A DUMPTON YEAR A YEARLY REVIEW FROM DUMPTON SCHOOL 2017/18 Also Inside... Music News | Sporting News | Visiting Speakers | School Trips | Fundraising From Seed to Plough to Plate – The Prep School Allotment In our connected world everything is a simple click away, and children like to see instant results. However, they also have a natural interest in the living world, love being outside – and get surprisingly motivated by digging, weeding, planting and harvesting… The Dumpton allotments were put in place over ten years ago. There are nine 10m x 5m raised beds, now housing ducks, a greenhouse Contents and a polytunnel, along with a variety of planting areas, all A DUMPTON YEAR surrounded by an 8 foot deer fence. The area is open for use by all 330 children from the Nursery to Year 8 - either on the curriculum or in free time. The allotments provide a great opportunity for outdoor A yearly review of the activities and achievements study in science through the school, but are also the focus of a number of growing projects each year. of both pupils and staff here at Dumpton School. For example, recycled plastic raised beds give pupils free rein to be creative in a clearly defined space. There is also the Year 3 Potato Our School 03 Challenge. Each child is given one seed potato, and in groups of Nursery and Pre-Prep 14 three the pupils weigh these, plant them in raised tyres, and tend to them through the Summer Term. Towards the end of term comes Years 3-6 26 the harvest, the weighing of produce and the calculation of the % Year 7 & 8 40 increase in mass! Sport 50 Then there is the usual array of pupil-centred and pupil-run projects, growing a huge variety of herbs, beans, sweetcorn, pumpkins, courgettes and sunflowers, and managing the grapevines, fruit trees and berries. As many as 60 pupils descend on the area at lunchtime each day, working in groups to prepare the land, and bring on some impressive specimens. Most of the produce is harvested by the pupils and taken home - although we have been known to supplement the kitchens if we have a glut of butternut squashes, or use the apples and blackberries to make crumble in the Food Technology Department. Dumpton School Deans Grove House Life on the Prep School allotment builds a great sense of teamwork - with a subliminal message that patience and hardwork will eventually Wimborne, Dorset, BH21 7AF bring rewards. At the same time, children are naturally competitive, and will rise to any challenge, whether it is growing the longest, the T 01202 883818 heaviest, the biggest or the tallest. F 01202 848760 E [email protected] For some, including the Headmaster, the allotments are just a delightful haven in a very busy day … www.dumpton.com Andrew Browning Headmaster REMEMBRANCE DAY After a very informative assembly on one hundred years Our School of the War Graves Commission from 7P earlier in the week, Year 8 pupils led our Remembrance Day Service on Friday 10 November. The Staff & Senior Choir sang a INDIA DAY beautiful anthem in assembly and we then observed two Thank you to all the parents and pupils who supported our minutes’ silence at 11 am, when pupils in the Prep School India-themed Mufti Day in early May, raising funds for the placed wreaths of poppies by the War Memorial. Niamh sponsorship of our pupil at Awake Mercy Children’s Home Thompson (Year 8) played the Last Post and Reveille. It in Tamil Nadu, helping them to lift at least one child out of was a very moving experience for all. poverty. The costumes were a delight to see and the special curry lunch from Steph and her team was delicious! THIRD GREEN FLAG FOR DUMPTON! Eco-Schools is a global programme engaging millions of NATHAN MYHRVOLD children across 64 countries, making it the largest schools VISITS DUMPTON programme in the world. For more than 20 years, We were delighted to welcome Nathan Myhrvold to Eco-Schools has been empowering children to drive change Dumpton in January. Formerly Chief Technology Officer at and improve both their environmental awareness and school Microsoft, Mr Myhrvold led the development of Windows environment. The Eco-Schools movement awards bronze, software and has an international reputation in the field silver and gold awards (and the prestigious Green Flag) to of IT. He is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures and the schools based on a seven step process, observing a strict principal author of the six volume, set of criteria. Green Flag renewals must then be formally 2,400 page ‘Modernist Cuisine’ applied for every two years, with new initiatives clearly cookbook. During the morning, he outlined and supported. gave a talk to Year 8 pupils and the ICT Department, touching on his Over the past few years, pupils at Dumpton have undertaken many current interests, including a huge range of projects, including forming their own Eco- contemporary cooking, the Committee, Tree Planting, Paper Police, Switch-Off Fortnight, provision of safer nuclear power Fairtrade Week, Bee-Keeping, Biodiesel Production and all and international disease the wonderful growing projects on the allotments. Thanks control – a fascinating to all this hard work under the watchful eye of Mrs Cox, a eclectic mix! recent inspection in September from the Eco-Schools team has seen Dumpton awarded its third consecutive Green Flag – an amazing achievement, of which they should all be rightly proud. Very well done to all! 4 A DUMPTON YEAR TEAM BATH AND ENGLAND NETBALL STAR VISITS DUMPTON ACCLAIMED AUTHOR GERVASE PHINN It was a pleasure to welcome England Netball VISITS DUMPTON SCHOOL International and Team Bath Super League star Eboni Beckford-Chambers to Dumpton in We were delighted to welcome early January. As well as being an England and Gervase Phinn, the well-known Team Bath netball player, Eboni was training for the Quad Series (Eng/Aus/NZ/S Africa), the author and public speaker, to school Commonwealth Games in Australia in April in early January. where her team won gold, and for Team Bath in the Super League. Eboni led a Prep School Mr Phinn is famous for his poetry, children’s books and stories from his Assembly, talking about her career in sport, but time as a schools’ inspector which are captured in the book, ‘The Other Side also the importance of education; she inspired of the Dales’. He led a very entertaining Prep School Assembly and then BOOK the pupils with her enthusiasm and delightful spent an hour with Year 4 conducting a Poetry Workshop. After entertaining personality – a truly inspirational role-model! the English Department at lunch, he returned to read ‘Story’ to the junior Book Week & WEEK Eboni then led training sessions for all girls from years in the afternoon. Not only generous with his time, he also left a big pile Year 3 to Year 8 and the staff too. of his books for the School Library – and he has promised to return again in Book in a Box the future. We are all hugely grateful. Competition After Book Week was unavoidably disrupted DUMPTON SCHOOL – SOUTH due to the snow, the Book Fair and competitions drew to a close a little later than WEST ENVIRONMENTAL YOUTH originally planned! There were 43 amazing AWARD WINNERS Book in a Box entrants this year, so competition This year Dumpton has won the prestigious South West of England was fierce. The winners were: Evie Oliver, Environmental Youth Award, having already won the Dorset prize. Sabela Steele Velazquez, Alice French, Amelie Children from six schools, all county winners from Cornwall, Devon, Haskell, Zac James, Zoe Humphries and Harry Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, gathered together at the Phinn. We also had some lovely photos, both Royal Bath and West Show on Friday 1 June to await the final result. The adventurous and cosy, sent in for the Photo committee of judges were particularly impressed by the Dumpton pupils Competition – the winners were as follows: working independently on the extensive school allotments, along with a Austin Redwood, Gabriel Dewsbury, Pippa wide range of eco-schemes around the school. Mr Browning said ‘I am Rielly, Lucy Stephenson and Lily Visser. The delighted that so many pupils have been involved with the various eco- winners from both competitions chose their projects. They have built an impressive environmental awareness, and it is prizes – a book from the Book Fair. Well done lovely that all their hard work has been recognised in this way.’ to everyone who entered. 6 A DUMPTON YEAR CHRISTMAS SHOEBOXES Dumpton pupils have always enjoyed making up Christmas shoeboxes of presents for children who would otherwise receive little. Managed by the Rotary Club, the boxes are sent overseas to children in need. Our thanks to everyone who contributed to this worthy scheme; an impressive pyramid of 67 brightly wrapped shoeboxes were flown to orphanages in distant lands in time for Christmas. Jeans for Genes The children raised £291.85 for this worthy cause DUMPTON FUNDRAISING DUMPTON in October CHARITY CHILDREN IN NEED A huge well done to everyone involved in our Children in Need Afternoon at school. While Mr Moulton marshalled the Harvest Festival troops, the whole event was driven by pupils from all levels in the school, putting their own ideas into practice. Thank you to the parents and families for providing the 50p, 20p and 10p pieces and as well as assisting their children, which fuelled the The Pre-Prep and Prep School celebrated Harvest whole process. Many thanks should also go to Dumpton parent Sam Dean and her big team of parent helpers, who took on the recycled toy stall and were kept very busy throughout.