Trussell Trust Foodbank
Handsworth Grammar School donated over 3,000 items of food to Reverend Roger Collins from the Trussell Trust Foodbank. This donation was made possible by the hard work of Ms Elaine Brown and her form and the wider generosity of the Handsworth Grammar School Community.
Science Fun at Birmingham University
We recently took Year 7 pupils to Birmingham University for some Science Fun. Here are a couple of articles from pupils who went on separate days:
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15 December
The trip to Birmingham University was very interesting and very informative. We listened to two lectures, one on Chemistry and one on Biology.
In Chemistry, we were taught how different atoms fuse together to create different elements but our main topics that we were taught were light, energy and mass and how they were and can be produced. Before starting the lectures, we were allowed to sing some Christmas songs.
In the Biology talk, we were taught how much sugar can be in just one product; the ‘winner’ turned out to be a bar of dairy milk chocolate, which also came high in which product has the most fat. They gave us gifts for volunteering to help with the demonstrations.
We weren’t the only school there. There were other schools such as Holte School, Camp Hill, Alvechurch, St. Michael’s, al-Hijrah and Bishop Challoner. A few practicals were carried out in both lectures, like seeing which gas can produce a different colour in a burning flame – lithium produced a red colour for example.
The trip was very interesting and I hope that we can go on a trip like it again.
Hasnain Jafer, 7N
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16 December
On the 16th December, 30 Year 7 students were given the opportunity to go to the University of Birmingham to attend two Science lectures. We boarded our minibuses at 10.40am to depart from school and arrived at the University at around 11.20am. We then entered the auditorium where the lectures were going to be held.
We first spent more than half an hour singing many famous Christmas songs like Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’, ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ by Shakin’ Stevens and one of the most loved Xmas songs ‘I wish it could be Xmas everyday’ by Wizzard. We joined in with the many other schools there. However, the best part was when Mr Mohsin was chosen to sing Xmas songs in front of all of us.
At 12.00pm the first lecture began, ‘Physics Hot and Cold’, given by the physicist Dr Evans. Dr Evans taught us many new and interesting facts and figures throughout the lecture. We were given information on temperature, heat, hot/cold spots in the Universe and the reactions caused by temperature. Our lecture included a lot of practicals involving liquid nitrogen. Did you know that it is physically impossible to reach a temperature of -273 degrees and that scientists use the temperature measurement Kelvin instead of degrees Celsius?
After we had our ten minute lunch break, it was time for our next lecture on ‘Health and Nutrition’. We were taught how fitness affects your health and how much sugar is in certain products. The lecture was based around 10 experiments which included an explanation of the substantial amount of calories in some of Britain’s favourite food like jacket potatoes, coke, burgers and chocolate. It was very interesting and we all learnt a lot of fascinating and useful information.
In my opinion, I really enjoyed the experience. If you have the chance of going, I would recommend it.
Rohan Minhas, 7A.
Basketball Success for U’16s
The U’16s basketball team had a comprehensive victory against local rivals King Edward VI Aston last night by 55-17 in an away friendly fixture.
The Handsworth team showed great skill in a very competitive but sporting match with some terrific basketball played by both teams. The Aston team showed great spirit but were outdone by some excellent scoring from the HGS team and in particular Bilal Saleem who scored nine baskets, Malveer Padda and Mo Mohammed who all scored well.
Gurkirat Thandi also scored his first basket of the season, and there was a welcome return to the squad for Shuja Mehmood, who also made a very valuable contribution at a critical stage of the game.
This was a fine way to end the term for a dedicated and determined team who are unbeaten this season.
The team was:
Suffian Faadl-Elahi (Captain)
Bilal Saleem
Malveer Padda
Amar Rupra
Mo Mohammed
Zain Waqar
Gurkirat thandi
Joe Sefari
Shuja Mehmood
Mr Conway
Champion School Award
Fareisha Wallen-Shim from the NCS recently visited Handsworth Grammar School and presented Mr Conway and Mr Bird with the Champion School Award. This prestigious award recognises the ethos, dedication and excellence displayed by Handsworth Grammar School students towards the NCS programme. Only some 18 schools from the 5000 schools across the whole of the Midlands are awarded this honour. This is a remarkable achievement and further demonstrates the talent, success and wonderful spirit of our Sixth Form students.
World Scout Jamboree
Last summer I was fortunate enough to attend the 23rd World Scout Jamboree in Japan. I was proud to be chosen as 1 of the 36 young people from Birmingham to go on this 3 week international camp. In order to be selected I had to go through a rigorous interview process as well as raise £3,500 (of which £250 was kindly donated to me by the school). The rest of the money was raised via endless bag packing sessions at supermarkets and creative ideas like carrying out Gold D of E in fancy dress.
We departed for Japan on the 25th of July from Birmingham airport, having said goodbye to our families we endured a 12 hour flight into Nagoya Airport. From there we travelled by coach to Okazaki where we stayed with a Japanese family for 2 days. In that short time, we visited a traditional communal bath house, visited Okazaki castle which is the birthplace of the first Shogun and we also made a visit to a local Japanese Scout group.
We then left our host families to travel to the Jamboree site on the Bullet train, the sheer speed was astonishing. When we first arrived at the campsite we found out that we had to walk 30 minutes to the other side of the campsite carrying our luggage. Our plot was effectively a field of bamboo shoots but it was soon flattened when we put up our tents. The next day all 40,000 Scouts flocked to the arena stage where the opening ceremony would take place, some of the entertainment included traditional Japanese drumming as well as J-pop. At the centre of the campsite was a massive air conditioned dome where there were always some sort of activities taking place. On one of the days a Japanese version of the sister act gave a performance. Every day we had to wake up at 4 am for food collection before the sun rose, at that time of year the sun rises at 6am and before you know it the temperature is 35 degrees. Each day had its own theme like Science where we learned about recent scientific innovations and discoveries. I was privileged to take part in an interfaith ceremony on the main stage representing the Sikh faith in front of thousands of people.
An unforgettable part of the Jamboree was when we had the opportunity to visit Hiroshima, which is where the first atomic bomb was dropped. We visited Hiroshima the day before the 70th Anniversary. Visiting the museum put life in perspective and made you realise the destructive potential of one of these bombs.
We packed up our tents and once again boarded the Bullet train but this time bound for Tokyo, one of the world’s megacities. The city itself was just vast, our hotel room reminded us of this every time we looked out the window over the Tokyo skyline. We visited the main tourist attractions in Tokyo like the “Tokyo Sky Tree” as well as “Electric City” which is the equivalent to Times Square.
Then our journey was over, making friends from all over the world, learning about many new cultures and traditions and developing me as a member of society. It was an unforgettable experience.
Taran Bedi
Lions Donation to HGS
The Birmingham Handsworth Lions Club very kindly donated £1001 to HGS recently – with the money going towards developing school facilities for the benefit of all our students. This link has been made possible by the generous support of Mr Dev Dalvair who is a current parent of two HGS students. All at HGS are very grateful for such wonderful support from such a prestigious global organisation as The Lions.
Trussell Trust Foodbank
Every day people in the UK go hungry for reasons ranging from redundancy to receiving an unexpected bill on a low income. Trussell Trust Foodbanks provide a minimum of three days emergency food and support to people experiencing crisis in the UK and specifically in Birmingham.
13 million people live below the poverty line in the UK.
In 2014-15 foodbanks fed 1,084,604 people nationwide. Of those helped, 396,997 were children.
At HGS we can do something to help, If every student in the school brings in just one item we will be able to donate more than a 1,000 items to the Trussell Trust’s FoodBank in Birmingham.
Tins and packets are the best items to donate. Please see the list below for ideas about what to donate.
Milk (UHT or powdered)
Sugar (500g)
Fruit juice (carton)
Soup
Pasta sauces
Sponge pudding (tinned)
Tomatoes (tinned)
Cereals
Rice pudding (tinned)
Tea Bags/instant coffee
Instant mash potato
Rice/pasta
Tinned meat/fish
Tinned fruit
Jam
Biscuits or snack bars
Please bring your donations to your Form Tutor or to Ms Brown in Room 3.
Music Exam Results
| Samuel Grego | Grade 2 | Pass | Classical Guitar |
| Abishek Dey | Grade 2 | Merit | Classical Guitar |
| Jai Patel | Grade 2 | Merit | Classical Guitar |
| Robert Frater | Grade 7 | Pass | Classical Guitar |
| Seth Griffiths | Grade 7 | Pass | Classical Guitar |
| Karl Frater | Grade 7 | Merit | Classical Guitar |
| Brandon Masih | Grade 7 | Merit | Classical Guitar |
