BLOG 16TH DECEMBER

Weekly Round up

What a last week of the year it has been at Dormanstown! 

Even though the weather has been freezing, we’ve had lots of Christmas cheer to keep us warm including a beautiful KS2 trip to All Saints Church to celebrate Christingle – where our choir and Y6 children lead the service – thank you to all the parents who attended, we are sure you will agree the singing was magical. 

KS1 dazzled their parents and carers with their nativity at the start of the week, they were a credit to the academy as they showed of their acting, singing and performing skills to packed halls of loved ones. 

Our kitchen staff cooked a delicious Christmas dinner on Tuesday, which was enjoyed by all the children and staff in their Christmas jumpers. The Turkey was juicy, pigs in blankets divine and the sprouts… well they tasted like sprouts! 

This week was also a chance to reflect and say goodbye. Miss Lowrie, who has been a ray of sunshine since joining school leaves us to move to a school closer to home and we wish her well. 

Mrs Wilson, who has served the communities of Teesside for over 28 years through both Dormanstown and our fellow trust schools also said farewell this week. She has made a huge difference to our school, and supported children, staff and communities with passion throughout her time. Mrs Wilson will be greatly missed by us all. 

We would also like to thank Mrs Jackson, one of our lunch time supervisors, for the hard work she has done for the academy; we want to wish her all the best in the future.

We wish all of our families a warm, safe and happy Christmas, full of love and celebration. May the holiday season brighten each and every day for you. 

Merry Christmas! 

Class Showcase

This week, our featured classes are 1T, 2C and B2S so please enjoy reading what they have been learning about.

1T

1T have had an incredibly festive few weeks in school. 

First of all, we had the pleasure of decorating the tree in the entrance hall.  

Then, we put our heart and soul into learning dances, songs and lines for the Key Stage 1 Christmas Nativity – Lights, Camel, Action! 

2C

2C have had a great time learning about the artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser. We have been enjoying developing our skills, using a range of media to express ourselves in this artist’s playful and imaginative style. We have practiced drawing Hundertwasser trees and buildings and have been looking closely at patterns to use when we create a final piece of artwork, inspired by Hundertwasser. Thank you to parents who came into school to help us create an amazing, large scale Hundertwasser Dormanstown! 

B2S

Over that past week, we have been reading The Jolly Christmas Postman and The Christmas Story. We have talked about all the bad characters that are in The Jolly Christmas Postman and understand why they are bad. We have enjoyed writing our lists to Santa Claus and writing tips on how to find the great man himself. In DT, we designed and made a heathy smoothie- it was delicious! Also, we have a new ‘Class Pet’ Children have been enjoying taking Benjie home and looking after him for the night. We made our Christingle and had our own little Christingle Service in the classroom and to top it off we had the best party ever! B2S would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. See you in 2023.

Reindeer Run

We would like to thank everyone who sponsored the children for the Reindeer Run last Wednesday, we raised a MASSIVE £2837.44 for Teesside Hospice!! Well done to all our children for such amazing work.

Pots of Gold

Every week we celebrate the children who demonstrate the core values of the academy and now we would like to invite the parents of the winners in to witness their children being celebrated.

We will send a message via our school gateway app on Thursdays inviting the parents of those children in with the times for the assembly.

Remember to keep this secret, we want to surprise the children who win.

Awesome Attendance

Each week we have an ‘Awesome Attendance’ competition for the class or classes with the highest attendance. The class with the highest attendance will receive a letter and the first class to spell out ‘Awesome’ receives a treat for the whole class.

Which class will be the first to receive that treat?

Missed learning

39 days of missed learning occurred this week due to unauthorised absences. Unauthorised absences are for holidays, parents/carers not contacting the academy or any other unexplained absence. With most minor ailments, children can be in school, so we really encourage you to think about keeping your child at home.

As you will be aware we are using an app service called School Gateway to communicate with parents. You can now report your child’s absence through the app. If we have not heard from you, we will be sending out attendance messages which you can reply to, which will come directly to the team.

MFC Foundation Competition

We need your help in designing a new warm up t-shirt that sends out a simple message that ‘Football is for Everyone’.

We want to see your creative side and design a warm up t-shirt for the players during our River-Side-By-Side game against QPR during Pride History Month (February).

The chosen winner will not only win tickets to the game but all see their t-shirt come to life and professionally made so that the players themselves can wear these during warm up.

The competition will close Sunday 18^th December, this Sunday!!!

Please send your entries to Amy.Campbell@mfcfoundation.co.uk

Diary Dates and Reminders

Lunch Menu

No lunch menu next week school is closed. When we return it will be week 1 on our new menu

Links to support our children and families

Cost of Living

Flu vaccine dates

Just in case your child has not had the influenza vaccine yet, and you would like them to have one, there is a drop-in clinic at the following address on the date and time shown.

Frozen Water

Daisy Chain

Max card

Community School Clothing

A North East based organisation offering a range of free, non-branded school uniform to families. Please follow the link below for more information:

Free Generic School Uniform | Community School Clo (communityschoolclothingscheme.org)

Lollipops

You can also get your children’s uniform here.

Lollipops have a preloved rail out on the shop floor with various items on including polo tops, trousers, sweatshirts/cardigans, shoes, plimsolls, summer dresses etc. All items on the rail are free for anyone to take, they just ask for customers to be considerate of others when taking items. There is a box for anyone who would like to make donations which we then add to the rail.

Facebook – @lollipopsmiddlesbrough

Twitter – @LollipopsMiddl1

Instagram – @lollipops_middlesbrough

Lollipops
20 Norfolk Place
Berwick Hills
Middlesbrough
TS3 7PA

Action for Happiness