The Devonshire Hill Times

FRIDAY 11TH FEBRUARY
Last day in Spring 1 Term - End at usual time

SATURDAY 19TH - MONDAY 21ST
ICE SKATING at DEVONSHIRE HILL

MONDAY 21ST FEBRUARY
INSET DAY - Staff Only

TUESDAY 4TH JANUARY
First day of Spring 1 Term

Spring 1 After School Clubs have provided an abundance of exciting activities this term. Whether cheering for their team in multisports; planting daffodil bulbs with the rabbits; crafting and baking doughnuts in clay modelling club; or finding their inner DJ at radio club, the children have had an amazing term! We will soon be taking bookings for Spring 2 Clubs - keep an eye out for details in your Parent Mail notifications.

The last day of Spring 1 Term, Friday 11th February. We have decided to have mini Valentines Disco across the school. For a £1.00+ donation children are invited to come to school 'dressed to impress' or in red/pink clothing. During the school day each year group have a mini disco dance in the Main Hall. We have lots of LOVEly valentines themed ideas for the day.

It has recently been announced that pupils from our school contributed towards a Guinness World Record! Back in the summer we were invited by Royal Mail to take part in a competition designing stamps. An incredible 606,049 entries were received from children across the UK, with an amazing 7,479 schools taking part. The event has been awarded Guinness World Record® Title for 'Largest Postage Stamp Design Competition'.

Royal Mail say 'Congratulations to all 606,049 children who entered, as their designs contributed towards a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the largest postage stamp design competition.' Well done to everyone who took part. We can't wait to get involved in some more competitions very soon.

We are still waiting for news of the winning designs - as soon as we find out we will share them for everyone to see.

Our recently elected Head Boy and Head Girl are settling into their roles including representing their year group at the recent School Council Meeting. Here is what they say:

Head Boy: ' I am glad to become Head Boy, I feel I am the right person for the job because I have good leadership skills. I am looking forward to School Council Meetings and helping to develop our ideas for the school.'

Head Girl: 'I applied to be Head Girl because I want to be a role model for younger children in our school. I am looking forward to working with the School Council to make positive changes in our school.

We think they look very smart in their shirt and tie, just wait until they have their blazers!

Children with ideas to share with the school council around school activities and improvement can approach either representative who will be happy to help get your voice heard.

Following the success of our ongoing 'Food Bank', the pastoral care team are looking to generate a 'Wellbeing Bank' in order to offer items essential to self care and wellbeing. We would like to call upon the generosity of our families and staff to donate items which we usually take for granted but could be needed by so many. There's no limit to what these items could be but they must be brand new/unopened and mustn't be food/drink. Some suggestions could include essential self care items such as deodorant, hair care, toothpaste/brush, toilet paper, or relaxation items such as reading/colouring /puzzle books, candles etc. Donations must be brand new items and can be brought to school for our well being collection table.

Our school is now signed up to the Recycle to Read programme. We are collecting unwanted (functioning) electronic devices. This recycling initiative enables us to correctly recycle unwanted items while allowing our school to exchange collected items for reading books and recycled appropriately as part of a take back scheme. It's time to dig out those old phones and cameras - don't forget to remove all of your data before handing them into the office. Full guidace can be seen on the RTR website.

Our school is very fortunate to access food parcels via the Felix project. On behalf of the Devonshire Hill community we would like to say a huge thankyou to our parent volunteers for being so incredible and coming to pack these parcels every Wednesday. In order to support this cause we are asking for donations of carrier bags into which the parcels can be packed. If everyone returns the bag from each of their food parcels we will have more than enough to create parcels each week. To return or donate carrier bags please place them into the bag drop at the Main Office, or simply send your child to school with the empty bag for the class teacher's attention.