At the end of another half term I’m very pleased and proud to report on the many excellent activities taking place inside and outside school.

Senior Team Maths Challenge

Many congratulations to our Senior Maths Challenge Team (Som Bagchi, George Irving, Arek Kaniewski and Robert Liu) who competed at the national finals in London on Tuesday.

They finished in a very commendable 62nd place (1,300 schools took part in the competition).

The member of staff (from another school) responsible for marking our work gave us this feedback. He said, “I had the pleasure of marking your team’s answers at the Senior Team Maths Challenge. Your guys were great and a real credit to your school”.

South West Academic Trust Challenge

Also competing at an external event were students who attended the first ever South West Academic Trust Challenge Cup. The day saw teams of students from across the SWAT alliance compete to provide the best solution to a challenging real-world problem. Students were asked to provide an answer to the following question:-

How can Britain sustain its economic prosperity, social harmony and international standing in a post-Brexit world?

The DHSB team (Liam Ward, Thomas Hyndman, Logan Rossiter and Som Bagchi) was first to start off the presentations. Judges were impressed by the quality of their research and their efforts in conveying a convincing message.

You’ll be able to read more about this challenge in the next edition of DHSB Today.

Individual Student Success

Well done to Year 8 student Jake Wing who won four trophies at the Saltash Music Festival (piano, saxophone and composition).

Jake also won a fifth trophy for the best overall music composition.

Excellent Work

Our two pieces of excellent work this week come from outside school. I thought you would like to see the work completed by our senior maths team at the national finals on Tuesday (poster round) and also have the chance to listen to Jake’s winning composition.

Click here to hear Jake’s composition

Whole School Assembly

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.

Our whole school assembly this week, led by Mr Coombes, provided some further links and time to reflect on this issue.

Mr Coombes said, “Everyone has mental health and everyone needs to look after it”.

He added, “There are many things which affect our mental health and there are many ways of looking after ourselves”.

You can see the assembly slides by clicking this link. The two video clips shown are also available here.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

The DofE Award programme is going from strength to strength here in school.

The following students were congratulated in our assembly this week for completing the Bronze, Silver or Gold award (photos are from recent expeditions).

Bronze Award

Samarth Basavapatna, Jack Caskey, Harry Edwards, Daniel Gaston, Harrison Jones, Max Jackson, Lalit Kathiresan, Callum Park, Adam Parsons, Soteris Perdikas, Callum Preece, Harry Richardson, Logan Rossiter, William Storr, Omar Talat, Christopher Willis.

Silver Award

Oliver Asquith-Peacock, Jamie Williams, Jasmine Kean.

Gold Award

Cameron Mackenzie, Jonathan Tunnicliffe.

Ten Tors Training

Ten Tors training continues and Mr Clifford (parent) has sent this report from last weekend’s activities.

What a difference two weeks make. The teams swapped almost zero visibility for glorious clear blue skies and temperatures around -6 degrees with wind chill.

Despite the very low temperatures there were still issues of overheating and severe cramps to contend with. It seems every weather condition gives the teams something to think about.

The 35 mile team learn a valuable lesson in ground to map appreciation which cost them over 40 minutes whilst covering only 300m. This is the right time to make these errors so that when the event comes each and every member of the team knows what their role and function is.

Members are starting to understand that they succeed and failure as one team not as individuals within the team.

There were many lessons learnt from the training walk including the recognition that taking on food and fluids is equally important in the cold as it is in the heat.

Fundraising Activities

Among the fundraising activities this week were a staff cake stall organised by Lunchtime Supervisor, Mrs Withers, which raised £285 for The Grand Appeal at Bristol Children’s Hospital and Woodcock Ward at Derriford Hospital, and a sweet stall (and other activities) led by 8E which raised over £50 for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

Sports Update

Indoor Athletics

We participated in the Plymouth Indoor Athletics Championships this week (with DHSG) and took Gold and Silver with qualification for the county finals in March.

Well done all!

Hockey

Also through to the next round is the U16 Hockey team who qualified for the regional finals after finishing second in their group at the qualifier event in Bournemouth.

Basketball

Mixed fortunes for our basketball teams this week in their matches against the Studio School as the U15 team suffered a defeat but the U16 team finished with a convincing home win.