Oct 20, 2023

20 October 2023

My sincerest thanks to all our parents and families for your support during our inspection this week.

Our students were brilliant throughout the process; the inspectors were incredibly impressed with them and also with how hard our staff work.

The inspection was a positive process and once the report is complete and published I will be able to share more information with you.

Excellent Work

Our examples of Excellent Work this week are from the Wednesday art club.

Ms Davidson visited the art room and was impressed with the variety of work she saw.

She said, “I met some really talented artists and enthusiastic creatives. There was such a lovely atmosphere in the room”.

Duke's of Edinburgh's Award Update

Our DofE participants do great work out in the community for their volunteering section. One of our Bronze participants, Ed Pond 10N, completed his with the charity Rame Peninsula Beach Care, who gave him a glowing report.

"Ed has collected large amounts of plastic pollution. He has then carried all this up the cliff paths at Whitsand Bay ready for safe disposal. Ed has shown a hard working approach to this work with an understanding of how damaging plastic is in the marine environment. Ed has had a positive impact on the local beaches and so helped conserve the Marine Environment.".

Mrs Wills said, "Well done Ed".

The Duke of Edinburgh award scheme provides opportunity to get involved in new activities and to help local communities and the environment. It is really valued by employers and higher education.

Why not get involved? The deadline to sign up to take part this year is 30 October for Years 9, 10 and 12. Please pay the deposit on MCAS (under clubs).

Queries to dofe@dhsb.org

Senior Maths Challenge

Miss Cunningham says that we recently took part in the annual Senior Maths Challenge, which saw 22 DHSB students take part in a 90 minute national challenge.

These students are typically from Years 12 & 13, but the challenge can be entered by younger students where appropriate. This year we had some fantastic results with all scoring highly enough to receive a bronze, silver or gold certificate and students were invited to participate in the subsequent rounds.

Arley Walker 9W received a gold certificate which on its own is outstanding, but he has also been invited to take part in the subsequent round, the Senior Kangaroo, along with five Sixth Form students: Talha Durrani, Ben Grieve, Scott Howley, Sakthivelan Pandy and James Young (who also all received gold certificates).

The Best in School accolade went to Rhys Cunningham 13NGW who scored a staggering 112/125. Rhys has been invited to the highest level of subsequent rounds, the British Mathematical Olympiad Round 1.

Congratulations!

Sixth Form Tutorial and Enrichment

'Relax, review, refresh' themes for half term from Ms Wilkinson for this week's Year 12 enrichment and Year 13 students explored Fertility and Pregnancy Outcomes with tutors. We were pleased to host our MP Luke Pollard in the theatre during period 2 for a very open and informative Q and A. Luke celebrated wonderful things about our city and how we should be shouting about this from marine engineering on ocean floors all over the world to creative arts.

He mentioned a £300 shortfall of funding per person in Plymouth compared with a similar sized city like Coventry and that one of his roles as an MP is to 'shout out' about our communities, businesses and global merits.

Some topics of interest to our students included: Labours plans for defence spending , Did Liz Truss Ministership damage the opportunities for a women in Politics?

Luke's views on less combative politics in Westminster , How might we cope with increased numbers of asylum seekers?

Luke's visit is part of our enrichment programme: keeping students up to date with topical issues and developing confidence for future conversations with real work application.

Sports Update

Football

The U14 football team bowed out of the national cup away at a windy Plymstock, losing 1 - 0 in a close match.

Mr Carpenter said, “Fantastic efforts all around though from the students”.

Rugby

The U16 rugby team beat Hele's School by 37 points to 5 in an excellent game this week. Well done to the team!

Surf Club

And at the end of a busy half term, staff and students enjoyed the final surf club of 2023.

Mr Carpenter said, "What a night in the Atlantic it was! Big thanks to the Surfs Up Polzeath crew for all their help. Keep an eye out for warmer tides again in the summer".