Devonport High School for Boys was founded by Alonzo J Rider and opened for education on 16 January 1896.
Last term we celebrated our 125th anniversary with a large reunion and, as we approach Founder’s Day on Sunday, I’m pleased to share links to the talks, drone footage and photos from the anniversary event.
Mrs Kinsella, Alumni Engagement & Archives, said, "My thanks to the fantastic anniversary event photographers Wes Ashton (drone photography), Lacey Varey and Brian Aitkenhead. The images and footage are copyrighted and are for personal viewing only".
Anniversary light show
Theme of the Week
Each Friday I like to share our theme of the week to give an opportunity for you to discuss this at home as a family with your child.
This week’s theme is Respect and Tolerance and Heads of Year led assemblies for their year group on Wednesday.
National Physics Olympiad
Congratulations to James Hills and Oliver Pentecost, both in 13 AJD, who have received certificates in the National Physics Olympiad competition.
James and Oliver were selected to enter Round 1 following their success in the Senior Physics Challenge internal selection round.
Oliver attained a Bronze Award and James achieved Gold. Out of 2,300 students from 393 schools selected to enter, the Gold Award is reserved for the top 9%, from which a further selection for BPhO Round 2 feeds into the UK team for the International Competition later in the year.
Pictured is James with his certificate, presented to him by Dr Colvile at the Physics Society meeting on Friday. The slide in the background is from James' presentation to the society on quantum chromodynamics in which he made a highly theoretical topic easily accessible to the audience of Year 12 - 13 students.
Dr Colvile said, “This is a good opportunity to thank James and the other Year 13 Physics Ambassadors for running the DHSB Physics Society over the past year. They now hand over to their Year 12 successors”.
Night Navigation Training
This week saw our Ten Tors teams undertake their final night navigation training on the south west corner of Dartmoor. Night navigation always brings its own challenges but the teams excelled in terms of their map to ground appreciation and knowledge and their collective navigational skills they have all harnessed to date.
Mr Clifford said, “We use night navigation training to simulate poor visibility forcing the teams to use their equipment and map reading skills to find their objectives. Crisp, clear cold conditions served as a useful reminder to the team members’ trust in their equipment and knowledge and not to make assumptions when momentarily slightly disorientated”.
Many thanks to Mr Ames and Mr Clifford for leading this activity.
Heading out to Cramber Tor
Micro navigation in the setting sun
PSHEE Activities
Assemblies this week were on the subject of Respect and Tolerance, and were delivered by each Head of Year. The Year 7 assembly incorporated a short video from Gideon Bibles, which were later distributed to all boys who wished to have one, following a long tradition at DHSB.
All students also completed a survey regarding harassment, which is part of a project between our school and the two girls' grammar schools, DHSG and PHSG. The data collected will be used by all three schools to develop resources and best practice in dealing with harassment issues.
Today's tutorial lessons were the usual eclectic mix, with Year 7 students learning and thinking about recycling, both theoretically and locally. 7C also started the series of first aid lessons delivered by the Red Cross, of which there will be one each week from now until 18 February.
Year 8 students completed a fairly lengthy nationally administered Health Survey, the results of which will be shared with school and used to develop our curriculum or practice as necessary.
Year 9 students were visited by the Police Respect team, who talked about equality, and how it is against the law to discriminate against someone because of any of the nine protected characteristics; age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.
Year 10 students have nearly finished their exam week; they have had exams in all their GCSE subjects to prepare them as best as possible for the real thing next year.
The results can also feed into discussions at the parents evening on 10 February.
Finally for this week Year 11 students had a lesson on various aspects of road safety including learning to drive, and also explored a revision app https://getadapt.co.uk/ which has been recommended by several students.
It has been so wet and/or cold recently that the summer exams seem a long way off, but they seem to arrive more quickly every year!
Have a good week all.
Ms Moreton
Clubs and Activities
Mr Campbell has the following updates about clubs and acitivities this term. For all the news please follow him on Twitter @dancampbell88.
The hockey club has now started for the Spring term. Delivering competitive and high quality coaching @PlymouthHockey are one of the best around. So come along and give it a go. Every Wednesday after school.
Chess Club is now on a Tuesday in C10 at the normal time 15:30 - 17:00.
The Fitness Suite is open again at lunch-times and ready for business! Check with Mr Campbell which year group is on which day of the week.