26th September 2025

Dear Dorchester Families,

Today has been designated National Teaching Assistant Day – a day to recognise the hard work of all those who work alongside teachers with children in the classroom and beyond to support learning. We are blessed with an amazing team of Learning Support Assistants here at Dorchester and the school simply could not operate without them. As well as supporting academic learning, they offer pastoral support, specific interventions, and therapies, and always have the best interests of our children at heart. So today provides the perfect opportunity to say a huge thank you to all of them for all they do.

Thank you TAs - you are amazing.

It was lovely to celebrate our Harvest Festival on Tuesday and to have our Reception children join the assembly and give a rousing rendition of 'Big Red Combine Harvester' as part of the service. Thank you for all the gifts you donated to the Sutton foodbank. These will be delivered soon so that they can get out to the families most in need of support.

Have a lovely weekend.

Cathy Bell
Headteacher

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Latest News

26 Sep 2025

Parents evening and book fair

Booking will open on Monday 29th September at 6pm

23 Sep 2025

Primary family support group

23 Sep 2025

Registration for support from Sutton Children's centre & family hub outreach service

Friends of Dorchester School

Keep an eye open for details of our upcoming Quiz night! Can anyone step up and beat our current champions...The 'Teacher team'?

Start thinking about who could be in your team. Ideally 6-8 people - could be a class team or a group of friends/family.

It's a night not to be missed!

https://www.peoplesfundraising.com/raffle/fods-big-summer-raffle-2025?fbclid=IwY2xjawK38SlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCaE81eHB5VVd3R2R1UktXAR444ZoxCZPHDWaQ0-5_VjR8YOCFhbIe_o0VeNwFTe0rW8EyCHBFQX4aecA9pA_aem_554dbf3qAJSRyjefCRCydw

Do you know about Your School Lottery? Dorchester Primary School is part of this fantastic lottery. This lottery has been set up specifically to raise money and make a difference for our children! It's a fantastic way to bring parents, carers, teachers, and the wider community together, in partnership with our school, and at the same time give something back. There are lots of amazing prizes to be won, your support is greatly appreciated, and we wish you good luck! To sign up or find out more information, please visit the website via this link: https://www.yourschoollottery.co.uk/lottery/school/dorchester-primary-school?fbclid=IwAR2UqkYQ4Yf79s9ZZul-tgcgLtJp9McVlXXqWutUrjklVom85O1EppaUonM

We have been made aware of an error with Amazon & eBay while using easyfundraising, please ensure that your basket is empty prior to shopping, or it will not register the use of easyfundraising.

Thank you for your continued support.

If you aren’t already, please follow us on Facebook where we keep you up to date on all things FODS! Find us at: Friends Of Dorchester School PTA

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Learning Highlights

& Peek of the Week

26 Sep 2025

Nursery: What is your favourite thing to cook in the mud kitchen?

This week the children have started to learn about our school rules. They have been learning how to be ‘Ready’ for carpet learning. They have been showing us that they can sit sensibly, use their eyes to look, their ears to listen and that they can turn their voices off when listening to...

26 Sep 2025

Reception: What are our school rules, and how do we follow them?

A definite highlight for this week was singing in Assembly! The whole of Reception sang Big, Red Combine Harvester to the whole school and their parents! Well done to all the children.

24 Sep 2025

Year 1: What do animals eat?

Our highlight of the week was adding sails to our windmills!

25 Sep 2025

Year 2: What have we learnt about materials this week?

In Science this week, we have explored how to change materials by squashing, bending, twisting or stretching. The children used a range of materials including Playdoh, fabric (cotton), paper, plastic and metal to decide whether these materials could be changed in these ways. Later in the week, we...

25 Sep 2025

What are you going to include in your story for the BBC 500 competition?

This week, Amber Class had a fantastic trip to Pizza Express. We learnt how to knead the dough to make the pizza base and what ingredients are needed to make the 'perfect margherita'. The children all had a brilliant time and were very well behaved, following the instructions...

25 Sep 2025

Which artefacts were most interesting in the workshop? Why?

This week Year 4 really enjoyed our virtual workshop looking at Roman artefacts. We were lucky enough to have replicas sent to us so that we could observe them up close and handle them!

23 Sep 2025

Year 5 - How can we keep our teacher's coffee hot?

We all know that the real hero in every classroom is the fuel that keeps every teacher going – coffee! This week's Science was a practical investigation into which material from foil, fabric and bubble wrap was the best insulator around the cup to keep the water hot. We measured the temper...

24 Sep 2025

Which feature on Sound Trap do you personally find the most interesting to utilise?

This week, children in Year 6 had their second lesson with Tom, our specialist Music Tech teacher from Sutton Music Service. These continue from their Music Tech lessons in Year 5, still using Sound Trap to create their own tracks, mixing various sounds and rhythms. We were very impressed with just...

26 Sep 2025

Magnets safety

What are the risks? Super strong magnets can rip through a child’s gut if they swallow them, causing life-threatening injuries. One eight-year-old boy died after swallowing magnets. The magnets stick together inside the body and cut off the blood supply, causing tissue to die. Childre...