On the afternoon of January 18^th 2017, another cohort of our year 12 students went to Handsworth Association of Schools Conference Centre, adjacent to Welford Primary School, to be trained as ‘Reading Volunteers’. The workshop entailed them working in groups to practice the best methodologies to support year 1 and 2 students with their reading skills. All fifteen students engaged in a variety of activities to share ideas and build their self-confidence. A number of case studies involving a teacher supporting a child with reading a book were looked at and students mapped out the best strategies to pitch their support at an appropriate level to the children.

This workshop was organised to help prepare our students to go out (in pairs) to an assigned primary school, every Wednesday afternoon, and support a minimum of 4 children with their reading skills. Through this programme, not only do our students give back to their community, they also learn new life-long skills such as how to speak to a child, how to teach a new skill to a child, patience, perseverance and many more.

Mr Ahmed

Around 70 students descended upon the Ladywood Arc on the 15^th December 2016 for HGS’s Annual Winter Concert. The winter concert provides an exciting opportunity for our very talented musicians to perform in one of our cities best venues. This year was particularly memorable for it was our 5^th year using the venue.

Our concerts at HGS always provide a vast array of different musical genres from the classical and romantic era’s all the way up to the modern genres we are used to today. The winter concert is no exception. Festive music found its way into the programme with the school Orchestra performing ‘Walking in the Air’ from the Snowman, we heard a performance of ‘sleigh ride’ from our Woodwind Ensemble as well as tutti renditions of Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, which provide the audience with an opportunity to participate in the concert. Film Music is also quite popular at our concerts with the Senior Keyboard Ensemble performing ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and our Woodwind Quartet playing ‘Somewhere in my Memory’ from Home Alone. In addition there were several solos and duets throughout the night. These included Balkaar Bhopal playing the Waltz in C sharp minor by Chopin, Isaac Minto playing Mr Benn by D.Lamont on the Clarinet with Karl and Robert Frater playing Andate by Antonio Vivaldi on the Guitar. Our current Young Musician of the Year Josef Feiven played Movements I and II of the Camille Saint-Seans Morceau De Concert for Horn and Piano.

The concert was a fantastic celebration of the musicians we are fortunate to have at Handsworth Grammar School and I hope that you will be able to attend the Instrumental Progress Evening on Thursday 16^th March 2017, HGS’s Young Musician of the Year on Thursday 4^th May 2017 and the Summer Concert (13^th July).

Click here to see more photos in the gallery.

In the last few days two very good articles on the use of Social Media have been published on the BBC Education website. Please see the links below and take some time to read them carefully as all our children are impacted to a greater or lesser extent by Social Media and the wider Internet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-38508888

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38529437

Handsworth Grammar School donated over 9,000 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.

Birmingham is the second largest student city in the UK and is currently home to a total of 65,000 higher education students who attend one of the city’s five different universities (Aston, Birmingham, Birmingham City, Newman and University College Birmingham). On Monday 12^th December, all Year 12 students embarked upon a visit to Aston University in an attempt to gain a further insight into studying at University. Aston University’s campus is located only a 5-10-minute walk away from the City Centre, which was perfect for the prompt 09:30 start.

This bespoke and exclusive programme only for Handsworth Grammar School students included a talk on entry to University whilst also covering the whole application process. Sarah Fullwood, Student Recruitment Officer, went into much more detail covering the personal statement aspect of the UCAS application and advised on how we could successfully ‘sell ourselves’ and maximise our application. Following on from this presentation, we were introduced to student ambassadors who gave us a tour around the campus and answered any questions or queries we had. Along with this, we were also delivered a presentation regarding personal finance at University and were told about the costs of going to a University. The trip proved to be both insightful and informative.

Even though the school doesn’t pressurise students into going to University, this visit was an important part of our School’s University application process, due to virtually all Sixth Form students choosing to go on to University after Handsworth Grammar School.

Mohammed Zoheb Mobeen and Muhammad Nazakat