A Message from Mrs Knox

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of our Year 11s who, this week, completed their GCSE examinations. They demonstrated real strength of character and courage as they faced their first set of public examinations. What was just wonderful to witness was the way they supported and encouraged each other through these exams. A huge thank you to our fabulous teachers who have prepared these children so brilliantly and were with them every step of the way. Equal thanks to you our parents! I look forward to seeing you at one of our exciting events over the next few weeks as we celebrate the end of a fabulous academic year.

Mrs Knox

Pre-prep Father's Day Forest School Party

Last Friday saw the return of our wonderful Fathers' Day Forest School party. An unplanned, dramatic start saw our dads proving themselves heroes as they helped an injured DofE hiker who had been passing through the school grounds. Their kindness and empathy were just some of the many attributes that we wanted to celebrate and reward with a special afternoon of bonding up in the woods. 

Deciding there was no better way to begin a warm afternoon outdoors than with an ice lolly and cookie, we started our celebrations around the fire pit area with some refreshments. In true Forest School fashion, there were then some adult led activities available as well as the option for free time and den building! Many children and their dads chose to have a go at our Hapa Zome station, using this ancient Japanese printmaking technique, to create artwork from the natural resources around us. Particularly suited to people who like bashing things with a hammer, we thought this would be a perfect arty crafty activity for our guests! 

The pupils also delighted in creating their dads Elder bead necklaces. The wood from the Elder tree contains a soft pithy core, which the pupils removed with a tent peg to create hollow beads. Accompanied with some thread, knots and the occasional feather, many of our dads then had a priceless piece of jewellery to take home with them as a momento!

With time then also spent however they wished: swinging in hammocks, creating fairy gardens, building impressive dens and even some hide and seek, we hope that all our visitors had an enjoyable afternoon. An afternoon outside, with beautiful weather and some of their most favourite people, I don't think the children would have wished for anything else! Many thanks for joining us, Dads, and we look forward to welcoming you again next year!  

Photos of our Fathers' Day Forest School party can be found on the following link:

Click Here for the Fathers' Day Photo Gallery

Mrs Green

 

Year 2 Great Fire of London Workshop

On Thursday, Year 2 excitedly participated in a drama workshop centred around our Topic, The Great Fire of London. Tanya, from the Freshwater Theatre Company, took us back in time to 1666 where we were able to relive the catastrophic events of The Great Fire (from the safety of the Prep School Library!) Throughout the workshop, the children were invited to dress up as key characters such as Thomas Farriner, the baker, Mary, the family maid, and Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist. Tanya was incredible at captivating the attention of the children and made each element of the workshop engaging and purposeful. It was really lovely to see the children's confidence blossom throughout the 90 minutes; from slightly shy spectators to truly charismatic and convincing actors by the end! 

"I loved Tanya. She was so funny!" Joey S

"I really liked dressing up as the Lord Mayor!" Logan N

Miss Able

Year 3 Assembly

On Wednesday morning, Year 3 tried to persuade their peers, parents and teachers that Romans should rule Duke of Kent School. They spoke about which gods and goddesses to worship for different reasons, including Saturn, the god of time if you want a 3 hour lunch break! The Roman army also made an appearance and spoke about how they would patrol the school. We also had a visit from the workers who built the roads and a couple of Roman artists explained how mosaics would add to the PA Hall. Our final visit was from a rebellious Boudicca who wasn’t happy with Roman rule. The children did a fantastic job learning and performing their lines along with a song about Roman numerals. A massive well done Year 3!

Mrs Gritton

Year 4 Isle of Wight Trip

Years 5 and 4 went to the Isle of Wight on Wednesday 15th of June and came back on Friday the 17th. Everyone was so excited and on the journey to the ferry, we played an awesome quiz that the Year 4s (Jasmine and Halle) made for us. It was a thrilling journey and we are going to tell you all about what we got up to over the three days! 

On the first day of the amazing Isle of Wight trip, we arrived at the YMCA where we found who we would be sharing a room. Then we all headed down to the beach where we all had our scrumptious ice creams. There were some amazing choices! One person, Arthur Hunt, dropped his ice cream on the floor! It was ok as it was replaced and he earned the Isaac Newton Award for his demonstration of how gravity works!

On the second day, we went to Osborne House. It was Queen Victoria’s holiday home and where she died!. We went to every room in the house and afterwards, we sat and ate lunch under the tree that Queen Victoria planted herself all those years ago. Then we walked to the ice house that she used to make her servants go and collect ice from. We also went to the Swiss Cottage and Queen Victoria`s private beach, where we saw Queen Victoria’s dressing room and we also skimmed rocks across the beautiful sea.

On the third and final day, we left the YMCA and headed over to the last location. Something that was brand new to the Isle of Wight trip,  The shipwreck museum! We had a presentation about how things are recovered and taken from the ocean and learned that there are lots of shipwrecks around the Isle of Wight and you can locate them by finding yellow boys floating on the surface of the sea. Then we went off and did some activities including making bells out of clay, making paper propellers, seeing what equipment was used when diving and seeing the thing that had been recovered from the ocean floor.

We would like to recommend the Isle of Wight, it is an amazing place that you should visit! We all had an amazing time and hoped you enjoyed reading about our trip. 

By Henry O’B, Ben W and Holly B

Years 4 and 5 have been making the most of the good weather this week, spending their Endeavour lessons tidying and gardening in Junior Jungle as part of their Responsibility projects. With all the springtime growth of recent months, it has been a timely opportunity to keep the paths clear and plants well tended, before yet further  sprouting during the summer holidays!

Year 6 have been learning about genetics and inheritance this half term, but this week took the opportunity to do their first anatomical dissection in the Senior Science laboratories. They began by trying out their incisive skills on a piece of celery before moving on to a pig's eyeball. They were able to identify and separate the different parts and were all commended by Mrs Lwambo on their focus and enthusiasm.

In Pre-prep, Year 2's studies of The Great Fire of London came to a spectacular and destructive end, as they burned down the replica cityscape they had made, which illustrated just how quickly the fire spread across the tightly packed, timber frame houses. In Nursery, the children have been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly to inspire their creativity; they've made their own cardboard wings and experimented with patterns in paint to help them understand the concept of symmetry. Lastly, also focusing on minibeasts, Reception have added to their insect fact-files, which they hope to have finished for publication very soon! Sienna has written: "Dragonflies don't sting or bite. They have bright colours and an amazing way of flying."

Values Certificates:

Kindness: Hope N

Stars of the Week

Nursery: Aoife F for showing kindnesses and support towards visiting children

Reception: Harry R for improved effort and using greater expression when reading in class.

Year 1: George D for having a cheerful and positive attitude to all classroom activities. George is always so enthusiastic and gives everything his best effort.

Jack M for his positive attitude to his learning. Jack always has his hand up and is always willing to have a go.

Year 2: Mila-Rose S for showing impressive resilience during a dictation activity.  I’m so proud of you!

Mr Wright

House Drama Competition

On Wednesday evening the Drama department held their first in person House Drama competition. 

The 12 finalists from the Prep and Senior School performed their monologue and duologue submissions in front of their parents and the House Judge, Juliette Cheveley.

Juliette is a professional stunt performer, and has doubled for many leading actresses including Emma Thompson, Sandra Bullock, Sharon Stone and Cate Blanchett. She is a voice-over artist and presenter in the TV, film and media industries and also works as an actress and dancer in feature films, television shows, theatre and radio.

It was a wonderful celebration of the acting talent and creativity from the pupils. The Senior School finalists of the solo category were Pippa S, Alex F, Johnny Mc and Humphrey G with the overall winners being Luke M and Violetta P. For the duologue category we had James B and Troy K and Lucy M and Annabelle O with the overall winners being Ariane L and Josie B. The Prep School submissions were Hope N and Poppy F with the overall winners being Tansy- Bela T and Issy N. All the pupils that entered the House Drama competition earnt valuable points for their School Houses. Congratulations should be given to all the pupils involved and especially the worthy winners of House Drama 2022.

Mrs Honey

Huge congratulations to all the Year 11s for completing their GCSEs this week and conducting themselves with dignity and commitment throughout the process. With no absences, no late arrivals and mature revision methods, I believe they have given themselves the best opportunity to gain the marks their efforts deserve. Well done! Elsewhere, Year 7 are due to head off-site this afternoon as part of their Geography course, discovering more about the local area and using their mapskills to navigate around Pitch Hill. Fingers crossed we still have a full cohort at the end of the day!

Congratulations to Hannah A and Charlie C (Year 10) for their commendations in relation to their conduct dissecting an eye in Biology, showing precision and high levels of concentration. Jobe M, Kit B, William B and Alice B (Year 7) have also received a commendation for their efforts writing a sonnet in English, as have Oliver Y, Alex S, Tom H, Imogen C and Alfie for their wonderful efforts assisting Miss Fellous in her assembly regarding French music last week. Finally, a commendation has gone to Annie B (Year 7) for her fantastic voluntary write-up regarding the Year 7 History trip to Hampton Court Palace. Well done to you all.

Mr Wilson

Singing Recital

Congratulations to our singing teacher Mr Forrester and his pupils who performed in his lovely singer's recital last Friday. It was a heartwarming evening full of superb performances from all involved and great to hear solos sung by so many brave pupils. Well done to all!

Summer Concert

Don't forget the Summer concert is tomorrow! Saturday 25th June at 6pm. 

Please can pupils in the Senior Choir be at School at 5pm and Junior Choir at 5.30pm, if possible. All performers must be in School uniform. Please bring hats, sunglasses, water, brollies - whatever the weather suggests!

LAMDA exams

The end of year LAMDA exams are just around the corner, so pupils need to be 100% on their words and make sure they know what time they need to be ready and where. All the information is on the Drama noticeboard. 

Mr Rye

What Parents Need to Know about Cross-Platform Sharing of Inappropriate Content

Creepy characters like Slender Man or Huggy Wuggy. Dangerous online challenges. Songs or videos that aren’t suitable for youngsters. When things like these begin trending online, it can be difficult to prevent children accidentally stumbling across them – especially if they use a range of platforms, like online games, social media, streaming sites or messaging apps. A trend can originate in one online space and rapidly spread to other platforms or via chat apps. The frightening Huggy Wuggy character, for instance, first emerged as part of a game on Steam; now there are parody songs on TikTok, videos on YouTube and more than 45,000 results for #huggywuggy on Instagram.

In the guide, you'll find tips on a number of potential risks such as accidental exposure, inappropriate language and unsuitable videos.

Click on the link to help you find out more about "What Parents Need to Know about Cross-Platform Sharing of Inappropriate Content".

Mr Boden

Years 9 and 10 Girls' House Cricket 

All the girls in Years 9 & 10 have been involved in House Cricket this term. Due to some terrible weather a few weeks ago, we split the tournament over two Tuesday afternoons. During the first afternoon, all the girls took part in two group matches on the Wilsons' Pitch and so enjoyed hitting multiple 4s and 6s on the smaller pitches! Each game was exciting and the girls demonstrated great improvement in the bowling accuracy and pace - it was brilliant to see! More recently, this Tuesday, the weather was the total opposite, boiling and sunny! This meant that the girls matches could be played on MacRobert and the Wilsons' Pitch with much bigger boundaries for the third game of the group matches. Hawk were unbeaten in all three of their games, having a particularly close game against Kestrel. Kestrel finished in second place, beating Buzzard by just 2 runs! Peregrine managed to win against Buzzard meaning they finished in 3rd and Buzzard finished in 4th overall. It was great to see the girls enthusiasm and positive team morale, well done to everyone involved! 

Miss Vickers

I am continually impressed by the kindness, generosity and empathy displayed by the students at Duke of Kent School. Not just to their own friends, but their peers and those both younger and older than themselves.

This week, Miss Anand and myself have begun training Year 8 pupils who are going to act as mentors for our new Year 7 pupils in September when they are Year 9. They all seemed quite enthusiastic about the prospect. They will be offering drop in support for the Year 7’s for the first half of term and help them settle into the new experience of Senior School. After half term, those who will benefit from continued 1-1 support will be allocated specific Year 9 pupils to act as mentors to them. There will of course be the continued pastoral support from their form tutors, Mr Wilson and myself if they wish to talk - the aim is to provide another level of support from students who have been in their position not so long ago.

In addition to this, I have spent the last couple of weeks catching up with our Year 6 pupils, 1-1 to see how they are feeling about the next steps and reminding them to talk to others if they are struggling with this.

By and large, they are all feeling quite positive and excited with the expected worries of keeping on top of work which we have addressed together. They are particularly excited about making new friends - I have spoken to them all about their need to welcome and guide their new classmates. Most prominent of all, however, seems to be the excitement of the opportunity to wear a blazer - I’m not sure all of the Seniors would necessarily agree!

Mrs Douglas

For those of you who spotted an ambulance on the School site on Friday afternoon, please be reassured that the casualty (a Duke of Edinburgh expedition pupil not from Duke of Kent School) is making a great recovery.  Well done, and a huge thanks to all the Duke of Kent School staff who helped in this first aid scenario in blistering heat  - the kind and caring School spirit was shown at its best, with several staff rushing to help at a time of need, in a scenario that lasted several hours.  Thankfully with a happy ending.

We wish the Year 10 and 11 Silver DofE Expedition a slightly less eventful and hopefully enjoyable tour of the South Downs next week.  Please can all pupils ensure they drink plenty of water and wear full sun protection for the walks themselves - it's looking like it will be a warm one!  We look forward to hearing all about your adventures when you get back safe and sound - take care, and have fun.

Finally, well done to those pupils (mostly Year 9) who had immunisations at school on Thursday this week; very bravely done!  Please can we use this opportunity to remind parents to let Mrs Sarjant know of any immunisations your child has outside of School (particularly helpful to know of any Covid 19 immunisations) so that their School records can be updated.  Please inform us of what date the immunisation was given (email csarjant@dokschool.org), many thanks.

The School Nurses

PADoK News

Bond Night

Last Saturday, PADoK held a brilliant James Bond Night! There were different Bonds through all the eras, the creativity with costumes was fantastic. Parents and staff enjoyed an evening of wonderful food, great music and got to enjoy being transported to the scene of many a Bond film, a casino, not quite Monte Carlo but Ewhurst is a great second choice! What a phenomenal evening and thank you to everyone who helped plan, run, set up and make the evening such a success, it’s one for the history books for sure! 

Duke of Kent School Singers

On Thursday morning we met for a great singing session in the PA Hall.  As always, an uplifting start to the day.  Thank you Mr Rye and Mrs Burr.

PADoK Book Club

Do you like to enjoy a glass of wine or two with friends and laughing about great life stories?!  Then you should come to the PADoK book club to do just that! We are meeting on 6th July at 8pm at the Hurtwood Inn Pub in Peaslake to catch up and talk about our summer term PADoK book, Again, Rachel.  It’s a No 1 Sunday Times Bestseller by Marian Keyes – it’s a fun, easy read that makes you feel as if you are part of Rachel's life and we would love to see lots of you to chat about the book and then of course, catch up more with other Duke of Kent School parents.  Hope to see you there. 

Mrs Phillips

Senior School Optional Hoodie

The Senior School hoodies have been redesigned by members of the School Council and the finished product can be seen above.  They have done a fantastic job at putting this design together and now finally getting to see the finished product.

This new hoodie is available from Stevenson's on their website: https://www.stevensons.co.uk/.  There is also the option to have your child's initials printed onto the front of the hoodie for a slight additional cost, something we would advise to avoid mixing up tops with other pupils. This hoodie is not an essential item of School uniform, so there is no expectation for pupils to have it.

If you wish to see the sample, please pop into the Main Office to see me and have a look at the new hoodie.

Mrs Woolgar

School Social Media

At Duke of Kent School we have three social media platforms; Instagram (dukeofkentschool), Twitter (@DoKSchool) and Facebook (Duke of Kent School). All of our social media accounts are public.

We recommend following all three accounts to receive push notifications with news, updates, educational articles, interactions with other schools, communities and public figures.

        

Mrs Woolgar