Congratulations to ex HGS student Tomas Jan Katafiasz who has recently been awarded his PhD degree of Imperial College London and the Diploma of Imperial College. Tomas studied Aeronautics Research with a thesis title of Characterisation of fibre hybrid thermosetting composites for automotive applications.
On Friday March the 15th 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.
We were recently very pleased to welcome once more Dr Maria Pavlidou from the University of Birmingham’s Physics Department. Dr Pavlidou gave two highly informative and entertaining talks to Year 9 Physics sets about extremes of temperature. The talks included many demonstrations with the ever-popular liquid nitrogen.
Mr Jones
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!
Olivia and Elias both gave excellent speeches to the assembled guests. Olivia reported on the academic progress of the school over the last year, while Elias spoke about the school’s sporting achievements in the last 12 months.
From left to right
Evin Sibey ( Chair of School Council), Elias Idjer( Deputy Head Boy), Nasim Miah ( Head boy), Mr Simon Farrell ( President of the BTS), Olivia McKnight ( Deputy Head Girl), Huda Benrekia ( Head Girl).
Year 7
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| 1st Place Jamie Callaghan – 7N | |||
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| 2nd Place Basel Ziyara – 7A | 3rd Place Faraaz Khan – 7G | ||
Year 8
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| 1st Place Arun Desai – 8G | |||
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| 2nd Place Rupinderjeet Dhanoa – 8G | 3rd Place Muhammad Awais – 8G | ||
Year 9
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| 1st Place Robert Callaghan – 9N | |||
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| 2nd Place Yaseen Ahmed – 9G | 3rd Place Faisal Jajeh | ||
Year 10
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| 1st Place Zaide Ebrahim – 10W | |||
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| 2nd Place Roshan Patel – 10G | 3rd Place Ritish Sadhra – 10G | ||
Year 11
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| 1st Place Rohan Nath – 11G | |||
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| 2nd Place Franciszek Czech – 11G | 3rd Place Anar Rupra – 11G | ||
Staff
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| 1st Place Mr Jones | |||
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| 2nd Place Mr Gallagher | 3rd Place Mrs Lin-Fellows | ||
During the last two weeks each Year 8 form has visited Soho House, the former home of world renown industrial entrepreneur, Matthew Boulton. Students enjoyed a guided tour of the house learning about Matthew Boulton, the Soho Manufactory and the Lunar Society.
They were able to explore the Georgian mansion and see what life would have been like for the Boulton family who lived there. Students explored the house, taking in many rooms, notably the Lunar room where the Lunar Society met. Members included great thinkers and businessmen of the time such as Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin and even Benjamin Franklin.
Further exploration of the house included the kitchens, cellars and bedrooms which were all set out as they would have been in the eighteenth century. The students were able to see many artefacts that were created in Soho, such as ormolu candelabras, astronomical clocks and the coins that were minted in Soho demonstrating how important Handsworth and Birmingham was in starting the industrial revolution. We also used a number of maps to see what Handsworth was like during Boutlon’s time – very different to today!
I hope the students enjoyed learning about our local History and how important Birmingham was when looking at this time period.
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.
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.
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.
