Dear Parents & Carers.
It has been a very productive week at Dr Thomlinson CofE Middle School. We really enjoyed celebrating Children in Need yesterday, thank you to all those children who donated to such a worthy cause.
Positive Covid Cases
The number of confirmed positive Covid 19 cases in school have slightly risen to just over 2% of our school population. As a result of this we are going to add further mitigations to our current Covid-19 control measures. In order to further reduce mixing between Year groups, from Monday, 22nd November, we will be:
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Limiting all lunchtime clubs to single Year groups;
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Serving lunches to one Year group at a time;
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Reviewing risk assessments for all educational visits
Please remember one of our mitigations is advising all adults and children in KS3 to wear face coverings in corridors. Please remind children of the importance of this mitigation and support us with this advice.
Trinity Presentations
The concept of The Trinity in the Christian religion is sometimes a difficult one to understand. In Religious Education Year 7 were tasked with designing a model that would explain this. Well done to:
Sarah; Freya; Toby; Martha and Harriet for designing these excellent models.
Yr 6 Clay Day
In Religious Education in Yr 6 we will be studying Pilgrimages in our “Is life like a journey?” unit. Yr 6 today were designing Pilgrimage Trail Tiles for some of the Pilgrimage Trails in the World that Yr 6 will be studying in this unit, namely- Santiago de Compostela; Saint Oswald’s Way; Saint Cuthbert’s Way and Jerusalem Way.
Odd Sock Day
On Tuesday November 23rd all staff and children are encouraged to come to school in Odd Socks to mark Anti Bullying Week.
November Reading Challenge
Well done to all of our children who are continuing with our November Reading Challenge. This week I enjoyed reading Crater Lake and Armistice Day.
Crater Lake by Jennifer Killick
It’s your everyday story of possible Alien Invasion in Jennifer Killick’s Crater Lake.
Year 6 children in Montmorency Primary School thought they were attending Crater Lake Activity Centre for their Summer Residential. Instead they are humanity’s last hope to thwart Insect extra terrestrials taking over the world.
Led by Year 6 student Lance, his resourceful friends have their work cut out but their efforts are complicated by the fact that if they fall asleep they will become one of the aliens!
Crater Lake is an entertaining read that draws heavily on sci fi classic “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”). Suitable more for Key Stage Two pupils, readers who enjoy this could read “Crater Lake: Evolution”, a recently published sequel.
Armistice Day by Tom Palmer
A very fitting time to be reading this book set, as the name suggests, at the end of the First World War.
The books centres around Ernest, an 18 year old fell runner, who has joined up to avenge the death of his older brother. The reader finds out about his exploits through a diary being read by Lily – a modern day fell runner. Lily was given Ernest’s account by her grandmother of whom Ernest was her great great uncle. As this excellent book progresses, the story and the links between the two central characters are revealed.
This was a very moving and well written tale. I strongly recommend it,
This week’s P&Q Winner was: Tyler in Yr 5
Top Award Winners – Week beginning November 15th.
Our core value was Wisdom
5T – Gracie-Mae
5H Florence
6O – Leo
6M – Sam
7I – Will
7L – Alex
8N – Lewi
8S – Sasha & Isla
Well done to all of these award winners!
In Collective Worship this week, looking at Wisdom, we studied the Serenity Prayer.
The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And the wisdom to know the difference.
I hope you have a good weekend.
Take care,
Liam Murtagh – Headteacher
