Another busy week at DHSB as we welcomed new Year 7 students and families to their familiarisation mornings, and Year 4 and Year 5 families to our very busy open evening.
Staff, students and families enjoyed the opportunity to return to face to face meetings and conversations that these events enabled.
If you have not yet seen our brand-new school prospectus then please use the link below.
A reminder to Year 5 families that the deadline for registering for the 11+ tests in 31 August 2022.
In addition to our school events we hosted over 20 schools on Wednesday alongside Google for Education for the Google on Tour series, designed to share best practice on embedding technology across the school.
The day highlighted our work as a Google Reference School and we were represented by Digital Leaders; Noah Evans, William Trathen, James Tantam and Arley Walker who did a fabulous job showcasing our school and describing how they are getting a head start on employment by using Google to develop and enhance their digital skills.
SWAT Conference, Exeter University
This year saw the return of the SWAT conference, the first since 2019. This is a conference led and attended by grammar schools across the South West. We were pleased to take a minibus full of staff and students to the venue for the day. DHSB led workshops regarding Disciplinary Literacy (Dr Stears), Google Workspace for Education (Mr Scott), Assessment Tools (Ms Cunningham) and were particularly proud of our student presenters, Otto Malm, Tarka Liddle and Elliott Mair, who with the support of Mr Richards, prepared and presented about their Poetry Society.
Delegates attended a keynote presentation and three workshops, from a selection of almost thirty; something for everyone.
The students’ day was similar; after the keynote address the students made final preparations for their presentations which went well. Afterwards they were free to enjoy a fantastic lunch and were treated to a tour of the university by university ambassadors.
Ms Cunningham said, “Staff and students all agreed it was a brilliant day. Lots learnt, inspiration taken and memories made”.
House Assembly
This week’s assembly included a house competition update but with three weeks to go and community duty, commendations and sports day to include there is all to play for.
The designs for the new house shields were displayed together with the number of votes cast in total for each house so far. The deadline for voting has been extended to the last last day of term with the new shields being revealed in September.
Bronze and Silver DofE awards were presented with Mr Spencer finally completing his Bronze award which is a reminder that students have until they are 25 years old to complete any of the awards.
Well done Mr Spencer!
Mr Huq confirmed that Year 8 students can start some of the sections of the Bronze award as when they enrol in October this can be backdated to July. The same is true for Year 9 students and the Silver award.
The Lap of Hope which replaces the Sport Relief mile will be held on Thursday 14 July (50p for a half mile and £1 for a full mile) and can be run, jogged or walked with all proceeds going to charities tackling poverty and inequality.
Finally, details about the Fete on Friday 15 July were displayed and included all the stalls and activities as well as where they will be located.
Mr Huq
Recycling School Uniform
We are really keen to promote sustainable action and we are pleased to offer two ways of recycling school uniform.
DHSB will have an online shop of pre-loved clothing next year, in addition to the Facebook group called DHSB Swaps, Sales and Shares.
The online shop will advertise all items of school wear, branded and generic, which can be paid for through My Child at School (MCAS). All funds made through the shop will go towards the school. Anyone can donate their old kit to the school by bringing it to reception, ideally clean and ready for use.
Alternatively, if you prefer to trade directly with other families then you can make use of the Facebook group, on which uniform and books are sold. The group has been running for four years and has over five hundred members.
Thank you in advance for your support.
Excellent Work
Our Excellent Work this week is from Mrs Brooking and students in 7P who wrote in Spanish about what their dream house would be like.
Mrs Brooking says they did a fantastic job and included some imaginative ideas and complex phrases, adding, “I was so impressed that I am going to display the work in B15 so that others can see them”.
Student News
Chess Club
Well done to members of the Chess Club who competed in two all-play-all competitions to produce four semi-finalists for our knock-out. These were Daragh Grimes, Rocky Travers, Jonah Scruthers and Isaac Lazenby.
Well done to Rocky who beat Daragh in the final.
Our move predictor competition was won by Isaac.
Caleb Caleshu played in the UK Schools Chess Challenge at Taunton and won allsix6 games to move through to the next stage. He then played for the full Devon team against Norfolk in the final of the Minor Counties championship, securing a draw as Devon won 9- 7.
This was the first trophy win for a West of England side in 100 years of the competition.
Maths Junior Kangaroo
This is the follow on round for students who gained particularly high scores in the UKMT Junior Maths Challenge.
Mrs Wills has confirmed we had seven students taking part this year (see the results below).
The highest 25% nationally are awarded a merit certificate, and these really are a great set of results!
Qualification - Alfie Cousens, Henry Rajesh, Tom Rickard.
Merit - Tiger Tang, Dragon Tang, Arley Walker, Luke Madgett.
Congratulations!
Squash
Very well done to Charlie Hambly and Tom Sweeting represented Tavistock Squash Club at a Devon County Graded Tournament held in Exeter and finished in third and fourth place.
Both students were great ambassadors of the squash club and DHSB - congratulations.
Space Day
During Curriculum Enrichment Week, students and staff across the DHSB community were able to view geological samples from the moon, space and earth to learn about our universe.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council loans NASA's lunar samples to schools and universities across the UK. DHSB hosted the samples and students taking part in the Space Day last week managed to use USB microscopes and magnaprobes to perform some scientific observations on the various rocks and meteorites.
Year 8 student Archie Vinnicombe said. "I can't believe I'm holding something that the astronauts brought back from the moon over 50 years ago... it's amazing”.
We hope to welcome the lunar loan back to DHSB in the future.
Any current Year 9 students (Year 10 in September 2022) who would like to join the extracurricular GCSE Astronomy class, can email Mr Loveridge for more information: gary.loveridge@dhsb.org.
PSHEE Activities
Back to work after the excitement of Curriculum Enrichment Week - if you haven't already make sure to read last week's Head's Blog, and to look at the twitter hashtag #dhsbcew for some great photos.
This week Year 7 students completed the emotional logic programme with session six, reviewing the lessons to date, and they also continued with the STEPs workbooks started earlier in the year which give them interactive activities aimed at developing knowledge and skills relating to employability.
The Year 8 lesson was all about healthy eating, looking at proportions of various food groups and also designing healthy additions to their favourite restaurant or fast food chain menu.
Year 9 students had a talk from Ms Davidson, Assistant Head Post-16, about aspirations, an introduction to DHSB Sixth Form, and also to Oxbridge entry and application.
Year 10 classes continued their rotation of activities - 10C and 10E had the SRE session on STIs and contraception from The Zone, whilst other classes had a recorded session from the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service regarding road safety as a pedestrian, cyclist or car passenger. The service hopes to return to a live presentation next year for this extremely powerful presentation.
The Year 10 peer mentors have been supporting Ms Walker with the Year 6 familiarisation days on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings this week and on Thursday Mr Carpenter and I took a group of Year 10 students to Princess Yachts where they had a tour and a chance to try some engineering activities - this was part of the National Manufacturing Day initiative led by PMG, the Plymouth Manufacturing Group plymouthmakes.co.uk.
Did you know Plymouth is in the UK's top ten of manufacturing cities as the largest manufacturing in the South of England?
The results of the recent SPaG competition will be announced in next week's celebration assemblies and also in the Head’s Blog. Have a good week all.
Ms Moreton
Sports Update
Tennis
Pictured are part of the DHSB tennis team who finished third in the Plymouth School's competition this week, hosted at Hele's School.
Very well done!
