Good morning everybody!
I hope that you’ve all had a lovely weekend and are ready for another week of learning either in family homes or, for some, back in school.
Following the wonderful growing transformations that you shared with me last week, I thought we’d start with another moment of awe and wonder. I hope that you can sit back and relax as we watch Mother Nature proudly share other breathtaking transformations that happen all around us every day.
Mother nature – time lapse 2015
We’re going to continue with our theme of ‘Changing Me’ this week, focusing on our very own life cycles. I know that our Year 4s are currently looking for photographs of how they looked on their first day at school compared with now, so I thought we could all join them this week and take a moment to think about how we change over time.
You may have some photographs that you could look at at home. I wonder if you can spot all the ways that you have changed physically over time?
I’ve included a few below of a little girl aged 2, 4 and 7 years old. (She was very relieved to find that at least one was in colour!) I wonder what she looks like now … ?
As we grow, we experience physical changes but we also start to think differently too. I wonder when you have a look at your photographs whether you can identify what was important to you when you were a baby and whether this is the same as what is important to you now? Has anything changed?
As babies we tend to think about ourselves a lot and what we need to stay happy – food, warmth, milk, clean nappies and so on, and if those things don’t happen quickly we might let out a bit of a squeak! But as we get older we start to think about others and the world around us more and that’s the aspect of change that we’re going to focus on this week.
In Damers we often refer to ourselves as ‘Agents of Change’ and one of the ways that we show that the children in our school are powerful agents of change is through our termly class ‘Roots and Shoots’ pledges.
I’ve included a few of my highlights from the last couple of years below, where children in our school have focused on making a positive change which affects animals, the environment or their community.
Children have planted garden areas that attract butterflies, have played an active role in supporting a local foodbank and have raised money to help animals that have been affected by forest fires.
Children have encouraged Poundbury residents to feed the birds and other local wildlife.
Children have shared their love of reading with the local community, traced the journey of their food to protect the environment and built bug hotels to provide shelter for our minibeasts.
There are many more examples of pledges from each class and so many children have contributed to the fantastic positive changes that have happened as a result of these pledges.
At the end of each school year we celebrate some of the children that have made a significant difference to their community, animals or the environment in each class through our ‘DASP Citizen’ awards.
DASP Citizens are celebrated in all of our local partnership schools and are usually voted for in each class in each DASP school. This year will be a little different, so this is where we need everyone’s help, whether at home or in school.
Between us over the next few weeks we are going to nominate our DASP Citizens. This year’s nominations are going to come from you and I would like you to share your nomination for someone in your class that you feel deserves the DASP Citizen award.
In addition this year I am going to invite your grown ups to join in too as they may wish to nominate you!
Remember what we are looking for – someone who has made a positive difference to their community (this includes their friends and their class), to animals or to the environment.
So – your task this week (children and grown ups) is to send me your nomination including;
- The name and a drawing / picture of the child that you are nominating, as well as …
- The reason why you think that they deserve the award and the difference that you think that they have made to their community, animals or the environment.
I am going to plan a slightly longer gap for this one to allow everyone time to get their nominations in, so our next Celebration Assembly will take place on Friday 3 July. Award winners will be announced following this assembly.
Have a lovely week everyone and remember the beautiful quote that we so often use in our assemblies in school when we are thinking about change and our role within it.
I can’t wait to hear your nominations!
With warm wishes
Mrs Smith 🦋