Friday 17th April 2026 – Dulwich Wood Primary School

Welcome back to the Summer Term at Dulwich Wood!

Learning Journey: Myths, Monarchs & Mayhem

Our learning at Dulwich Wood this week:

Reception

Following on from our spring explorations before the holidays, we have begun reading ‘The Extraordinary Gardener’ by Sam Boughton. Once again, we have made great use of our imagining tool to design extraordinary plants and creatures, helping Joe (the story’s main character) create a world that is less dull and ordinary. We have explored a variety of seeds, including pomegranate, beans, rice, sunflower, orange, onion and apple, and have enjoyed writing instructions for planting a seed. We have also been discussing what we need to do to help seeds thrive, using this to support our writing.

Year 1

Welcome back to the sunny Summer Term! Y1 has been using their asking questions tool to dive into our new history topic about schools in the past. It has been a fantastic week of maths learning, focusing on mass. We’ve being using our making links tool to compare the weight of different objects and used our reasoning tool to explain our answers using the new vocabulary we have learnt.

Year 2

Y2 have had a fantastic start back to school for the Summer term. They have been using their collaboration and making links tools to start comparing London in the past and present day. They have also used their perseverance tool to continue working hard on their division skills.

Year 3

Y3 have had a fabulous first week back getting straight into our new learning journey. In Literacy we used our collaboration tool to carefully dig up fossils and other treasures in preparation for reading Mary Anning’s story. We’ve used our empathy tool when discussing how to talk respectfully to different people in PSHE. In Maths, we have used our perseverance tool to tackle some tricky work on capacity and volume.

Year 4

Y4 have had a fantastic week of exploration and discovery! They took part in lively discussions about whether different materials are solids, liquids or gases, tackling some tricky examples such as slime, foam and sand with great curiosity. They have also begun an exciting new book about Tutankhamun, using their planning and collaboration tools to research and uncover fascinating facts about life in Ancient Egypt.

Year 5

Y5 have started the Summer Term by exploring our new class text ‘The Island’ in Literacy, where we have used our empathy goggles to think carefully about how we can show hospitality towards a newcomer. In History, we have begun learning about Norse mythology and used our making links tool to help us understand and connect ideas about the nine realms.

Year 6

Y6 have had a busy and exciting start to the term. We have begun our preparations for SATs week, using our perseverance and making links tools to help us build confidence and deepen our understanding across subjects. In literacy, we have started our powerful new text ‘Suffragettes: Battle for Equality’. To bring our learning to life, the boys created rules that unfairly favoured themselves, while the girls organised a small protest to challenge these laws—just as women did during the Suffrage movement. This has helped us develop a deeper understanding of equality, fairness and standing up for what is right.

Parent Survey Feedback:

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our recent parent survey. We are very grateful for your feedback, which is extremely important in helping us to continue improving our school.

We were very pleased to see that the survey highlighted a number of strengths. In particular, parents told us that children are happy at school, feel safe, and are well supported in their learning. Parents also responded positively about behaviour in the school and many said they would recommend the school to other families. We are very proud of these areas and of the positive school community we have built together.

We also carefully considered the areas where parents felt we could improve. The main areas identified were communication between school and home, and how the school responds to, and follows up on, concerns raised by parents. We take this feedback seriously and we’ve been reflecting on how well we handle concerns raised by families. We’d like to understand your experiences better. This short survey is completely anonymous and will help us improve. It should take less than 2 minutes.

Please complete the survey here!

Attendance & Punctuality at Dulwich Wood – Every Day Matters

Please read the following information about attendance and punctuality:

5 mins late every day = 3.4 days of learning lost every year
10 mins late every day = 6.9 days of learning lost every year
15 mins late every day = 10.3 days of learning lost every year
20 mins late every day = 13.8 days of learning lost every year
30 mins late every day = 20.7 days of learning lost every day

What Does My Child’s Attendance Percentage Really Mean?

Many parents don’t realise how quickly absences add up. Here’s what different attendance percentages mean in terms of days of learning lost over a school year:

Attendance Over One School Year (190 days)

Attendance %	Days Absent	Days of Learning Lost	Equivalent to
100%	0 days	0 days	Perfect attendance!
95%	9.5 days	9.5 days	Nearly 2 weeks
90%	19 days	19 days	Nearly 4 weeks
85%	28.5 days	28.5 days	Over 5 weeks
80%	38 days	38 days	Over 7 weeks
75%	47.5 days	47.5 days	Nearly half a term
70%	57 days	57 days	Over 11 weeks

Understanding Attendance Categories

✅ Good Attendance: 96-100% : Your child is getting the most out of their education and building positive habits for the future.

⚠️ Concerning: 90-95%: Your child is missing important learning. Small absences add up quickly.

🚨 Persistent Absence: Below 90%: A pupil misses 10% or more of school – equal to 1 day or more every 2 weeks. This seriously impacts learning and wellbeing.

🚨🚨 Severe Absence: Below 50%: A pupil misses 50% or more of school. This is a safeguarding concern and requires immediate support.