Dear Families,

Firstly apologies for the lack of parentmail last week – it was written but disappeared! I’m sure it was down to human error… 😊

I know I had started by apologising about the cancellation of the Family Fun Day. It ended up being the right decision as it rained in Mansfield from midday!

This week in school we have welcomed Jas, a world champion skier, who joined us with SkiVenture to talk about her experiences and show us her GOLD MEDAL! Our Dawn House School ski group and another school who are just starting their skiing journey, are doing some preparation activities which you will see late on the website, as I type!

We are currently looking for sponsors for our hoodies and Ski jackets, so we look great out there on the slopes! If you do have any ideas about this, please give me a call!

Students also went out this week to do some geography field work – it was amazing to hear what they knew already and they certainly developed some new skills out in Sherwood Forest. Read more here:

https://www.dawnhouseschool.org.uk/2025/09/25/students-investigate-human-impact-at-sherwood-forest/

Autism Training Sessions

Sharon Herriott, our art therapist, attended some training about sensory processing and overwhelm for autistic people hosted by these https://neurodiversetraining.org/

It was £5 for an hours training and she can’t recommend enough. ‘Packed full of information , led by an autistic trainer, really informative and well presented’ Sounds really interesting, thank you Sharon.

They do lots of these brief seminars, so well worth a look if you are interested.

Dyslexia Awareness Session

Staff took part in a Dyslexia Awareness session as part of their INSET training at the beginning of September. We learned that:

• 5 to 10% of children experience dyslexic type difficulties
• the ratio of people having dyslexia is 4 males to 1 female
• Dyslexia primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling
• it can affect sound awareness. verbal memory and verbal processing speed
• there is no one dyslexia “test” as identifying dyslexia involves gathering information over time
• we need to provide emotional help for children and people with dyslexia (see the Jamie Oliver “Bing” video below)

Jamie Oliver is campaigning for better support for children, especially when they start school (did you know he dictated his recipe books !)

• a child with dyslexia needs lots of visual support and short instructions. They may also find it difficult to organise themselves.
• resources such as coloured overlays and different coloured font for each chunk of text is helpful, not only to students with dyslexia, but those without

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11r7CFlK2sc&feature=youtu.be This video shows information about dyslexia (3 minutes long).

Bing Videos   This video shows the emotional impact of living with dyslexia (1.5 minutes long).

Staff have also been part on planning for the future of dawn House School, so I’d like you to take part in the same activity please, as follows…

Ideal world, money no object … what will DHS look like in 5 years’ time? (from 2025)

In an ideal world, with no limits on funding, what would you love Dawn House School to look like in 5 years’ time?

We’d love to hear your vision!

Please take a few minutes to complete the short survey below and share your top three ideas for how we can make DHS the best it can be.

https://forms.office.com/e/cFNBgADbas

And finally,

National Teaching Assistant Day

Today we celebrate all the hard work and care that our TAs provide our young people.  If you would like to share any kind words about a colleague or general positive feedback about the work our TAs carry out in school please complete and return below – we will then follow up with a ‘shine a light’ on our TA / display in the staffroom.

https://forms.office.com/e/Nb918iWJJF

Thank you for reading,

Jenny

If your child leaves home in the morning a little unsettled and you want to quickly tell us, so we know to expect a tricky start to the day, a quick email (that we can follow up later) to the tutor and/or core team with ‘Handle with Care’ in the email title will ensure that we are aware.