The dawning of a new era

Hello and welcome to the new look Dorchester Middle School Blog!

In order to make sure that we have a Blog that represents all of the school, I have recruited a Blog Squad. These intrepid reporters are going to keep us in touch with what is going on in each of our year groups which is incredibly exciting. 

We meet every Monday and discuss ideas of what could be covered and off they go.

Here is the magnificent Blog Squad:

 So, without further a do let's crack on with our new, super duper blog...

Year Five

Here are the Year Five members of the Blog Squad: Jess and Lottie.

This is their first report.

There is a new competition in our school which all students may enter. These are things you must include: our logo, the ROARS and their meanings and don't forget the colours blue, yellow and gold.

There is a new lunch club for Year Six called 'Creative Club'. In this club, they will paint the winner of the art competition as a mural.

In the Library, if you complete an Accelerated Reader Test, you can win sweets or a bookmark. Remember that we read for pleasure and not prizes!

At our school, in snowed for the first time in about 4 years during Lesson Two. Although no students or teachers were allowed out, it was still magical for everyone.

Sports Clubs have restarted again after Christmas. The deadline has struck so don't turn up if you haven't signed up but students may come to lunchtime clubs. Music clubs are also open again but just like the sports clubs, the deadline has passed.

Year Six

Here are the Year Six members of the Blog Squad: Layla and Chloe.

ROARS

Here is a selection of the pictures that Layla and Chloe took during our drop lesson based on ROARS:

Whilst we are on the subject of ROARS, look what I spied in Mrs Whiting's classroom on Friday night.

I have a sneaky feeling that this new addition to 5CWT is going to be a regular on the blog!

New Worth a Mention Boards in Year Six from Layla

We got new Year Six Worth a Mention Boards which was very exciting! Underneath the names, are pictures of pupils in the year group and out of their mouths are our ROARS values.

We also had an assembly from our new Year Lead, Miss Foote, about sport and how some people who we looked at would never give up. One of the people showed us this because even though he lost a race, he never gave up.

There will be more to come from Year Six next week!

😊

Year Seven

Here are the Year Seven members of the Blog Squad: Harriet, Sophia and Molly.

We have two entries from our intrepid reporters.

The first one is from Sophia and Molly and was written last week.

Snow!

This week, after two whole years, snow returned to Dorchester!

Starting in Lesson One and continuing (on and off) for most of Lesson Two, teachers and students alike gazed in awe at the winter wonderland being created out of their classrooms. After asking our class peers about their opinions on the matter, there came a varied response.

Sophie said "It's amazing and I love it!"

Thalia and Tilly both agreed, "It's beautiful but wish there was more of it."

Unlike most, Amy believed, "It's just frozen water, it's not a big deal!"

Even though some disagreed, the majority loved the snow.

Alas, nothing good can last. Before the third lesson could start, all the snow had melted leaving only puddles. This is normal for Dorchester, you can have snow but it rarely settles. It has only settled 5 times in the last 13 years.

So we will just have to wait until now until next time it snows.

This is the second contribution from all three of the girls.

Holocaust Memorial

On Friday, it was Holocaust Memorial Day. Now, I hear you ask, what is a Holocaust Memorial?

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on the 27th January every year. On this day, people across the world take part in activities that are done to remember the terrible events that took place in the past. In these events, people were hurt and even killed just because of who they were, their religion of their skin colour.

Originally, Holocaust was a movement that started with discrimination against Jewish people. They were forced away from their homes and into concentration camps. In total, over 11 million people were murdered by the Nazi regime and its collaborators during the Holocaust.

Year Eight

Here are the Year Eight members of the Blog Squad: Sophie and Annabel. Sophie is one of our Head Pupils and Annabel in one of the Prefects and is also working with me on Wellbeing.

Here is Sophie's first contribution to our brand new blog.

Hey everyone! How are you all?

Okay, the first thing I need to say is I’m really excited to be writing for the school blog! To be honest I’m a little nervous too – I’ve never done this before. You’ll all have to bear with me a bit for the first few articles.

 I wanted to give you an ADVANCE WARNING from your Head Pupils (myself and Ivy). (Because we all know how time flies.)

 Here we go!

 You’ll all (maybe) remember nominating a charity as a class. If you don’t, don’t worry! Every class has nominated a charity. We’ve narrowed the list down to eight. Soon, there’ll only be one.

 In the next week or two everyone in the school will get a chance to vote for their preferred charity. The most popular one will be called our “Head Pupil Charity”. The school’s fundraising money will go towards this charity! Hopefully this way as a school we should be able to make a real difference, in our local community and beyond!

 Each class will head down to the hall and there’ll be ballot boxes to post a slip through. We’re just in the process of getting everything ready. I’ll keep you all updated! Won’t be long now.

 Well, let the vote begin!

 Switch-Off Fortnight

 I am aware we haven’t yet done any follow-up assemblies about Switch-Off Fortnight. I’m planning to speak to Mrs Whiting and if all goes to plan I’ll have something to say on that next week. So watch this space!

 However, just because Switch-Off Fortnight’s ended doesn’t mean we can go back to bad habits! We all need to keep switching off lights and electronics, saving heat and conserving energy! It’s never been more important. As the new generation, this is our world. We need to look after it. We may not be able (yet) to make major companies carbon neutral but if we all focus on what we can do, it will make a difference! Every little helps! (And yes, I did steal that from Tesco.)

 On that note, I’ve been reading The Most Important Comic Book on Earth. It’s an eye-opening book and I’d strongly recommend it!

"The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”

–     Robert Swan

That’s just about everything! I hope y’all have a great rest of the week and enjoy this lovely (if freezing) weather. Keep being active, giving, learning, getting out, taking notice, and most importantly, connecting! Whatever you do, don’t forget to smile!!! :))

 Sophie 8MP

Worth a Mention Children

As we have covered Year Six, here are this week's Worth a Mention children for Year Five. Huge congratulations to every single child whose names are on the board - you are utter superstars!

PTFA Community Morning

A huge thank you to the PTFA for organising such a cracking morning on Saturday. It's amazing what you can achieve in just three hours. It was so lovely to see parents and their children come along and help to clear and tidy up up the school garden and Forest School area.  

It's amazing what you find when you're not expecting it. What a cute little hog!

We've still got a lot to do so if you would like to come and help support the school then keep an eye on the next date. 

All hands on deck!

Jack's Saying of the Week

Jack, in 5MR, has got a beautiful book called 'Big Panda and Tiny Dragon' which he proudly shared with me.

Every week, Jack is going to choose a page to share with our readers.

This is the first one:

He has chosen a great one for next week and he can't wait to share it with us.

Thank you Jack!

Being observant

Lots of lovely new displays are popping around the school and I couldn't resist taking these pictures. One is in the Year Five corridor and is the excellent work of 5MR and the other can be seen in the Library.

Fantastic!

Children's Mental Health Week

The 6th February sees the start of Children's Mental Health Week. This year's theme is 'Let's Connect'.

We have plans throughout the four days that the children are in school starting with a drop down session on Wednesday during lessons 3, 4 and Homebase time. We will then be participating in a non uniform day where the theme is 'Express Yourself' and we will be asking the children for £1 on the Thursday. We will finish the week by participating in Parkrun on the Saturday or Sunday (or both if you are feeling super keen!).

A letter will be coming home about this shortly.

This year, we are going to raise money for the Space Youth Project based in Weymouth.

This is taken from their website:

We aim to support young people who are or may be LGBT+ and empower them have positive self-esteem, to know they are supported, to have a sense of community and to overcome issues caused or intensified by prejudice in order to facilitate freedom of expression.

We are very excited to support this charity.

Here's to a fabulous week!

Well, that's it for our all brand new singing and dancing Blog. I hope that you enjoyed it and join us again next week.

Have a good week and we hope that you enjoyed our first post. We might pay around a bit with the layout but the format will be the same.

The Blog Squad

(Mrs Ray thought that we were very overdue a Beryl the Bunny picture so here's one for you. 5MW and 5CWT found out that Beryl means 'precious stone'. Perfect!)