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Music For Youth (Birmingham Festival)

Music for Youth (MFY) was founded in 1971 and aims to provide young people with an opportunity to perform in one of its annual series of festivals and concerts. We have entered ensembles in the MFY festival in the past (by submitting an audio recording for assessment), but this is the first time we have been invited to perform live in front of a panel of judges.

The judges for our concert were the jazz musician Andy Grappy and the clarinettist Sarah Watts. KEVI HGS was one of more than 20 schools performing today and our woodwind ensemble was first to play. They performed extremely well, especially as the group included a number of year 7 boys who have only recently started a woodwind instrument. The clarinet quartet played ‘Yesterday’ and ‘A Klezmer Wedding’ – two very different pieces of music and delivered two solid performances.

 

 

 

 

 

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London Sinfonietta – ‘Music for 18 Musicians’

On Wednesday 13th February all of the GCSE music students attended a workshop/ concert devoted to Steve Reich’s composition ‘Music for 18 Musicians.’ Reich’s piece is written for a wide range of instruments that includes; a violin, cello, two clarinets and 2 bass clarinets, four voices, pianos (up to four players at any one time), maracas, marimbas and xylophones.

The first half of this event was an interactive exploration in to the musical genre of minimalism and Steve Reich’s ground-breaking minimalist piece. The second half was devoted to a partial performance of ‘Music for 18 Musicians’. The boys were extremely well behaved and appeared to enjoy the hypnotic nature of the piece.

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Final(s) Call!

The Year 7, 9 and 11 Football Teams have all qualified for the Aston Cup Finals next week. This is a great achievement and we wish all of the teams the best of luck for their matches next week. We wish the Year 8 Football Team good luck for their Semi-Final Match on Thursday.

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Focus on Education

As the days lengthen, we begin to start thinking more about preparing for the summer examination season. There is a lot of advice out there to help. While aimed at teachers and at those preparing for GCSEs, a recent article from the TES contains six podcasts which can help parents and pupils in all year groups understand how to revise most effectively as well as how to manage difficulties such as anxiety about exams. Please click here to read the article.

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Charity Update

This week we are sending fund raising cheques to the following charities:

Guide Dogs for the Blind

Queen Elizabeth Heart in a Box campaign

Riding for Disabled

The Royal British Legion

 

Our Sixth Form Legacy Teams are fundraising for Birmingham Mind and Birmingham Homeless Charity.

  

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Sports Update

The Key Stage 3 Basketball Team have been selected to play in the Finals of the Birmingham Youth Games on Wednesday. We wish the team the best of luck.

The Year 11 Football Team beat Arena Academy in the semi-finals and are through to the Aston Cup Final.

The Year 7, 8 and 9 Football teams are all playing in the semi-finals of the Aston Cup this week.

A collaboration Badminton tournament between HGS, HWGA and Handsworth Girls is being played this week.

We wish all the teams the best of luck in all of their fixtures.

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Focus on Education

Please read the article below published today on the BBC Family and Education website highlighting the issues surrounding Social Media platforms. Please do talk to your child about staying safe on line.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47410520

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Birmingham School Games

A huge congratulations to both the Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 Badminton Teams, who in being selected to represent the region, finished an impressive third place at the recent Birmingham School Games Festival. The competition was made up of all the best school badminton teams across the whole of Birmingham. The teams were of such high calibre with some exceptional badminton being played to a county level! Both our teams are set to finish of the season by retaining their Aston league titles in their final matches in the up and coming weeks.

 

 

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Intermediate Maths Challenge Success

Our Year 9 and Year 10 Mathematicians made a good showing in the recent Intermediate Maths Challenge.

In Year 9 Krishan Patel was awarded the Best in Year certificate as well as a Silver certificate. Three other boys attained a Silver certificate and 7 boys achieved a Bronze certificate.

In Year 10 Rajan Aulakh was awarded the Best in Year certificate as well as a Gold certificate. Zaryam Shaker also was awarded a Gold certificate. 12 boys were awarded a Silver certificate and 9 boys achieved a Bronze certificate.

Rajan, Zaryam, Krishan and Mohamed have all been invited to the next round of the challenge.

Congratulations to all who took part.

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Local MP Visits HGS

Eddie Hughes MP, Walsall North (Conservative) visited the school on Friday 15th February to speak to the Sixth Form students. Mr Hughes, who is an ex pupil of this school, spoke very fondly of his time at the school, before taking questions from the Sixth Form audience.

Mr Hughes spoke about his own childhood, and how he came from a traditionally Labour supporting household. His father was a Bus driver, and his mother a Cleaner, and he was one of a large family of boys. Both he and one brother came to this school, and ironically he was in the same year group as Sion Simon, who later became a Labour MP in Birmingham.

Mr Hughes then took questions from the Sixth Form audience, which were well-thought out and challenging. Questions ranged from topics such as Brexit, the fate of Shumina Begum, the NHS, Homelessness in this city and finally a question which he admitted he had no answer to, which was about whether “Drill music” should be banned!

The photograph shows Eddie Hughes with Awez Khan ( Year 13), the Young People’s Parliament MP for this part of Birmingham.

Many thanks to Mr Hughes for visiting KEVI HGS.