DHSB said goodbye to Year 13 on Wednesday.
Ms Davidson, Mr Burt and the team put on a nostalgia fuelled event with students providing the music and, as ever, the excellent company.
This was the first in a series of poignant farewells for me also. I began at DHSB with this year group in 2008 and I will be leaving with them to take on a new challenge.
I encouraged Year 13 students to be as “fearless” as they are now during the rest of their lives. All they need do is deploy their significant good sense, talent and charm and we’ll be hearing great things about their future lives, I’m sure.
Picture by Arthur Andrews
Go4SET
We entered two teams into the annual Go4SET Challenge which took place yesterday.
The Year 9 team spent ten weeks producing an Eco-classroom model and report. They decided their classroom (made of straw) would use renewable energies such as solar power and wind.
The Year 8 team chose to design a school situated on an island. They produced a very impressive model and a report to show how the school could be fully sustainable using renewable energy and growing food.
Just before the award ceremony the teams were lucky enough to hear Professor Iain Stewart from the BBC ‘How to grow a planet’ series.
Both teams did exceptionally well and following their presentations and questions the Year 8 team was selected to go to the Big Bang Science Fair national finals, due to be held in Birmingham.
The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) for young people in the UK. At the event last year 70,000 people visited the exhibition.
Mr Spearing said, “This is a fantastic achievement; congratulations to both teams. The hard work and effort they put into their projects showed DHSB at its finest. It was very a proud moment for the school.”
Year 9 team setting up Andrew Smith, Lloyd Chesworth, Peter Clifford, Sam Burston, Dan Scoble, Elliot Rees
Year 8 team meet the panel Alexander Photiou, Stuart Foxcroft, Sam Gray,Tom Payne, Ben Payne, Cameron Hart
Exciting News from the Learning Commons
We are the first South West Google Reference School and we’re really happy to be recognised as a centre of excellence in the use of technology and Google products. Recently we have been working with Google in connection with the Education on Air conference. Three of our digital leader students; Louie Cherrington, Alfie Carlisle and George Irving had their voices put to animation and were featured throughout the conference.
We also had some staff input at the conference from Ben Forte and Daniel Shahin who delivered a live session on the deployment of Chromebooks in education.
Digital Leaders
During the week of Edtech at DHSB we also launched the all-new branding for the DHSB Digital Leaders, which was led by Yasin Soliman, and started work on some exciting projects which will take our digital leaders team to the next level providing support to local businesses as well as staff and students at DHSB.
Their new website will launch very soon. To follow the updates from the Digital Leaders team click here.
Future Ready Schools
Following a successful event last year, PlymouthEdu are running a “Future Ready Schools” conference focusing on effective use of technology in education on Thursday 2 July 2015.
We’re very pleased to be hosting the conference at DHSB.
The keynote speaker is Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor in Information and Computer Technology from Plymouth University who is a global educator and recognised as a leader in pedagogy underlying current educational technology.
The conference acknowledges the broad range of issues around technology integration in schools and settings and is aimed at leaders, teachers and technical staff. There are three strands to the day and these will be delivered by leading local and national experts.
Sports Update
Devon Wednesday League
Pictured below are members of the 1st XI with their coach, Mr Manley, at the Devon Wednesday League presentation evening.
The team won the Chairman’s Award for commitment to the league.
Individual awards (division one) include Thomas Lowe (Top Goal Scorer) and Jack Horswell (Best Goalkeeper).
All the boys were presented with the League Trophy and a Cup Finalist Award.
Athletics
Congratulations to members of our junior athletics team who took first place at the West Devon Junior Athletics Championships on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Strang said, “Well done all.”
He expects several students with strong individual performances to be selected to represent West Devon at the Devon Championships.
Stop Press
18 DHSB students have been selected for the Devon Schools Athletics champs!
“It’s a record” says Mr Strang.
Cricket
Well done to our Year 7 cricket team who had a good result on Wednesday afternoon beating Mount Kelly by 20 runs.
Badminton
Well done to Toby Leung 8E who competed at the national badminton tournament last weekend, the biggest event in the UK badminton calendar.
Toby won the U14 boys doubles event with his partner Christian from Oxfordshire and went on to take the bronze medal in the U13 mixed event.
This weekend Toby is representing Team Forza England at the Youth International Tournament in Glasgow where 14 nations will compete.
