Nov 3, 2017

3 November 2017

We are all incredibly proud of the wonderful school production of ‘School of Rock’.

Performances (from Wednesday to Friday) have been very entertaining with great humour and impressive skills on display. The whole show is a fantastic demonstration of the excellence and talent of our young people and the indefatigable support provided by our dedicated staff.

Thank you for a wonderful production!

There are lots more images of School of Rock at the foot of my Head’s Blog today and here are just some of the plaudits received following the first night.

Just finished watching a captivating performance of School of Rock, everyone was amazing, well done

Well done to everyone involved! Amazingly good performance

School of Rock! Congratulations to all on a brilliant first night

Was thoroughly enjoyable. Cast and crew must have worked super hard

The British Citizen Youth Award

Many congratulations to Aled Griffiths who received the British Citizen Youth Award on a recent visit to the Palace of Westminster.

Aled was recognised for the work he does to promote his medical condition and for his connections with two national charities,

Well done Aled; we are very proud of you.

Senior Team Maths Challenge

We’re also very proud of our senior team who won the regional heat of the Maths Challenge at Coombe Dean yesterday scoring 125/186.

Mr Huq said the national final is in London in 2018.

Open Hearts Open Borders

Florence McKenzie (Flo) has been volunteering with Open Hearts Open Borders and wrote to tell me about what she’s been doing.

She said, “A few years ago I found OHOB which is a local non-profit organisation on the internet after looking for something I could do to help refugees. I did some fundraising then for them, managed to raise over £200 and have stayed in touch doing little things here and there when I can ever since. A month ago another container shipment was arranged to be sent to Greece full of donations and things the organisation has gathered over the past year or so for the refugees struggling there, so I went to help sort donations and pack them into the shipping container”.

You can read more here

Month of Mindfulness Challenge

Mrs Edwards has asked me to share her assembly presentation on the Mindfulness Challenge.

At the start of this school year, all students were provided with a wellbeing action plan on their timetable for completion and have been encouraged regularly to reflect on things that support their own personal wellbeing writes Mrs Edwards. A copy of the DHSB wellbeing action plan can be found on our school website.

One of the five ways to wellbeing is to ‘be mindful’ and so this week I taught Year 8 students about mindfulness, what this means, how it can support wellbeing and four initial mindfulness activities.

I have encouraged all students in Year 8 to practise mindfulness for a few minutes each day and have challenged them to a ‘month of mindfulness’ through November the details of which are below.

When: Each Monday, Wednesday and Friday I will share a new mindfulness strategy/task to try.

Where: On the noticeboard by the Edison House office in C block, on the wall outside my office (C15) and in the Learning Commons by the beanbags on the glass.

What: Simple strategies.

Why: Benefit from becoming mindful and learn a new skill for your DHSB Community Award.

Any student can take part even if they are not in Year 8. You may even like to try mindfulness yourself too.

See the assembly presentation here

Excellent Work

Scientists: What You Should Know

Mrs Pearson has sent me this example of excellent work.

She said, “7C were tasked with the challenge of creating a resource to summarise the first few weeks of Science. Noah Evans and Bede Blakeman produced a superb booklet that was very creative, bright and professional looking”.

Read Noah and Bede’s full piece of work at this link

Building Plymouth – Adopt a School

Ms Moreton, our Information, Advice and Guidance Coordinator, was invited to speak at the ‘Adopt a School’ launch with Building Plymouth at the National Marine Aquarium on Thursday.

Building Plymouth said, “We strive to help build Plymouth’s talent pipeline by getting local people into the exciting world of construction”.

Ms Moreton explained how working with the ‘Adopt a School’ programme has already benefitted students at DHSB.

And finally

We hosted ITV Westcountry this morning when Sixth Form students were interviewed about their views on reducing the age of voting ahead of today’s private members bill in the House of Commons.

Journalist Nick Smith said, “Some very good arguments from students at [DHSB] on whether the voting age should be lowered to 16”.

You can catch the footage on the local ITV news at 18.00 today.

Sports Update

This has been a busy week for sport in the school with high participation rates in lunchtime and after school activities which included an U19 badminton tournament.

Golf club

Climbing club

Table tennis club

In addition to these activities the U13 Basketball team started their central venue competition with wins against Stoke Damerel and Coombe Dean, and the U12 Rugby team finished with six wins and a draw in their Rugby festival on Thursday.