As we approach the end of this half term my Head’s Blog is packed full of wonderful student success stories!

UK Youth Parliament

Very well done to Sixth Form student Alizeh Abdul Rahman who has been elected as a member of the UK Youth Parliament for 2017/18.

We received this report from Sarah Harris who coordinates the elections on behalf of the Plymouth City Council.

I am pleased to announce that the successful candidates are:

Members of Youth Parliament Alizeh Abdul Rahman and George Hadjiyiannakis

Deputy Members of Youth Parliament Seb Irving de Andrés and Michelle Clancy

They will spend the next year working on their campaigns locally and contributing to national campaigns, supported by Plymouth City Council youth workers.

Ms Harris added, “Thank you again for your contribution. A total of 6417 young people voted which is a 24% increase from last year and the highest ever number of voters in a Plymouth UK Youth Parliament election. There were a total of 539 voters recorded at Devonport High School for Boys”.

Sarah Harris

Successful candidate Alizeh

Whole School Assembly on Respect

Mrs Edwards led our whole school assembly on Wednesday when the focus was the British Value of Respect.

Mrs Edwards explored how diversity within communities leads to having an interesting mix and that with diversity there is a need to respect differences and allow people to be who they want to be.

Click here to see the whole school assembly presentation

Senior Maths Team Challenge

Well done to our STMC team who came 47/88 teams who competed at the national finals in London on Tuesday.

Mr Huq said, “1280 competed in regional heats which means that our team is in the national top 4%”.

Alexander Long, Arek Kaniewski, George Irving and Robert Waddy

Youth Speaks

Thank you to Mr Riggs for taking two school teams to the Youth Speaks event and for sending me this report about the competition.

On Tuesday evening, two teams from DHSB took part in the ‘Youth Speaks’ public speaking competition organised by the Rotary Club and held at Plymouth High School for Girls.

As always, the standard of these competitions was very high, and the eloquence of the young people from across the schools in the city was genuinely impressive. They were certainly better than I was when I took part in the same competition back in the late 1970s!

Our intermediate team from Year 8 (Oliver Bennett, Joseph Stell and Aled Griffiths) spoke about Aled’s visit to India where his group helped build a school in rural Rajasthan. Everyone was impressed by the way that Aled was able to show how positive and ready to learn the Indian children were despite living in exceptionally poor conditions.

Our senior team from Year 10 (Sam Wonnacott, George Westmore and Andrew Brown) spoke on Toxoplasmosis and managed to combine a serious discussion about a nasty parasite with some hilarious sections about how it makes you like cats!

Overall, this was a great experience and one that the boys want to repeat next year. The intermediate team will progress to the Regional Final to be held at PHSG on Saturday 25 February.

Mr Riggs

Excellent Work

Our excellent work section this week showcases some Sixth Form History revision posters shared by Mrs Mintoft.

Sophie Highfield, Grace Ebens and Harry Hyndman

Maddie Hall and Felix Soper

Callum West and Alex Luscombe

Finlay Kirkman and Myles Pinkney

Callum Sherrell, Joe Hagan Burt and George Beckett

Ten Tors Training

DHSB Ten Tors teams headed out onto Dartmoor on Sunday 5 February 2017 for the second training weekend. Dartmoor gave the teams a range of temperatures from minus nine degrees on top of Fox Tor (with windchill) to four degrees at Hexworthy.

Snow and ice tested the resilience and leadership of all teams including team spirit and humour. Navigation skills and team dynamics were built upon and early signs suggest the school will have four very strong teams come the main event.

Sports Update

Indoor Athletics

Congratulations to the U13 first team who took first place at the Plymouth Indoor Athletics event this week to qualify for the county final which will be held on 23 February at the Plymouth Life Centre. This is a joint team with Devonport High School for Girls.

Cross Country

Mr Carpenter reports an excellent result from Jamie Williams (23rd Inter) and Tom Blackford (28th Senior) at the recent South West Cross Country competition. He confirmed that Jamie and Tom have both qualified for the English Schools championships.

Football

U12 

Well done to the U12 team who go through to the next round of the Devon Cup after winning 3 – 0 at home to Paignton. Their next match is against Exmouth Community College.

U14

Mr Bunney reports a nice performance and a 5 – 1 win for the U14 football team v All Saints in the Plymouth League.

Also, a win 5 – 0 v Plympton Academy. Another fine performance to top off an excellent week!

Year 11

The Year 11 team is out of the Devon Cup after losing  3- 2 to Ivybridge.

1st XI 

A great win for DHSB ‘A’ this week.  Mr Manley said, “The boys came from behind to win 4 – 3 with a last minute winner”.

Table Tennis

Our U19 Table Tennis team recently qualified for the regional final and following this success our U13, U16 and U19 students participated in the individual county schools championships on Wednesday.

The boys faced challenging groups at this event with all U13 and U19 students narrowly missing progression to the knockout rounds.

In the U16 event Jaydon Weston was successful in winning his group and in the quarter-final he comfortably beat his opponent setting up a semi-final match. Unfortunately this was where Jaydon’s run ended as he was dispatched in straight sets but Mr Carpenter said he performed well to make it to this stage.

Mr Carpenter added, “All in all it was a good learning experience for the boys, particularly our U13s who all were playing at the bottom of their age group and will have taken on board some valuable tournament experience ahead of next year’s event. Attention now returns to the team event regional finals due to take place in Bristol next month”.

Jaydon in action

U13 students

U16 students

Hockey

The U14 team stepped up to 11 a-side code in this year’s County Finals. Having won the event last year at U13 the boys headed to Blundells School in a confident mood. Playing in difficult conditions all day the boys performed very well in their group stage.

Winning their first two matches by 3 goals to 0 against South Dartmoor and Plymstock respectively, the boys then went on to draw 1 – 1 with West Buckland before a gritty display saw them take a point in a 0- 0 draw against a much fancied Colyton team

Having qualified second in their group the boys lined up a semi-final fixture against Exeter School who they beat on penalty strokes in the final at U13 the previous year.

Sadly history did not repeat itself and DHSB went down 5 – 0 to a very strong side. All credit to the team who played good hockey throughout. Tom Doyle top scored for us on the day.

Mr Carpenter

Future Events

Friday 10 February

Final day of Spring term one

Monday 20 February

First day of Spring term two (A week)

Thursday 2 March

Year 12 Parents Evening

Thursday 9 March

Year 13 Parents Evening

Wednesday 15 March

PTFA Meeting