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They are also looking forward to their PGL at home and away in a few weeks time and we are looking forward to hearing all about their adventures when they return.

This week has been busy with a number of trips and events adding depth to the connected curriculum and bringing learning alive.

Year 3 took the short walk to Manchester Drive allotments where the children learnt about growth and sustainability. This was linked to their recent learning in class and they loved learning the process of growing our own fruit and vegetables.

On Thursday, our year 1 children from Puffin and Penguin class were thrilled to have their first ever school trip! They excitedly boarded their bus for the journey to the seafront and Southchurch Park where they played traditional games, took turns in the playground and had lots of fun on the beach!

Children also attended a rehearsal for the Junior Music Festival at the Leigh Wesley Methodist Church with other primary schools from the area and are excited for their performance on the 12th June, hitting the stage at the Cliffs Pavilion. They have been learning some classic hits and the dance moves for ‘Proud Mary’ have been perfected! We can’t wait to see them perform in a couple of weeks.

We love that past children return to Darlinghurst to visit or for their work experience. They have rotated their way around the academy and Mr Felton was thrilled to discover that some continue their love of sports and learning in secondary and that they want to experience teaching as part of their career development.

I wish you a restful break ahead of a busy final half term!

As always, enjoy your family time together. I will now hand you over to Mr Blewett!

Mrs Nicholls

Dear parents and carers,

With the permission of Mrs Nicholls, it is PE Teacher to Principal today!

I am delighted to write this week’s Keeping in Touch with a special focus on PE. Later in Keeping in Touch you will find Mr Felton’s sports review of the half term, but for now….where has this half term gone? It only feels like yesterday that we were teaching the children about their sprint starts, javelin throw technique and at the same time trying to stop them from jumping the whole length of the long jump pit!

The children have been working incredibly hard in their PE lesson as we moved into the athletics and summer sports season. With a lot of determination, our children have taken to all thing’s athletics (even the long-distance running!)

Children in all year groups have experienced a couple of the events that they may or may not be doing in Sports Day! With excitement growing around the children around Sports Day, we reminded the children about having the same-coloured top as their house team. They must also have plenty of water to drink, as we expect it to be a hot one!

The competition calendar has been action packed with 3 Quad Kids Athletics competitions, a Dance Festival, Football competition and Rounders all in 5 weeks! As always, the children’s confidence shone throughout all competitions, coming back to school with incredible performances to share to their class and in Mrs Nicholls office.

We kick off Summer 2 with Cricket and Borough Sports which we know the children are all excited for!

A massive thank you goes to all our children when it comes to Borough Sports. This year we have found it difficult to pick the team and that is purely down to the hard work that every single child is putting into their PE lessons, to push each other to get the best results they can!

The Cricket team have been putting their skills to the test on Friday after school as they’ve had specialised coaching from Mrs Grant’s husband, Kev! (Who is a cricket expert). The children have really enjoyed getting the tips and tricks from Kev and are keen to put them into action as we take on 14 other schools in the annual competition when we return after half term!

Moving on to our Dance group, the ‘Darlinghurst Darlings’. Words can’t describe how proud we are of them, they were first on stage and opened the annual Dance Festival, the children threw their shapes! (All synchronised of course). If you haven’t already, please check out their performance on the school Instagram page! A special mention goes to Miss Pearce and Miss Jennings who have guided the troop through weekly lunchtime sessions making sure their shapes are being thrown with elegance and pride.

That is a wrap for an extremely busy half term in PE at Darlinghurst! We can’t stress enough the importance of PE here at school, the importance it has on having a healthy and active body, enhancing happiness through teamwork and developing lifelong habits.

Lastly, it’s a huge shame we got to see Tottenham lift a trophy this week, but we can’t win everything (Chelsea fan here). However, it was amazing to see our local club Southend United reach the Play-off final at Wembley, I hope to see some of you there waving your blue and white flags.

As always, have a fantastic half term, stay safe, start every day with a smile and make sure you play lots of sport!

Mr Blewett

Next term will be even busier in regard to all things sport with our KS1 and KS2 Borough Sports Squads, Cricket team and even our archery teams all in action as well as our amazing Sports Days to look forward to. We can’t wait!! Go team Darlinghurst.

Year 5 – Author event

Year 5 had a great author event hosted by Children’s author Phil Earle last Monday.

He explained the importance of reading regularly, whatever it may be. Whether it was fiction, non-fiction, magazines, comics or graphic novels as long as you enjoyed what you were reading.

Phil explained some of his influences and inspirations for his books; especially for his book ‘When the Sky Falls’. Towards the end of the meeting he then took questions from children such as;

What was his favourite book?

How does he come up with the ideas for characters and stories?

Does he have any new books coming out soon?

The children were engaged through the meeting and hopefully will be inspired to read regularly and write more.

Thank you, Phil Earle, for your inspirational meeting. And thank you Year 5 for listening and engaging so well.