News

Keep up to date with all the latest news happening in school at the moment.

• Let's Get Cooking

  Fri 22 May 2015

  We are delighted to announce that we have applied for and been accepted in this excellent scheme linked to the Children’s Food Trust. Let's Get Cooking is now the largest national network of healthy cooking clubs in the country.

  In partnership with The Tesco Eat Happy Project, Let’s Get Cooking provides training and support to their network of school cooking clubs across the UK. Together, we hope to inspire children to learn to cook by equipping them with the confidence and skills they need to get hands on in the kitchen. Through this network of clubs, they will provide us with support, activities, and a wealth of resources to achieve that goal.

  At The Dassett, this will be a re-appearance of the after school cooking club from Year 3 – 6 and we will be cooking sweet and savoury in every year group as part of the curriculum.

  

• The Dassett Music Festival

  Thu 21 May 2015

  On Friday 26^th June at 6pm we will be holding a musical extravaganza, including performances from our singing group, recorder group, guitarists, flautists, violinists, pianists and drummers - I hope I have included everyone! More details will follow, as I am waiting to hear from Mrs. Ashton, from County Music Service, regarding children and which pieces they could play. A letter will come out at the end of the first week for you to say whether your child is able to participate but I have announced it now so that you can get the date in the diary. It will be a fantastic night and a chance for the children to showcase their talent. We hope you are able to attend.

• Rocket Science

  Tue 19 May 2015

  The RHS Campaign for School Gardening has partnered with the UK Space Agency to embark on an ‘out of this world’ educational project.
  
  The project, Rocket Science, will give around half a million UK children the chance to learn how science in space contributes to our knowledge of life on earth, using the invaluable expertise of the European Space Agency (ESA) and RHS Science team.
  
  Two kilograms of rocket seeds will shortly take off from Florida bound for the International Space Station as part of British ESA astronaut Tim Peake’s six-month Principia mission.
  
  After several months on board, the seeds will return to land in the Pacific Ocean in the spring of 2016. After return to the UK, they will be packaged up with identical seeds that have stayed on earth.

   

  It is then that schools have the opportunity to grow them on and  monitor the results and we have registered to take part in this scheme which will start in September next year.

• From the Gardening Club

  Thu 14 May 2015

   

  We have extended the gardening club to 4.15pm for both the Monday and the Tuesday sessions until further notice.

  The vegetable and fruit area is now dug, composted and has an ever increasing number of vegetables being planted including carrots, pumpkins, courgettes, marrow, potatoes, beans, leeks and peas. We’re planning to do the edging this weekend with a quantity of wood chip arriving soon (hopefully) from WCC for the paths and some additional (WCC) compost bins also arriving shortly. The Peace Garden has begun to be weeded and will be further planted and seeded over the coming week. A request has also gone into the National Herb Centre (thank you Lily Y6) for any assistance they can provide for turning our planters next to the Peace Garden into a productive herb garden.

  We also have a few requests for help to all keen gardening parents, on the off chance that you may be able to donate any of the following, and help us to progress things even more quickly. We have already got some raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, a plum tree and a gooseberry bush but would like a few more strawberry plants or any small ornamental fruit trees and/or fruit bushes, if you have any you could spare. We are also growing tomatoes, cucumber, aubergines, peppers, chilli peppers and melons and could do with some extra grow bags and/or large pots to go along the front of the hall.

  We will also be incorporating a wildlife area and looking to include a new bird table, bird bath, insect hotel etc. so any help with any of these things would be greatly appreciated.

  Unfortunately we have heard back from the WCC and they are unable to provide any water butts and we are endeavouring to be fully self-sufficient with watering to the front of the school so are looking to put 6 or so water butts in place there – if anyone has a redundant one or two they would be very gratefully received.

  Our plan is also to have a small greenhouse/poly tunnel so if anyone knows where we may be able to secure one of those very, very cheaply we would be tremendously grateful.

  The enthusiasm of the children in the club has been completely infectious and we clearly have some very keen and talented young gardeners in our midst.

  The children are certainly progressing very well with their 65 ‘I Can’ Awards and we are delighted to report that we have already achieved Level 1 of the RHS Gardening Awards and are now ‘digging in’ (sorry) to Level 2.

  Hot off the press - we have also now registered with the Food for Life Partnership and have a meeting with their Local Programme Officer on Monday and are actively pursuing their Bronze Award.

• Protecting the Gardens and Keeping Safe

  Fri 08 May 2015

  You may have noticed the Dassett vegetable garden that appeared over the Bank Holiday weekend outside the hall (it is hard to miss it!). It already has a row of raspberries and clump of rhubarb growing and the garden club are busy with pumpkins, beans and corn.

  Please keep children off both this garden and our Peace Garden to the back of the school at the end of the day when you are collecting your children, as we want to give all of our plants the best chance to grow well and a lot of hard work goes into making these gardens so wonderful. I have also noticed children climbing on the planters next to the Peace Garden – please do not allow your children to do this as I do not want them to get hurt.

• Raising Money for Nepal

  Thu 07 May 2015

  Thank you so much for your generosity last week when we had a non-uniform day for Nepal. We managed to raise the staggering total of £360.20 and on Monday 18^th will be welcoming a representative from the charity ‘Shelterbox’ to school to show us how £230 of this money will be used to help provide shelter to a family in Nepal. It will be good for the children to see exactly how they have managed to help others. The rest of the money will be going directly to the DEC.

• A 'Good' School in Every Area Ofsted 2015

  Fri 01 May 2015

  We are delighted to announce that our recent Ofsted Report (April 2015), acknowledges the fact that ‘The Dassett’ is a good school in all areas – Leadership & Management, Behaviour & Safety, Quality of Teaching, Achievement of Pupils and Early Years provision.

  It has been an extremely busy two years since our last Ofsted inspection, continuing to implement the improvements that we had started prior to their last visit and this current judgement is absolutely the right one and thoroughly well-deserved by all members of our school – the parents, the governors, the staff and, of course, the children.

  The inspectors were extremely impressed with what they saw and felt that we were a very strong ‘Good’ and that with only a couple of areas of improvement, that had already been identified and implemented, we are not very far away from becoming an outstanding provider, which is what we are all aiming for.

  It was extremely gratifying that they identified that the ‘teaching is consistently good throughout the school’ and that ‘achievement is consistently good for all groups of pupils in both Key Stages across the whole curriculum’.

  They could see that, ‘The Dassett does not rest on its laurels’ and that ‘the school has raised its capacity for improvement, which is good, and is exemplified by the improvements in the school’s performance in the last two years.’

  You will hopefully not be surprised to know that we had already begun to work on the two areas identified and will continue to drive these improvements ensuring that ‘standards continue to rise in ALL areas’ and justifying the statement that ‘the school’s performance, improvement and leadership is highly regarded within the Authority’.

  This is such an exciting time for The Dassett and the future is very bright indeed. It is a real privilege to be leading this wonderful school and our dedicated team and I thank you all for your continued support.

  https://primarysite-prod-sorted.s3.amazonaws.com/the-dassett-cofe-primary-school/UploadedDocument/5da000ff6f1b42ee89bdde4a8b34088d/OfstedReportApril2015.pdf

• May Maths Challenge

  Fri 01 May 2015

  KS1

  Can you work out what each symbol is worth?

   

  Lower KS2

   

  Can you share out these ‘Smarties’ between 3 people so that each person gets 25 ‘Smarties’? Each pile of ‘Smarties’ cannot be split up into individual ‘Smarties’ as the edges have all melted together. Draw lines to show where you would divide them?

   

  Upper KS2

  Find a 10-digit number where the first digit is how many zeros in the number, the second digit is how many 1s in the number, the third is how many 2s in the number etc. until the tenth digit which is how many 9s in the number.