On Friday 23^rd October at 6:00am we arrived at school to meet for our journey to Paris.  We loaded our luggage and found a seat in the coach wondering what would happen next… …some were nervous, some were excited.  As we waved our parents ‘au revoir’ we set off for Dover.  After a couple of hours we stopped at Oxford services to buy some snacks and have a toilet break. The journey from the services to Dover was tiring for all of us, it took approximately 4 hours.  Due to the fact we arrived at the ferry early, we had to wait for about 30 minutes before boarding.  When we finally arrived inside the ferry, Mr Jones decided upon a meeting spot (this is where we were to meet when the ferry arrived at Calais).  We all explored the ferry feeling ecstatic. Everyone really enjoyed playing in the arcade and looking around the shops.  Reaching Calais, we set off on another long and tiring journey to Lagny, where our hotel (the Hotel Comfort Inn) was.  When we eventually arrived, everyone was relieved but exhausted. We grabbed our luggage and headed to our rooms.  As we unpacked Mr Mohsin knocked on our door informing us that dinner was ready. We all rushed to the dining table. Everyone really enjoyed the dessert!  The teachers had decided that 10 o’clock would be the time for ‘lights out’.  Everyone had an early night as we all were terribly fatigued.  Some of us contacted our parents to say ‘bonne nuit’.

Our first day dawned….we were all filled with excitement!  After scoffing a delightful breakfast, Mr. Jones made an announcement about what we would need and also what we’d be doing. From there, we dashed to our rooms, grabbed our backpacks and headed off for a cruise along the River Seine. During this, we saw great views of buildings such as the Louvre and, most commonly, the Eiffel Tower.  After our cruise we went to the Montparnasse Tower and everyone loved the views of Paris from the top; there was nothing we couldn’t see.  We spotted sights such as the Arc de Triomphe and Sacre Couer.  After descending we trudged to McDonalds. Ordering food at McDonalds in Paris was quite different to the way we order it in the UK; we had to order on screens in booths.  After this, we walked through gardens and under the Eiffel Tower; Mrs Minhas told us that we walked for around 4 miles!  We then headed to the Montmartre area and had free time to buy souvenirs, have a drink, eat some more food or just chill out.  Some of us climbed up to the Sacre Couer which took about 10 minutes.  We saw plenty of scams such as the ‘cup and ball’ trick and guys who tried to charge you for tying string around your wrists or signing something.  Forewarned by Mr Jones, we avoided being ripped-off!  We then went to have dinner at a restaurant called ‘Monte Carlo’; everyone enjoyed their meal.  As we headed back to the hotel, we saw lots of amazing things.  The roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe has 12 exits to it and Mr Jones told us that, once on the roundabout, no driver’s insurance would be valid.  Mrs Minhas and Mrs Donoghue kept Sachin and me awake for all of the journey with their ‘amazing’ singing of 1970’s ‘classics’.  Back at base, after such a busy day, we dozed off straight away and had a great night’s sleep…..

Our next day dawned… everyone arrived refreshed at the breakfast table bang on time.  We were now going to the Cité des Sciences Museum.  After a 30 minute drive we arrived.  However, because of a last minute strike, it was shut.  Great!  Everyone felt disheartened but we went early to the Stade de France. We really enjoyed ourselves; there were plenty of gleaming and valuable souvenirs bought and we were given a tour of the whole stadium.  One of my friends, Sachin, said “I really enjoyed the Stade de France tour. My favourite part was seeing the Stadium’s home changing room. We even got to run out along the players’ tunnel”.   We also visited the museum in which Raess and I spotted a Brazilian shirt signed by Ronaldo. Priceless!  After seeing the gigantic and spectacular stadium we headed off for lunch. Unfortunately, lunch was a bit of a disaster… we went to a pizzeria and it took at least an hour and a half for everyone to receive their meal. Mine was worth the wait though!  After lunch, some of us played football whilst others played a catching game with a rugby ball.  Overall we had a tremendous time.  It was soon time for dinner!  Arriving at our booked restaurant, the Hard Rock Café, we ordered and, when it arrived, the food was amazing although we couldn’t finish it. We were stuffed… we just had enough room to finish a bit of our ice cream.  We then set off for bowling at ‘Bowling Mouffetard.’  Some of us bowled (and I won) whilst others played pool, air hockey or on arcade machines.  Back at the hotel and we dozed off straight away again.

Day 4… our last day… after breakfast we loaded our luggage with everyone a little sad to be leaving.  The journey was long and tiring.  However, Mr Jones kept me, Gurkirut, Sundeep and Talbir entertained at all times asking us questions from Mrs Donoghue’s quiz book.  Reaching Calais, we had to go through a few security checks before boarding.  Then, reaching Dover, we set off for another long and tiring journey to Birmingham.  We felt happy to see our parents again; I had missed them as we all did.  Finally, grabbing our suitcases we set off back home for dinner and a good night’s sleep….

We all thank our teachers: Mr Jones, Mrs Minhas, Mr Campbell, Mr Mohsin and Mrs Donoghue, and also our coach driver Dave.  Without all of your hard work our trip would not have taken place. Would you want to go to Paris with us again next year?

Shivam Kanda, 8G

Click here to view the photo gallery.

On Tuesday 03.11.2015, twenty five Year 12 students took part in the first mentoring session of the Community-Apprentice programme between HGS and Interserve. This is an exclusive programme offered by Envision, which only runs at select schools in London, Bristol and Birmingham. We are pleased to continue working closely with senior executives from Interserve to support our students with their community projects. Interserve is a multi-billion pound global firm that operates as one of the world’s foremost support services and construction companies.

Aims of the session were to:

• Build a sense of team
• Explore skills that can be developed this year, and their relevance to the work place
• Set a skills goal for each young person
• Give mentors an overview of the issues the students have chosen to tackle and allow mentors to give advice and feedback at this stage

The session kicked off with some speed interviewing, with students and mentors getting to know each other and finding common ground; chatting about topics such as “Who inspires you and why?” and “What is/was it like to be 16?”.

The second activity involved Tom Martin, a Senior Engineer at Interserve, giving an introduction to the business and explaining his credentials and that of his colleagues who attended the session (for more information about Interserve, please visit www.interserve.com).This was then followed by students and mentors being divided into groups to explore the skills that the mentors use in their daily roles. They worked together to categorise these under the six core skills that young people will develop on the Community Apprentice Programme: Organisation, Teamwork, Leadership, Resilience and Problem solving, Empathy, and Communication. The mentors supported the students to choose one skill to focus on this year, and together they came up with a brief action plan and set goals to help them increase their personal development in this area.

After sharing this with the group, select students from each group presented an overview of the issue they had chosen to explore and why it was important to them. This was then followed by mentors engaging the two teams to help them come up with three SMART targets to help them advance their projects and make good progress towards achieving their goals.

Feedback from Steve Dannan, Mentor and Head of Innovation at Interserve:

“It was amazingly uplifting to hear how passionate both teams are about their projects, and I’m really looking forward to seeing their projects develop over the next few months.”

Each team, produced an early draft of their promotional video to introduce their project. These videos can be found at:

Team Mentality: https://vimeo.com/143232337

Team Concept: https://vimeo.com/143021425

Taking full advantage of some of the new facilities available in school, Form 10N recently took part in a table-tennis tournament.  The keenly fought competition saw Shoaib beating Husain in the third place contest, and Rayhan beating Gugandeep in the final to win the new (and now highly coveted) Nelson Trophy!  Well done to all competitors for their fine display of sportsmanship; no arguing or attempted foul play was in evidence!

Mr P Jones

The word of the week commencing 2nd November 2015 is: Procrastinate

This means delay or postpone action; put off doing something.

“the temptation will be to procrastinate until the power struggle plays itself out”

The display is produced by the student librarians.

This display can be found in our Library.

Football

The Year 11 Football team recently beat Aston University Engineering Academy 10 – 2 in an Aston League match. Congratulations.

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British Gymnastics

Kai Ho in 9 William is a National Level Gymnast for the British Squad. He trains 5 days a week at Earls Gymnastics Club as well as attending regular training camps at Lilleshall Training Centre in Telford where he is coached by the British Coaching team. At the recent British National Level Competition he attended he was first overall in the Parallel Bars (making him British Champion in his age group) and was third in the overall competition. Kai is aiming to get into Team GB for International competitions. Congratulations and good luck.