13th September 2023

Today is Roald Dahl day.  An annual global celebration of his stories, characters, worlds and words.  Roald Dahl invented 500 words and character names, from the Oompa-Loompas and whizzpopping to the less well known humplecrimp, lixivate and zoonk.  Our words on Wednesday this week are some of Roald Dahl's invented words and link to our assemblies this week on having good thoughts. 

As Roald Dahl wrote in The Twits 'A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.  You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely'. 

I hope that this week you find lots of wondercrump opportunities to churgle and phizz-whizz. 

Phizz-whizzing: "If you like something or someone"

Wondercrump: "Wonderful or splendiferous"

Churgle: When you churgle, you gurgle with laughter. 

'If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other.'

Mother Teresa

This poem about belonging is a Pantoum.  A pantoum is a poem of any length, composed of four-line stanzas (a group of lines forming the basic unit in a poem) in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The last line of a pantoum is often the same as the first. 

As we embark on a new school year I want you to be yourself and not worry about having to 'fit in'.  We don't need to change to be accepted by others, as the poem says, just be yourself; you be you, and I'll be me.  Belonging doesn't require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.  Life would be boring if we were all the same.  Our differences are what makes life interesting.  Smile at someone new today, make them feel welcome, important and valuable.