We can’t believe next week we will be in December with all the excitement that it brings as part of the build up to Christmas. As normal there’s been a huge amount going on across the school and it’s been fabulous to see so many students engaging with the opportunities staff have organised for them. Attendance and punctuality remain a real focus for us all as a school; every lesson/day really does count and we don’t want any students to be missing out.
Please make sure you look at the “Upcoming events” section at the bottom of this newsletter, we’d love to see as many parents/carers as possible coming to these to support their child and the school.
Trips and visits
Year 11 An Inspector Calls at the Theatre Royal in Brighton
On Wednesday 16th November, the English department took 60 Year 11 students to see the award-winning Stephen Daldry production of An Inspector Calls at the Theatre Royal in Brighton. The students were intrigued by the iconic and unusual set design as well as being enthralled by one of their key GCSE Literature texts being brought to life by the captivating cast; they were even perceptively critical when some of the characters’ lines did not match those of the original Priestley text! Despite the torrential rain, the students’ behaviour was exemplary throughout the trip, both en route and during the performance. We look forward to running many more English trips in the future.
Mrs Forrest – Teacher of English
Year 10 and 11 Youth Mock Trial National competition
Congratulations to our fantastic Year 10 and 11 students who competed in the Youth Mock Trial National competition this month. Students had to prepare and present three different legal cases in official law courts in front of a real judge. They competed against three other schools taking on the roles of Barristers, Jurors, Witnesses and many more. The students were amazing and in two of the three cases they fought, despite going up against A-Level students they won.
Ms Peach – Head of SME
Year 7 & 8 Disney’s Frozen at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Year 7 and 8 students were lucky enough to attend the performance of Disney’s Frozen at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Students’ behaviour was excellent throughout the trip and the performance was exceptional, a magical display of incredible set design, lighting and costumes with inspiring performances.
A truly unforgettable visit to London’s West End.
Mrs Isham – Director of Performing Arts
Year 11 mock exams
As we approach the mock exams students should be spending 4-6 hours revising on top of their normal lessons and tutorial sessions. They should be using effective revision strategies from memory (blank knowledge organisers, mind maps, self/peer testing, answering exam questions under time constraints). The timings for the school day will remain the same and students will attend normal lessons when they are not in exams. If a student misses an exam for any reason, they will attend a catch-up exam session at the earliest possible opportunity. If you have any concerns or questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me on jcrane16@durring.com
Company news
Update from Da Vinci
Since the start of the year I have been so proud of Da Vinci and the progress we have made. Our successes have included being the 2nd highest company for Attendance, KAPP Badges and in the ‘Make the Minutes Matter’ whole school challenge. On top of this we had 4 students who played pivotal roles in the 24-hour musical Ollie Marett (as Barnum), Kiera Rowling (as a soloist), Phoebe Brookman (as Jenny Lind) & Jessie Hopkins (as Charity). In addition to this 9JOw were the leading tutor group in the school during the Make the Minutes Matter challenge with Logan Salvage, Gregory Turrell & James Standing leading the way. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to another successful half term.
Mr Poole – Company Leader Coubertin
Update from Franklin
I am so lucky to be the company leader of Franklin. They continuously amaze me with their hard work and dedication to our community and to their education. I have been over the moon to hand out so many KAPP badges this year, we now have 46 bronze seahorses and 10 silver seahorses which is the most Silver seahorses across any company. We also had the First Gold seahorse in the school awarded to our brilliant Callum Cummins 9RKe this term! We have consistently been the top company for attendance over the past month and this is down to the brilliant resilience of all of our students. It was fantastic watching so many Franklin students involved in our 24-hour musical and coming in early every morning to complete the make the minutes matter challenge. I am looking forward to seeing what other brilliant successes our students will achieve in the rest of this half term, I am so proud of you all!
Miss Hewett – Company Leader Franklin
Extra-curricular clubs and activities
We offer a variety of extra-curricular activities at Durrington and we have had a brilliant year so far. The highest attended clubs per year group are shown below, as well as the student that has attended the most clubs in their whole year.
| Year Group | Highest attend clubs | Highest attending student |
| 7 | Minecraft | Ruby West 7ECu |
| 8 | Code Club | Reuben Bowdery 8SOk |
| 9 | Football | Jasmine Lawrence 9DFo |
| 10 | Dance Live | Rebecca-Louise Edwards 10EMc |
We are also running a company competition up until Christmas to see which company can attend the most clubs, please see current standings below, well done to Shelley so far.
If you haven’t attended a club this year, please look on the school website and find one you would like to do. Well done to everyone that has attended a club so far this year.
Mr Poole – Company Leader Da Vinci
Year 7 science club
Carnovsky is a Milan based art and design duo composed of Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla that produce multi-layered artwork which reveals different scenes under red, green and blue light. Red, Green and Blue are the science primary colours of light that can be added together to make the secondary colours magenta, cyan and yellow. All three primary colours add together to make white light. We used this knowledge of light and colour to create images in the style of Carnovsky. These images were multi layered and drawn by the students which we projected onto the board and looked at through different filters to reveal different scenes. The science department voted that Henry and Reggie’s design was the one that created the best picture of the science of colour and the creativity of art.
Miss Leeming – science teacher
LGBTQ+ Club
In LGBTQ+ Club this week students painted a flag on calico fabric with fabric paint that they felt either represented themselves or that they wanted to make for someone that they cared about.
The students were supportive to one another and asked questions about what their flag meant for them. The range of flag designs show how diverse our DHS community is and how this can be celebrated.
The club is open to all students who support the LGBTQ+ community however they identify whether LGBTQ+ themselves or as allies. Students show one another support and celebrate diversity in our society.
Mrs Gaskell – SME teacher
Department updates
Maths students of the week
Congratulations to the following students who have been awarded maths students of the week, nominated by their class teachers for their continued hard work and perseverance.
Logan Slavage Ameila Scott Jessica Parsons Amelia Thwaites
Georgia Hayes Dylan Milner Sophie Thomas
Mr Borrett – Director of Mathematics
PE round up
It has been another exciting fortnight in the Durrington PE department, with a busy fixture and extra-curricular club schedule. The outstanding turnout to basketball clubs has continued and even passed on the good turnout bug to fitness club and gymnastics club.
Durrington have continued to see great success within their basketball fixtures with year 7, 9 and 10 boys and year 8 and 9 girls all picking up wins against local schools. Durrington also attended a cross country event, in which the students showed outstanding effort and, in many cases, got some fantastic results. Mylie Corbett, Jacob Grant, Freya Lloyd and Josh Wason all picking up top 5s within their races and finally, Elise Aston won the year 7 girl’s race.
One of the standout results over the last fortnight was the U14 girls football team winning 5-1 in the County Cup with Isobel Collins scoring 4 of the goals. Finally, a massive congratulations to Elise Aston and Isobel Collins, as they have both been selected to represent Sussex for this season, what a fortnight it has been for those two.
Computing update
We have been busy these past two weeks in the computing and business department.
Year 8 NCSC CyberFirst Girls’ Competition
This nationwide competition provides a fun but challenging environment to inspire the next generation of young women to consider a career in cybersecurity. We entered four teams of girls from year 8, who all got off to a flying start working on the different challenges they were presented with.
We are so proud of the hard work, problem solving, perseverance & resilience that the team showed throughout the day, and we really hope that this competition will encourage more girls to consider Computer Science as an option at school and a future career in cyber security.
We have launched a new Roblox club, this is a lunch club aimed at year 7’s giving them the opportunity to learn Roblox studio – how to make and code their own worlds and games.
The whole of year 8 have been learning how to write textual programming language, Python. We enjoy teaching this to the students and watch their creativity in their code. As the quote on the wall in F27 says from Maria Klawe All our children deserve a chance to become creators instead of consumers of computer science.
The department has also invested in 3 further Lego spike kits and now the year 9 code club are working in pairs to build their own big project in the run up to Christmas. We will keep social media updated on their progress.
Mrs Taylor – Director of Business/Computing
Art and DT update
Across the art department our year 10s have been working really hard at their first GCSE projects.
We have been so impressed with their dedication and enthusiasm in lessons as well as after school.
Year 10 art students have been developing their painting skills and techniques. We have been blown away by the quality of work.
Mr Bloomer – Head of Art & Design
GCSE certificate collection 2022
It was a pleasure to welcome back our ex-year 11s to DHS this week to collect their GCSE certificates and celebrate their success. Students and staff enjoyed a light buffet, and it was a great opportunity to hear how they are now enjoying their chosen further education studies and work experiences.
Community matters … family support over the Christmas period
WSCC winter holiday activities and food for children #HAF2022
Children and young people aged 4 to 16 who are eligible for Benefits-related Free School Meals can take part in free clubs this winter holiday and enjoy a free nutritious meal as part of the scheme.
Visit the WSCC website, on the link below, and enter your postcode to find the fun activities near you this winter and book your place.
West Sussex County Council holiday activity and food programme
Social media
Don’t forget you can follow all the latest news on our social media pages
Facebook: Durrington High School | Worthing | Facebook
Twitter: Durrington High (@DurringtonHigh) / Twitter
Instagram: Coming soon!
Forthcoming events
– Monday 28th November – year 11 mock exams commence
– Thursday 8th December – year 8 parent/carer evening
– Monday 12th December – Carol service at Saint Andrews (ticketed event please
contact bmaughan@durring.com for details)
– Thursday 15th December – Christmas concert (details to follow)
