There is a national and international flavour to my Head’s Blog this week.
We were pleased to welcome our German exchange partners back to DHSB and they’ve enjoyed activities both in school and out in the beautiful south-west countryside and coastline.
Ms Middleton, our International Co-coordinator, and Mr Carpenter travelled to Sweden with two Year 12 students, Henry Spencer and Jim Luckhurst, to take part in our Erasmus project.
Henry has written an account of the visit.
The Erasmus programme takes schools from across Europe and encourages them to share best practice lessons with one another. Jim and I had the wonderful opportunity to join the trip to Hudiksvall in Sweden to learn about science lessons throughout a number of European countries, including Lithuania, France and Sweden.
We experienced a number of European lessons from each school, the highlight being a lesson on Phylogeny, conducted with the use of muffins to demonstrate an evolving species! Not only was the trip beneficial to our science studies, we also developed relationships with the foreign schools and students and collected invaluable information on school and student life across Europe.
On the national stage congratulations are due to our Bar Mock Trial team who took part in the national final, held at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The team did very well and it was a tremendous achievement to get this far in the competition.
Mr Riggs said, “A superb performance! So proud of all in the team”.
Mrs Huq was pleased and proud to share this photo of students from 7C with the food we have collected for the Syrian Appeal (Open Hearts Open Borders).
Mrs Huq said, “The organisers collected all the tins yesterday and were very grateful”.
This week we have also received a certificate from Save the Children in receipt of the funds we collected on Christmas Jumper Day.
These are good examples of the fundraising activities which take place around the school.
Mrs Edwards said, “As a school community we have always taken fundraising seriously so that we can contribute in some way to help others. Our school fundraising initiatives are led by the student captaincy team assigned to each of our six school houses. The captains have done a fabulous job organising events such as charity film shows, pay to play challenges, the infamous Colonnade cakes and sporting events too. Since Christmas we have raised over £3,000 for local, national and international charities in addition to the food bank collections for the Syria Appeal and the local Shekinah Mission”.
Members of staff like to get involved in fundraising too and Mr Huq, Mr Orkney and Mr Burt took part in the St Luke’s Hospice Men’s Day Out last Saturday.
Team Achievements
This delicious looking food was produced by a team of students at the Young Team Chef Competition at City College this week.
Also out in the city this week were our Sixth Form students who showed their work at the Education Engineering Scheme assessment and celebration event.
They presented their design for the remote deployment of spike strips used by the police to the many visitors at the event.
Mr Coombes attended the presentation and took this short video clip of the team’s work.
Individual Student Success
Well done to Aled Griffiths 8E seen here on stage at the Wembley arena with Lord Rumi Verjee where he was was addressing a crowd of 12,000.
Aled is an inspirational speaker and is due to make another presentation on Easter Sunday at the Conway Hall in London behalf of the Diana Award.
Well done also to the following students who have taken Music and Dramatic Art exams this term (LAMDA)
Lalit Kathiresan – Grade 3 solo acting – Pass with Distinction
Preet Pradeep – Grade 5 solo acting – Pass with Distinction
Henry Spencer – Grade 8 (Gold medal) verse and prose speaking – Pass with Distinction
Lalit
Preet
Harvey Coombes 11N has been producing music now for around three years under the name of VNTRD and has been enjoying this alongside studying for his GCSE exams.
He has successfully secured a record deal for his latest song with a French record label named Jango Music which is well known in the house music genre.
Harvey said, “This track is the result of collaboration between myself and an American producer (LoVance). The song is due for release today”.
Harvey
Robert Waddy and Michael Collingwood, having come in the top 50 students in the country in the British Physics Olympiad, were invited to take part in round two of the competition which involves a very challenging three hour paper. Michael achieved Silver, placing him in the top 30 students taking the paper, and Robert achieved Gold and was placed in the top 15 students.
In addition Robert has been invited to attend the training camp at Oxford University where he will sit round three of the competition. He also achieved Gold in the British Astronomy and Astrophysics paper.
Robert and Michael
Excellent Work
Featured this week is Jared Hunter 8P with his model of the Globe Theatre, a task set by Mrs Sheridan.
PTFA News
Thank you to our PTFA who raised approximately £1,800 by organising a Spring Raffle.
Jack Adams 8E and Mrs Cory are pictured here selecting the winning tickets.
I wonder if you were one of the lucky winners!
Alumni News
Many congratulations to Vikram Thirupathirajan pictured collecting his Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme Gold Award.
Vikram said, “Many thanks to DHSB for helping me achieve this”.
Ms Moreton was pleased to welcome several former students back to school today. They came into give some advice and guidance about choosing unversity courses. Pictured are just a few of the larger group who attended.
Sports Update
Congratulations to our Year 10 football team who took a 5 – 1 victory over Dawlish in the semi-final of the Devon Cup, setting up a final against Mr Grinsill and his team from Torquay Academy.
Future Events
31 March Final Day of the Spring Term
17 April Bank Holiday Monday
18 April First Day of the Summer Term – A week
22 April – PTFA trip to Alton Towers