Headteacher Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you are all well.  What a week! It has been emotional.  If your family is anything like mine, the transition into school this term has been eventful.  The return to routines, the early starts -  I am ready for the weekend.  The Reception cohort has transitioned beautifully.  Kitty Winfield, Joss Francis and Sue Hanley have welcomed them with open arms and we have had a calm and purposeful environment throughout the week.  They are beginning what will be a wonderful journey through the school.  All other year groups have met their teachers and successfully begun their learning for the year.  

It has been lovely to see so many children in the new PE kit.  It looks really good.  Details of how to obtain the shirt are in the main body of the newsletter.  Thank you all for your hard work getting your children into school on time.  Starting the school day with their peers really sets them up for success.

Now that restrictions have eased we plan to invite you into the school.  There will be a number of workshops that you will be invited to attend as we continue to strengthen the partnership between home and school.  What lockdown has taught us is that remote learning can be meaningful.  If you are unable to attend any of these events, we will beam them into your home or office.  We are also investigating how we can add them to the website.  On the topic of the website we are currently updating a number of the pages, specifically those related to the curriculum.  I wanted to share with you our curriculum vision.

The Darell Curriculum - Make a Difference

At Darell, every child will:

• Organise their thoughts and speak confidently and clearly.

• Develop a love of reading

• Write legibly using cursive handwriting.

• Have a deep, rich and practical understanding of number

• Treat everybody fairly, irrespective of their race, gender or abilities.

• Have the resilience to carry out challenging work.

• Be fluent users of technology including having the ability to touch type

• Be kind to each other and develop skills to resolve personal conflict.

• Possess skills and attitudes which equip them to adapt to changes in their lives.

• Be able to evaluate information critically and make their own informed decisions.

• Have made a positive difference in their local community.

• Be ready to face the challenges of secondary school with confidence and success.

• To think laterally and make connections between different subjects when thinking about and solving problems.

We deliver these results by incorporating best practices in our teaching that have been proven to work, both scientifically and by experience. Retrieval practice is incorporated into the curriculum to ensure that our children know more and remember more.  Our staff receive continual training to improve their teaching. Teaching starts with the classroom environment - this means both the physical environment but also the learning community that is created within the classroom. We celebrate our rich and diverse school community and ensure that every child has the opportunity to see themselves in the curriculum. Children are taught and encouraged to share thoughts, ideas and arguments about their learning with each other in a respectful way. 

Expanding our children’s vocabulary through the use of stories is a cornerstone to teaching and learning at Darell. Acquiring a rich vocabulary is a key indicator that a child is advancing in their learning. Children are taught new vocabulary and consolidate existing vocabulary in most lessons. Teaching and revisiting ‘Key concepts’, such as ‘Justice’, ‘Evolution’ or ‘Migration’ ensures that our children are able to make links across subjects which helps the children to remember the facts and skills they are taught and to use them in more sophisticated ways as they progress through the school.

All our staff put the well-being of the children first. We support all our children to reach their full potential by working collaboratively to ensure there are no barriers to their learning and that no ceiling is placed on what they can achieve. In our school there is a very close relationship and excellent communication between staff, parents and children to ensure that all our children can learn in a loving and safe environment.

We are very happy with this.  As with all vision statements, they mean nothing at all unless they are implemented effectively and this full return to school gives us the ideal opportunity to do so.  My writing was just interrupted by three young designers from Year 1 who had built what can only be described as a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  It was really well constructed with great attention to detail and clear collaboration.  Please follow us on Twitter (@DarellSchool) as we will be adding a picture of this later.  These are very exciting times at Darell School and we would like one of you to join the team.  We currently have a parent governor vacancy. Ideally we would like to have someone with a background or some experience in education, but this is not a pre -requisite.  If you would simply like to ‘Make a difference’ and contribute to the running of this vibrant school please contact me through Parents@darell.richmond.sch.uk to express an interest.

All that is left is to say have a lovely weekend.  Make sure you get some rest! We really look forward to welcoming you and your lovely children back next week.   

 Joe Porter