On Wednesday staff and students gathered for our whole school assembly on Remembrance led by Mrs Edwards and some of our History Ambassadors.
Prefects read the names of Old Boys listed on our Roll of Honour and we reflected on their sacrifice during a minute of silence.
Mrs Edwards has shared her assembly slides and video link here for us to read and think about at home.
Poppy Installation
Many thanks are due to Mrs Flack for leading on our poppy installation again this year. Staff and students involved in the project have created a display of poppies on the tree in the Year 7 playground. The poppies were made from the bottoms of plastic bottles.
Our school captain Joe Watkinson said this when he first saw the installation, “What a poignant poppy display this is. This tree lived through WWI and WWII; it saw the horrors of war when the school site was a military hospital. It reminds us, thus, of the Old Boys who died in the conflicts and a period of history that we must never repeat and never forget”.
Mrs Flack added, “During October we placed five collection points around the school and in fourteen school days we collected 1039 bottles. The bottom of each bottle was used to create the poppies. So many people contributed to make this happen including all those who recycled their bottles and students in 7C and in the D&T club who spent their Friday lunchtimes preparing the poppies”.
This got me thinking about the tree which has stood in the playground for so long, and I asked Mrs Farnaby in Science what she knew about it.
She said, “It’s a Holm Oak. Quercus ilex. Holm meaning holly. The leaves are evergreen and holly shaped. They are mainly a Mediterranean tree. The Greeks used the leaves to make crowns and the wood was excellent for furniture, wagons and burning. The acorns were used as packing in shipping goods so they are prevalent throughout the west country in the coastal areas”.
Peer Mentors
Thank you to Ben Adams for this report about our Peer Mentors. A new group of students has been recruited and I met them this week to welcome them to their role.
The Peer Mentors are a group of students who support and guide Year 7s in their transition to DHSB through monitoring the Year 7 Common Room, delivering lessons to forms, primary school visits and leading the Year 7 Familiarisation and Induction Days. The outgoing Year 11s and Year 13s have worked with empathy and care in their role and we thank them for their hard work over the last year. We now welcome the new Year 10s and Year 12 leadership team, Oscar Burnard, Chris Mann and Dan Gaston, to continue the fantastic work that Peer Mentors perform.
Thanks must also go to Mr Martin and Ms Moreton for their continued guidance and support of the team.
The outgoing Peer Mentors
And the new team
Recent Visit to China – 最近访问中国
Thank you to Mr Berryman who has written about his recent visit to China.
I was invited to China in order to attend the British Council seminar as part of the Chinese exchange programme. Claire Jones, Deputy Headteacher at Marine Academy Primary (MAP), and I attended the seminar in Kunming Province China. The British Council invited British schools to link with schools in China to raise aspirations of disadvantaged students. The project will be based around a cultural exchange trip working on a project with our link school No.24 Kunming Middle School and MAP. Whilst in China I signed an agreement to secure the funding for this project to happen and we are planning to take students and teachers to China to visit our partner school before May 2020.
On returning to the UK students will work alongside MAP on a shared media activity and we will host Chinese students here at DHSB and at Marine Academy Primary. We will also include activities within our curriculum so that the whole school is aware of the link partnership.
I hope this will be the basis of a long-term relationship where we can secure funding to allow more students and teachers to visit our partners in China. Global awareness and becoming internationally aware of different cultures are important aspects of shaping and developing our students here at DHSB. I am looking forward to our students and MAP students having the opportunity to collaborate on such an exciting project.
Mr Berryman
Student News
Well done to Noah Evans who recently held the fourth ‘Handmade Hearts Bake Sale’ to raise money for Little Hearts Matter.
Noah said, “Little Hearts Matter is the only national charity dedicated to helping people like me with half a heart, and similar conditions. I reached out to supermarkets in the local area to see if they could support me and I was able to get shops like the Co-Op, M&S, and The Range to donate supplies for us to sell, which greatly boosted our total. We sold a plethora of cakes, drinks, sweet treats and crafts between 10am and 3pm, raising a total of £1,123 through online donations and donations at the event”.
He added, “A huge thank you to everyone who came and donated; it really means a lot to me”.
You can find more about the previous events and about Little Hearts Matter at this link.
Message from the PTFA
Thank you to all who attended our AGM on Wednesday evening. We are very pleased to report we have a full committee for the next academic year. As Chair of the PTFA I would like to thank everyone who has supported me, either by being on the committee, through their work at the school, by attending events or by doing work behind the scenes to ensure events went ahead successfully. I am keen to expand the things that we as the PTFA do, both to raise more money for the school but also to involve more parents, friends and students with school activities. If you are interested in getting involved please contact Michaela Armstrong (michaela.armstrong@dhsb.org) who will be very pleased to hear from you.
Also, we have just launched an online school lottery to help raise funds. It costs £1 per week and you can sign up here at this link.
Our next meeting will be held in the Conference Room at 6.00pm on Wednesday 22 January.
Mike Spencer Chair
Google Chrome Summit
I started the week in London on Monday attending the Google Digital Academy for the first ever Chrome Edu Summit, writes Ms Buckler. This was the first day that Google had put on to celebrate the amazing opportunities that the web and Chromebooks can have for our staff and students. The day focused on innovation, teaching and learning and technical best practice and we were housed in the fabulous Google Academy.
Needless to say, it was a day full of inspiration as we were shown how Chromebooks and the latest web apps have the potential to transform the classroom.
We are already using Chrome to enhance our classrooms but watch this space for new tips and tricks as we take our google reference school further to ensure we are providing our students with the tools they need to succeed in a digital world.
Ms Buckler
And finally
Year 7 students are busy rehearsing for our annual Carol Service which will be held at St Andrew’s Church, Royal Parade, on Monday 16 December at 19.00. Please add this event to your diary and join us for a wonderful evening of carols and readings.
Sports Update
Rugby
The Year 7 Rugby squad took part in the Plymouth Schools Rugby Festival yesterday. In total the school played four fixtures winning three and playing some fantastic rugby along the way. Well done to all boys who took part.
Well done also to the Year 9 Rugby team who beat Tavistock 24 – 12 in the semi-final of the West Devon Cup.
However, the Year 10 team has gone out of the NatWest Vase after losing 36 – 14 to Torquay Boys.
Badminton
Congratulations to the U14 badminton team who finished as runners up in the Plymouth Schools Competition earlier this week. The U16 team also participated in the competition.
Basketball
There was some great basketball from our Year 9 Boys team yesterday who unfortunately lost by two points to All Saints.
The first Year 11 game of the year also ended in a loss, this time to a very good Coombe Dean side. Mr Anderson said there were lots of positives to take from the game despite the loss.
Football
Congratulations to the Year 8 team, through to the next round of the national cup after a 4 – 0 win against Torquay Boys.
The Year 9 team progress to round four of the National Schools cup after a convincing victory against Paignton Community and Sports Academy. Well done to all those involved.
The Year 10 team took a hard fought 2 – 0 win against Richard Lander School in the national cup. Congratulations to the team.
Future Events
16 November
PTFA Shopping Trip to Cardiff (for those with tickets only)
20 – 22 November
Year 11 Art mock exams
22 November
Year 7 report
25 – 29 November
Curriculum Challenge Week
Year 10 Ten Tors training
Year 11 mock exam week
29 November
Year 9 report
2 December
Year 11 Curriculum Evening (Sixth Form Open Evening)
External candidates should attend at 17.00.
3 December
Ten Tors night navigation exercise
5 December
Year 7 parents evening
8 December
PTFA disco for Years 7 – 9
11 December
Speech Day
13 December
Year 12 report
16 December
Carol Service
17 – 19 December
Refuel Christmas Dinner
20 December
Final day of autumn term two