As we head into the last week of term, we would like to thank you for all your support this term. All of our students have worked incredibly hard this term and should enjoy a well deserved break. This is especially true of our Y11 students who have been so well focused on their mock exams.
We wish you all a restful holiday and hope that you get to spend some quality time with friends and family.
Shaun Allison & Chris Woodcock
DHS KAPP for Christmas 2022: Giving to the community
Our annual tradition of creating hampers and stockings for those in need within our community was launched again this year. Students and staff have been busy decorating hampers with prizes for the ‘most content’, ‘best decorated’ and an overall ‘Champion of Champions’.
Our hampers will be donated to The Trussell Trust Foodbank ‘Body Basics’ project which provides essential non-food items to adults and children in crisis.
We are also busy decorating Christmas stockings which will be delivered to local primary schools who will give them out to some of the very poorest children within our Durrington community.
Why are we doing this?
To be kind. There are lots of local children who simply won’t have a Christmas like we might do. Showing them kindness aligns strongly with our school values and this small gesture will mean a great deal to them and their family.
The Durrington Way
- We acknowledge acts of kindness to each other and to our community.
- We give to our community to help all, without expecting anything in return.
Year 11 graphic design
A snippet of our extremely talented student’s artwork produced as part of their mock exams.
Trips and visits
Year 10 ‘Othello’ at the The Connaught Worthing
Year 10 GCSE Drama and BTEC Performing Arts students were lucky enough to visit local theatre The Connaught Worthing to see Frantic Assembly’s production of ‘Othello’. It was a breathtaking mix of Shakespeare and modern Physical Theatre and was inspiring to see. A year 10 student said that they were ‘blown away’ and another said ‘I loved it, it was incredible’. Mrs Isham was very excited that the founder of Frantic Assembly and a hero of hers, Scott Graham, was present at the performance!
Mrs Isham – Director of Performing Arts
Duke of Edinburgh Award
Twenty-six year 10 students and three members of staff are setting off on a 10k hike as part of their DofE challenge this weekend. Students have been busy planning and mapping out their route, as well as preparing their equipment and creating a check list of resources required. The hike is expected to take approximately 4 hours and will cover some steep terrain on route. Good luck to the whole team.
Company news
Update from Mercator
We are both very fortunate and proud to be in the unique position of Co-company leaders of Mercator this year. Our year 11s have begun their mock exams this week, their attitude is so impressive and their dedication and commitment are shining through. We are so incredibly proud of them and the way they are conducting themselves during this time. We have also launched the whole school Christmas hampers and stocking challenge this week in our assembly. We are really excited and very much looking forward to working on these projects as team Mercator. We are a truly kind and caring company and we are really enthusiastic about doing our bit to support our wider community and primary schools. We continue to be amazed daily by our students abilities, commitment and efforts which is evident through their attitude to learning, participation in events and clubs and KAPP badges they are being awarded.
Miss Savage & Ms Wayne – Company Leaders Coubertin
Update from Roddick
Roddick students have gone above and beyond this half term in showing off the KAPP values that we pride ourselves on. As a company we have achieved 164 (and counting) badges including a Gold award for Ellie Charman for achieving perseverance awards across multiple subjects and reports. We have 47 students on a bronze seahorse and 7 on a silver seahorse, a fantastic achievement.
We have also been well represented in the sports teams this year with 9KHU making up the majority of the basketball team and representatives from 9KHU, 9GFI and 9GEA being integral parts of the Y9 rugby team. We also have sporting superstars mixed throughout our other years and we love hearing about your successes. Our Year 11s attendance and attitude to their mocks has been superb and I hope they enjoy their well deserved rest in just over a week’s time.
Well done to everyone who has attended a club this half term and a huge thank you in advance for all your generosity in donating for the stocking and hampers, it will be truly appreciated in our local community.
Keep it up, I am so proud of you Team Roddick.
Miss Clarke – Company Leader Roddick
Department updates
PE update
Congratulations to Evie Belchamber 9GEa and Peggy-Lee Martin 8BMa who both represented Durrington High School in the South East Schools Trampoline Competition held at Worthing Leisure Centre over the weekend.
Evie finished 1st in the Years 7-9 Girls Elite Category and has now qualified for the Southern Zonal round in January 2023 held in Gillingham, Kent.
Peggy-Lee placed a very respectable 11th in the Years 7-9 Girls Intermediate category.
Well done Evie and Peggy!
Over the past 2 weeks in the Durrington PE department the basketball teams have come away with wins across the board, with every year group both boys and girls winning all of their games. The only team to pick up a loss was the year 8 girls, who were entered into the year 9 league which meant playing in a well spirited game vs the Durrington year 9s which was the one game that saw a Durrington loss this fortnight! This win for the Year 9 girls takes them into the semifinal of their league in good form and undefeated. Year 7 boys remain undefeated in their basketball league picking up a 16-10 win vs St Andrews and a 10-0 win vs TLA. Hopefully, they will maintain this form and charge their way into the semi-finals.
In football, the Year 10/11 girls progressed in the county cup getting a fantastic 5-0 victory over Bishop Luffa. The Year 7 boys are looking ahead to their county cup fixture and are hoping for success in their last competition available for them to achieve silverware this year.
In Netball the Year 11 girls secured victory against Sir Robert Woodard winning 13-7 sadly, the year 10s couldn’t match their success picking up a loss.
We look forward to seeing the results and hopefully wins build up until the Christmas break.
Computing update
Year 7s have been looking at how flow charts are used in programming computer programs and have written some complex programs using their flow charts to solve some real life problems.
The year 8s have been busy learning some textual programming, we learn the language Python at Durrington and they have done really well in getting the basics learnt and writing their first programs. It has been a joy to see the classes and hear the students’ joy when their programs run, bug free!
Our Year 9s have finished their business and IT project on making a company’s website, these look really professional and the students have had a good introduction to what business studies is like.
The year 10 students are now getting onto some more advanced concepts in Python and we have been really pleased with how fluent at the language they have become.
Our year 11s have worked hard in the run up to their mocks and we are very proud of them.
Mrs Taylor – Director of Business/Computing
DHS Clubs
Girls who code
Come and join the Y7, 8 & 9 code club to discover how you can programme your own dancing robot!
Sites update
Car parking and access
Durrington High School shares its car park with Oak Grove College, the car park gets extremely congested at both the start and end of the day. In recent weeks the number of vehicles entering the site to drop off/pick up students has increased significantly, vehicles have also been parking on double yellow lines and hatchways. The safety of our students is paramount, additional traffic increases the risk of accidents, please only drive in to the school if it is absolutely necessary. If you do need to drive on to site please do not park in the accessible bays unless needed, this ensures they are readily available for visitors who are reliant upon them.
News from the canteen
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 in the New Year!
Diary dates
– Monday 12th December – Year 11 mock exams continue
– 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)
– Friday 16th December – end of term early closure, students will be dismissed at
12.25pm
– Tuesday 3rd January – first day of the Spring Term
