We are very fortunate to have a new furry friend at Dersingham. He will be in the school playground tomorrow morning for everyone to meet. The children are also being given an opportunity to name him! We can't wait to see their suggestions - a winner will be chosen in this Friday's assembly. 

The area in which our new friend will be staying is now called, 'The Buddy Corner,' after our previous rabbit, Buddy - who is greatly missed. 

Tis the season to be jolly……. 

Year 6 visited Fair play house and participated in fantastic team building activities. What an amazing way to kick start in to the new school year! Fun was had by all. 

At Dersingham, safeguarding our pupils is our highest priority, which is why we thought it was an important opportunity for our year 6 pupils to receive first aid training. As part of this, an ex paramedic taught our pupils about what to do if they were to witness someone who needed first aid. Pupils used the acronym 'DRSABC' (Danger, Response, Shout for help, Airway, Breathing, Circulation) to remind them of this. They were also given the opportunity to practise opening someone's airway, checking someone is breathing and putting someone into the recovery position. 

We hope that this opportunity will prepare our pupils for life beyond primary school. 

"I thought the first aid training we did was very important because if one of us sees someone who is in need of first aid, we could assist them and take care of them until the ambulance comes."

"Learning how to perform first aid could potentially save many lives which is why it was vital that we learnt things like the DRSABC and the recovery position."

At Dersingham, we strive to provide our pupils with opportunities to broaden their life experiences. In June, we were fortunate enough to go on a residential to Debden Camping site where the children took part in many exciting activities. One of the numerous experiences that the children took part in was tie dying, where they displayed their artistic skills and worked both independently and in groups to produce their finished garments. Throughout the day, children were playing a variety of team sports such as: rounders, dodgeball and badminton, allowing them to work and bond as a team. In the evening, children took part in a night walk which they found very exciting. On the last day, a sports day was set up which all children took part in, having lots of fun. That evening the teachers set up a BBQ and campfire where the children sang songs along with a live band and danced the night away.

At their time at Debden, children ate breakfast together and even helped with the washing and cleaning ! We believe this residential trip has helped children to prepare for the future, building on many skills. 

"Camping was a great experience, it was the best time of my life" 

"Spending time with all my friends outside of school has been amazing and I am so glad to have been fortunate enough to be a part of it"

At Dersingham we ensure that children are exposed to high quality/standard PE curriculum that allows them to shine and parade their skills set in a range of different sports. This academic year, we were really fortunate as since the recent covid restrictions we had not been able to take part in many sporting activities, competitions and events. We were lucky enough to get our year 5 students on a 2-week intense swimming course at the Stratford Aquatics centre. We also brought in a yoga and mindfulness specialist that worked with our ks1 and 2 students on a weekly basis. We felt this was important as it would help the children with their flexibility, mental health and well-being, co-ordination and balance. At Dersingham we have encouraged that student's be more active which led us to also draft in a dance teacher from Freshly squeezed dance who has taught a variety of different classes specialized in dance to our students throughout the whole school helping develop our pupil's co-ordination, balance and rhythm. Dersingham have also hosted and taken part in many competitions with other schools in the Newham Borough such as: Hot potato competition (which Dersingham Primary school hosted), Football competitions, Multi sports competitions and most recently Newham's very own Commonwealth Games Festival which included sports such as Badminton/ Hockey/ tag rugby and para-Olympics (SEND)

The Science Dome came to Dersingham and our pupils participated in engaging and interactive learning sessions.  The science themed experiences that our children participated in were- Rec- stars and night sky, Yr 1- under the sea, Yr 2-Light and sound, Yr 3 Rocks soils and fossils, Yr 4 – Ancient Greece and the stars, Yr 5-Ancient Egypt and the stars and Yr 6- Down to Earth. The informative hands on sessions flew by so quickly and our mini scientists left fascinated, full of awe and wonder. 

We treated some of our children to the Magical experience of visiting, “Winter Wonderland!” What a memorable experience it was.  They sipped on warm cocoa topped with marshmallows and enjoyed warm freshly baked donuts. When it came to choosing which rides to go in, the children were spoilt for choice. Although it was freezing, the children didn’t mind at all. Visiting Winter Wonderland was a   very memorable and magical experience and the smiles on their faces was a sight to behold! 

In November, we celebrated Remembrance Day and held our very own Memorial service in honour of our lost heroes. Some our children also represented our school at the Central Park Memorial service 

Year 4 were privileged to have had the opportunity of visiting the Hackney Empire Theatre where they were entertained by the BBC Orchestra as they conducted a live performance. Some of the pieces included :Anna Meredith: Connect It 

Holst: Mars (extract) from The Planets                                

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor - 1^st Movement              

Grieg: In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt      

Price: Symphony No.1 in E minor (3^rd movement) 

Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending* 

Handel: Zadok the Priest (bars 1-9) 

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 - Scherzo (extract) 

Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G Mino 

Copland: Hoe-Down from Rodeo 

Freestone: The Hackney Rocket 

Stravinsky: The Firebird (1919) 

The audience were left mesmerised. 

At Dersingham, we ensure that children are exposed to a rich Writing Curriculum that allows them to excel and display their creativeness in a range of genres. This academic year, we were fortunate to be visited by an author 'Venessa Taylor'. Venessa writes books that include a range of diverse characters that children can relate to. The children found the session with Venessa exciting and all were engaged, with some, even discussing how they would like to be an author when they grow up. Amazingly, Venessa also gifted us some signed copies of her book 'Baller Boys' for the children to enjoy during their reading sessions.  

We celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in style and commemorated her being on the throne for 70 years. As a school, we had the biggest street party where we enjoyed listening to live music, eating a traditional foods and singing the National Anthem. It was certainly a very memorable occasion!

EYFS: Children in EYFS experience Maths through play and the concrete approach to be able to set their foundations right to develop their problem solving and critical thinking as they move on through their primary education.

KS1: Year 1 and Year 2 are exploring the CPA approach through play before they move on their pictorial representations and being able to explain their thinking and understanding of the concepts involved.

KS2: Moving on to KS2, children are able to use both pictorial and abstract when working on Maths. As part of their learning, they have access to manipulatives to be able to grasp the concrete and make sure they have a good understanding and secure knowledge that they can then apply to other areas of their learning.

Year 5 were involved in an in-school academic programme which is designed to give pupils exposure to a genuine academic environment and to experience learning in the style of a university student. Pupils worked closely with a PhD Tutor in a series of small group university-style tutorials to study a ‘super-curricular’ topic: Fine art.  During the tutorials pupils completed readings and assignments that stretch them to work at one level above their current key stage, including a 1,000-word university-style final assignment. After this, they graduated!

We were proud participate in Islamophobia Awareness Month in order to raise awareness to say No to prejudice against Muslims. 

We feel it is important that our children understand that there is no place for hatred in our society. 

WOW!

We would like to congratulate Joseph Bangura on being an official Chelsea FC Academy Player.  A senior Chelsea Academy representative visited Joseph at home today to sign the paperwork. 

Joseph looks really cool in his official Chelsea tracksuit holding his new shirt with his own name on the back! We are so proud of him and hope this proves to all Dersingham pupils that it is possible to achieve great things if you work hard.

This year, Dersingham celebrated World Book Day through the theme of 'Wonderland'. Pupils were inspired by the classic tale of Alice in Wonderland and created pieces of art and writing using their own imaginative ideas. Staff and pupils dressed up as characters from the classic talked and took part in a range of activities including a swap shop and the Mad Hatter's Reading Cafe.  

Buddy. who is our reading rabbit, was named by Hadiyah Ahmed from Year 2. Congratulations and thank you for coming up with such a friendly name!

Year 1 introduced their Spring term topic by inviting their grandparents in for a tea party. They had an amazing afternoon full of cakes, fun and lots of music. We were joined by reception who performed their nativity songs and put a smile on everyone's face. Children were also given the opportunity to ask their grandparents questions about the toys and games they use to play with as a child. 

 ​Thank you to all of the grandparents who joined us, especially the ladies from Jack Cornwell Centre, you all helped year 1 start off their new topic with a bang.

A big thank you to all our parents who supported Dersingham with our very first Community Market. 

There was a great sense of community spirit throughout the day, where children and parents enjoyed the various activities.

The parent stalls were a huge success which gave them the opportunity to show case their individual skills and talent.

We look forward to our next Community Market which undoubtedly will be even bigger and better. 

Dersingham is proud to announce that we have raised an amazing £530 for Macmillan. 
Thank you for your support and generosity. 
The children enjoyed decorating the cakes.

Congratulation to twelve, year five pupils that have graduated from the Brilliant Club at Oxford University on Monday 8th July 2019.  The Brilliant Club is an award-winning university access charity that works with schools and universities across the UK. The Scholars Programme recruits, trains and places doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in schools to deliver programmes of university-style tutorials, which were supplemented by two university trips. Congratulations: Aliya (17), Rafaela (17), Zuhaib (17), Antoinette (17), Kauser (18), Malaika (19), Loucas (19), Tarek (18), Nazim (18), Asia (19), Deivis (17) and Geenley (19)!

The Early Years took advantage of the hot weather we had recently and enjoyed splash day!

The children had a fantastic time exploring water play in a variety of ways and it truly was a wet, wild and unforgettable day!

The workshop was led by Chris Grandison. Chris has been a teacher in Newham since 2005. He studied psychology, focusing on violent crime in London, at Brunel University.

In response to the knife crime problem over the past year, Chris has been delivering workshops about risky behaviour and violent criminality to parents and teachers in Newham. 

Congratulations to Raif Ahmed as he joined London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan at the UCL East campus site and five other local schools as they buried a time capsule symbolising the huge impact the project will have on the capital’s future generations. Pupils needed to write about an everyday item that, in 100 years, people will want to study because the item has already significantly changed people’s daily lives or an item which has the potential to change or improve the way people will work, study, perform or live in the future. Judges had the difficult decision of choosing only 6 pupil’s items to go into the capsule, items such as: Loom Bands (Thasnia Jahan) Keys (Habibullah Abbas Khan), plastic (Sehrish Sethi) and a newspaper (Farhan Molla). However, the winning item from Dersingham School was Raif’s submission of a pen! Go Dersingham!!

On June 14th 2019, Year 4 took part in writing competition where they had to come up with an idea for an item to that they would bury on the East Bank. Thinking creatively, pupils had to write up to 200 words on the item that they thought would good to bury in the time capsule. Some children wrote about items that may have potential to change or improve the way people will work, perform, play or even live in the future; other pupils wrote about items that they thought people in the future would want to study.  Well done to Farhan (class 14), Habibullah (class 15), Thasnia (class 15), Raif (class 15) and Sehrish (class 15) who creatively wrote about items such as: current newspapers, keys, loom bands, pen and plastic and justified their choice using persuasive language.  All schools who enter the competition have entered into a prize draw to win 30 tickets to go down the ArcelorMittal Orbit slide. One winner from each borough and will get the chance to record the story behind the item and bury it on site with the Mayor of London at the East Bank ground breaking. Good luck Dersingham!

Painting colourful stain glass windows, creating a majestic garden diorama and producing an eye-catching banner were just a few of the exciting activities year four participated in at Manor Park Christian Centre. The Easter Experience educational visit was an excellent way to enrich the learning that has taken place in class and ask more questions. After the visit, the pupils produced an excellent piece of writing explaining why Christians celebrate Easter today!

Session 2

What an exciting day! We learnt so much about energy. We learnt what energy is, how we use energy and also how food gives us energy. Then Mr Obembe conduct an experiment with a Jelly Baby! I set up the apparatus, such as the test tube, tweezers and a bunsen burner. To start we put water in the test tube. We held the crisp in the flame and as soon as it’s alight we held it directly under the test tube with tweezers. The crisps with the highest fat content had the highest amount of released energy! My favourite part, was burning the crisp with fire and I bet that Haleema, Shohana and Olta had fun too!  
Written by: Iffah Class 17

Well done Dersingham for taking part in the Basketball Tournament! Congratulations Ashanti Rakin, Lucien, Tarek, Rayan, Abraham, Haddy, Olta, Rafaela, Macy, Miran and Uzair. The twelve girls and two boys from years 5 and 6 showed great perseverance and sportsmanship at the TTLT Basketball Tournament. On the day of the tournament, the children showed up with a positive attitude and were eager to arrive at NewVic and try their best. When we arrived, we found out that in our league there were seven other schools. We began playing each team to the best of our ability. We had some great games and a few others that forced us to rethink our strategy. We made sure all children had a chance to take part and encouraged teamwork. Dersingham worked together as one and no matter what the results were after each game, we remained focussed and enjoyed the experience. At the end of the league, the winners were announced and we came 3^rd place. Considering we only had one practise as a whole team, we were all proud of ourselves for representing Dersigham and displaying our school values.

During our Rights Respecting Art Day, all children across the school learned about one article from the rights respecting schools criteria. Each year group expressed this article through 

Reception - The children in reception looked at Articles 2 and 15 which discuss discrimination and friendship. The children in reception did finger painting using different skin tones and created pieces of artwork showing themselves with their friends who have different skin colours, religions and cultures to them to show that we don't discriminate against others.

Year 1 - Article 24 - The right to a healthy lifestyle - The children looked at different fruits and vegetables as part of a healthy diet and cut them open to see what shapes were inside and how they could use these in their art. Once the fruit dried, the children created patterns by printing their chosen fruits and vegetables onto paper.

Year 2 - Article 7 - The right to a name - The children looked at different geometric shapes and how they could create the letters of their name through shapes. They then used lollysticks, match sticks and pipe cleaners and created a colourful hanging name plate to show their name through geometric shapes.

Year 3 - Article 30 - The right to your culture, language and religion - The children looked at different cultures from Mexico, China and some countries in Africa. They looked at how these different artistic patterns from these cultures and they then designed and created their own pots to represent the culture.

Year 4 - The Year 4 classes looked at Article 17 which explains they have a right to information about their well-being. This can be in the form of various media such as newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. The children decided to use information from newspapers to create a collage linking to one of our school values "inspiration". 

Year 5 - Year 5 focused on Articles 13 and 14 which discuss freedom of expression and thought. The children looked at the artist Banksy and discussed whether his style of art through graffiti was a crime or expression. The children used their own freedom of thought to create their own stencils, many displaying powerful and important messages, and used this to spray paint their artwork just as Banksy does.

Year 6 - Year 6 looked at Article 29 which states the children have a right to a good education which teaches them to live peacefully and respect the environment. The children learned about different aspects of photography such as lighting and mood. They then went out into their local area and used these skills to take photos of their local environment and collected some leaves and various objects. The year 6 children worked in groups to edit their photos using computer programmes and created a collage with their final photographs and natural objects.

This week, 8 gifted writers from Dersingham attended a writing course at The Hurst, in Shropshire. The project is run by Arvon and is a chance for the children to work with published authors for a week.  The children got to experience writing in a completely different setting and throughout the week took part in writing sessions with the published authors and got the chance to create lots of pieces of their own writing. The children even got 1:1 tutoring sessions with the authors which focused on how to make their writing the best it can possibly be.

Thank you to everyone who came out to support our Reception and Year 1 students. They worked very hard on learning lines and singing songs and we're all very proud of them. 

On Thursday 13th Decemeber, years 4, 5 and 6 had an after school Winter Ball. The children ate lots of snacks and danced for hours - Santa even came to visit them!

On Wednesday 12th Decemeber, over 200 parents joined us to eat Christmas Lunch with their children. Thank you to everyone who joined us. 

Congratulations to Rafaela, Sarah-Jane, Sheila, Yusuf, Aisha, Sarah, Noyon, Olivya-May, Bansi, Darina, Megan and Mimi for coming second in the TTLT Dance Festival last week. The ten girls and two boys from years 5 and 6 displayed excellent courage and dance skills.

All schools were called up to perform 1 by 1 and eventually it was time for our performance. We showed courage and executed our dance routine to our best potential. After all the schools had performed, the judges were ready to announce the winner. To our surprise they decided that Dersingham had tied first place with another school! The final winner could only be decided after a dance-off between both school. Again, we remained focussed and put on our most confident performance yet. Finally, they announced the winner and we came second place by only one point difference. Considering this was out first ever competition we were all proud of ourselves for the effort displayed. There is no doubt pupils had fun and our school values were shown throughout the entire competition.

On Thursday, pupils and staff at Dersingham Primary School started their journey towards becoming a UNICEF ‘Rights Respecting School’. 

UNICEF is the world’s leading organisation working for children and their rights. In 1989, governments worldwide promised all children the same rights by adopting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Pupils spent the day writing poetry, stories and reports on the theme of children’s rights which culminated in an inspirational event in the afternoon attended by parents and other members of the school community. Everyone was also treated to a special performance by the school choir who premiered their original song about children’s rights,  

Head teacher, Lando Du Plooy said, ‘The ‘Rights Respecting School’ award will help our pupils to grow into confident, caring and responsible young citizens both in school and the wider community. By learning about their rights, our pupils will also learn about the importance of respecting the rights of others’.

Well done to these children who took part in the Extreme Reading Challenge that the school set for them. They really did find some weird and wonderful places to read their books!

Reception, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3, had a great evening scaring all the teachers with their costumes. The children got to dance and eat many many snacks whilst teaching all the adults how to do the Shark Dance!

On 20th September, we hosted our very first Reading Cafe! We were overwhelmed with the enthusiasm and support from the parents who attended on the day. It was wonderful to see our pupils take a real pleasure in sharing books and learning about new things with their adults. We have placed all the names of the parents who attended into a raffle and would like to announce that parent of Laiba in Class 19 has been picked to win a £25 high street voucher! I hope you will spend some of it on books!

Please do come along to our next reading cafe on Thursday 13th December and continue to celebrate the love of reading with us!​

Finally the children get to draw back the curtains of mystery and reveal what they have captured over the last four days. The scribbles get final edits while lifeless poetry gets an injection of performance.  Writing pieces are dramatised while the authors convert speech into dialogue. This is a culmination of all the workshops rolled into the final performance. The audience comprising of none other than Jamila Gavin and Roger Robinson, not forgetting their teachers and their peers. 

We sat back and were amazed by the standard of the work being presented. Writers who started out as caterpillars had now found their wings.

The second day ushered in two amazing experiences.  The first one came in the afternoon when then children saw the hills come alive on a nature walk. The scenic surroundings conjured up visions from Gorilla's in the Mist. The children trudged through the enchanting forest, exploding with a fusion of colour, as the Azalea bushes eagerly await spring.  

In the evening, the children sat at the feet of these two great authors participating in their first 'reading.'  The pages came alive while they intently listened to the authors, who read with the familiarity that only comes with the originator. The children's knowledge of the authors was tested as they played a 'fact or fiction' game, highlighting their lives, their books and their passions.