Supporting Your Child During Exam Time (Young Minds)

As we start to move towards exam season, Young Minds have launched advice for parents about supporting their children.

Tips include:

• Encourage your child to take revision breaks and find a balance between studying and doing things they find enjoyable and relaxing.
• Make sure they are eating and drinking at regular intervals.
• Reassure them – reinforce that you are and will be proud of them no matter what happens.
• Remain positive and hopeful!
• Let them know their feelings are valid and normal, but also offer support and solutions where possible.
• Anxiety is often worst at night and this means it is useful to encourage good bedtime routine

You can find out more here: https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/for-parents/parents-guide-to-support-a-z/parents-guide-to-support-exam-time/

On Friday March the 15^th 2019 Year 8 students participated in a workshop focused on developing their Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) skills with a team from HS2.

The workshop delivered by two representatives from High Speed 2 (HS2) as part of their education outreach remit encouraged students to develop the skills essential for a career as engineers of the future. They began by assessing their own STEM powers with the intent of using the activities of the day to boost their skills and understanding.

Taking place in the sixth form common room, the day split into parts. Firstly, students in small teams were challenged with designing the railway station of the future. Emphasis was placed not only on the practical needs of a station, but also the needs of a full-spectrum of customers. Some ‘blue sky thinking’ was also required, with students encouraged to consider all manner of hi-tech features, both real and speculative.

The latter half of the workshop tasked students with applying their practical engineering skills. After some guidance on different structural concepts, teams were asked to build a structure from paper straws capable of supporting a sack of sand weighing several kilos. Many different approaches were adopted, and the final testing stage was an excellent example of mutual support as teams competed to produce the most effective structure.

The day was very successful and enjoyed by all who participated and hopefully inspired students to consider the variety of opportunities available in STEM careers. The staff from HS2 were very complimentary and were impressed by the effort, ideas and behaviour of all students involved.

Handsworth Grammar School have been entering the Young Writers Mini Saga competition for a number of years now. This year’s theme, “Mission Catastrophe”, included 87 entries ranging from speculative fiction to romanticism.

The competition organisers were impressed by the entries from Handsworth Grammar School, commenting on the way in which the writing showed ‘perception, imagination and creativity’ written with ‘strong expression, originality and use of language’. The English Department is delighted that 84 out of 87 entries received have been published in an anthology produced by the organisers- again, surpassing our previous record!

We would like to congratulate all students who managed to get their work published.

Well done!

Year 7

1st Place Jamie Callaghan – 7N
2nd Place Basel Ziyara – 7A		3rd Place Faraaz Khan – 7G

Year 8

1st Place Arun Desai – 8G
2nd Place Rupinderjeet Dhanoa – 8G		3rd Place Muhammad Awais – 8G

Year 9

1st Place Robert Callaghan – 9N
2nd Place Yaseen Ahmed – 9G		3rd Place Faisal Jajeh

Year 10

1st Place Zaide Ebrahim – 10W
2nd Place Roshan Patel – 10G		3rd Place Ritish Sadhra – 10G

Year 11

1st Place Rohan Nath – 11G
2nd Place Franciszek Czech – 11G		3rd Place Anar Rupra – 11G

Staff

1st Place Mr Jones
2nd Place Mr Gallagher		3rd Place Mrs Lin-Fellows

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.