Happy Easter!

 Hello and welcome back to the Dorchester Middle School Blog!

We did it! We made it to the end of term and, at the time of writing this post we are just over a week into the holidays. Having already experienced weather that could be the sole cause of trench foot, it is lovely to see glorious sunshine out of my window today. Long may this beautiful weather continue so that everyone is pumped full of that marvellous serotonin and that all important Vitamin D.

Before the Easter Bunny comes bounding towards our homes with an impressive stash of Easter Eggs, let's crack on with this week's Blog...

Instructions - Neil Gaiman Style

In Year Five, we have been learning about different types of instructions and how to write them. One of out tasks was to complete the annual set of instructions in the style of Neil Gaiman based on his imaginatively titled book 'Instructions'.

All the classes approached this in different ways but 5MW and 5CWT wrote instructions on how to get to the chickens AKA 'the feathery beasts'.

Here are a few of the places that we wrote about...

Proceed past the lair that belongs to the residents of number. Do not hesitate or your soul will be lost, never to be found again.

Be careful when you pass the two-eyed monster, it will be watching. If it asks for food, give it immediately. Refusal will offend.

As you pass the unique bloom, do not touch it. It has been cursed by the devil and is full of venom. If it calls for food, feed it immediately. 

 

Stop when you witness the warning symbol on the gateway to the mythical beasts. Ignore and pass through. Do not show any fear.

Finally, you will come face to face with the infamous feathered beasts that dominate the kingdom. Once viewed, sleep as you deserve it but do not let down your guard. Trust no one.

Aren't they fabulous?

I promise you that no fun was had during this particular creative process whatsoever.

Honest.

Trapping the Headteacher

As mentioned in Ms Pluck's end of term letter, 5CWT managed to trap our very own Headteacher in her office. A lot of careful planning was involved in this transaction! As a class, we wrote the instructions on how to trap her so we had to test them out, didn't we?

Here is photographic evidence of our exploits taken by our very own Rhys.

TRAPPED!

Team 5CWT!

Ms Pluck had to idea that we were trying to trap her! She was so much fun and incredibly gracious with her entrapment.

A HUGE 'thank you' to Mrs Araya and Mrs Vernon with helping us pull it off but the biggest thanks has to go to Ms Pluck and the children of 5CWT who were just brilliant. You would never have known that there were 22 children in Miss Turner's office - they had never been so quiet!

Sporting Superb-ness

It was with great joy that Miss Ashley and I dropped into what could only be described as a festival of sport on the field. There was a lovely atmosphere and it was great to welcome children and parents from St Osmunds.

The words are from our Mr Roberts.

Wednesday 29th March 2023

Year 5 Football and Year 5/6 Tag Rugby v St Osmunds Middle School

40 DMS pupils competed with every ounce of legitimacy at DMS.

3 Football Matches and 1 Tag Rugby Game produced some magical sporting moments and against our town rivals.

Sporting modesty and dignity was evident in every quarter of our school field-it was truly a great spectacle of activity and rivalry.

All pupils played with purpose and composure-a significant delight was a hat trick from Crue (5KD)-a memory that will last all his school years.

End of term Assemblies

It was lovely to get the Key Stages together on the last day of term. 

During these assemblies, we celebrated various successes including the winners of the recent Rotary Club art competition, the victory of the Year Six Netball Team and Crue's incredible hat trick in the recent Year Five football match against St Osmunds.

We also celebrated writing successes including the children who recently went to a DASP writing event up at Thomas Hardye's.

Fabulous!

Brilliant Brenscombe

For those of you who follow DMS on Facebook, you would have seen these pictures but here are a few of my personal favourites.

I hope that everyone who went on the residential have fully recovered and that all mud was removed in the end. A huge thank you to the staff who came along and supported the children. However, I know for a fact that Miss Clements and Miss Horton have worked incredibly hard to make this trip happen. 

They are superstars aren't they?

Look to the Future

Mr Roberts is a very busy man! Not only is he busy in the PE Department, he is also busy within the realms of careers. Here he is again.

Tuesday 30th March 2023

British Army Careers Talk

I invited Sgt Stuart Fice to DMS this week-the rationale was to provide pupils with information about a possible career in the Armed Forces.

Sgt Fice spoke about the opportunities that exist-there are 241 different trades in the Army.

He informed pupils about how the army can support their education, how much money you would earn and the opportunity to travel globally.

Pupils remained behind and ask questions about what GCSE subjects to choose to give them the greatest chance of successfully joining after Year 11.

Well, that's it for this week. The next entry will be in the Summer Term. I hope you all have a good rest of the holiday and that the Easter Bunny is generous to you all.

Mrs Ray

(who had a very busy first week of the holidays which started with a Parkrun on April Fool's Day of all days. The Albino hedgehog was quite a talking point in the town!)