From 14 – 18 November, The Dorcan Academy enjoyed participating in the 15^th Swindon Youth Festival of Literature. On Monday 50 of our students visited the Wyvern Theatre to see the fantastic football writer Matt Oldfield.  Later in the week, we welcomed our partner Primary schools to Dorcan to see the fantastically lively performance by author Steve Cole who kept us all entertained with his ukulele-filled show and on Thursday award-winning author Christopher Edge enthralled year 8’s with an Escape Room extravagance. The week was rounded off with the poet Ash Dickinson encouraging our year 7’s to find their inner poet and a triumphant third place for our book quiz team at the Inter-School book quiz!

Thank you too to Kate Murphy, who organised the festival again on behalf of the Swindon schools. We are so lucky to have such an amazing librarian who enables our students to experience such unforgettable opportunities.

Year 9 artists have been exploring compositional abstraction within architecture. We are so impressed with these outcomes that we had to share them! Some of these pieces will be printed onto canvas and displayed around the school. Well done to all!

Local businesses support The Dorcan Academy sports teams:

Dorcan Academy former students, Ashely Kane (Moovahome) and Ben Fitzgibbon (Ben Fitzgibbon Property Sales), have joined forces with Adam Westall at Silverback, to provide the whole school with brand new sports kits. Ashley and Ben kindly donated time and funds to make this happen for our school. Both were instrumental in design, planning and organisation of the whole operation. These beautiful new sports tops will ensure we look the part whilst representing our wonderful school.

Ashley and Ben both expressed how proud they were to be back visiting the Academy. Ashley said he was delighted to be able to team up and plan and provide for his former school. Ben also took to social media to tell everyone what a good day it was.

Mr Allen, who kindly gave up his time to organise everything for the teams said “We at The Dorcan Academy would like to share our deepest gratitude for these extremely generous local businesses. We are truly thankful for everything they have done. The generosity from them is overwhelming, and their support is invaluable. This makes every opportunity to represent the school an even more fulfilling one. In some way or another, no matter how big or small you’re changing lives and making a difference. Thank you. With finances in education being so stringent we are extremely grateful to find sponsorship that benefits the lives of our young people. If there are any other generous businesses locally that would like to offer support, we would be extremely grateful to hear from you!”

Our year 11 GCSE music students had the fantastic opportunity to watch the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra live in concert. The orchestra performed a variety of pieces including the GCSE set work “Badinerie” by Bach. They had a wonderful trip and were model Dorcan students throughout. 

Miss Durston

Year 7 and 8 students, and their coach Lewis in Year 11, have shown amazing commitment to Rugby extra-curricular club this term, turning up in all weathers with enthusiasm and resilience. Well done lads!

Mr Shorey

On 14 October 2022 a selected group of students were invited to undertake external training alongside a company called One Goal, whose aim is to support the Mental Wellbeing of young people. One Goal supplies training programmes for students of all years around the topic of Mental Health across the country, building an army of Mental Health Champions.

Twenty-five students from years 7 to 10 spent a whole day exploring Mental Health alongside Mrs Morley. Together they learnt how to recognise poor mental health and the symptoms that might be displayed by someone struggling to cope. Practical techniques to calm a busy mind were modelled and the students were able to experience the benefits of such actions on themselves.

Over half term all students were set further online training which allows them to put into practice the knowledge they have learnt. This training is to be completed before they are fully recognised as Mental Health Champions and receive their full qualification. As expected, students have readily accepted this additional study and I know Mrs Morley is excited to present their final certification on our return to school.

Once all students have gained their certification as Mental Health Champions the work will really begin. The students have many plans of how to raise the awareness of Mental Health issues amongst their peers as well as how to provide opportunities of support to them.

The Mental Health Champions will strive to support and strengthen the work already undertaken by staff, in fostering healthy minds for all young people at The Dorcan Academy.

Mrs Morley

Congratulations to Kingfisher House who achieved the most Character counters in term 1 with an impressive 316 counters. This morning Mrs Burnett and the Deputy Head students for Kingfisher received the Character Counter trophy.

Mr Tanner