We’ve enjoyed another full and exciting week at DHSB not least with staging our production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat from Wednesday to Friday.
It’s really good to see our own musicians, singers and actors, supported by girls from Notre Dame School and Devonport High School for Girls, working together to produce a show full of talent and enthusiasm.
Producing a show like this gives an opportunity for our students and staff to demonstrate their dedication and talent. Thanks are due to all involved especially Mr Norris and Mr Newton.
Here are some of the accolades received so far.
‘Great show tonight’
‘Smiling from ear to ear after watching our wonderful school musical’
‘Will be singing all the way home’
‘Loved the show…many funny and charming moments’
There are a few tickets left for Friday evening so please come along to join us. The doors open at 7.00pm and the show starts at 7.30pm.
Student Success
Congratulations to Rhys King 8E who recently took first place in the Flute Solo class at the Saltash Music and Drama Festival. Rhys is putting his talent to good use by playing in the stage band for our production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Excellent Work
This week I’m pleased to share a link to a Mathematics website.
Ms Cunningham said, “I set an extension task for my Year 9 class and Lalit Kathiresan produced a lovely solution. I suggested he submitted to nrich as there was no solution at that point for the task. He gets mentioned as does the school”.
Well done Lalit!
UK Youth Parliament
Voting in the Youth Parliament elections was taking place across Plymouth and in Refuel today.
Lord Mayor Cllr Murphy and Cllr Beer will oversee the count and announce the results on Saturday, February 4 at the Council House.
Safer Internet Day 2017
Safer Internet Day this year will be held on Tuesday 7 February.
Thanks to Mr Shahin for coordinating this newsletter with lots of links, information and advice.
More from the BETT Show
Alfie Carlisle and Yasin Soliman have told me a little more about their experiences at the BETT show last week. They said, “On Thursday 26 January, we had the pleasure of traveling to ExCeL London for the BETT Show, the world’s leading education technology event. Educators from around the world descend on London’s ExCel exhibition centre for this four-day festival – bringing together people, ideas, practices and technologies so that teachers and learners can fulfil their potential.
“In addition to exploring the role of our Digital Leadership Team and School Strategic Priorities, we were invited to showcase on the Google stand, how DHSB uses technology to inspire, engage and educate. Alongside Mr Forte we delivered a 20 minute talk on the use of Chromebooks and their benefits to school leaders and IT specialists.
“We met up with a number of inspirational contacts from the world of ed-tech during the day, including Google Certified Innovator Mark Allen and the incredibly supportive team at ClassCharts”.
Alfie Carlisle and Yasin Soliman
Sports News
Ultimate Frisbee National Indoor Championships
Many thanks to our DHSB Ultimate coach, Mr McConnell, for taking our school teams to the national championships and supporting them through the two day tournament. Mr McConnell was accompanied by Mr Gomez.
Mr McConnell has written this extensive report exclusively for my Head’s Blog.
Last weekend 43 DHSB students competed at the UK National Indoor Ultimate Championship in Wolverhampton.
Our U17 1st team captained by Great Britain player Oscar Parsons went undefeated in their first six matches breezing past the opposition scoring 48 points and only conceding 12. They started the second round of competition as fourth seeds however an unlucky 4 – 3 defeat in overtime in the quarter finals put them off track and out of the top four and eventually into a 5th/6th place playoff by which time their earlier momentum had waned and they finished in sixth place out of 28 teams.
U17 1st team
The U17 2nd team put in a strong performance on day one ending up as 11th seeds however on day two they struggled against some more experienced and taller teams finishing in a very respectable 16th position which is still a good result considering the majority of the team were Year 9 students.
U17 2nd team
We took a large number of Year 7 pupils to the U14 tournament to help them gain competition experience. Our Year 8 players formed the A Team and started the first day with some good victories but a loss against St. Peter’s School (Exeter) B team meant they finished second in their pool.
U14 A team
Our B team which consisted of Year 7 players playing their first competitive matches were the surprise package of day one beating two other schools’ A teams along the way to top their pool and ended day one ranked higher than our A team. However, this led to our A and B teams meeting each other in the quarter finals. The B team did themselves proud against the more experienced A team but simply couldn’t cope with the height advantage of A team captain Tom Jones who caught everything thrown into the endzone with the A team progressing into the semi finals with a 8 – 3 victory. In the semi finals the A team lost a tight match to Twycross House but bounced back to win the third place playoff. The B team captained excellently by Freddie Ryland ended up finishing in sixth position out of 18 teams which is a great result in their first competition.
U14 B team
The C and D teams were coached through the tournament by two older players, Luke Valentine and Alfie Al-Moosawi. Both teams struggled to score points early on however under the guidance of their coaches they improved massively as the tournament progressed. This all culminated in the grudge match between the two teams that we were hoping would happen with the D team securing a 5 – 4 victory over the C team. The C team finished in 15th position with the D team finishing slightly higher in 14th.
U14 C team
U14 D team
Badminton
Many congratulations to our three school teams who represented Plymouth at the Devon Badminton Championships on Wednesday.
All the teams played well with the U16s coming through to take first place. They will go forward to compete at the regional finals in Bournemouth
U14 Jamie Seow, Fardeen Gafoor, George Teague, Luke Oakarr
U16 Toby Leung, Will Freer, Ethan Hunt, Leon Yeldo
U19 Kieran Wong, Jonathan Stoecker, Tom Cooper, Angus Fry
The U16 team
Future Events
Monday 6 February
Year 10 Parents Evening
Friday 10 February
Final day of Spring term one
Monday 20 February
First day of Spring term two (A week)