DJCS Friday Bulletin 6th July

Dates For Your Diary

• Information Evening (Applying for University / Student Finance) for Year 12 students and their parents – 6.00 pm on Tuesday 10 July, James Hall
• Sports Presentation Evening – Thursday 12 July in Caedmon Hall, College of St Hild and St Bede. Tickets (£6.00) are available from the PE department staff
• 5th Annual Durham Johnston Music Festival – 6 July (admission free). Pupils will perform their solos and compete for a trophy. Each class will have a separate adjudication.

 

Class 1             6.00 pm           grades 1-3       Whinney Hill Cup Class 2             6.45pm            grades 4-5       Crossgate Moor Cup Class 3             7.45pm            grades 6+        Durham Johnston Cup

• Music for a Summers Evening – Friday 13 July Tickets £6 available from any member of the Music Department. An evening of light entertainment in the Atrium Cafe. Ticket includes first drink and light buffet.

Battlefields Visit - Urgent Reminder

Please could parents ensure that students going on the Battlefields visit bring their passport and medical cards into school on Monday.

Mr Wilbraham

Information Evening for Year 12 Students and their Parents

This is part of the term when our year 12 students are planning their university choices. This means visits to university open days and speakers visiting school. The group pictured is of students who recently visited Oxford University.  In school we have had visitors speaking about study in Scotland, student life in London, studying at Oxford and Cambridge and on Tuesday 10th July at 6pm staff from Durham University will be in school to advise parents and students about applying to university and student finance.

Mr McArdle

Result of the Parent Governor Election

Brian Le Fevre was re-elected as a Parent Governor and will serve a further 4-year term of office.

Music

Congratulations

Congratulations to the 8 students who performed in the Monday Lunchtime Recital in the Prior’s Hall of Durham Cathedral. There were many complimentary comments and several emails saying how much people had enjoyed the music.

Reminder for parents and pupils that all musical instruments must be taken home at the end of term.

Please would parents and carers remind pupils to take their instruments home at the end of this term and please note that final lessons with Durham Music Service staff will take place next week. There will be no lessons in the last week of term.

Keyboard lessons next term

Keyboard lessons (group and individual) will be available from September. More details to follow.

Mr Holmes

Year 12 Students Take Part in 12th Anniversary Tall Ships Voyage of Achievement

Pictured are two of our year 12 students Benjamin Bartlett (left), Joshua Ryan and Jessica Meakin who set sail on Tuesday 3 July from Hartlepool. The students will spend a week taking part in a 10-night sea going adventure across the North Sea on board the 200ft tall ship STAVROS S NIARCHOS.

They are among a crew of 45 students – aged from 16 to 17 - from 20 schools across the UK taking part in the 12th Anniversary Tall Ships Youth Trust Voyage of Achievement funded by HSBC. They are sailing the 200 foot long brig up along the east coast before sailing into Portsmouth, Historic Dockyard on the afternoon of Tuesday 10 July 2012.

The voyages develop life skills, confidence and team work while on a practical level, they help the students learn first-hand about sailing, geography and weather systems. Over the past 12 years more than 550 young people have taken part in the voyages and a number have returned to work as volunteers for the Tall Ships Youth Trust charity while some have gone on to develop a career within the marine Industry or taken up sailing as a lifelong interest.

Mr McArdle

Outgrown Uniform

We are always most grateful to receive donations of outgrown uniform in good condition. If you would like to donate please leave with staff on Reception.

Year 12 Students Get A Taste of University Life

Four year 12 Chemistry/Biology students are at Durham University this week. They are carrying out real scientific research in the Chemistry laboratories and staying in Van Mildert College to get a taste of University life. This has been organised by the North East Schools Industry Partnership (NESIP) in collaboration with the Chemistry Department at the University of Durham. The two projects being carried out by Durham Johnston students are being sponsored by the Biophysical Sciences Institute and by Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies. The students will present a poster of their work to chemists from academia and industry, collect and analyse data and give an oral presentation of their work at the end of the week. They will also write a report for their sponsors which will then be submitted to the British Science Association for a Gold CREST award.”

Dr Bolton

Can you guess what this is?

The little glowing light in the bottom left is a Raspberry Pi. This is a tiny computer that costs less than £25. It is plugged in to the school network and the output is displayed for all to see on the SmartBoard. If I can get the bugs ironed out I hope to use some of these as part of the GCSE Computing course next year.

Dr Thornber

A Musical Evening

Congratulations for a fantastic performance to all involved in the Musical on Thursday 5th of July. Events were kicked off by the Key Stage 3 Drama Club in the canopied area outside with the song, ‘Summertime’, moved onto the cafe and finished up in the Hall for ‘Mr Blue Sky.’

The second half saw the Year 10 Performing Arts group produce a stunning and moving interpretation of ‘Songs for a New World.’

Drama Club

Drama Club will resume on Thursday 13th of September and Technical Theatre Club on Tuesday 11th of September. Other arts activities will be announced in September.

World Challenge 2012

14 students from Year 11/12/13 set off on Thursday evening on an adventure of a lifetime to Venezuela. During the next month the students will complete a trek taking them to the Andes and into the rainforest. Next they will help to build a water pump in a remote village before finishing their trip with a visit to Angel Falls and then the Caribbean coast. Mr Grogan and Emma Warren from World Challenge will accompany the group.

KS3 and KS4 Girls Uniform

Please remember that even during the summer term year 7 – 11 girls may not wear sheer tights or bare legs with short skirts. If a skirt is short, tights MUST be thick – we prefer 60 denier or above. It is the only way to wear a short skirt with decency in a formal setting.

From September 2012 girls may not wear stretchy skirts. They must wear woven, not skin tight fabric. We will have skirts in school for girls to wear who arrive improperly dressed.

Mrs Roberts

Year 9 Historians Visit to the DLI Museum

On Wednesday 4th July 29 year 9 students visited the Durham Light Infantry Museum. Year 9 students focus upon the Great War and the Second World War in the Spring term. As part of the visit they took part in an artefact handling session and then had a tour of the Museum. The students also had the opportunity to find out more information regarding the Victoria Cross winners that the Durham Johnston houses are named after. The students greatly enjoyed the visit and were a credit to the school. The History Department at Durham Johnston are currently working in partnership with the DLI and all of year 9 will visit in the Spring of 2013.

Mr Wilbraham

20th Edition of Inprint out soon!

The 20th edition of Inprint will be published at the end of term. Thank you to all staff and pupils who have contributed articles. In particular I would like to thank past editors Mrs Walton and Mr Wilbraham for all their support and advice. Well done everyone and long live Inprint!

Mrs Boettcher

Teams of the Week

Year 7 boys’ tennis team played some excellent tennis on Tuesday night to beat Dame Allan’s School in the Tyneside tennis final 4 – 2. Well done to Fergus Hawes, Joe Blackbourne, Richard Adair, Harrison Whitfield and Mark Lilly.

On Thursday the year7 cricket team played St Thomas More in the quarter final of the County Cup. Due to a waterlogged pitch the game was played indoors. This did not stop some excellent cricket being played and a 6 from Fergus Hawes in the penultimate over saw us win to reach the semi-final. Weather permitting this will be played next week.

Mr Hopper

National School Sports Week

To find out what pupils did on World Sport Day and during National School Sports Week please click on the following link.

National School Sports Week at Durham Johnston

Pictured below are some of the pupils who completed in the Durham Games last week. Father of Lauren Donaghy was one of the bearers chosen to carry the Olympic Torch as it made its way through the North East and brought in the torch along to the games for the pupils to see.

 

Outstanding Mathematicians

James Timmins, Cara Woods, Cameron Bain and Yelena Sheppard were champions in the County Durham Maths Team Challenge recently where they competed against 24 other teams. The pupils’ performance was outstanding! Congratulations to them all.

Mrs Cave

Gymnastics Display

Two of our pupils Emily Forsyth and Carys Ridsdale, together with fellow pupil from St Leonard’s Evie Field were invited to perform an Olympic-themed routine at the Olympic Torch Event held recently on Durham Racecourse. Pictured below are the girls performing their routine just after Matt Baker had lit the beacon.