College Newsletter 12-09-2022

September 12th 2022

Newsletter from the Head

Dear Parents and Guardians

As the news of the passing of the late Queen Elizabeth sinks in, I take a moment of reflection. This special community, like so many others around the world, have come together in this most turbulent of times and our pupils have been simply outstanding: I will never forget their response on Friday morning in our service as they stood, with heads bowed, listening to the hauntingly beautiful National Anthem. The messages of condolence in our books will leave a lasting legacy of their response to this most significant moment in history. To that end, it has been a most remarkable start to a new term. Understandably, we have been quiet on other forms of communication and social media channels as a mark of respect. However, there has been a great deal of activity going on at the College outwith this and the purpose of this newsletter is to impart some important information. Ordinarily our newsletters will be published on a Friday and we will resume this pattern from the end of this week.

Bank Holiday

As announced yesterday, we will be acknowledging Monday 19 September as a Bank Holiday. To that end, we will not expect day pupils to attend College or for weekly boarders to return until Monday evening. Boarders who remain with us at the weekend will have a full day scheduled here which will include an opportunity to watch the funeral as well as engaging in a number of on-campus activities. Current events scheduled in the calendar for this day have been postponed.

Traffic in the Village

We are committed to working with the residents of Denstone village to ensure the impact of our traffic is kept to a minimum. We acknowledge that we will always have peak transport time and this is particularly acute at certain times of the week. If it is at all possible and practical, we would welcome further applications for children to use our extensive bus network where possible – details of which can be found on our website. If you are driving through the village, we ask that you respect road markings, speed signs and are aware of pedestrians where there is no pavement.

Filming at College

Next week we are embarking on an ambitious new marketing campaign through the very creative and rather exciting company, Affixius. To that end, we are expecting some disruption at school as the camera team try to capture what it means to be a Denstonian. At times, almost all the school will be involved in some filming work in some of the bigger scenes of Chapel and assembly unless you have already requested their exemption from our media outlets. Parents of those pupils who have more involvement will be contacted separately regarding the permission to use their images.

Exeats

Our first exeat of the term falls from Friday 23 - Sunday 25 September. At this time, the College will be closing to all pupils and staff. To that end, if you are based in the UK and your child wishes to invite home a child who may be based overseas, please do orchestrate as you see fit; giving all of our children a break from the campus is important and what better way to do this than to spend time with a family.

Denstone Parents Events

Denstone Parents Events committee welcome everyone back to this new academic year, and look forward to your continued support.

AGM: Our first meet of this academic year is Monday 12 September at 7.00pm in the Cricket Pavilion (refreshments will be provided)

Christmas Fair "Save the Date": We are pleased to announce the return of our Christmas Fair on Saturday 19 November.

2019 was the last time we were able to host and with many of the stallholders re booked, we endeavour to create another successful event this year.

If you are interested in attending the AGM on 12 September and /or volunteer with the arrangements for the Christmas Fair, we would love to hear from you.

Please contact us at [email protected]

New Parents’ Social Evening

A reminder that our New Parents’ Social Evening takes place in the School Room (the College theatre) between 6.00pm and 7.00pm on Thursday 22 September. This event gives you an opportunity to meet and to get to know teaching staff at the College; it also gives you a chance to meet other new parents.

Day pupils are welcome to stay in school and they may go to school supper, along with any brothers and sisters who are members of the school. Younger siblings are also welcome and can stay with parents in the School Room.

We would appreciate it if you could book tickets by Sunday 18 September, using the URL code https://www.trybooking.co.uk/BVDW and give the following information:

Names and numbers of those attending
Whether your child will be staying for supper at Denstone.
Whether any additional Denstonian sibling will be staying for supper.

If you have any further questions about the event, please feel free to email Miss Plewes at [email protected]

GDPR

At Denstone College, we are strongly committed to the privacy of your personal data and any information that we have collected or may collect in the future will be used in accordance with the data protection regulations.

With recent updates as well as upgraded systems, we wanted to use this time to ensure that you are happy with the way Denstone College can contact you.

Please click the link below to confirm your preferences:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=NAeLEtDGl0mVZVLhGoHK

PYwxj-9pnUtLly5e0Zx5du1UNDdEV1c2MVpSVDZDWkZLRzAxMTBURERZQy4u

If you have any questions regarding communications, please do let us know at [email protected].

Individual Music Lessons

Music lessons commence on Monday 12 September. Timetables have now been published, and parents of new pupils will have received communications regarding lessons and timetabling. If you have not received these communications, please contact the Director of Music, Mr Wynell-Mayow, at [email protected], who will be happy to assist further.

Please note that we are happy to start music lessons for pupils at any point during the year, and are also able to offer taster lessons for those interested in taking up lessons.

Communications Available on the Parent Portal

The following letters can be found on the Parent Portal by visiting https://parents.denstonecollege.org