Yesterday, a small group of students and staff attended the annual South West Academic Trust (SWAT) Conference held at Exeter University.
I was very proud of the students who presented their work to large groups of delegates.
The sessions they led included a presentation on Oracy at DHSB and an introduction to Human Rights in the curriculum.
Flo McKenzie and Ermy De Carvalho, two of the students who spoke about Human Rights and Amnesty, are also coordinating a school appeal for aid during Refugee Week.

Flo and Ermy have shared the following information with all tutor groups.
The DHSB Amnesty International Human Rights group is collecting aid!
So many surviving refugees have lost everything and don’t have a place to call home. They really need your help. If you have any of the items on this list please bring them on 13 July or give them to your house captains to pass along. We don’t have long!
At the summer fete on 13 July we will be running a stall, lining up all the aid and coins we collect to make a trail around DHSB, up at the main gate – let’s see how long we can get it! Drop by and donate any spare change you have on the day and see how far all the aid you collect goes and bring your tins and toiletries.
These are the items which can be donated.
GENERAL ITEMS: towels, bicycles for adults, hammocks, backpacks, sunglasses, sunblock, mosquito repellent
FOOD: tea, instant coffee, sugar, oil, biscuits, tuna flakes, couscous/bulgur, tahini, juice, long life milk, flour, rice, tinned tomatoes, tinned pulses, kidney beans, chickpeas, lentils
BABY CARE: strollers, wet wipes, nappies, cotton wool, baby toiletries, baby powder formula 1, 2, 3, liquid milk for 1 and 2 year olds.
PHARMACY: lice lotion
CLEANING: clothes liquid detergent, washing up liquid, all-purpose=liquid cleaner, plastic rubbish bags
TOILETRIES AND HYGIENE: deodorant, razors, shaving foam/gel, lotion, hair brushes, nail cutters, nail files, shampoo/conditioner, shower gel
They added, “A little can go a long way, please work together in your forms to collect as much as possible”.

Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award
Many congratulation to Jonathan Tunnicliffe who received his Gold DofE Award at a presentation in Buckingham Palace Gardens.
The Duke of Cambridge was in attendance and the certificates were presented by Major David Love, an adventurer, mountaineer and expedition leader. David is also an Instructor with the Bear Grylls Survival Academy and Commissioned Officer in the British Army.
Well done Jonathan!

PTFA Update
Congratulations to these students whose photos will be featured in the PTFA Academic Calendar for 2018/2019.
Mrs Armstrong has received a proof of the calendar, with the winning images included, and she says it’s “stunning”.
The calendar includes A and B weeks and most school events will also be listed.
There is still time to order a calendar. Please click here for more information and an order form..
All the winners in the calendar photo competition received chocolate while the first, second and third placed entries were also awarded a cash prize.
Jules Dean 8N – 1st Prize
William Robinson 6AJD – 2nd Prize
Jakub Brudnik 9S – 3rd Prize
Daniel Lowe 11C, Samuel Lawrence 9S, Cameron Hart 11S, Kai Benjamin 10S, Sebastian Whitford 8N, Jonah Foley 6RFP, Joseph Watkinson 10P

Thanks to everyone who bought tickets in the summer raffle which raised just over £1,000 for school funds.
Edward was invited by Mrs Armstrong to pick the winning tickets on Monday and all winners have received a telephone call about their prize.

Spelling Bee
This is DHSB’s third year of running the competition. The aim of the Spelling Bee Competition is to help support literacy within school. It is a tough challenge for the boys to stand in front of their peers with the objective of correctly spelling words read out to them.
Some tough or tricky words came up this year including onomatopoeia, isosceles, ceiling and millennium.
Mrs Huq said, “Feedback from the Heads of House was that the boys enjoyed the challenge and gave great support to their form representatives”.
She added, “A massive thank you goes to all Form Tutors and students who got involved and supported the competition”.
Year 7 winners Ayush Kunwar, Harvey Brown, Matt Stell
Year 8 winners Bertie Mather, Sam Hughes, Ben Bracey
Year 9 winners Robert Derry, Jack Matthews, Ewan Macleod
Year 10 winners Jack Wilkinson, Zac Bryce, Emilio Moreno-Chamorro

The Edison Spelling Bee
Students of the Week
Each week we award a certificate and voucher to our Student of the Week and I was pleased to invite a group of past winners to have fish and chips with me today.
Students are nominated for this award a variety of reasons and I enjoyed talking to them today to hear more about their individual stories.
Erin Eastman 6TJK for her commitment and conscientiousness towards her prefect duties
Will Robinson 6AJD for giving up his time freely to assist a member of staff
Ewan Dodson 10E for supporting another student on the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expedition
Jack Orr 9P for his positivity
Tommy Woodward 10N for standing out as an outstanding ambassador for anti-bullying
Michael Moore and Jacob Woodbridge-Harris both 6KES for supporting GCSE Ancient History revision
Cav Lewis 10N who through his advice and quick thinking helped another student who was unwell in school

DHSB Art of the Day
Thank you to Mr Macleod for reminding us about the #DHSBartoftheday twitter hashtag.
DHSB has always had a strong artistic tradition, every year parties of boys go off on Italian adventures to see some of the world’s great art treasures, the Art department has a well deserved reputation for producing spectacular and original work and students regularly take courses in Art History when they leave the school. In order to promote an interest in a variety of the Arts throughout the school we started a Twitter Hash tag #dhabartoftheday (DHSB Art of the day) the aim of which was to put up an image of at least one piece of Art for each school day with a brief explanation of what makes it exciting/original/memorable.
Mr Macleod said, “We would really like as many people as possible to be involved in the process. If you are interested please search out the hashtag and share your reactions to the pieces we have put up. Even better if anyone would like to share their own choices from the famous to the obscure, please do upload your images using the #dhsbartoftheday tag. It would be great if we could build a community sharing ideas and encouraging an interest/appreciation of the arts amongst students at DHSB”.
Sports Update
Cricket
Varied fortunes for our cricket teams this week. The U14 team posted 89 off 20 overs and then Torquay Boys Grammar School reached the total with three overs to spare.
Well done to the U13 team who beat Hele’s School by ten wickets.

Individual Sports Success
Mr Huq was at the Plymouth Hockey Club award ceremony last week and reports that Sam was named as the chairman’s player of the year and that Ewan received the club’s player of the year award.

Sam – Chairman’s Player of the Year

Ewan – Club’s Player of the Year
Well done to Ethan Carlisle who is mentioned on the Devon Cricket website which says, “Keep an eye out for Plymouth’s young left-armer Ethan Carlisle over the summers ahead”.
Ethan’s cricket skills are described as being ‘awesome’.

Future Events
20 June PTFA meeting at 18.00 in the Conference Room
22 June GCSE exams finish
22 June Year 9 report
23 June Year 6 uniform day
25 June Public consultation meeting at 17.30 in the Edgcumbe Theatre
26 June GCE exams finish
28 June Year 6 familiarisation day and parent information sessions
29 June Year 12 report
2 – 5 July Curriculum enrichment week
10 July Open evening at 17.00
13 July Summer festival
16 July Open morning at 9.00
17 July Sports day
19 July Sports day (reserve date)
20 July Final day of the summer term