Sixth Form Enrichment Day
Year 12 and 13 students had the pleasure of listening to a number of visiting speakers on Wednesday 11th February during the school’s Enrichment day.
Brian Hession, a senior commercial lawyer from leading solicitors Shoosmiths, came with three trainee lawyers to speak to year 12 students about a career in the legal profession. They spoke about entries into Law, described their career paths and answered questions about their roles.
Sinead Flood came from the University College of Football Business, a new university based at Wembley stadium and Burnley FC. She spoke about the opportunities which exist in sports administration and sports business.
Sammy Dedicoat from Newman University spoke to students about the teaching profession and the various ways in which young people can start their careers in teaching.
Captain James Veasey from the Royal Marine Commandos gave a most illuminating presentation about his career in the Marines following a degree in history at the University of Newcastle.
Finally Sawsan Basawy from “Bite the Ballot” completely enthused the students by making them think about real moral dilemmas as part of her work on engaging young people in the political process.
Year 13 were treated to a presentation by Aston University’s head of recruitment, James Seymour who gave excellent advice about “arriving and surviving” at university.
Emma Wright from Ashram Housing spoke about managing a finite budget and gave practical financial advice and Alex Westworth from “Now Education” delivered an excellent presentation on securing jobs through good CVs and excellent interview skills.
This was a fantastic day and all our visitors commented on the excellent response and warm welcome from the HGS students.
Mr Conway
Charity Fundraising Update
As a School community we have recently raised over £1,700 for good causes at a local and national level. Our Sixth Form Students particularly played a prominent role in raising funds for Birmingham Children’s Hospital through a variety of activities such as food and cake sales. To date this term we have sent the following cheques:
£850 to Birmingham Children’s Hospital
£400 to Cancer Research UK
£400 to the British Heart Foundation.
Our Charity Fundraising work is ongoing and we are planning now for Comic Relief in March.
Old Boy is new CBSO Assistant Conductor
Alpesh Chauhan is new CBSO Assistant Conductor
Role builds on year-long period as the orchestra’s first Conducting Fellow.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) continues to build its reputation for discovering and developing young conductors as it today announces that its first Conducting Fellow, Alpesh Chauhan, has taken up the role of Assistant Conductor with the orchestra.
Alpesh, 24, was announced as the CBSO’s first Conducting Fellow in December 2013. The Fellowship was designed to enable aspiring young conductors to bridge the gap between full-time study and the classical music profession as well as offering unprecedented access to some of the best conductors, artists and musicians in the world. During the fellowship, Alpesh has accompanied the CBSO on two tours and taken rehearsals with the CBSO and CBSO Youth Orchestra. He has also conducted elsewhere, including at Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and Manchester Camerata.
In the role of Assistant Conductor, Alpesh will attend CBSO rehearsals and assist conductors, including Music Director Andris Nelsons. He will also take rehearsals with the CBSO Youth Orchestra this autumn and conduct a concert in his own right, the Summer Showcase, next June 25, 2015. The role will finish with the current concert season in July 2015.
Speaking about the role, Birmingham- born Alpesh said: “This means a huge deal to me. I have had a great year as Conducting Fellow and learned so much; I am sure that will continue in this ‘graduated’ role.
Year 9 Physics ‘Big Quiz’ 2015
On Wednesday 21st January twelve Year 9 students took part in the 10th annual Physics ‘Big Quiz’ at the University of Birmingham. There were 75 teams taking part, with 300 pupils from all over the West Midlands and Staffordshire.
Brandon Masih writes: “We arrived at the University by 9:45am and met Mr McCarron by the large clock tower near to the Great Hall. It was saddening that Mr Jones, Head of Science, could not cast ‘judgement’ on our efforts on this day, seeing as how he was the one who had recruited us to this ‘noble’ cause.
The morning began with a word search round and after this we were formally introduced to our hosts and made acquainted with the rules. The most important of these rules was that each team, of which we had separated into three groups of four, had access to a ‘Joker’, which allowed our points to be doubled for that single round. It could be used in any round apart from the final round, which we were told in advance was on ‘Light’.
There were 3 rounds in the morning session. The first round was some general physics knowledge questions, followed by a round in which we had to identify an object from its description. Round three contained a number of mathematical questions which we had to solve. At the end of each round there was a Spot Question for which we had to get the closest answer e.g. what is the mass of the Sun in kilograms?
We were then treated to a lecture by one of the Professors at the University on the subject of using Physics to see inside the human body. Accompanied by some out-dated music, the lecture lasted for around an hour; it was scheduled to last for fifty minutes but was extended due to some mishaps with making a spinning top float using magnetism.
There were 3 further rounds in the afternoon. The first one was to identify famous scientists from a picture or a description. Round 5 was a miscellaneous round, and finally there was the round on the ‘specialist’ area of study – light. One thing we had learned during the quiz was the meaning of L.A.S.E.R. (Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation).
HGS Team B (Aarondeep Johal, Brandon Masih, Ibrahim Kabir and Ranvir Kauldhar) claimed first place. Our prize was a large trophy that the school will return next year and a small trophy that the school will keep. The four winners also each received a gold medal and a model of an internal combustion engine. HGS Team C (Mohammed Khanoie, Kyron Chander-Masaun, Joshua Nagra and Shoaib Raja) won the spot prize about the mass of the Sun (2.0 x 1030 kg) and also came second overall. HGS Team A (Mohammed Hamza Hussain, Arunvir Singh, Raqeeb Khan and Khanh Pham) came joint third with Abingdon School.
On behalf of all of us who participated, I would like to thank Mr Jones, who recruited us, and to Mr McCarron, who was our support in between rounds. I would like to wish Mr Jones good luck in finding people in the current Year 8 who will live up to the standard we set!”
British Physics Olympiad Success
Two of our highest achieving year thirteen students, Donte Nembhard (left) and Manraj Dhanda (right) were winners recently in the British Physics Olympiad.
The British Physics Olympiad (BPhO) aims to encourage the study of physics and recognise excellence in young physicists through four annual physics competitions.
The competitions are designed to test understanding and problem solving skills and are open to able young physicists in school years 11-13 (GCSE to A2 or equivalent).
Mr Jones, our Head of Science was delighted at the success of the two boys who are both looking forward to exciting futures. Donte has an offer from Cambridge University to study chemical engineering and Manraj is presently waiting to hear from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) the prestigious American university, as he hopes to study maths there.
Congratulations to both boys.
