Extra Curricular Activities
   

First Aid

The school has a wide range of music, physical education and other clubs. The range of clubs offered to the children varies from year to year and throughout the year.

At the time of writing we have a school choir. Many children learn to play the recorder in music groups that meet at lunchtime, playtimes and before and after school. We have string tuition from a visiting music specialist. Children in music clubs are taken to opera and ballet performances. We go to the London Symphony Orchestra’s schools concerts at the Barbican.

Art Club	Orchestra

The football and netball clubs are enthusiastically supported. In Summer there is an athletics club. There are special training clubs that prepare children for the borough sports and for swimming competitions.

There is a chess club that meets after school.

Recently, French clubs and art clubs have been started for both infants and juniors.

French Club	Netball Club

The majority of our clubs are run by school staff or volunteers. One or two clubs are run by external providers and a charge is made for these activities.

School Journey

Each year the older children go on a residential school journey for a week. The journey and the visits made during it are the focus of much of the school work for the term in which it takes place. We encourage all the Year 6 children to go on the journey.

Many of the children produce the best academic work of their primary school life as a result of their studies for the school journey.

Clifton Suspension Bridge	Symonds Yat

It gives children the opportunity to live away from home for some days and to develop increased independence before transferring to secondary school.

We notify parents of the outline of the trip many months in advance. We have a system whereby families can make regular payments in order to save for the journey. In the case of families who are unable to pay we have some limited funds available to help.

Meeting the lizard at Sion Park

Educational Visits

We try to take the children on visits as often as possible in connection with their work. Much of the best work done by children in the school has been a direct result of visits to look at primary sources of information, sites, objects and museums.

From Richmond Green to Tower Green; from the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, the school sustains a rich and varied programme of visits relevant to the work of the classroom.

All children of all ages participate in these programmes and the PTA support the cost of many of the trips.

In the time that they are at Darell we hope that the children will be taken to most major London museums and galleries, to concerts and to the theatre. Sometimes it is more appropriate to invite performers into the school and we have had many memorable recitals, plays and talks.