Friday 23rd January 2026 – Dulwich Wood Primary School

Learning Journey: Global Identities

Our week at Dulwich Wood:

Reception

After discovering a mysterious paintbrush and a note in our classroom, we were excited to find a parcel containing the story ‘The Magic Paintbrush’ by Julia Donaldson. The story follows a little girl called Shen who is given a special paintbrush that brings her paintings to life, but she is warned that the magic paintbrush must only be used to help the poor. This has inspired some great discussions about the difference between what we truly need and what we simply want. Using our empathy goggles, we have been thinking and writing about what we would paint to help people who are less fortunate.

Year 1

Y1 were busy helping Astrid from the story ‘Astro Girl’ to collect information about astronauts’ lives in space. We are writing a fact file, using our imagining and making links tools to inspire other children who are dreaming about travelling to the International Space Station. It was amazing to see how all children rose to the challenge and asked questions to find out more about the topic: ‘How astronauts sleep and eat in space?’ Who knows, there might be someone from Dulwich Wood Primary who will become a space traveller one day!

Year 2

We have loved watching our seeds begin to grow, carefully looking for changes each day! We have been comparing our seeds with each other and talking about what plants need to grow.

Year 3

Y3 have been using their planning and empathy tools this week, writing in the role of Cassius and trying to convince Brutus to kill Caesar – it has all been very dramatic! We have also used our collaboration tool to role play our problem solving skills in PSHE.

Year 4

Year 4 have had an exciting week, collaborating and experimenting with electricity (Cypress) and programming in Scratch (Ash) – vice versa next week – then having a whole day of Anglo-Saxon crafting on Friday. We’ve also used our planning and perseverance tools to perfect our Shakespearean scenes, ready for performance!

Year 5

This week, Y5 finished reading The Tempest and used their making links tool to consider the key decisions made by different characters and how these choices shaped the story. In Art, they used their planning tool to sketch The Scream by Edvard Munch. Next lesson, they will begin adding oil pastel to develop colour and emotion in their work.

Year 6

Y6 have had a brilliant week, which began with a trip to the Natural History Museum as part of our Learning Journey: Global Identities. The children really enjoyed the interactive workshop, LEGO Build the Change: Save our Planet, where they had the opportunity to discuss the impacts of climate change, and then build a structure that could help the natural world to fight back.

Coming Up

NSPCC Number Day – Fri 6th Feb

Dulwich Wood Children & Family Hub

Children’s Mental Health Week

British Science Week 2026 at Dulwich Wood

Can you volunteer for British Science Week 2026?

Do you use science in your job? Can you help inspire our children about where science can take them in the future?

British Science Week is taking place between the 6-15^th March and this year’s theme is ‘Curiosity: What is your Question?’. We are looking for volunteers to bring real-life examples of STEM careers into school and answer the children’s questions about what they do at work.

‘Science’ is being treated in the broadest sense here, so we aren’t expecting you to be a scientist who works in a lab and wears a white coat. In fact, we want to help break stereotypes and offer the children an insight into how science is used in a huge variety of careers and in lots of different ways.

Are you a chef, a vet, a nurse, a pharmacist, a dentist? Do you use computers or technology? Does your job involve engineering? Do you work with nature? Any job that has a connection to science, STEM or makes use of scientific skills counts.

If you can spare a couple of hours during the week of 9^th March, or would like to find out more, please get in touch with Mr Barton: tbarton@dulwichwood.com