Mr Maz Iqbal, Honorary Alderman Najma Hafeez and Councillor Narinder Kaur Kooner visited Handsworth Grammar School on June 11^th and met with Mr Bird, Mrs McGoldrick and Mrs Virdee. A very positive and productive meeting took place which explored Handsworth Grammar School linking up with and working with the local business community. Over the past two years much work has been taking place to enable Handsworth Grammar School to be in and of the community. Our Inspiring the Minds of the Future Campaign is an important facet of this work as is the construction of our new £1.6 Million Sixth Form Centre. A reception is planned for the local business community taking place at Handsworth Grammar School in September. More details to follow.

Tim Knappett who is the Grad Project Co-ordinator for Envision visited Handsworth Grammar School to receive a cheque from Mr Conway and Mr Bird and told us; “I think it’s safe to say we’ve had a really good experience with Handsworth Grammar and the young people seem to have got a lot out of it.”

Tim went on to report that Handsworth Grammar School has cumulatively fundraised the largest amount of money out of all the 10 schools who took part in the Community Apprentice programme. The total stands at an impressive £3,679.61 raised by our students. Other schools involved have been Cadbury College and Bishop Vesey Grammar School.

Team Inspire wrote a very impressive Social Impact Report which has seen them reach the final 5 teams of the competition out of 23. They will be pitching their project to Sir Albert Bore in his boardroom on the 16^th June between 4 – 5.30pm. If chosen, they will win an all-expenses paid trip to London which will include a trip on the London Eye, a tour of Westminster, dinner on the South Bank and potentially a meeting with Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd MP.

Envision also have their end of year event that all students are invited to, at Edgbaston Cricket Ground on the 25^th June. There will be other awards up for grabs here and the three remaining teams at Handsworth Grammar School are nominated in the categories:

• Teamwork and Resilience
• Creativity and Enterprise
• Public Engagement and Education

The Community Apprentice film, featuring Handsworth Grammar School students, may be shown for the first time at the end of year event.

Jaswant Shergill a former student of Handsworth Grammar School has been selected for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games this August in the 63kg weightlifting competition. Jaswant is the current UK record holder at Under 20 level for the clean and jerk.

Jaswant was a student here in the Sixth Form having joined HGS from St John Wall School. He has successfully completed an English degree at Birmingham University, and has been a regular visitor to HGS this year, as he hopes to pursue a career in teaching.

We wish him every success in Glasgow in August.

As part of a recent Citizenship Day programme Year 8 Students investigated the area of Disability. They then narrowed down the topic to wheelchair access and design under the expert guidance of Mr Keane and the Design Technology team. The boys were tasked with designing and drawing a modern wheelchair having studied the athletes from the 2012 Paralympic Games. The top three Students selected for prizes were:

Cairo Ubiaro

Thawiur Rashid

Tainlin Lao.

Ms Jane Hatton who is Director of Evenbreak as well as the Patron of a College for Disabled Students kindly came into HGS to present the prizes. Jane commented on the outstanding quality of the work as well as the positive attitude shown towards disability at HGS.