Rehearsals for the Summer school show which was originally entitled “Valentine” are now intensifying as we get closer to opening night! Valentine was a working title and since January the plot has changed and been developed by staff and students and so we felt “LoveStruck” was a better title. The show now features several songs, a live band , dance numbers as well as some outstanding acting! Watch this space for ticket news as we expect to sell out very quickly!

Mr Ventura
Artistic Director

Working together with a few Year 7 Debden Students the company is now in full swing working on devising a short piece to be shown in Expressive Arts week after school on the 19^th July. The company members are enjoying learning new skills and collaborating with students from other local schools. We hope to see you in the audience at their debut performance!

Mr Ventura
Artistic Director

Silver certificates were achieved by Albina Yanko, Songyan Yu and Paullomi Khamar in Year 8 and Danny Law, Adem Emin, Billy Matthews and Alex Thomas in Year 7. Bronze certificates were achieved by George Moore, Wojciech Serwacki and Kofi Ofori in Year 8 and Alexis Harris and Jack Ewing in Year 7. Well done also to the other students who took part and narrowly missed out on certificates.

Browse the Debden Park website on your mobile device with DPHS mobile™

Debden Park’s website has gone mobile!  You can now access a mobile version of the school website from portable devices such as mobile phones, smartphones like the Blackberry and Palm Pre series and the extremely popular iPhone.  The mobile site has been designed to allow users to gain quick access to important information, links and files in mobile devices without the long wait with slow connections.

Pupils and parents are able to view up to date news, important school notices, exam information, useful links and documents and contact information - all from their handsets.

Users of more sophisticated devices with larger screens like the iPhone, may also view the full site by clicking the link at the top of the mobile homepage.

If you have any ideas or suggestions on what you wuld like to see available on the mobile site, please leave a comment to this newsthread.

Haris Duherich, Albina Yanko, Fion Tang and Songyan Yu – they really did us proud!

Students had the opportunity to hear from, and quiz Members of Parliament; Eleanor Laing and Bill Rammell. They then engaged in a debate about whether or not the voting age should be lowered to 16. This debate was filmed and can be watched by visiting;

http://www.eppingforestdc.public-i.tv/site/player/index.php?a=36763

The students involved, Abigail Endean, Daisy Morecroft, Haris Duherich, Helen Andrew, Saira Javed, Robyn Buisson, Billy Poulton, Daniel Airey and Ravi Raval, all did the school proud with their confident, articulate and mature discussion points. 

We are celebrating World Book Day this year with our own Reading Day; a day to celebrate reading and enthuse our students. We have organised a range of competitions, displays and strategies designed to inspire our students to talk  and think about the power of books. Students will watch a performance and a video podcast, they will listen to captivating extracts and be involved in a range of activities. In addition, students will have the opprtunity to buy a book for 10p or swap a book they have already read. If your child has old books at home that are finished with - please encourage him/her to bring these old books to school to swap. All students will also receive a £1 token to put towards a book of their choice (Loughton bookshop is happy to receive these tokens). Please ensure that your son/daughter brings a book to school every day, but especially on World Book Day - Thursday March 4th!

We will be using this day to launch reading initiatives throughout and beyond the school. In the future, we will be offering a book club for students and a book club for parents. Watch this space for more details!

If you have any ideas or would like to become involved in reading initiatives at school, please contact Sharon Palmer, Head of English.  Alternatively leave a comment below!

Yr 11

Bronze: Billy Moore, Galina Kocheva, Jack Dainton, Tamara Hendrick

Yr 10

Silver: Jonas Bezzbouas (Best in School)

Bronze: Tommy Fenech

Yr 9

Silver: Haris Duherich

Bronze:  Connor Wood, Reggie Clark

Well done to you all!

Firstly we had the founder of Lonely Planet: Tony Wheeler in to teach a lesson to a Y9 class about his travels. (this was as part of Teach First Week). He spoke about all the adventures he has had travelling the world and documenting it for other travellers. He had many great stories including selling his car in Afghanistan, just after he and his wife had driven it all the way from England! The students were enraptured and asked lots of interesting questions and even attempted their own bit of Lonely Planet style travel journalism.

Our second guest was Caroline Huett, and Urban Planner from Indigo Planning who came to talk our Year 10 Geography class about what Urban planning is like in practice and to run a workshop with them which involved them deciding where to put the 100 new homes needed in the Debden area. Miss Huett was impressed by their knowledge and the students gave excellent presentations.

Thank you from everyone involved in the competition to Mrs Laing and her staff for organising this worthwhile and enjoyable event. Mrs Laing will be presenting the trophies to Alex and Andrew at Debden Park High School in the near future.

The report noted that "the School offers a broad and well structured programme that offers all Year groups opportunities to develop personal and work related knowledge and skills. There is a strong emphasis on raising aspirations and enabling students to understand the pathways to achieving their ambitions..."

Furthermore the report remarked that "strong and productive links have been forged with the local FE College" and that "students have a clear understanding of the purpose and benefits of the career related activities they undertake. "

Many thanks and congratulations go to Mr Tongate for all his hard work in helping the school achieve this award.

Download the full report:

Debden Park RoQa CEG Report

Debden Park has been judged by inspectors to be an OUTSTANDING school in our most recent Ofsted inspection.

The school was awarded a score of 1 (OUTSTANDING) for the "overall effectiveness: how good is the school?".

"Debden Park High School provides an outstanding quality of education for its students. The improvement since the last inspection has been significant and much of the school’s work is now exemplary. The leadership team, led by an inspirational head teacher, have created an environment in which students enthuse about learning."

Please read the full report by clicking here

“A brother and sister, estranged for fifteen years after a mysterious necklace begins to affect Katy’s behaviour, are brought back together at the family home by the death of their father. The Critters of the woodland take over the house and Sam and Katy are once again separated to make their own way through the woods. Sam is soon cocooned and entranced by the Wax Moth, whilst Katy meets the Wild Cat of the Wet Woods. As the Wax Moth builds her army of bewitched Critters, it becomes apparent that the she desperately wants the necklace – but that this will bring terrible consequences…”

On 30th September, 40 year 7 pupils went on a trip to the Pleasance Theatre, Islington to see a devised production called ‘Way through the Woods’...

Click here to read more

Ms Raven

A hard copy will be sent out to parents this week.

Future copies of the newsletter will be posted on the website and emailed via parentmail.

Parents: If you haven’t already done so please can you give your email address to Mrs Phillips, Office Manager, 02084181214 or pphillips@debdenparkhigh.essex.sch.uk .

Should parents wish to receive future hard copies please can they contact the main school office.

We are proud of all our ex students who continue to achieve beyond Debden Park High School, some of whom have gone on to study at universities across the UK, including the most prestigious in Cambridge and Oxford.

"I would like to inform everyone of the schools excellent results and give a brief outline of progress that has been made..." Christian Cavanagh, Headteacher

SWINE FLU AND SCHOOLS – ADVICE FOR THE PUBLIC

Each nomination earns the student a ticket into the Maths Student Leader prize draw – our way of rewarding a student for their outstanding efforts.

The winner of this inaugural prize went to Year 7 student Fion Tang, who received her prize of a digital camera from Mr Ellis (Maths Team Leader) and Mr Orsborne (Head of Yr7). Congratulations to Fion, and also to all those who have been nominated as Maths Student Leaders this year.

Mr Ellis

Since Artsmark began 9 years ago, almost 10,000 awards have been made, with 1649 schools receiving the award this year.

Christian Cavanagh, Headteacher of Debden Park High School in Loughton, said:

“I’m delighted that the Arts Council has recognised Debden Park’s dynamic arts education programme. Our students have really enjoyed working with all of the professional artists who work with our school, and I’d like to thank all our staff for their hard work in achieving this award.”

Read more...

Our production of Dirty Dirty Princess by Georgia Fitch was judged to be the most imaginative and well acted version of this play and everyone involved deserves a huge round of applause.

For ticket information and the full story click here

Read More...

Click here to visit the Operation Get Green blog.