

Prep explore plants!

Prep have been scientists this week and have investigated the different parts of a plant. We all enjoyed revisiting the terms leaf, stem, root and flower and finding out about the important jobs each part does. Then we were given a plant to investigate closely to find each of these parts. We had to be very careful as we did not want to damage our plants, so we used lolly sticks and not our fingers to touch the plant. After looking carefully at the plants, we drew detailed, labelled diagrams of our plants. When we finished, we planted our plants in our raised planter so we can hopefully enjoy some more flowers over the next few weeks. As part of out Higher Order Thinking (HOT) initiative, we were given the opportunity to discuss whether all, some or no plants could be eaten and we were encouraged to think of reasons and examples to back up our thoughts. There were lots of very interesting scientific conversations in the classroom! Well done Prep!

Kirstin Witte

Science Rocks (literally...) for Transition Transition have started a new topic in Science: Rocks. We started off our first lesson by looking at a range of different rocks and examining their properties, for instance were they smooth or rough?

Sparkly or dull? The children then had 6 different un-named samples on each table which they had to draw detailed observational diagrams of and label. What they produced was fantastic! Once they were finished they had to decide as a group what each stone was: flint, sandstone, limestone, granite, chalk or slate. Take a look at the photos to see some of their wonderful observations.

Mrs Newton and Mr Livingston

Seniors

French Exchange Trip Report Our French exchange to Bordeaux has been an absolutely incredible experience, and I’m sure we can all say that it is a week to remember. Our 8 days in Bordeaux were jam-packed with activities not only with our school as well as corresponding French school - Sainte-Marie Bastide - but with our kind and warm host families.

We spent a day and a half in the corresponding lycée, which allowed us to practise our speaking skills, meet new people, and attempt in vain to understand French literature lessons. However, as well as this, we spent two whole days on eye-opening trips to the surrounding Bordeaux area. Our first trip was to the historic town of Saint Émilion, where we visited churches and buildings hiding centuries worth of history, and also made a trip to a vineyard and wine-distillery, which was particularly enjoyed by the teachers! Our second was to Arcachon, where we spent some time on the seaside before scaling the Dune du Pilat - the highest sand dune in Europe. Despite the gruelling climb, we particularly enjoyed this part of the trip. The visit was made better by our grouping up with our French school, another British school and a Colombian school, sharing our love for languages and France.

Our weekends were also well-spent with exchange families meeting up together and having fun; our group spent two days in Christmas markets, trying new food, winning games of laser tag and getting lost in French escape rooms, among other things.

The combination of the ability to practise our French skills, explore new cultures, eat amazing food and meet new people came together to produce arguably the best 8 days of our lives so far. I would like to thank Mr Swabey and Mrs Bond for organising such a brilliant exchange and keeping us in check, and would highly recommend future exchanges to any students at the school. It is an incredible opportunity to have, and we hope you take it as soon as it crops up!

Brett Finlay Year 11

Sports News

Sports Success for Miss Small

Our very own running champion, Louise Small, has been selected to run for England in the Seville Marathon on 18th Feb 2024. Huge congratulations to you, we shall be cheering you on!

Hampshire Cross Country Championships On Saturday, Mille T and Isla S represented their club City of Portsmouth at the Hampshire Cross Country Champs. They are currently both bottom year in their age group (U15) and competed against some of the best girls in the county. Millie and Isla ran really strong races respectively and in some very challenging conditions underfoot. Isla finished 21st and Millie finished 3rd (which qualifies her to represent Hampshire at the UK Inter Counties in March). Well done to both girls.

Miss Small

Notices and Events

After School Care - CM Sports We are delighted to be able to offer a new range of After School Care activities for children every day until 6pm. Please take a look at the details provided and make sure you get your child(ren) booked in as spaces are limited and allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis.

You can register and book online via their website: https://www.cm-sports.co.uk/ Childcare vouchers can be used as well, so if your child is eligible, don't forget to use them!

You can chose from clubs such as homework, boardgames, creative making or reading and relaxation as well as a range of sports activities such as hockey, netball and football for those who love their ball games.

Winter Wellbeing EVENING Session Following on from the two successful morning workshops that Juliette Barnes, our in-house Wellbeing Coordinator ran this week, we are delighted to be able to offer an evening workshop for any parent or staff member who was unable to attend the morning sessions. This will be an amalgamation of the two workshops and thus is suitable for both Junior and Senior parents. You will explore the typical developmental stages and therefore what we should anticipate seeing in our children's behaviour. We will explore how to create an environment in which your child or children can thrive and feel secure and also discuss finding the balance between work, rest and play.

To book, please click this link to complete a short form.

You are welcome to bring along a couple of guests too, just add in the number of seats you require.

Some light refreshments will be provided on arrival.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Exciting Extra-Curricular Activities!

Please take a look at our extensive Extra-curricular offering on the dedicated website page. This also includes information on how to book your child into the different clubs and activities we have on offer. From LAMDA to golf and Tennis to Orchestra, there is something for everyone. But hurry, places are limited for many of these!

New Photography Club Announced We are very excited to share with you the details of a new photography club at Ditcham. On Tuesday afternoons from 3.5pm to 5.30pm, renown photographer, Sarah Sheldrake, will be running an exclusive photography club for children. Using either their smartphone or a compact/DSLR camera that they already have, they will taught how to capture that perfect shot and to become more aware of the landscape around them. You can sign up by emailing Sarah directly - see the poster for more information.

Grease is THE Word!

Coming soon! Tickets will be on sale for the school production of Grease, from next week. We will have four evening performances and two matinees and there will be the chance to pre-order a traditional American Diner meal of burger, fries and a milkshake from our Ditcham Diner before the weekday evening shows!

We are also looking for anyone or any business who would like to sponsor the show in some way. If you are able to help us, please drop us an email and we can send you details of our sponsorship packages. Putting on a big, ambitious show like this requires a big and ambitious set and we can't wait for you to experience our bespoke black-box theatre and incredible set!

So spread the word. The only word. Grease. Its the word you need to be talking about....