News

New Kit Sponsorship

New Kit Sponsorship

It was a pleasure to meet Lee and Gemma Carrington today who have kindly sponsored our new sports kit. Their very generous donation, coupled with that from Tim Page of Innovative Foods has enabled the school to purchase the shirts, shorts and socks (chosen by our students) as modelled above.

We are very grateful for this support and look forward to putting the new kit to good use at various sporting events throughout the years to come.

Many thanks

Derrymount School

M4 Master Chefs

After a year of honing their skills on a Monday morning in the kitchen, students in M4 have today waited on their parents and carers, preparing a two course lunch from scratch.

Parents and carers left satisfied, having enjoyed a variety of meals, including Southern Fried chicken, BBQ pulled pork pizza, chocolate fudge cake and Oreo cheesecake.

Thank goodness we have a dishwasher!!

Horse Riding

Recently pupils at Derrymount School went horse riding

A trip to the House of Commons

Heath did his best Ed Miliband impression today in Parliament when he attended a Greenpeace event in the Members’ Dining Room. At the event, Greenpeace launched their latest scientific research findings about the state of the UK rivers. Not only did Heath enjoy the experience of visiting the House of Commons, but he got to meet TV presenter (and all-round nice guy) Steve Backshall.

Giddy up, horsey!

Pupils from our lower school had an afternoon out at a local riding stable.

Most pupils on the visit had never been on a horse before so this was a new experience for them. They were very nervous at first but once they were sat on the horses their whole demeanour changed and they became relaxed, calm and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They were shown how to sit properly and hold the reins we then went out into the local wooded area and had a lovely slow ride.

By the end of the lesson pupils were talking to the horses and were smiling. They were able to tell us about their experience and how much they liked their horse. They all said it was the best time ever and were looking forward to returning next week.

Piccies – click to enlarge the image slider

Can the Gryff-dog learn new tricks?

In Dog Care today, Gryff began his agility training in the school quad.

We started with the tunnel using the command ‘tunnel’ – which Gryff took to quite quickly.

Then we introduced him to the jump using the command ‘over’. The students learned how rushing to push the bar up too quickly resulted in him taking the easier ‘limbo’ route, but they worked hard to correct him.

Finally, we started the learning progression for the tricky ‘weave’ obstacle but we didn’t push Gryff too much as he had worked hard this morning and we didn’t want to overload him. It’s really important to make learning and training fun forGryff.

Well done everyone, especially Gryff.

Summer 19 Residential

9 Students, 3 staff, 2 countries, lots of fun, very little sleep…

Beamish, Berwick, Edinburgh, Holy Island… Dooddle-do, that was fun!

Jerry Green Dog Rescue Centre Visits 2018/2019

Gryff with Martina and some of the Dog Care students.

For the best part of a year, Martina Martin from Jerry Green Dog Rescue in Nottinghamshire, has been kindly visiting our Friday Dog Care option group to share her knowledge and experience of dogs and the working life of a centre manager. Her visits are always interesting and enlightening – today we learned how dog owners’ behaviours can influence their dogs’ behaviours, how to refine a dog’s recall performance and what you can learn from a dog by looking at its poops!

Gryff, our resident school therapy dog – and an ex-Jerry Green rescue dog – is always a topic of conversation, and it was lovely to hear Martina talk about how she has seen Gryff develop over the months since we have had him. Martina also commented on just how knowledgeable the Dog Care students (6 of them in total) have become since studying for their Professional Dog Walker qualification this year. The group are genuinely passionate about dogs and work really hard to develop their understanding dogs and their behaviours.

So, thank you Martina, well done Dog Care students and of course, ‘good boy’ Gryff… you deserve a tasty treat or two for your progress this year.