As a result of our recent Non-Uniform day our Students and Staff raised over £1, 400 for local and national good causes. The funds will be divided between the following organisations:
The Kemp Hospice
Birmingham Soup Kitchen
Brain Tumour Society
Good Shout
Congratulations and thank you to everyone who took part in being a force for good.
HGS played host to a number of external organisations on Wednesday 12th February, who all came to speak to the 6th form students and engage them in different activities.
Year 12 students began work on their UCAS application for 2015 and then had a series of presentations from, Carl Smith of the West Midlands Fire Service, who spoke about the dangers and temptations facing young drivers.
Former student Keshav Bhat spoke about his work and about sexism among young people; Mrs Chandon our Psychology teacher spoke about domestic violence, and we also had two visitors from the accountancy firm Deloitte, who spoke about their company’s “Bright start” programme.
Year 13s were treated to presentations from James Seymour, director of Student recruitment at Aston University; Mr Duck our UCAS co-ordinator on applying for student finance, and then were allowed to choose a practical activity to take part in.
Students took part in pottery with our head of Art, Mr Lynch; took a yoga class with Mari from Handsworth Leisure Centre; did jewellery making with Estelle Bennet; took part in a “Cooking on a budget” lesson led by Shaleen Meelu, or did rock climbing at the West Bromwich Climbing centre, led by Mr Woodcock.
A great and memorable day was had by all.
6th form students are invited to take part in the National Schools’ Challenge, an online competition for 6th form students.
Cash prizes are available for the winners!
The Year 9 Indoor Cricket team beat Hampstead Hall by 21 runs recently and continue to develop well. Year 7 are playing Aston Manor tonight in the Sports Hall – good luck!
On Tuesday the 11th of February, a group of approximately fifty pupils from years 10 and 11 went to the Bowlplex at Broadway Plaza, as a reward for their excellent behaviour and progress since the start of the academic year. The pupils were accompanied by Mr Mohsin, Mr Bird, Mr Campbell and Mr Hawkins, who kindly gave up their free time to take us.
What was evident to all of us, both pupils and staff, was that the trip was a great success, it’s a wonder why we hadn’t done this before. We think we speak for all the year 10s and 11s when we say more of the same please.
Nathan Bell & Raphael Dobrashian-Yates
10 Nelson
The word of the week commencing 10th February 2014 is: Magnanimous.
This means generous or forgiving, especially towards a rival or less powerful person.
“she should be magnanimous in victory”
This display can be found in our Library.
On Thursday 6th February 2014, a group of year 8s were fortunate enough to attend a Chemistry at Work event arranged by the Royal Society of Chemistry at the Thinktank Science Museum. Pupils were selected across the five forms based on Science Teacher and Form Tutor recommendations and the aim of the day was to give pupils an insight into possible careers related to Chemistry.
Pupils were treated to a Chemistry Magic Show, which involved things such as frying an egg using liquid nitrogen as well as the combustion of ethanol fumes in a whoosh bottle. Pupils also had the opportunity to explore the different areas of the Science Museum itself completely free of charge.
Pupils then took part in 3 workshops all designed to give pupils an insight into different industries where chemistry is applicable. They attended workshops on the Chemistry of perfume making, the Chemistry of DNA in which they were able to take away their own DNA sample and the Chemistry involved in Material Sciences, which included the opportunity to win chocolate bars!
No visit to the Science Museum would be complete without the customary stop at the gift shop and this visit was no different.
It was a brief yet enjoyable insight into careers in Chemistry and the pupils went away reinvigorated about Chemistry as a subject and with ideas of how it can be used outside of the lab.
Mr M Mohsin
THIS IS THE THIRD MEETING OF THE YPP, UNFORTUNATELY ONLY 3 MEMBERS OF THE YPP ATTENDED.
YPP TRIP TO BCU ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
We arrived at Birmingham City University at 10.30 am and joined other schools at the meeting. We began with a quiz about the environment and recycling (we each had a green, red and yellow card which we had to hold up to indicate the answer).
Shortly after we discussed eco-friendly ways in which we could change our school. One of these changes was that we could ring the council and ask them for wheelie bins, free of charge therefore we will recycle and sort materials out in plastics, woods etc.
We then watched a video that showed how global warming works and discussed things that we could reuse, like socks that have holes in them, instead of buying new ones we could just repair them.
Then we were introduced to the 3 r’s, recycle, reuse and reduce, we were paired up with James watt and Oasis Academy Bolton – primary schools. We created our own top ten tips for the 3 r’s and presented them to everyone. After that we talked about the things that we recycled in our schools and what we didn’t recycle, we said that Mrs. Linley recycles paper.
Other schools came up with ideas which I feel can be implemented at our school for example we could go around each classrooms and give them boxes to put paper in.
My sister attends the University of Law and told me that when printing they set the default to double side so paper is not wasted.
In our lessons we can ensure that all class handouts are double sided to save paper.
I think that we should carry out an inspection of the school with regards to environmental factors and then come up with ways to be more sufficient. An example of this could be inspecting the canteen kitchens to ask the staff whether they recycle any leftover food, or if they reduce items that are out of date.
We could also ask the ICT staff if they turn off all their appliances at the end of the day. We would need to do research in to whether it is more efficient to leave them on standby or turn them off.
We would like to propose that all students are actively involved in fundraising for Syria and the Philippines as other primary schools had mentioned this at the YPP Meeting.
We could have a bake sale , non-uniform day and get the art classes involved so we can sell bookmarks amongst other things , another good idea would be to bring in unwanted toys and sell them .We could open up the sale at the end of the day to family members of the school.
Thank You
YPP members: Usman, Akhil, Cairo and Thawhidur
Made By Usman Khan 8A
On Tuesday 4 February 2014, a group of us from Years 10 and 11 got the opportunity to attend one of the “GCSE Science Live” events at Symphony Hall . Here we got the chance to see and hear five of Britain’s top and most eminent scientists (in order of appearance: Robert Winston, Alice Roberts, Andrea Sella, Lucie Green and Jim Al-Khalili) . To start off the day we were each issued a booklet with details about each scientist, the lectures and some general articles about studying Science and working as scientists. With much enthusiasm, the first scientist was then introduced (Lord Robert Winston), and he began talking about transgenetic technology. Through this he was able to explain many fascinating processes including apoptosis (programmed cell death) and he sweetly touched on the first successful IVF in history. We then heard from Professor Alice Roberts about her specialism – evolutionary anatomy. “How can a 1.5 million year old skeleton of a young boy shed light on what it means to be human?” – a very profound question which she answered based on the discovery of the skeleton of a young boy, since named “Nariokotome” boy. Not only was Professor Roberts able to explain with absolute clarity the history and timeline behind human evolution, she was able to describe unequivocally the change in human anatomy over the last 1.5 million years. The next scientist on the list was Dr Andrea Sella, who skipped enthusiastically onto the stage. His lecture started off with the question “How did the zebra get its stripes?”; through clever analogies and his almost virtuosic ability of talking with the audience, he was able to draw analogies between biological and chemical processes and compare the inherent patterns of certain chemical solutions to the stripes on the zebra. Next came Lucie Green who expressed her love for our very own Sun. Her description was almost poetic; she talked about ongoing processes happening in the Sun that are seldom noticed, and she described recent satellite missions which will enable us to keep an eye on our fiery neighbour. The last scientist of the day to present was Jim Al-Khalili on what, in my opinion, was the most fascinating topic – he talked about the idea of “time travel” and explained this seemingly improbable possibility using concepts such as time dilation and relativity-mind boggling stuff! During the day we also heard from a Chief Examiner about typical examination mistakes, and tips to improve. A big thanks to Mr Jones for organising the trip – it was a truly memorable experience!
Khubbaib Hasan 11N
The word of the week commencing 3rd February 2014 is: Dishevelled.
This means (of a person’s hair, clothes, or appearance) untidy; disordered.
“a man with long dishevelled hair”
This display can be found in our Library.
