Handsworth Grammar School has met the criteria for Leading Edge membership. Leading Edge is a national network for high-performing schools. It is essentially a partnership of 300 of the best schools in the country and is part of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.
The word of the week commencing 17th March 2014 is: Monstrosity.
Meanings:
1. a thing, especially a building, which is very large and unsightly.
“the shopping centre, a multi-storey monstrosity of raw concrete”
2. a thing which is outrageously evil or wrong.
“how could anyone be capable of such monstrosities?”
This display can be found in our Library.
The 2014/2015 term dates are now available in the Terms Dates section on our website.
EDT is offering a three day course during May half-term for Year 10 students who are interested in Maths and Science. The course offers careers advice and exciting hands-on activities at three different locations in the Birmingham area. The course costs £120 (includes £30 refundable deposit). Visit the following website for more information: http://www.etrust.org.uk/headstart/courses.cfm.
The Lessons from Auschwitz project that we took part in started with a seminar on Sunday 2nd March 2014, where we met our groups and educators from the Holocaust Educational Trust. We heard the moving survivor testimony of Susan Pollock, a Hungarian Jew whom survived the horrors of both Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergan Belsen. Her incredible survivor testimony taught us a rarely seen individual aspect of the Holocaust, as opposed to reading figures in a textbook. We gained a brief insight into the history of the Holocaust in historical terms, and had a lesson on pre-war Jewish life in Europe, before planning our trip to Poland to visit the camps themselves.
After a very early start on Wednesday 5th March, we travelled into Krakow airport with our group of fellow students from across the West Midlands, before being further separated into groups of 18-20 people with a specialist educator per group. We arrived in the Polish town of Oświęcim, where we visited a pre-war Jewish cemetery. This was very thought provoking, as none of the headstones in the cemetery were placed by the correct person; in the period of Nazi occupation the headstones had been removed and used for kerbstones around the town. Many graves are still left unmarked, as the majority of headstones were found in fragments after the war by Jews who bravely returned to their home town; these fragments of marble and stone were built into a memorial to the dead of the town. Following this we toured the sites of both Auschwitz I, a labour camp, and then onto Auschwitz II, or Auschwitz Birkenau, which saw the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Roma’s, homosexual men and women, and many other kinds of people the Nazi regime saw as unfit to live. The vast difference between Auschwitz I, with its hard, cold brick walls that once contained the workbenches of Dr. Mengele and Rudolf Hess, and the bleak, cold, and vast open yet somewhat claustrophobic spaces of Birkenau is remarkably stark. The railway tracks, the barbed fences , the guard towers and the brick chimneys of wooden huts now long gone is all that still stands of Birkenau; the gas chambers that saw the death of hundreds of thousands of individual people, just like you and I , were demolished by the SS at the end of the war. We saw the cattle wagons that Susan referred to, giving a sobering, and increasingly rare, individual and personal insight into the events that happened on that very ground only 70 years ago at the hands of the Nazi regime. To conclude the day, a prayer was said in Hebrew by Rabbi Marcus, to honour the dead of the ground we stood on, and candles were lit and placed at the end of the train tracks that for many people was the end of their life as free men and women.
We returned to Birmingham airport at 10.45pm on Wednesday, after a long, tiring yet thought provoking and emotional day. There is a follow-up seminar scheduled for Thursday 13th March 2014. We both look forward to passing on the lessons that we have learned through assemblies and further educational work.
Connor McGrath (Year 12) and Mariyam Mustafa (Year 13)
HGS Under 12 Football team beat King Edward VI Aston 3 – 2 in the semi-finals of the Aston Cup recently. This success puts our Under 12 team into the Final against Perry Beeches 3. Finals day will be held at Bodymoor Heath next week. Good luck!
Girls from year 12 were taken to the “Women in Engineering and Computing” conference at Coventry University on Wednesday 5th March.
Handsworth Grammar School was the only School in the West Midlands to be invited to this prestigious event, which is aimed primarily at under graduate students.
The girls heard presentations from successful women who work for IBM, TATA, EON, and Rolls Royce.
They were also able to sit in a full size Harrier Jump Jet, which is located in the workshop of Coventry University.
The picture shows Maria Mahmood sitting in the cockpit of the Harrier Jet.
In celebration of World Book Day, the Librarians have created a display.
What is World Book Day?
World Book Day is a celebration! It’s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.
We are now entering the public phase of our Fundraising Campaign and would like to give you some advanced notice of Receptions that will be taking place in May and June. Also we would welcome contact from any Parents who would like to be involved in the campaign as a volunteer. Please contact Santush Chaunkria our Campaign Manager on 0121 507 8272 or click here to send an email. Please remember that the aim of the campaign is to raise £500,000 towards our new Sixth Form Centre and future projects which will benefit all our Students as well as the wider community. Please click here to see the Fundraising area of the website for further details.
The word of the week commencing 3rd March 2014 is: Belligerent.
This means hostile and aggressive.
“the mood at the meeting was belligerent”
This display can be found in our Library.
