Thank you once again to our students, staff, parents and carers for all your hard work in engaging in the new remote learning phase.

We continue to receive positive feedback on how this is progressing.

These are some of the ways that all of our students are benefiting from this high quality remote learning:

• Students continue to be taught all of their broad and balanced normal curriculum offer with their normal teachers.

• Students continue to receive high quality teaching instruction from their subject specialists and receive regular feedback.

• Students are having regular live lessons with all of their subject teachers.

• Students are having regular engagement with their peers through these collaborative learning approaches.

• Students are having regular engagement with members of their tutor group and their tutor to support their wellbeing.

Student Success

Very well done to Isaac Souray 10S who recently won the Plymouth City Council's Hidden Beauty in Plymouth photography competition.

The judging panel included Councillor Jemima Laing, the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People.

Councillor Laing said: “We really were impressed with the variety of pictures that were submitted as part of this competition and I’d like to thank everyone who took part. The over winner with his picture of Drake’s Island was 15 year old Isaac Souray”.

Isaac said about his photo, “My image was taken through the Royal William Yard archway. It shows Drake’s Island through at the time of a sunset. I felt like the colours really portrayed the vibrancy of Plymouth and how pretty it is. I believe that a great picture of Plymouth has to have the sea in it as it is what makes Plymouth, Plymouth!”

Isaac’s photo will be used as a virtual background at Council cabinet meetings and he received a hamper from Choccacino.

Put it Down! Please vote for us in the Nesta People's Choice Award

You may remember that our Digital Leader team got through to the finals of the Longitudinal Explorer prize back in April and since then team members George Cleeland-Smith, Noah Evans, Edward Moor, Ben Wotton and Lawrie Mathers, have worked remotely throughout lockdown with experts and mentors to develop their app idea.

Put It Down! is designed to help everyone make better informed choices about the food that they consume. So many people nowadays think it’s cool to ‘save the environment’ and ‘eat well’ but small writing and confusing terms on product packaging is very often misleading.

The easy to use app will give easy to understand info about food production, how healthy it is, and whether the company that produced it is a ‘green’ and eco-friendly company.

The team is up against 38 other teams from across the whole of the UK that have been creating and developing technological solutions to some of the greatest challenges we face, from climate change and pollution to health and wellbeing. The main competition involved the team creating a business plan and presentation around the app which will be judged in July.

We had news from NESTA this week that they are running a new award as part of the competition this year called The People's Choice Award which gives the public the opportunity to vote for their favourite idea and we need your help to win the school £5000!

Please use this link to vote for our team. A reminder that their app in development is called Put it Down!

Link for voting for Put it Down!

Excellent Work

Our examples of Excellent Work this week are from the Geography Department.

Miss Randles told me that Year 8 Geographers have been completing a unit of work on Africa during Lockdown. The answers below are from two Year 8 students who completed excellent answers on the water crisis in South Africa.

Link to work by Alexander Knobloch 8N

Link to work by Douglas Richardson 8W

I am also sharing some examples of work submitted by Mrs Lyons who was at DHSB this year on a placement with her PGCE Secondary Geography programme.

As part of her research assignment and in order to gather student perceptions of geography, she asked the students in her geography classes to complete a poster with this title.

Create a poster to explain what geography is to someone who has never studied it before

Mrs Lyons has chosen the following posters to share as the students concerned have put a great deal of time, effort, thought and artistic flair into their work, and they have explained what Geography is about.

Rocky Travers 7W

Ayush Kunwar 9S

Sonny Perry 9E

Physics Society

It’s been really good to hear about school activities continuing while students are at home.

Dr Colvile sent me a screenshot of a recent virtual Physics Society mtg.

He said, “James Hills 11N presented an excellent seminar to our Physics Society. It's super to see our Year 11 students making the most of the time they have to look back over what they've learnt in their GCSE years and doing some background reading to extend it. In his presentation, James also featured a question he had found on the Isaac Physics website which many of our students already have accounts on, where they can select a range of problems from GCSE level up to A level and beyond”.

PSHEE Activities

Activities for this week's PSHEE lesson are the same for each year group, albeit with slightly different resources and expectations.

Classes should all have submitted their entries for the SPaG challenge from 5 June, following their tutor meetings this week, and Mrs Edwards and I are looking forward to reading them and picking overall year

The lesson for today is about First Aid, using resources from the Red Cross and also the British Heart Foundation. With support from Vinnie Jones students will be reminded how to carry out the basics of CPR, and the Red Cross have provided a total of seventeen different skills and scenarios that can be practised.

We suggest a minimum of three, but the more the better - you never know when it could turn out to be life saving information.

Good luck and stay safe!

Ms Moreton

Recruitment

We are currently looking for a Teacher of English to join us in January 2021 or earlier. There is some flexibility in the department and applications for either a part time or full time position are invited.

Please use this link for more information

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