Children’s Commissioner

Our congratulations go to Vikram Patel who has been appointed to become part of Amplify, the Children’s Commissioner’s Children and Young Person Advisory Group. The purpose of this group is to advise the Children’s Commissioner for England, Dr Maggie Atkinson, and her office, on specific projects, policies and practice; bringing her the views of children and young people from across the country.

Well done Vikram.

Emergency Closure of School

Please be advised that if it is necessary to close the school due to adverse weather conditions, a text message will be sent to all parents and a notification will be posted on the school website by 6:30am. The school will also contact local radio stations such as BBC Radio West Midlands and Heart FM.  If your mobile phone number has recently changed and you have not notified the school, please do so immediately.

Whilst we appreciate the disruption caused by closing the School during the School day, once the text message has been sent to parents informing them of the closure, please ensure that your child is able to get home safely.  We would be grateful for your support with this issue.

Badminton – a solid start to the season!

 The Under 13 Badminton team won one match and lost the other (on count back) to Holt.

Grammar Schools

HGS is joining the Grammar Schools in Birmingham as from 1st September 2013 for our admissions procedures.  This now puts us on a level playing field with all the King Edward VI Grammar Schools, as well as Sutton Coldfield Grammar School for girls and Bishop Vesey’s in terms of the 11+ examination. A new website is due to be launched soon by the Grammar Schools in Birmingham which will contain all the necessary details of how to apply, deadline dates and so on. Also a flier and brochure will be published. Please also refer to the Admissions area on our website for information.

Three important dates worth noting now are:

13th May 2013 Test registration opens.

12th July 2013 Test registration closes at 4 pm.

7th September 2013 Test date.

Message from our Police Community Support Officer

To all the parents who have kindly supported us with signing the petition for the one way system in Woodstock Road.

I have been working closely with Councillor Mahmood Hussain who is fully supportive of this work going ahead. Due to the budget for 2012 – 2013 being spent already nothing will go ahead with the one way system in the near future. However, a business case will be put forward when discussing how to spend the 2013 – 2014 budget.

Some good news is that the barriers I have requested to prevent people parking on the junctions of the road have been agreed and they should be done in the next few months.

Once again many thanks for your support.

PCSO 30413 O’Dell

Lozells and East Handsworth Neighbourhood Policing Team

Handsworth Police Station

Football Success

Year 10 beat Holt 2 – 0 last night with both goals coming from Corey Blackett-Taylor and now the team proceed to the semi-finals of the Aston Cup. Congratulations and good luck!

Oxbridge Success

Our congratulations go to Sucbinder Johal who has been offered a place at St John’s College, Cambridge University to study for the BA degree in Chemical Engineering, starting in October 2013. It also offers the possibility of studying for a Master’s degree in Engineering. This is a great achievement – well done!

 

Old Boy – BBC1 Drama

Sam Gardner (who goes under the stage name of Sam Swann) is starring in the BBC 1 Drama about National Service conscripts in 1960 – “Privates”. Sam left HGS in 2005 and is developing a successful portfolio and career in acting both on stage and screen. We wish him all the very best and congratulate him on this recent success. 

Winter Concert

We were pleased to present our Winter Concert on Wednesday 19th December at the Ladywood ARC. It was an exciting time for the music department as this was the first opportunity to hold a concert at an external venue for several years. Ladywood ARC is primarily a functioning Church, but through the Heritage Lottery Fund money was provided to enable the interior of the Church to be updated and modernised to accommodate a myriad of functions. The Music Service uses it for concerts for smaller ensembles, as do several of the local choirs most notably Ex Cathedra. The venue was perfect for our Winter Concert. We had approximately 130 in attendance and with an additional 70 performers filling the space it made for a cosy winter’s eve.
The main ensembles all performed that night; both the junior and senior keyboard and guitar ensembles, choir, orchestra and woodwind ensembles. There were solos from a number of students, including Sahibpreet Bhambra (tabla), Rory Gaskin (cello), Yunchen Zhu and Ryan Xam (piano). There were duets from Robert and Karl Frater (both on guitar), Jules Singh (voice) and Rory Gaskin (voice) and also James Talib and Hamza Chaudhary. Daniel Freckleton and Hamza Chaudhary (both in year 12) stood in as the evening’s emcees. And for the first time in recent concert-history at HGS, the concert almost finished exactly at the planned time!
If you were unable to attend this time, please note that there are more opportunities to attend a musical evening in the near future. The next main event is the HGS Young Musician of the Year 2013 on 25 April 2013. In addition there is also a smaller Instrumental Progress Evening on 21 March 2013, primarily aimed at students in KS3. Come along and see what talented musicians we have.
M. Ward
WinterConcert1

WinterConcert2 WinterConcert3

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

 Handsworth Grammar School has been appointed an Approved Centre by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. Congratulations to the IT team for this success.