Focus on Education November 2022
One of the greatest gifts we can give to our children is the ability to live happy and independent lives. When they leave school at 18, they will then be prepared to take responsibility for their own choices and to forge successful futures – and we can only hope that their choices will be morally-informed and that their futures will be shared generously with others.
The worst sort of education is therefore one which encourages spoon-feeding, however attractive this appears at the time and whatever the short-term, easy gains. Unfortunately, the nature of GCSE exams can sometimes encourage this (‘teaching to the test’), and it is important that we teach pupils to play the game according to the rules; however, it is also vital that they learn to think for themselves.
This approach begins early and positively at HGS: we pitch questions back at pupils rather than giving them the answers; we tell them it’s fine to make mistakes and thus learn from them; we encourage them to be curious; we challenge them to grapple with a problem when the solution is not immediately forthcoming; we set them both independent and collaborative tasks; and we take them out of their comfort zone in a supportive environment. We hope that this gradually builds self-confidence, so that they have the resilience and wherewithal to enjoy the challenges and to overcome the difficulties which will surely come their way from time to time in adult life.
In short, we enable our students to use their knowledge carefully, to be informed, to know what to do when they don’t know what to do. To become a Force for Good.
But most importantly, in addition to hard work and determination to achieve exceptional academic results, it rests on five values.
You will be constantly reminded of these in the months and years ahead. You’ll find them on posters, forming part of your learning and the House System and they will serve as a foundation for how we believe you need to live your life at school, and how you subsequently live your life when you leave.
Community, Aspiration, Respect, Endeavour, Service.
HGS CARES
If you embrace these values, if you show ambition in everything you do, whether it is in Geography or Football, if you keep resilient and determined whatever challenges life throws at you, if you’re humble and can walk with Princes and Paupers, if you show love and care and kindness in all your dealings, and if you can really support others in their darkest of moments by showing compassion in your words and your actions, you will not just simply be a fine young person, you will be a role model to others – a true Handsworth Grammar student who leads by example. A force for good through your actions and deeds, which will stay with you your entire life.
Stay well and safe.
Be kind to yourself and others.
Best wishes,
Dr Bird
Belgium Trip, October 2022
The trip was very moving and it opened all of our eyes to the horrors of the Great War. We visited several memorials and cemeteries (including Tyne Cot and Essex Farm), where we placed wreaths for the Handsworth Grammar School ‘Old Boys’ who had lost their lives. The sheer number of people that died, and the number of bodies that haven’t been identified was terrible; our tour guide told us that about 1/5 of the people that died are still unidentified. In Ypres, there were only a few non-European graves; the most at a single cemetery was 12, but there were many names recorded on the memorials, further adding to the magnitude of the number of bodies not found. On the second day, we were privileged to attend the re-dedication ceremony of a grave of a soldier who had recently been identified. We also visited the German Langemark Cemetery.
At the Memorial Museum Passchendaele we saw the kind of conditions soldiers fought and lived in. The stories that our tour guide told us about the trenches made us feel grateful for being alive at this time. Many of the people that died as a result of trench warfare were forced to go ‘over the top’; they were shot down with machine guns. Failing to comply with orders may mean that their own commanders would shoot them for cowardice, something incredibly horrifying to visualise. Some were gassed, and many soldiers ran the wrong way, meaning the gas eventually caught up with them. We were told by our tour guide that the actions of the man that developed the gases (Fritz Haber) ultimately led to his own family’s destruction; his wife committed suicide as she couldn’t live with a man that was responsible for the deaths of so many, and his children were ultimately killed by the same gases in gas chambers because they were Jewish.
We learnt a lot about the war and, during a visit to Talbot House, we saw where soldiers could temporarily escape from the horrors of the trenches, and try to relax. The priest who set it up wanted the house to be enjoyed by all, no matter who they were; this was seen as radical back then as society was built on racism and rank. There, we were able to play chess and the piano, and we watched a video of a typical show that would have been performed there during the war.
On the Thursday evening at 8pm we witnessed the moving Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate.
We had some ‘down time’ during the trip, enjoying a game of bowling and, on the next evening, we went to play pool at the same venue. Some watched a very important football match which sadly didn’t go to plan as Mr Jones’s team lost! On the last day, we visited the beautiful city of Bruges, which had houses which greatly resembled those of Amsterdam. We enjoyed a canal tour which was very therapeutic and the photographs we captured were amazing. Many of us tried authentic Belgium waffles as well as chocolate, which tasted amazing!
Overall, the trip was thought-provoking and we learnt the scale of the sacrifice. I would like to thank Mr Jones, Mrs Hartt, Mrs Yates and Mr Campbell for the organisation of the trip as it went incredibly smoothly.
Hardev Manku (10W)
