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Wimbledon 2019

On Wednesday 3rd July, 10 people from years 7, 8, 9 and 10 left School bright and early to go to Wimbledon. We took the coach from School at 7:00 to London, we arrived at about 11:00 to see the sights of Wimbledon. To start with, me and a few others walked around Wimbledon to go to the shop and see some lower ranked matches at courts 12 and 18, they were great quality; we saw some excellent rallies. We also settled down for lunch at about 12:30 in front of one of the courts.

After that, we watched Women’s Britain number 2, Heather Watson get destroyed by Kontaveit in straight sets on court 1. It was a thrilling match with exciting tennis! Then, we had a break and looked around Wimbledon some more, we saw some amazing sports stars such as John McEnroe. We also watched Feliciano Lopez lose to Khachanov in a thrilling 4 set match and Wozniaki, a top women’s tennis player, beat Kudermetova in straight sets again!

Following that, we visited Henman hill/Murray mount to watch Djokovic play. He’s a great player! That match finished at about 7:30 and we were ready to leave but then we found out the 15 year old sensation Cori (Coco) Gauff had been moved courts to play on court 1 and we had tickets! She is amazing, especially for her age. The game finished and she had won 2 sets to none and she progressed to the 3rd round of Wimbledon.

We eventually left and we prepared for a very long journey home. What a thrilling day, I’m sure everyone had a great time even though it was a very long day! It was a once in a lifetime experience and I will never forget it. Thank you to the PE department for letting us go on this amazing trip.

Timothy Lowman (8 Galahad)  

On Wednesday the third of July, me and 9 other pupils went to Wimbledon. As soon as we arrived, you could truly see how big it actually was. All around there were tennis matches, singles and doubles, with a big crowd at each court. We had tickets all day for Court 1. The first match I saw was Heather Watson versus Anett Kontaveit. Although Heather Watson (GBR) lost, it was still such an exciting experience to see both professional players hit the ball over the net at such a fast speed. Additionally, another favourite moment of the trip was when the 15-year-old Cori Gauff beat Magdalena Rybarijova at two sets to none. Even when we were not on court one, there was still a lot of things around Wimbledon to get involved in. This was probably the best and funniest school trip I’ve had!

Oliver Martin-Panther (7 Nelson)

 

 

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Bridge Magazine – Issue 23

Our latest Bridge Magazine is now available. Please click here to view the online version.

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Residential to Preston Montford

On Wednesday 10th July, 57 students (and 5 staff) headed to Preston Montford Field Studies Centre near Shrewsbury for 2 nights.  For all students taking GCSE Geography, this residential was important as it helped us to prepare for Paper 3, which makes up 35% of our GCSE.

We set off at roughly 10:00 on our coach for the 1 hour and 30 minute journey.  Upon arriving at Preston Montford, the first thing we noticed was the smell, probably a result of the large number of sheep in the area!  We had our lunch before heading to Shrewsbury CBD car park to carry out a survey regarding the ‘Park and Ride’ scheme, comparing the number of unoccupied and occupied spaces. Subsequently, the staff produced an average of each group’s figures – 289 unoccupied spaces and 107 occupied spaces. This suggests that the scheme wasn’t very popular and more people didn’t use it compared to those who did. We then travelled to the Town Centre where we carried out surveys at a number of sites. We asked people in the shopping centre several questions to gather more information about the ‘Park and Ride’ scheme to reinforce our knowledge of the scheme and to find out if it was considered to be useful or not. Overall, we found that not many people used the scheme and that the most popular way of transport was by car. Once we had arrived back at the Centre, we wrote down our findings and analysed the data. After we had dinner and had finished our work for the day, we had free time, which, for many people, included playing football against another school.

On Thursday, we switched from human geography to physical geography and took a trip to Carding Mill Valley to climb up hills! This required a lot of energy but we were able to stop a few times to have something to eat and drink. Once we got to our highest point, we retraced our path down but carrying-out measurements, field sketches etc at 8 sites. Our enquiry was to see how features of the river changed. We determined the width, depth and velocity at each river site using different tools such as a hydroprop, an impeller, measuring tape and a ruler. After gathering our results, we headed back to the Centre to write up our results, analyse data and make conclusions related to the enquiry.

Friday was our final day and, after packing our luggage, cleaning the rooms and eating breakfast, we headed back to the classroom to analyse further our surveys and questionnaires.  We also presented our findings to the rest of the group.  After lunch we boarded our coach for the journey back to school.

We did work hard on the residential, but there was time to relax too; it was a great opportunity to complete our work in a different environment and spend time with our friends.  Thanks to Mr Bird for organising the trip for us.

Ibrahim Zaman

 

Please click here to view the gallery.

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Sports Day 2019

Well done to all the students who participated in Sports Day and congratulations to all the winners. A special congratulations to the  following record breakers.

Year 7:

7 Alfred – 4x100m relay

Basel Ziyara – 7A – Javelin

Jamie Callaghan – 7N – Discus

Mahammed Faheem – 7A – Speed bounce (new event)

 

Year 8:

Nigel Agboola – 8H – 200m

Zane Baker – 8G – Speed bounce (new event)

 

Year 9:

Abdul Kazmi – 9N – 100m

9 Nelson – 4x100m relay

Adam Khan – 9N – Shot put

Chabota Changula – 9G – Speed bounce (new event)

 

Year 10:

Divine Wodi – 10N – Long jump

Keir Musuwa – 10W – Discus [New overall record]

Lewis Goddard – 10H – Speed bounce (new event) [New overall record]

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dovedale Trip

On Friday 28th June, all of Year 8 made the journey up to the Peak District. Starting at the stepping stones in Dovedale, we walked south, taking in the scenery. You could find marine fossils in the stepping stones, if you looked closely. This is evidence to show that the British Isles was once submerged underwater as it travelled up from Antarctica over a billion years, to where we are today.

The air was clean, fresher than most urban areas that usually give off many particles full of dust and pollutants. For this reason, national parks are a great place to relax, especially for those who work in major urban cities and towns in a busy environment.

Next we carried on until we reached limestone arch where we learned about how it was formed. Firstly, a deep crack penetrates the limestone layer; then, the crack widens due to the weathering process from acid rain. The acidic rainwater continually dissolved the limestone. This combined with freeze thaw weathering causes a small arch to form. This arch continues to widen as weathering continues. Eventually, the base will widen so much that the arch will collapse.

As we carried on, we passed Ilam Rock and studied its shape. The 25 metre high rock is the fossilised remains of sea creatures that lived in the shallow tropical lagoon. We were amazed about how it formed and it shape.

Next, we stopped at the Dove Holes to take a break while learning about how these caves formed: rainwater picks up carbon dioxide from the air and as it filters through the soil, turns into a weak acid. This slowly dissolves out the limestone along the joints, bedding planes and fractures, some of which become enlarged enough to form caves.
As we carried on we passed Ravens’ Tor where we learned about its formation:

  • First of all the rainwater fills up the cracks in the rocks
  • Second of all at night the temperatures drop causing the water to freeze and expand, making the rock weaker
  • After it causes the rocks to shatter creating debris
  • Next repeating the process makes what we can see today.

To end our journey we reached Milldale: a nice and quiet village where there was no litter at all. Milldale is at the bottom of a fairly steep hill and has a minor stench (only the animals!).

Overall we enjoyed our journey to Dovedale, learning about the history and the rocks. We would like to give an extra special thank you to the Geography Department for organising such an amazing trip.

Muhammad Yaqub, 8 Alfred

 

 

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Legacy

Following on from the success of LEGACY 2018, the ‘community action’ programme attracted more than 30 students to compete for the title of WINNER of LEGACY 2019.
The aim of this programme is to establish two competing teams, each with their own community action project, to raise awareness of and/or improve, however little, the lives of people in the community. The two teams for this academic year were Project Relief and Team Utopia.

Members of Project Relief tackled the issue of ‘homelessness’ in Birmingham – a project they inherited from last year’s team ‘Project Reform’ who won LEGACY 2018. They organized themselves into four sub-teams, each with its own team leader: Communications Team, Promotions Team, Media Team, and Finance Team. All four teams worked closely with each other to organize various fundraising events through weekly meetings and via Microsoft OneNote – a cloud-based collaboration tool. The fundraising events included a bake sale, sporting events, workshops, assemblies, social media pages, penny collection, and field visits to various charities and soup kitchens including Sifa Fireside, Let’s Feed Brum, Homeless One, and Tooting Community Kitchen. Their efforts culminated in more than 100 care packages that contained many items and toiletries for both males and females along with written messages to liven their spirits, which they gave out to the homeless at an event organized by Homeless One – a charity that provides hot meals to the homeless.

Team Utopia chose to focused their efforts on raising awareness about ‘Mental health’ issues and help dispel the taboo associated with it. To do this, they organized themselves into four sub-teams, each with its own team leader: Content Production Team, Media Team, Communications Team, and Finance Team. All four teams worked closely with each other to organize various awareness workshops and assemblies through weekly meetings and via Microsoft OneNote. These included assemblies and workshops with KS3 and Year 10 students both at KEVI HGS for Boys and KEVI Handsworth for Girls, at various times in the year including Enrichment Days at school. They also did a bake sale as a joint fundraising venture with Project Relief to raise funds for their bespoke hoodies, and to give to their chosen mental health charity. Furthermore, in their efforts to raise awareness of their project they also created a YouTube channel and an Instagram page to document their journey and penned an article piece in the school’s Bridge Magazine.

On Wednesday 12th June 2019, both teams went head-to-head in front of a panel of judges comprised of Dr. Bird (Headmaster), Dr. Stephens (Chair of Governing Body) and Prof. Biddlestone (former Vice Chair of Governing Body). During this FINAL PITCHING CHALLENGE, both teams took turns to present their Digital Story (video) followed by a digitally aided, verbal presentation and finished with a round of grueling questions by the judges. Both teams did a terrific job overall and the judges took a long time to deliberate and judge each team against three keys areas: Personal Development (key personal skills and qualities), Social Impact, and Presentation. It was a closely contested challenge with both teams scoring maximum points for two out of the three categories and one team scoring one point less for Presentation. Our congratulations to Project Relief for winning LEGACY 2019.

Both teams did a terrific job this year to establish their own Legacy in the community. In fact, Team Utopia will be continuing their project into next year and will lead several workshops on Mental Health in September during the Y12 Induction Days in collaboration with Mr. Bird (Head of Sixth Form).

Mr. F. Ahmed
(Head of Enrichment Studies)

 

 

 

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Space . . . the final frontier!

The National Space Centre in Leicester was a great trip as we all learnt many things about space and Earth’s satellites. First, we arrived at the space centre and saw the great view of the rocket from outside the building; it looked cool and was huge. It had a glass chamber around it, and the visitors looked like little ants walking around the different parts of the rocket. We then arrived at the entrance and went inside. We were welcomed by the staff and we all were staring at the cool mini games we could play and the gigantic Earth globe. We were able to play on the games and look around and we saw many satellites which had been in space. We then went to learn about many things about satellites and Earth in a special workshop. We learnt how objects orbit other objects like a satellite (the moon or a man-made satellite) orbits the Earth. We also had to work out where to place the satellite and moon in comparison to a small Earth, and we guessed the moon close enough to where it was supposed to be, but we were totally wrong about the satellite! It needed to be placed so close to the Earth, it was touching.

We were able to look around the gadgets and information, and the coolest of them all was the satellite we could control on a little piece of land which was said to be Mars – not the real Mars! We had to do little missions and collect materials and move the satellite around. But the problem was that everyone was crowding around it, so it took a while to play on it… There was some information about our planet’s closest group of stars and other information about the planets in our solar system. We also visited the planetarium. This was a different experience as we could tilt back on the seats and look up at the circular screen and observe the whole planetarium. It was a weird journey through the movie, as we first saw the bloodstream of human veins, and later a rocket in. We learnt that to be an astronaut, you must train underwater as being in the water is like being in space. Then after training they are sent off to space and while they are in zero gravity, they must train to make sure their muscles don’t waste away. If they don’t exercise when they come back to Earth, they won’t be able to walk. It was an amazing experience and was funny at the end when the cartoon characters were tested to see what would happen in space if you didn’t have oxygen, heaters and a door on the spacecraft.

After the Planetarium we went and looked around the tall rocket which involved climbing 146 steps to see the top of the rocket. There were also some gadgets and games we could play there as well but there was mainly information about rockets. We ate our lunch in the lunch hall and then went to buy things in the shop. I bought a mini 3D picture of our solar system which looks amazing, and there were all sorts of other things like, pens, pencils, posters, pictures, stationery, and even chocolate and sweets. At the end of the day, we had time for one last look before returning to Earth! It was an amazing trip and I would like to visit again.

Darius Ehssan 8N

 

  

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Bletchley Park

On Friday 5th July, 41 Year 10 Computer Science students were selected by their Computer Science teachers to visit Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes. As well as a tour of the main exhibition, which included the role Bletchley Park had on D-Day, we also listened to an educational talk on cyber security and got to see an actual Enigma machine!

 

In the morning, we were split into two separate groups, and the first half of the day consisted of having a lesson on the importance of being aware of staying safe when using technology, such as mobile phones. We were even shown the Enigma Machine, an encryption device now worth £200,000, used at Bletchley Park during World War Two that the Allies used to intercept messages from the Axis, shortening the War by two years thereby saving millions of lives. 

 

After lunch – where we all enjoyed the sunny, summer weather in the grounds of the Bletchley Mansion – we had a tour of the main exhibition. Here we learnt more about the workers who used the Enigma Machine to decipher messages from the Axis, and how it proved invaluable to the D-Day plans, through information given by the tour guide, a short 12-minute film, and the various huts. The tour guide was very helpful, answering the many, inquisitive questions that we all asked regarding this interesting topic. By the end of the day, we were all impressed by the role of those who participated in deciphering the Enigma Code during the Second World War.

 

We would like to thank the staff: Mr King, Mr Hawkins, Ms Hibbert and Ms Brown – for taking us on this trip, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. 

 

Rajan Aulakh 10G

 

 

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Triple World Champion!

Congratulations to Kai Dawkins who is now a Triple Gold World Champion in Karate. Kai was part of Team GB in the GKR Karate World Championships held recently over the course of a weekend in Milton Keynes. Kai and his team won Gold in the Team Kata event and thus are now the GKR Team Kata World Champions 2019. Kai then competed in the individual Kata and Kumite events and won Gold in both events and so is the GKR World Champion 2019 in both those events too. Well done Kai – Triple Gold World Champion 2019 – not bad for a weekend!

 

 

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UCAS Focus Week

Monday 24th June 2019: UOB day

On Monday 24th June, all of the students in year 12 attended a day at the University of Birmingham. After making our own way there, and a prompt 9.30 meet at the Clock Tower, the day began with an informative presentation about the UCAS process and university life. The university had many student ambassadors to take us around the campus and answer any questions we had regarding university life. They also gave a lot of personal advice for budding applicants. For many, including myself, getting the opportunity to speak with students in the same city as us, who had been so successful in their academic studies was both informative and inspirational. After meeting the ambassadors, we were given a presentation by the university’s head of student communications, Ansar, who provided us with a motivational talk about our current academic state in the year. For me, the most notable question he asked us, was if we were all working at 100% of our potential. Surprisingly, no one raised their hands. This made us realise that we could all be working a lot harder!

Meeting the student ambassadors who had done so well and seeing a potential future university really helped put things into perspective and inspired me for my university application.

Tuesday 25th June 2019: UCAS Convention, NEC

On the following day, we attended the NEC for a UCAS convention. With over 13,000 pupils and over 150 universities there, it was definitely a packed and busy environment. I found having the visit to the University of Birmingham the day before was extremely helpful, as we went into the convention with ideas of both potential courses and what they were looking for in their applicants.

There were also other stands at the convention, such as a Microsoft stand, showing us new technology like the Surface Pro, and degree apprenticeships. Companies like Microsoft and Rolls Royce were there to enlighten us more on the concept of doing a degree apprenticeship. Our recommended time in the convention was from 9am till 11.30am, and during that time, I was able to speak to experts from over 20 different universities ranging from the University of Bristol to Durham. Having experts from several universities there to answer our personal questions was extremely beneficial, especially where they may be from universities further away, which are harder to visit. I was able to ask lecturers for my exact courses of interest, what they look for in applicants, and what the course entails. This face to face interaction was a great chance for many of us to ask specific questions that we could not find the answer to online. Although the temptation to take every brochure and freebie available was high, I can speak for the vast majority of the year in that the day was extremely informative in regard to both the academic and student aspect of University life. The free pens and water bottles were an added bonus too!

Friday 28th June: UCAS Introduction, Enrichment

To conclude our UCAS focused week, our enrichment day was led by Mr Duck, who began to introduce to and help us apply our experiences to our UCAS profiles. Once we had spoken to so many universities in the week, and had even visited the campus of the University of Birmingham, we had the opportunity to begin applying our newly obtained knowledge from the week to our UCAS application. In addition to this, having the guidance of Mr Duck and other staff alike also made the whole process a lot more understandable. We feel in a strong position as we move towards Year 13 in September.

Overall, this week was full of extremely beneficial and informative events. I and a lot of my peers now feel a lot more confident regarding the overwhelming process that can be applying to university, and would like to thank Mr Conway, Mr Duck and all the other staff that helped organise and provide us with these events. Bring it on UCAS!

 

Eshwar Sond 12SCH