On your marks, get set, go!

 Hello and welcome back to the Dorchester Middle School Blog!

Happy New Year to each and everyone of you!

 I hope you had a super break although I always feel like the Christmas Holidays are always the most hectic and jam-packed of all of them. Losing track of the date, day of week and all sense of time seems to be standard and this year was no exception.

Before I launch into this week's post, I just want to applaud the brave souls from DMS who turned up this morning to do the Dorchester Parkrun. It was cold, wet and windy but we did it!

 More about Parkrun later...

Boiler Says No

It was fabulous to welcome the Year Five and Six children back into the school on Tuesday but my goodness me, what a struggle it was to get up so early in the morning! A quick straw poll at 10am revealed, unsurprisingly, that the majority of us would have still been in our pyjamas if we were at home.

Our wonderful Site Manager, Mr Jones, had a battle on his hands when he opened up the school at silly o'clock in the morning as the boiler had decided that it wanted to extend its Christmas Holiday. Despite battling with the boiler for what seemed like an age, he admitted defeat and the engineer was called. 

In the meantime, the school's temperature plunged somewhat and, along with the windows being open for ventilation purposes, the new coats, gloves, scarves and hats that were gifted as Christmas presents came into their own.

Before hypothermia set in, the decision was wisely made to close the school. There were sighs of relief all round, especially in the Year Six corridor where temperatures were practically Baltic!

What a way to start the term! Thank goodness for my lovely new coat...

Giddy Up

A very proud Beau found me on the first day back to show me the fantastic rosettes that she had won in over the Christmas Holidays. Aren't they gorgeous and isn't Beau clever? 

She was her usual modest self and said that Harriet and Evie in Year Five has also competed and had done extremely well.

 

Well done girls - what a fabulous achievement!

Save our Planet

Just before we broke up for the Christmas break, Isla's Dad contacted us about her latest achievement. This is what it said:

Back in November Isla applied to Eco-Schools England to be one of 25 youth committee members, with this being the first ever national eco committee to be established.

We’re pleased to say that Isla has been selected for this after submitting a thorough application form. This will include attending 6 virtual meetings (after school) over this academic year to share ideas, with the overall task of greening the National Curriculum and developing the Eco-Schools programme alongside OCR. 

Isn't this brilliant? Well done Isla - not only do you continue to be inspired to save our planet, you continue to be an inspiration to each and everyone of us.

Worth a Mention Children

Huge congratulations to all of the children who appear on this week's Worth a Mention Boards.

Let's start with Year Five:

Now for the turn of Year Six:

Well done one and all!

Children's Mental Health Week

Here is an important date for your diary: 7th - 12th February 2022.

This year, the theme is 'Growing Together' which is perfect.

DMS is working with Dorset Mind to deliver a programme of workshops to the children that focus on their Mental Health and Wellbeing and how to look after it. We are in the process of planning the week so I will keep you updated.

However, on Friday 11th February - we will be holding a Non Uniform Day with the theme 'Express Yourself' where the £1 donations will go to Dorset Mind.

On Saturday 12th February - we will be inviting as many children and their families as possible to take part in The Great Fields Parkrun (5km) as a sponsored event to also raise money for Dorset Mind. 

This is a free local event that is held every Saturday. If you are interested please do have a look online. 

If you want a recorded time, you will need to sign up and download a barcode. 

No barcode = no time.

Dorset Mind are a fabulous charity who have worked closely with our school (as well as other schools in the area) over the last three years and it would be amazing to be able to give something back to them as a way of saying 'Thank You'.

More details to follow in due course...

Game On

In the Blog before Christmas, I appealed for donations of unwanted board games that were in good condition for school. 

If you do have any that you would be happy to donate then please do send them in. We promise that they will be loved, played and cared for.

Please send in your surplus games to Reception or via your child's Homebase.

Thank you so much.

Well, that's it for this week. I think I have just about warmed up and dried out following this morning's Parkrun.

Have a good week everyone and I'll 'see' you back here next week.

Mrs Ray

(who was so pleased that she made the effort to go to Parkrun. So many mental health boxes ticked! Can you tell the 'before' and 'after' pictures?!)