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Winter Concert 2023

75 of our young musicians took part in the Winter Concert 2023 at St Mary’s Church on November 30, 2023, as part of a traditional programme. The location was ideal for the showcase of musical ability that kept the audience fascinated all the way through.

The school orchestra began the concert, setting the tone for an incredible evening. There was a wide variety of year groups that performed, including the Staff Choir. Mr Conway introduced each of the instrumental solos, duets, quartets, and ensembles that filled the evening before they took the stage. During the interval, a variety of refreshments were available for both the musicians who had already performed and for the eagerly awaiting audience. The audience went back to their seats and awaited the start of the second half with great anticipation.

The school choir sang a Christmas special, Jingle Bells, to bring a festive touch to the concert’s finale, causing a roar of commotion. As the last notes faded away, the audience departed with memories of an amazing musical evening. 

Hrithik Bansal 9H

 

Please click here to view more photos in the gallery.

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GCSE Geography Trip to Lapworth Museum

We went to the Lapworth Museum, which is a geological museum at the University of Birmingham, where you can learn about rocks, fossils and minerals. They have some amazing exhibits and lots of interactive displays.

To start the day, we learnt about the history of the Earth and the evolution of life. An interesting fact I learnt was that during the Precambrian period, the West Midlands was actually located in the southern hemisphere! We then went through the Active Earth gallery, where there was an interactive globe, displaying anything from the tectonic plate margins to all earthquakes recorded that day. To finish the tour, we went into the Mineral Wealth gallery, where they had a wide range of rocks, gemstones and minerals. We learnt properties to help identify a mineral, including shape, colour, location and size.

Around midday, we moved on to a presentation on tectonic hazards and the types of volcanoes, whether it could be flat or conical in shape so either shield or composite. We were even presented with 6 items associated with a volcanic eruption. Some of the examples were basalt (cooled lava) and obsidian. We got to feel them and study them closely, allowing us to accurately tell the differences, whether it could be rough or smooth, heavy or light. An example of this is pumice, where it is light and filled with holes (from escaped gases).

After getting some lunch, we had a lecture from a professor at the university on the structure of the Earth. We enjoyed learning facts of the Earth such as its magnetic field and providing us with facts we would have never thought of!

Jovan Mann (10W)

 

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Financial Times Student Advocate Programme

Congratulations to two of our year 12 students, Basel Ziyara and Haisem Zeino, that have been successfully selected to participate in the Financial Times Student Advocacy Programme. They represent one of only 250 schools nationally that are fortunate enough to partake in this.

Every academic year, the Financial Times offers up to three sixth formers in each school the opportunity to be a Student Advocate. Student Advocates raise awareness of the benefits of reading the FT in school and develop ideas on how the publication can better engage with young people. They help their friends and teachers engage with the FT, leading to a more aware, worldly sixth form.

Basel and Haisem attend monthly workshops and promote the Financial Times within school and this free resource has proved to be invaluable for many students. As advocates, they develop their ideas with other students from across the world through regular communication and online discussion forums. Both students have significantly developed their time management, leadership, communication, creativity and public speaking skills.

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Computing at Cadbury World

On the 8th of December, 46 students in Years 7 and 8 were selected to participate in the Cadbury World educational trip as a reward for their excellent efforts in Computing. This started with a lecture delivered by a representative of Mondelez International about the way that technology is used in marketing Cadbury products, and how social media has been used to promote their snacks and how copyright laws have allowed them to protect the unique purple shade of their packaging. Pupils were asked to suggest marketing ideas that would promote Cadbury chocolate to their age group, with highly creative responses being given in return, from a possible return of “Retro” packaging for the beloved Cadbury treats to promoting special events and items in video games common with the given age group.

After this session, pupils had plenty of fun engaging in a hands-on experience tempering chocolate and writing their own names with it. This followed with an engaging and interactive lecture learning about how chocolate is created and the history of John Cadbury, the man behind the UK’s most beloved sweet.

The Trip concluded with a 4D cinema experience, with students immersed in a rollercoaster-like adventure through chocolate fountains, factories and iconic Cadbury mascots. Finally, the day concluded with a shopping spree at Cadbury’s factory shop, with pupils filling baskets with their favourite chocolate bars and treats, on top of the plentiful free chocolate already granted to everyone throughout the tour.

Overall, this trip offered a valuable insight into how the chocolate we know is manufactured as well as how advancements in technology have helped promote the Cadbury treats to the newer generations.

Miss Zetu

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To the slopes

In preparation for next January’s school Ski Trip to Italy, the Ski Party recently headed to the ski slopes of Small Heath (at Ackers Adventure) to learn the basics or refresh existing skills.  Perseverance, resilience and progress were in evidence aplenty!

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Sixth Form Reward Trip

For the first of our reward trips of this academic year, Years 12 and 13 went to ‘Teamworks Go-karting and Laser Tag’ in Digbeth. After a short 10-minute safety briefing, we immediately started the karting races with tense competition between the competitors! Each group of about 8 had roughly 10 minutes to speed through the curves and turns, attempting to complete as many laps as possible. After the 7 groups raced for the highly contested first places, we had time to cool down and have a lunch break, followed swiftly by another intense session, this time of laser tag.

The laser tag session was as good as – if not better than – the go-karting. Each session of 20 people was a fight for survival, with no-one seeming to want to calm the game down. The solo game saw everyone running, screaming and shooting for their lives, with some even having negative points at the end of it! Some people stayed for an extra session, this time played in teams.

I can guarantee that everyone enjoyed the day and that everyone would love to go again soon!

Haisem, 12PJO

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Helsinki Open 2023 Wrestling Competition

Muhammad-Usmaan Ali (8A) has taken part in the Helsinki 2023 Wrestling Competition.

Not only did he have an amazing experience out in Helsinki, he also finished in 3rd place, winning a bronze medal!

Congratulations Muhammad-Usmaan!

During the competition Muhammad-Usmaan had 5 matches with competitors from various countries. Muhammad-Usmaan won 4 of these matches with just one loss.

We wish Muhammad-Usmaan the best of luck with future competitions!

 

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Pre-loved Uniform Sale

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Cranedale

Despite the rainy and chilly weather, our experience at the Cranedale Centre was one to remember. Our day was jam-packed full of activities. On the first day, after a 4-hour journey, we visited the coast of Hornsea. At Hornsea, we got to see the efforts of hard engineering at the coast and how it was stopping waver from eroding due to the high energy of the coastline. At the coast, we were tasked with measuring the beach profile using quadrants. The eleven of us were split up into groups and collected data about sediment from the north and south of the groynes, learning vital methods that could be used in our NEA.

The second day, we were off to the city of Scarborough for our human field work day. Using various data collection techniques, such as word pictures, observations, and emotional mapping, we collected data from the coastal city. It was a long day in town, with a lot of walking up hills. But after a full day, we were back in the centre just in time for dinner. Then, we spent some time putting all the primary data collected together into geolocated data just before a few hours of free time playing table tennis and board games.

On the final day, we spent it overviewing what we had done previously. We were tasked with a bucket full of resources to make our own mini-NEAs. Using various equipment, we ventured around the Cranedale site and started collecting our own evidence. We then put it all together and used statistical tests to analyse whether the data collected was significant or not. Finally, after wrapping up everything we learned, we set off on a long journey back to Birmingham, glad to be back in the city!

Please click here to view more photos in the gallery.

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Focus on Education December 2023

“Remember, remember, The fifth of November,
Gunpowder Treason and plot.
I know no reason Why Gunpowder and Treason
Should ever be forgot.”

No one could collect assorted screws and nails like my father. We’d be working together on a DIY project and my father would be carefully organising and safely keeping screws and nails so that we could reuse them. I’d say, don’t worry Dad, I’ve got a thousand new nails and screws, just take one of those. But he’d say, no son. You keep those for what you need. My father always tried to reuse materials because he hated waste; he hated to think that time was wasted or that he had wasted an opportunity.

I do not think anyone knows who wrote the poem Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot which you may well have heard recited last month, just as you may well have heard or seen fireworks. Hindu families celebrated Diwali, and the festival of lights often includes fireworks but, for some, the weekend nearest to November 5th was an opportunity to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night. The gunpowder plot was a plan by a small group of young Roman Catholic extremists to blow up the House of Lords, together with King James I and the entire Protestant government during the opening of Parliament on 5th November 1605. Roman Catholics at that time were persecuted for their faith, and hoped that the Gunpowder Plot would trigger a change in regime to allow them the freedom to practise their religion. The plot was thwarted, Guy Fawkes was captured and the others in the group fled – including Robert Catesby who returned to Coughton Court, the stately home not too far away in Worcestershire.

But why is it that so many of us remember the poem, Gunpowder Treason and Plot; why is it so familiar to us when we hear it spoken on the radio or on TV at that time of year? Some things seem to stick in our minds without effort whilst others are so hard to commit to memory.

As we know, GCSEs and A levels test our knowledge and understanding in the subjects we have chosen. The approach will vary from subject to subject but every Year 11 and Year 13 student will be studying for assessments that will, when they come, test, whether we can recall and apply what we have learnt through the course, regardless of whether we will continue to use that knowledge in whatever we choose to do next. Also, we will each be finding ways of studying, including committing facts to memory, that work most effectively for us.

I hope that through our education here at HGS, we learn how we learn best, as well as learning which subjects best play to our strengths. Some of us hear material time and again and it sticks in our memory – rather like the gunpowder treason and plot poem; we might devise mnemonics of the kind Roman Men Invented Very Unusual Xray Guns or TV MANS RED PRAM (hopefully those two examples might mean something in a science and languages context). We might find that colourful diagrams of very condensed summaries are helpful and most of us find that drafting essay plans or tackling past questions test whether we can apply our knowledge. The more time that we put into our work, the more we grapple with challenging topics, learn from mistakes and particularly engage with feedback, the better we will grasp the material and develop a secure, lasting understanding. But, occasionally, however hard we try and having tried all the various approaches, it doesn’t seem to stick. What should we do then?

I hope the answer is that we keep going, but seek help and advice – particularly given that we have teachers who have seen student after student succeed. We might well seek those teachers out at the end of a lesson, or at lunchtime or go along to a support session. Hearing pearls of wisdom from a member of staff might sometimes make everything clear or it might well be that they suggest that we try working in a slightly different way – a way that works a bit better for us.

So, as we move towards the end of term and this year, having had our first set of Progress grades, all of us will have an idea, I hope, of where our strengths and weaknesses lie. Many of us are performing really well, others will simply need to work harder and more carefully…but there will be some who are doing their absolute best and the results are not yet coming. If that is you, keep going; don’t give up and do be prepared to try a different approach. Use all the resources at your disposal including the help of your teachers who do of course want you to fulfil your potential and remember that we don’t all work in the same way – but we do need to find the way that works for us.

Stay well and safe.

Be kind to yourself and others.

Best wishes,

Dr Bird