Year 7 and 8 have taken part in a Biodiversity project, creating wax-resist paintings of British wildlife.  The students worked amazingly well to create some fantastic works of art!

Dear Parents/Carers,

I hope this message finds you well.  We have had a very positive week at Dr Thomlinson Middle School.

Yr 7 trip to Newcastle Gurdwara

It was a real privilege to be able to take Yr 7 pupils to the Newcastle Gurdwara on Monday, January 15th.  Thank you very much to Jaswinder Singh who gave us an excellent tour and to both the musicians and catering staff who made us feel very welcome.  Our children were immaculately behaved and asked some excellent questions.  The visit will really support the unit Yr 7 are currently studying about the Sikh religion.  We were shown wonderful hospitality and our children really enjoyed the excellent food in the Gurdwara’s Langar (community kitchen).

Yr 7/8 Cross Country

Well done to the eleven children who took part in the Cross Country event on Tuesday.  The weather was very, very cold and our team had to run through snow for part of the course!  The resilience and spirit they showed were admirable.

House Services

Our House Captains began planning our annual House Saint Church Services this week.  The services are at All Saints Church, Rothbury and begin at 10am.

Aidan House Service – Friday 16th February

Bede House Service – Friday, March 22nd

Cuthbert House Service – Friday, 7th June

Invitation to attend an Anti – Bullying Education Session for parents / carers

As part of our responsibility to effectively safeguard all children within our Trust, we are holding some parent support and education sessions this month. These will be delivered by professionals from our Safeguarding partners at Clennell Education Solutions.

Sessions will take place at the dates and times shown below –

• Monday 22 January 2024 at Dr Thomlinson Middle School, Rothbury at 5.30pm for all year groups

• Monday 29 January 2024 at Stobhillgate First School, Morpeth at 5.30pm for all year groups

A Letter informing you of this event is attached to this email.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Take care,

Liam Murtagh – Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have had a lovely and productive week at Dr Thomlinson CofE Middle School.

Dr Thomlinson’s Got Talent Monday 18th December

Well done to the sixteen acts that took part in the final of Dr Thomlinson’s Got Talent.  All who attended will testify, the acts were incredibly varied ranging from a dramatic reading of Matilda to a sole guitar performance of Wonderwall to a Parkour act to a stand up comedian and to a solo drummer vocalist.  Thanks to Mr Todd and Mr Fuller for their work lighting and staging the show and for Darcy; Kane; Nick and Amelia for being part of our backstage team.  Mr Rowark and Mrs Austin-Walker proved to be very entertaining and fair judges and the event was ably hosted by our Housecaptains.

The vent was reintroduced because our Housecaptains thought it was an excellent way of raising awareness of the plight of endangered animals.  The proceeds from the refreshments sold went towards the work saving endangered species and is part of the Housecaptains work in raising awareness of the 44,000 species threatened with extinction that will culminate in “Endangered Species Day” on 17th May, 2024.

Well done to the following winners of the competition:

3rd Beth – reading from Matilda

2nd Iris – singing “Quiet” from Matilda

1st Matthew playing the drum section of Cometogether by the Beatles.

Equally well done to all our finalists and to everyone who contributed to the auditions.  Everyone played their part in a great event.

Autumn Term House Point Competition

Well done to Olivia in 5H who won the individual house point competition for the Autumn Term.  5H did very well as a class winning the Aidan; Bede and Cuthbert Class Houe Point competitions.

The overall House Placings in this terms Housepoint totals were:

3rd Cuthbert 2444

2nd Aiden 2620

1st Bede 2941

Christmas Cake Competition

The Christmas CAke Competition for Year 8s is always a great time of year and this year was no different.  I was very impressed with all the contributions and it was lovely to see these entries on display in reception all through the last week of term.Overall results:

Highly commended – Elsie

3rd Jasmine

2nd Amelia

1st Poppie

P&Q Award Winner

Each term the names of all the children who were awarded a P&Q slip for good behaviour in the corridors and around school  are put into a grand draw with the winner receiving a £10 Amazon voucher.  This term the winner was Joy in Yr 6.

Christmas Dinner Day

Christmas Dinner was 13th December.  On this day staff and pupils were invited to wear Christmas Jumpers for the day.  The Housecaptains used this event to raise money for the Mission Christmas charity who collect money to buy presents for children who otherwise may not receive a Christmas present (the charity is sometimes known as “Cash for Kids”.  The school raised over £130 for this good cause.

TOP Award Winners

Week beginning 11th December – core value: Friendship

5T Rae

5H Luke

6O Sophie

6M Annabelle

7I Kane

7L Lucinda

8N Jasmine

8S Joe & Lucy

Week beginning 18th December  – core value: Koinonia

5T Aedan

5H Olivia

6O John

6M Mackenzie

7I Maisie

7L Harriet

8N Ryan

8S Gabriel

Well done to all of these award winners!

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas.

Take care,

Liam Murtagh – Headteacher

Using Advent as a period of reflection 

Dear Parents/Carers,

We are looking forward to the last week of term, especially our Dr Thomlinson’s Got Talent competition on Monday, 18th December and our Christmas Church Service at All Saints Church, Rothbury on Wednesday, 20th December.

Dr Thomlinson Got Talent – Monday 18th December

Starting at 6:30pm in the main hall at Dr Thomlinson Middle School, our annual talent show – brought back by popular demand – will prove to be a great evening. We have a wide variety of acts who have undergone an audition process. We look forward to seeing who will be awarded our Thomlinson’s Got Talent trophy. We do hope you will be able to join us for an evening of great entertainment.

School Christmas Church Service at All Saints Church, Rothbury – Wednesday 20th December

Starting at 1:45pm at All Saints Church, Rothbury we hope you will be able to join our school in celebrating Christmas.

I hope you have a restful weekend.

Take care,

Liam Murtagh – Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

I hope this email finds you well.  It has been a very busy few weeks at Dr Thomlinson Middle School.

Celebrating our Culture of Reading and Writing at Dr Thomlinson

We had an eagerly anticipated and ‘most unlady-like’ treat on the morning of  December 2. Robin Stevens, best selling children’s author, paid an exclusive virtual visit to Dr Thomlinson’s, sharing her experiences of reading and writing.

This event was part of a prize won on the school’s behalf by previous Y8 pupil, Will.  He, along with other KS3 students, entered a national competition, writing about war from a child’s perspective. However, we did not only have one person scooping a prize. As well as Will’s winning story, Xanthe in Year 7 achieved a ‘Highly Commended’ for her entry. Well done and congratulations to both these winners. A national award is certainly worth celebrating and a significant achievement! Will has now moved up to KEVI, and so unfortunately did not get to experience Ms Stevens. Xanthe did have the pleasure of reading part of her story aloud to Robin though.Both students received individual awards for their efforts. In addition to this personal audience with the author, our School Library received twenty-one of Robin’s books. They are a mixture of Malory Towers meets Cluedo- well worth stuffing in a stocking for someone this Christmas. Many thanks to Mrs Lamont, who entered those eighteen pupils from her English classes who wished to submit an entry. You have got to be in to win, and it most certainly could be you!

Dr Thomlinson’s got Talent

Last week I really enjoyed being part of our auditions for Dr Thomlinson’s Got Talent.  We will announce the acts that have been chosen to go through to the final on Monday, 11th December. Well done to all those who took part.

Parents/Carers are invited to attend our Dr Thomlinson’s Got Talent show on Monday, 18th December 2023.  The show starts at 6:30pm. We look forward to seeing who will claim the prestigious prize.

Dr Thomlinson Christmas Service at All Saints Church, Rothbury – Wednesday December 20th

Parents/Carers are invited to join us for our annual Christmas Church Service at All Saints Church on Wednesday, December 20th.  The service starts at 1:45pm.

TOP Awards Week beginning 27th November & 4th December November

Our Thomlinson Outstanding Pupil Award is given to the child in each Form Class who, in the opinion of their form tutor, has best shown our core value of the week.

We are concentrating on the core values of Hope; Service; Koinonia; Friendship and Service this year as our school feels that these values will help us best raise awareness of the United Nations 17 sustainability goals that have been devised to help us tackle Climate Change.  Through this important work we feel that we will best live our school mission statement of using our skills and talents for “the good of all”.

This week our core value was Creation.

5T Ruth

5H Delphie

6O Ryan

6M Leo

7I JHenry

7L Myles

8N Mary Anne

8S Amelia

Last week our core value was Hope

5T Will

5H Paige

6O Louie

6M Jake

7I Rosie

7L Daniel

8N Kayden

8S Harry

Well done to all of these award winners

Prayer for Advent

Newcastle Diocese is committed to working with parishes to encourage and support them in reaching out to children and young people and designed a series of prayers for Advent to help with this.

Heavenly Father,

We pray that all children and young people are given opportunities to use their voices to call for change.

We think especially of those who want to make a difference but don’t know how to start.

Surround them with adults who will listen and give them the right spaces and places to speak out.  Give them the right words to inspire others, and light to path in front of them so they will know where to tread.

And give them peace so they can live their lives without fear for the future.

In your name,

Amen

I hope you have a good weekend,

Liam Murtagh – Headteacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

I hope this email finds you well.  It has been a very busy few weeks at Dr Thomlinson Middle School.

Zambezi Sunshine Trust visit Dr Thomlinson’s

We were delighted to welcome visitors from the Zambezi Sunshine Trust on Wednesday, 29th November, 2023.  The Trust is further extending Linda Community School in Livingstone, Zambia.  The school specifically provides an education for vulnerable children in a very disadvantaged area of the city and one of the charity’s trustees was explaining how the school is now benefiting from almost £2000 of new textbooks which was bought for the school through the money raised by Dr Thomlinson Middle School in a sponsored walk on June 23rd, 2023.  Dr Thomlinson has made plans for further links with Linda Community College in March 2024 when teaching staff from both schools will be exchanging good practice through a series of online meetings.

Theatre Company visits Dr Thomlinson Middle School

Dr Thomlinson welcomed the “Why queue theatre Company” on Tuesday 28th November who presented a educational drama on road safety to Year 7

Dr Thomlinson School visits Barter Book

A group of Dr Thomlinson pupils visited Barter Books on Wednesday 29th November.  The visit, part of the school’s strategy to promote a ;love of reading, was very well received by the children who attended

Year 8 Christmas Cake Baking

It must be getting near Christmas as Year 8 are beginning their annual Christmas Cake Competition.  Year 8 pupils are baking their fruit cakes during one Food lesson then decorating them in the next with the design of the cake decorations being judged and prizes awarded to the best designs.  Best of luck to all those taking part.

Dr Thomlinson’s got Talent

Parents/Carers are invited to attend our Dr Thomlinson’s Got Talent show on Monday, 18th December 2023.  The show, starting at 6:30pm, will be a culmination of a series of auditions which begin during lunchtimes on the week commencing December 4th.  We look forward to seeing who will claim the prestigious prize.

Welfare Meetings

At Dr Thomlinson there are two parent meetings each year.  In the Autumn parents/carers have an opportunity to book an online welfare meeting with their child’s form tutor.  Then in the Spring, parents/carers have an opportunity for face-to-face meetings with their child’s subject teachers.

Thank you to those Yr 7 parents/carers who spoke to our Yr 7 Form tutors on Wednesday, 22nd November and our Yr 8 Parents/carers who took part in the Year 8 Welfare meetings on Wednesday, 29th November.  Our Face-to-face parent evenings will take place in March and May of 2024.

Dates for Parent Evenings (Face-to-Face 3:30pm – 7;15pm)

Yr 5 – 14th May

Yr 6 – 21st May

Yr 7 – 21st March

Yr 8 – 7th March

TOP Awards Week beginning 20th November

Our Thomlinson Outstanding Pupil Award is given to the child in each Form Class who, in the opinion of their form tutor, has best shown our core value of the week.

We are concentrating on the core values of Hope; Service; Koinonia; Friendship and Service this year as our school feels that these values will help us best raise awareness of the United Nations 17 sustainability goals that have been devised to help us tackle Climate Change.  Through this important work we feel that we will best live our school mission statement of using our skills and talents for “the good of all”.

This week our core value was Hope.

Well done to the following award winners:

5T Reuben

5H Finley

6O Anna

6M Imogen

7I Jessica

7L Leon / Bethany

8N Madeline

8S T-Jay & Hollie

Well done to all of these award winners

Prayer for Advent

Newcastle Diocese is committed to working with parishes to encourage and support them in reaching out to children and young people and designed a series of prayers for Advent to help with this.

Heavenly Father,

As we join together to pray, we think especially of the children and young people in our parish – those in our schools; in our streets, in our own homes and in our families.

We give thanks for each one, we praise you for all you are doing in their lives, and all you are doing through them.  Help us to see them with your eyes, listen to them with our grace, and love them with your heart.

In the name of your son Jesus Christ, who welcomed the children and placed them in the centre.

Amen

I hope you have a good weekend,

Liam Murtagh – Headteacher