Curriculum Challenge Week
What a fabulous week with 40 students on the London cultural tour, 12 Year 9 students involved in a Ten Tors training week, and 180 Year 10 students taking part in work experience.
A big thank you to Mr Coombes, Mr Scott and Ms Millman for organising and arranging the whole week.
Don't forget to check our hashtag #dhsbccw or look at the DHSB X account as we can only share a small selection of the week's photos here.
I asked Mr Coombes and Mr Scott to share their highlights of the week and this is what they said.
Challenge Activities
In school over 500 Year 7 - 10 students participated in 40 different activities including 107 students taking part in an employer challenge, and 12 Year 10 students completing additional ‘virtual’ work experiences to supplement their in-person experiences.
There was also a Classics trip to Bath, a visit to the Fleet Air Arm Museum for History and to Exeter University for languages enrichment alongside careers activities from the Army and the BAE systems.
Subject areas provided enrichment in Maths, English with local MPs supporting the department, Science including a visit to the Aquarium and the DT department ran their excellent spaghetti bridges competition.
Arts had the Theatre Royal in Drama, Gelli printing in Art and two different music workshops.
Humanities ran activities in school including a UN Conference and Geography had fieldwork for Years 7 - 9; visiting The Box, Devonport Marketplace and the Eden Project during the week.
Mr Coombes
Year 10 Work Experience Week
The list of companies our Year 10 students worked at this week seems unending, and we’re very grateful for all of the support to help DHSB students gain these experiences of the workplace.
Some placements included a group of our students going out onboard a research vessel to use robotic rovers to map the seabed in Plymouth Sound with Fugro; explored sustainability solutions with MVV Environmental; looked at professional construction and architecture with Kier Group and much more!
My thanks to the students, their parents, the employers, our Year 10 pastoral team and the Careers team for ensuring all Year 10 students were given this opportunity to help us meet Gatsby Benchmark 6.
Mr Scott
Year 9 Employer Engagement Day - HM Land Registry
Year 9 students were engaged in an employer challenge with HM Land Registry in which they had to work as a team to find solutions to real problems. The teams then chose one team from Attenborough, Fleming, Leslie, Scott, Turing and Windsor houses to represent them in the final Dragon’s Den style assembly in the afternoon.
All students were presented with gifts from HM Land Registry with the winners each receiving a fantastic tech-filled gift box for their efforts!
Fuelled throughout the day by chocolate, the students looked at the ethical use of DNA; how the emergency services could use housing data to know occupancy of certain houses; how sustainability could be impacted by the Government’s increase in house building and much more!
Some amazing projects and ideas from all involved.
Mr Scott
Alumni
It's been wonderful to meet former students while we have been out of school.
The London trip met Harry and watched him in his 193rd appearance in the role of Scorpious. Students were able to chat with him and talk magic, and he spent time with everyone in the group.
Harry said, "I remember my Activities Week to London to visit the British History Museum… now I work around the corner and I still get to be a part of the trip seven years later! Work hard and dream big, you’re in safe hands".
It was also great to see Anunt during our Languages visit to Exeter University.
Sixth Form Enrichment
Sixth Form students have been busy too this week.
A number have chosen to engage fully with very real work experience to explore their future careers . We are thrilled that so many employers have offered such valid opportunities and that students have been able to gain a sense of the variety of teams and tasks involved in all sorts of things including diagnostics labs at the hospital, quantity surveying, primary school teaching, dentistry and much more.
Several students have furthered their skills and qualifications and we have been delighted to read of these in their excellent engagement with the Unifrog platform to record their outcomes. Many have also taken full advantage of this time to review and prepare well for their January exams and upcoming university interviews.
It was wonderful for our Sixth Form team to visit students on placement and we are also pleased to have worked with Sixth Form students who have assisted colleagues in such events as the United Nations.
A group also supported the Ten Tors training programme, pictured below.
We are grateful for such things which add enormously to build a strong community. So many individuals playing significant parts!
Ms Davidson
Sports Update
We've also seen several sports fixtures this week.
Well done to all involved.
Football
Congratulations to the Year 9 football team who won their national cup game against St Boniface 1 - 0.
Eoin Hewitt 9F was the goal scorer.
It was also another excellent win for the 1st XI who beat Plymkurd 5 - 2 in the Wednesday League.
Badminton
Well done to the U14 badminton team who beat Stoke Damerel last night in the central venue league.
Mr Bunney said, “The team is unbeaten with one game to go so could be crowned champions in a few weeks time”.
Basketball
It was another fantastic display from the Year 8 Basketball team who played two and won two at this week’s central venue competition.
