Throughout this month, students and staff have been raising awareness of men’s health issues including prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men’s suicide. The charity Movember encourages people to either grow a moustache, to move more or to host an event in order to start conversations with family and friends. Men are less likely to seek help for both physical and mental ill health, leading to worse outcomes. This serious message behind the light hearted nature of Movember

DHSB Achieves the Gold Green Tree School Award We are delighted to announce that DHSB has been awarded the Gold Green Tree School Award by the Woodland Trust - a fantastic achievement that reflects the creativity, commitment, and environmental leadership of our students and staff. This milestone follows the hard work celebrated in our previous update, where Year 9 students made an impressive push towards Silver. Since then, our whole school community has continued to embrac

This week Mrs Mintoft and Mr Liddington took three students to London with a special invitation from the Western Front Association. Oliver (Year 10), completed a research project on the DHSB Old Boys who died during WW1. Oliver's project was one of the winners of a special award that enabled him and two others to join the Remembrance day parade at the Cenotaph on Tuesday. The three boys, Luke (Year 12), Lewis (Year 11) and Oliver laid wreaths at Victoria Station for the Unkno

DHSB Year 9 Lead the Way in the Green Tree Schools Award This week, our Year 9 students have been on a real drive to promote trees across the school and beyond as part of the Woodland Trust’s Green Tree Schools Award. Through a range of creative and cross-curricular activities, they’ve helped DHSB achieve the SILVER Green Tree School Award. They now have their sights firmly set on achieving Gold and Platinum in the months ahead. To make the most of each teacher’s expertise, c

Fundraising for our House Charities commenced today with our first Mufti Day of the academic year. Last year over £7000 was generated for our House Charities through Mufti Day donations and sales at our Summer Festival. You can find full details of all the local, national and international charities each House supports by visiting the House dashboards on our website. This year instead of asking students to bring in a £1 donation on each mufti day, we're asking for a one off c

Our new House Leadership team We are delighted to announce the appointment of our new House Captains for the academic year. With 34 outstanding applications for just 14 positions, the selection process was highly competitive. The calibre of applicants this year was exceptional, making the final decisions incredibly tough for staff. After much deliberation, we are proud to introduce our new House Leadership team: Attenborough – Toby and Harshil Fleming – Vesan and Khushaal Joh

The DHSB School Captain for the coming year is Joshua (12ESM). I was overwhelmed by the number of students who applied and impressed by the strength of the candidates. However, there is only one position and Joshua stood out. I am delighted that he has accepted the post and I am sure he will be very successful in his new leadership role. Our retiring School Captain William, will be providing support to Joshua over the next few weeks. William said, "Josh really blew us all awa

Celebrating Our Green Tree Schools Bronze Award! We are delighted to announce that our school has been awarded the Bronze Green Tree Schools Award by the Woodland Trust! This achievement recognises the commitment of both students and staff to caring for the environment and promoting sustainability across our school community. The students have been taking part in nature-based activities and learning more about how we can protect our planet, our students have shown fantastic e

It has been such a busy start to our new academic year that we are still trying to catch up on all of the amazing events that happened over the summer holidays! I want to start the blog this week by featuring some of these: Costa Rica 2025 At 1am on the last day of the summer term, 17 DHSB students left Plymouth bound for London Heathrow. Meeting up with our travelling companions from Winchester at the airport, Team Clavel departed (after a delay for a new plane!) for San Jos

Thank you to all students, families, trustees and staff who supported our Speech Day celebration events on Wednesday. This year's Speech Day events were held in a marquee on the site on the 80th anniversary of DHSB moving into the part of the current school grounds which were formerly Stoke Military Hospital. In the afternoon we welcomed our former Year 7 to 10 students and their families with drinks on their arrival served by our prefects under the guidance of Mrs Cunningham

Welcome back and welcome to DHSB Year 7 and Year 12 I hope that you all enjoyed some time together as a family over the summer. It has been a real joy seeing all of our students and staff over the last couple of days; everyone has returned in good spirits and it has been lovely to hear the chatter and laughter filling the school site. For our new students arriving in Year 7 and in Year 12 it has been great to welcome them into our school community as they embark on their jour

We have loved welcoming back so many students to DHSB this morning to celebrate their GCSE results and to provide advice and guidance on...

It has been a lovely morning as we welcomed back pupils to celebrate their successes with friends, family and teaching staff and to...

School Development Plan As this academic year draws to a close I’d like to share with you the progress we’ve made towards the school development priorities during the final term. Please take a moment to read through our progress towards school priorities by following this link. Image courtesy of Mrs McGowan Farewell and thank you On Tuesday, staff said farewell to Simon Coombes who is retiring after 33 years at DHSB. (He managed to miss the last day of term by taking a group

DHSB Summer Festival 2025 The DHSB Summer Festival 2025 was a vibrant, sun-filled celebration that brought the school community together for an afternoon of fun and fundraising. The event featured an exciting mix of activities, from a competitive Football Tournament and Live Music performances by our incredibly talented student musicians, to classic games like Dodgeball, Darts, and Golf. Students also enjoyed trying their luck at Shut the Box, Prize Pong, Donut Drop, and the

Careers Fair 2025 Yesterday, the colonnade at DHSB came alive with opportunity, inspiration, and sunshine as we hosted our annual Careers Fair - a standout event in our calendar and a true celebration of future pathways. We were proud to welcome 41 providers, employers, and educational institutions from across the South West and beyond, each offering valuable insight, advice, and interactive experiences to our students. From the excitement of the Plymouth Citybus to the eye-c

Curriculum Enrichment Week 2025 Curriculum Enrichment Week (CEW) saw students in Years 8 to 10 take part in activities they may not previously have experienced and concentrated on creating opportunities for them to extend their learning through a selection of artistic, sporting, educational and adventurous attractions. They were encouraged to take on new personal challenges, develop teamwork, communication and social skills, whilst having fun. Students learnt correct finger p

Students wow at Summer Evening Recital On Thursday, we were treated to a wonderful evening of music at St Pancras Church. The event, organised by Mrs Luing-Holmes, featured prestigious performances from our higher level classical and musical instrumentalists, our Brass Group, Choir and Tiny Orchestra supported by Kathryn Goode, who accompanied a few of the students on the piano, Tony Hollick who supported the brass group and Dawn Ashby and Mark Stokesbury supported by playing

Big Congratulations to our PTFA Art Competition Winners First place goes to Theo (11F) for his stunning photo titled ‘Sunrise at DHSB.’ Second place goes to Dylan (12JN) for his wonderful dog photo and third place to Neythen (7S) for his stunning vista image. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive Amazon vouchers. The standard was so high that we couldn’t just have three winners so Miss Hicks selected five more highly commended ones who will receive a chocolate trea

“Changing lives and communities for the better” As it is National Volunteers Week, we would like to take the opportunity to celebrate our DofE students who have spent an amazing 3107 hours between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, serving their community. We’re delighted to share with you a certificate we received from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to celebrate our students' volunteering and impact for 2024/25. To do their DofE, young people aged 14-24 volunteer for a cause of