Each Friday I 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 our theme is ‘Sporting Values’ and this was demonstrated to the full on Saturday at our charity football tournament.
To be highly commended are the group of Year 12 students who arranged and planned the tournament which was in memory of Simon Gerry and in aid of St Luke’s Hospice.
With support from Mrs Marsh and Mrs Green, and many other staff and parents, the day was well organised and raised a significant amount of funds for St Luke’s.
The final total is still being collated but we’re very pleased that the event has raised around £1,786. This is a tremendous achievement so well done everyone. This is the breakdown of funding:-
The event raised £750 on the day and the Just Giving page is currently standing at £417 plus £79.25 Gift Aid.
We’re very grateful to the six school houses who are looking at match funding to at least £540.
If you still wish to make a donation then please use the Just Giving page at this link.
Well done to the Railway Beacon team who finished in first place and lifted the trophy at the end of the afternoon.
My Head’s Blog today features many other examples of student leadership and excellence, especially in the Sixth Form.
Diamond Award
Pictured is Som Bagchi Year 12 being presented by Dr Colvile, Head of Physics, with his Diamond Award certificate.
This award is for being in the top 60 students nationally selecting and solving problems on the Isaac Physics website. Students in Years 9 to 13 at DHSB use this site to develop their skills in mathematical physics by selecting questions that are graded from GCSE to third-year undergraduate level.
Year 12 students can register to have their use of the site monitored, and the top students are invited to attend a residential summer school run by the University of Cambridge. Som has also been awarded a Gold Certificate in the Physics Olympiad AS Challenge, which was awarded to the top 3.9% of the high-ability Year 12 Physics students nationally who opted to sit a written exam of unfamiliar problems before Easter.
Engineering Education Scheme
The Engineering Education Scheme is a six month long project in which a team of six Year 12 students are paired with an engineering company and given a project to complete. This year we were paired with Collins Aerospace and given the task of taking a conventional RC boat and making it self-navigating using a range of sensors and an Arduino microprocessor.
The team has put a huge amount of work into this and the Celebration and Assessment Day was a brilliant way to have our efforts recognised. As well as producing a professional project report, we had to deliver a 15 minute presentation to a panel of judges from different engineering companies such as Babcock and present our project at a display stand.
We were all awarded Industrial Cadet Gold level for our efforts and also received the ‘Contribution to Business Award’ sponsored by the Royal Navy. As a team we are all very proud of what we have achieved and most of us hope to go on and do something similar in the future.
Ben Payne, Isaac Lee, Tom Payne, Josh Moyse, Will Coulson, Jemima Cameron.
And Then There Were None
We’re like to invite you to our student-led production of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.
Year 12 student Fin Kinsella is heading up the team of students who are staging this production in the Edgcumbe Theatre at 7.30pm on Wednesday 10 July and Thursday 11 July. I’m sure he would want me to thank the staff who are supporting the team too.
Please telephone the school for tickets – 01752 208787.
Architectural Drawing Summer School
Many congratulations to Year 12 student Lorenzo Stacey who has been selected to attend the architectural drawing summer school in association with the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust.
Lorenzo has shared with me an example of the slides from the portfolio he submitted as part of his competitive application.
During the week, Lorenzo says he will be exposed to conversations and exercises set by many of the leading thinkers in architectural education today.
This is an example of Lorenzo’s work. Well done Lorenzo!
Our special Sixth Form section this week ends with a thank you from Toby Leung, School Captain, to the prefect team.
Toby said, ” A tremendous thank you to DHSB’s largest prefect team ever; it’s been amazing to lead and work with over 140 incredible people. Together we’ve given over 2,700 hours to the school through events and lunchtime duties”.
The prefect team had breakfast together in Refuel this morning.
In other news this week, two groups of Year 9 students attended events outside school.
Go4Set
A team of seven students created a project to showcase at the Go4SET competition finals organised by the education development trust EDT, held at Plymouth University this week. The project focused on an eco-factory in Cornwall producing a bioplastic from seaweed to replace single use plastics. Also the bio polymer holds potential to replace metal parts in car bodies and engines. The students did really well; they were articulate and mature when discussing their work with the judges.
Mr Braun
Carnegie Shadowing
Also this week a group of seven students from Year 9 visited Torbridge High to take part in a Carnegie Shadowing event which was attended by nine schools from across Plymouth and South East Cornwall. Each school presented on a book that was shortlisted for the Carnegie Book Award.
We were presenting on Elizabeth Acevedo’s ‘The Poet X’ which actually won the Carnegie Medal 2019.
The students have written their own Blog about the event which can be read by clicking this link.
And finally
And finally this week, pictured are the winners of the DHSB PTFA calendar photo competition. Well done to these students who will have their work featured in the school calendar next year.
Lorenzo Stacey 6JD (first prize) Joao Bennetts De Souza 9E (second prize) Edward Epps 11P (third prize) Ben Bowden 6RFP Tommy Bentley-Bonsey 7N Dan Lowe 6KES Dexter Welch Year 6 Sam Bowden 10S Harry Bentley-Bonsey 9N Charles Dobbie 9S
Sports Update
Well done to Matthew Newton who won gold at the South West Schools Athletics Competition today in Exeter.
He represented the school in the initial Plymouth competition, which he won. Then represented Plymouth last week and gained a place to compete at the SW competition representing Devon. Matthew is waiting to hear if he has gained a place for English Schools.
Also pictured in our Sports Update today is the County U15 Softball Cricket competition at Exmouth Cricket Club, and Declan and Hans in the long jump at the Devon School Games representing Plymouth.
Future Events
21 June 2019
Year 9 report
22 – 23 June 2019
Bronze DofE assessment
22 June 2019
Uniform sale day (Year 6)
23 June 2019
PTFA disco
24 June 2019
Sports Day
26 June 2019
Sports Day reserve date
27 June 2019
Year 6 familiarisation day and parents information meeting