We’ve had a busy and successful week here at DHSB and there are lots of stories to share with you before we head off for our 2017 Curriculum Enrichment Week.
Monday
The week started as we welcomed back the large number of students who completed their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award bronze assessed expedition in very hot weather conditions.
Well done to all students and members of staff who supported them.
Monday also saw a group of students in London for the Junior Maths Team national finals.
The team did extremely well to be invited to the finals where they competed again 87 other schools (1,700 teams took part in the first round).
Simon Singh, the popular science author whose works largely contain a strong mathematical element, made the presentations to the winning teams.
Pictured are James Hills, Lalit Kathiresan, Samuel Knobloch, Joshua Parker who were supported by Ms Cunningham and Mr Huq.
The work they produced in the poster round of the competition serves as our example of excellent work this week.
Year 9 students took part in the Carnegie Shadowing event, with ten other schools from the area, hosted by Notre Dame School on Monday.
The students delivered a presentation on a book selected for the 2017 Carnegie Medal: Glenda Millard’s ‘the stars at oktober bend’.
They said, “The book is a fascinating insight into the re-wired head of Alice Nightingale, a fifteen year old girl who has slow, thick speech, and so writes poems to convey her feelings, and Manny James, a child soldier who has a guilty secret”.
Mrs Johnson added, “Despite not taking home the medal for ourselves, it was an interesting experience, and we all immensely enjoyed reading a book we would never pick up to read otherwise”.
You’ll be able to read more about this event in the next edition of DHSB Today which will be available soon.
In the meantime, a book sale is happening in the Learning Commons on Monday 10 July. Please come along at lunchtime to grab a bargain!
Books from the Carnegie shortlist and nominations from the Children’s Book Awards will be on sale for £2 or less (hardbacks will be £3 or two for £5).
Tuesday
On Tuesday our Year 7 team took first place at the Plymouth Schools Athletics event.
Well done to all who competed!
Wednesday
Our PTFA held their final meeting of the year on Wednesday evening. If you would like to get involved next year please contact Mrs Armstrong at michaela.armstrong@dhsb.org or call her on 01752 208787.
Thursday
On Thursday our Green Power Team Avanti took to the track at Newquay Airport.
At the end of a great day of competition the team tweeted their results, “Third in race #1, second in race #2, third overall and instant qualification to the international final”
Well done Team Avanti!
Lewis Bees, Ben Adams, Ollie Carty, Peter Clifford, Jake Cotton, William Coulson, James Derx, Ewan Dodson, William Hexter, George Jones and Josh Moyse were supported by Mr Ames and Mrs Flack.
On the same day our Tag Rugby leaders were putting their leadership skills into action as they supported the Devon School Games at the Brickfields Arena.
Our staff were busy on Thursday too.
Ms Moreton was well prepared for a full day of assessment and at the end of the day was delighted that our Investors in Careers award was renewed.
The award is one of the highest accolades an organisation can receive for excellence in this area of work and is definitely something the award holder can be very proud of.
You’ll be able to read more in Ms Moreton’s own blog next week.
Last night we hosted a Digital Learning Teachmeet for local schools to attend. We were kindly supported by C-Learning & HP. The Teachmeet was small but powerful with 18 teachers and students in attendance sharing good practice, inspiring ideas and new software packages.
Highlights included Mystery Hangouts, Google Cast, Google Expeditions and EDpuzzle.
The stars of the show were of course DHSB Digital Leaders Yasin and Alfie. They presented on the topic of digital leaders, agile development and showcased their latest product they have been working on eCareers.
Yasin then went on to give an excellent presentation on security covering how secure Googles infrastructure is and what users can do to protect themselves for example enabling two factor authentication.
Friday
This morning I was pleased to hear that Year 7 students have raised £1647 for Lepra, the UK based international charity working to beat leprosy.
A special well done 7S who (only just) raised the most of the six tutor groups.
Looking Ahead
We wish everyone a safe and successful Curriculum Enrichment Week. Special thanks to Mr Coombes, Mrs Rasmussen and Mrs Donnelly who have organised and arranged eight residentials and 76 different daily activities.
Please keep in touch by using our special hashtag #DHSBCEW where you will be able to see daily updates and photos.
Here are two of our teams preparing for their sports tour and looking very smart.
Summer Festival
Family and friends of the school are invited to our Summer Fete which will be held during the afternoon of Friday 14 July (please sign in at the top gate when you arrive on site).
Students are busy preparing stalls and activities in addition to providing goods for a special House Raffle (in House colours).
Newton House is hosting a Crockery Smash stall and any donations of unwanted crockery would also be very welcome.