We will be holding a series of free Easter Booster Classes for Year 11, 12 & 13 Students between Monday 4th April 2016 and Friday 8th April 2016. They will operate between 9am and 3pm – Please see the timetable below and the Letters to Parents area of the website.
Old faces and very much new gathered to take part in the final event of the winter at Handsworth Grammar, to send off the year in a very musical style. Our penultimate day flourished into a magnificent gathering of young, talented musicians, whose music could warm even the coldest of hearts. (And no, it’s not just the under-floor heating; music also emanates a certain aura that warms the soul)
Music was truly the main focus of night. A staple of our concerts; the guitar ensembles played as majestically as ever, under the ever watchful eye of Mr Knight. Dare I say that our classical guitarists have been the best they’ve been for the last few years?
The keyboard ensembles, had such uplifting spirit with Mr Czepiel’s choice of pieces, featuring I’m a believer (a theme from Shrek) for the junior ensemble and ‘Don’t stop me Now’ for the senior ensemble. Truly this was a concert to end of a fantastic first term we all had.
We cannot forget the orchestra – with Mr Ward at helm, once again conducting – who played with spirit, embracing their inner Englishmen and playing Pomp and Circumstance marches, a well-known theme by Edward Elgar. The orchestra was not the only thing for Mr Ward to conduct however; the debut of this year’s Choir, filled with the first appearance of many Year 7’s. Mr Ward was certainly rapturous following their performance of Happy, having embraced Christmas with ‘Away in a Manger’ moments before.
The raw talent of our musicians radiated with our ‘stand-alone’ acts. The likes of two Renaissance pieces from the guitars, a trio by Dowland played by the Frater twins and Mr Knight, and a Spanish piece played by Brandon Masih. Our piano solos took for a far more 20th century approach, Camara Talbert playing a piece by Norton and Khanh Pham with a vicious piece by W. Carroll. We also had an array of woodwind pieces played, with the Tabla being represented by a solo and trio. The debut of the harp in the concert, played by Lydia Liburd, only just shows how much talent we have to show during our concerts.
Our concert may be great, but it is nothing without the teachers that make it happen. Thank you to Mr Ward, head of Music, for putting together the program and being there throughout rehearsals, ensuring with the It technicians that only the best sound is produced. Thanks to Ms Vaughan, who was as equally helpful in preparing the concert and without her help, much of the work would not be possible. It is also right to thank our Music teachers; Mr Knight; Mr Czepiel; Ms Strudwick; Mrs Buxton and Mr Matharu: without their countless hours of work, we wouldn’t have a concert to put on. I must thank each performer, whose talents have entertained many, even if Jingle bells continues the long line of finales where they just end up laughing out of exhaustion.
Last but not least, thanks to Mr Conway for being our compere once again, along with every staff member who had helped over the course of the day, making our preparations far better to cope with.
Brandon Masih 10 Henry
Our congratulations go to Abdi Ige who has secured the offer of a place at Merton College, Oxford to read History and Politics and also to Manraj Dhanda who has secured a place at Queens’ College, Cambridge to read Engineering. This is a wonderful achievement in what is an ever increasingly competitive arena.
Some of you may have seen the media reports on the timetabling of exams recently.
JCQ have issued this response:
“There has been a clear misunderstanding in some parts of the media as to how the GCSE and A level timetable is set and the impact religious events, such as Ramadan, Easter and Passover have on it. It is important to note that the timetable for 2016 was drafted over a year ago, is published, and won’t be changing.“
Research from last year and this has confirmed that additional study and wider reading make a real and material difference to GCSE and A Level results. Another widely-held belief has also been confirmed recently, that eating well makes a difference to academic performance too. This study specifically examined the impact of breakfast on educational outcomes. By tracking some five thousand pupils the University of Cambridge found that the chance of achieving above average test scores were twice as high for those who ate breakfast, compared with those who did not. They also found that an extra hour a day of TV, internet use or computer games links to poorer grades at GCSE. This extra hour a day of screen time saw a fall in results equivalent to two grades overall over the course of a GCSE programme of study.
Today the charity Action for Children has published findings and advice surrounding the issue of screen time for children. Two interesting points their report makes are: “parents struggle to get children off devices such as phones, laptops, tablets and TVs” and “quality time needs to be an interaction which is not about sitting in front of a screen”.
They offer some advice:
The report states that “technology is an often necessary part of the lives of children and parents alike, but it is important to maintain a balance with other activities and quality family time….strong relationships with parents build resilience in children”.
The above information is important as we move towards the external Examination season – please do support your child as they prepare for their GCSE, AS and or A Level examinations.
Mr Alex Westworth of Now Education attended a special Year 7 Assembly this morning where he presented prizes to the 5 boys who had raised the most amount of money following the Annual Sponsored Walk. Mr Mohsin (Head of Year 7) explained how well the year group are doing and what a successful and positive first term they have had at HGS. The top 3 boys also received a prize from Aspire People. Year 7 raised a fantastic total of nearly £1, 800 and this money has been distributed between 3 charities chosen by the boys themselves: The British Heart Foundation, Acorns and HomeStart UK.
Pictured with Mr Mohsin and Mr Westworth are:
Hasnain Jafer
Shay Parekh
Devjot Surmay
Kian Tynan and
Rishi Patel
Well done!
The year 11 revision classes will begin on Monday 28th January 2016 in Room 1. They will begin promptly at 3pm and will finish at 4.15pm. Please note that you can sign up every Wednesday before the revision class but spaces are limited to 30. If you are unable to attend due to lack of spaces, revision material will be made available on Moodle.
| Date | Revision |
| Monday 18th January 2016 | English Literature: ‘Of Mice and Men’ *revision of plot, character, setting and theme |
| Monday 25th January 2016 | English Literature: ‘Of Mice and Men’ *revision of part A and B question |
| Monday 1st February 2016 | English Literature: ‘The Crucible’ / ‘An Inspector Calls’ *revision of plot, character, setting and theme |
| Monday 8th February 2016 | English Literature: ‘The Crucible’ / ‘An Inspector Calls’ *revision of examination question and using the text in the exam |
| Monday 22nd February 2016 | English Literature: Conflict poetry *grouping poems |
| Monday 29th February 2016 | English Literature: Conflict poetry *comparing poems |
| Monday 7th March 2016 | English Literature: Conflict poetry *approaching unseen question |
| Monday 14th March 2016 | English Literature: Conflict poetry *answering the unseen question |
| Monday 21st March 2016 | English Language: Question One and three |
| Monday 11th April 2016 | English Language: Question two |
| Monday 18th April 2016 | English Language: Question four |
| Monday 25th April 2016 | English Language: Section B – writing |
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.
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:
[spacer height=”16px”]
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
[spacer height=”16px”]
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.
