Duke of York Digital Enterprise Award

Congratulations to both Year 7 and Year 8 students who have successfully completed The Duke of York Bronze Award in Digital Enterprise this term. Through a series of online challenges and events, each student has won career enhancing badges for their bronze award with hard work, determination and digital skills. Challenges are split into four main categories, each with its own set of badges to be won including Online safety, Cyber Security and Brain Hacks. The award has been funded by different charities including the Prince Andrew charitable trust and is the Digital equivalent of the Duke of Edinburgh award. All students will now be working hard over the summer holidays to achieve the Duke of York Silver certification.

 

 

              

Higher Education Week at School

Year 12 students had three days of higher education support and information as well as two different trips from 25-29 June.

On Monday 25th, all of the year 12 students attended the UCAS Higher Education Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. Supported by the year1 2 tutors the students had the opportunity to speak to university representatives from every HE provider in the country, as well as attend various UCAS workshops to help them to prepare for their university application.

On Thursday 28th the students were guided through the UCAs process by Mr Duck, UCAS Co-ordinator and then had the opportunity to hear from former students about their UCAS journeys.

Our ex -student panel was made up of Aliyah Mohammed and Riju Shah who have both just completed their first year at Aston University, Mayur Parmar who has just graduated from the University of Leeds, Hung Nguyen who has just completed his first year at the UOB, Rahul Patel who has had a pre-university year working in Bath, before starting a Natural Sciences degree at the University of Cambridge in September, Bobby Bola, who started a degree at the UOB and has now changed to pursue a medical career, and finally Hasan Din who left HGS and decided to take an alternative route in his career and is now an apprentice with Cap Gemini a national IT company.

We would like to thank the ex -students for their kindness in coming back to HGS to share their UCAS journeys with our present students.

Finally, all of our year 12 students visited the University of Birmingham on Friday June 29th where they had a campus tour and attended lectures on “Applying for university” and “Student Finance”.

Our thanks go to Mohammed Ansar of the UOB Outreach team, who facilitated our visit.

 

Prom Night Success

The year 13s celebrated the end of their year 13 exams with the second school Prom to be held in recent years at Parklands in Hockley. Organised by Head Boy Suraj Sanhi assisted by Zubair Javed and Aman Choudhury assisted by Maryam Shafiq and Anastasia Martin, our students donned their finest outfits to finish of their careers at HGS with a memorable night.

Many thanks to all of the staff and students who made the evening so memorable and also to Ms May who co-ordinated a very memorable “Awards Ceremony” for our students.

We will be publishing some of the photos of the evening on the school TV screens.

Mr Conway

 

 

Ex-Students Return

A panel of ex students returned to speak to Year 12 students about their UCAS experiences.

 

From left- right

 

Mr Bird, Mayur Parmar, Rahul Patel, Hung Nguyen, Bobby Bola, Hasan Din, Riju Shah, Aliyah Mohammed, Mrs Hartt.

HGS receives Schools Guide 5 Star Award

King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys has been awarded the top rating of 5 Stars in the Real Schools Guide 2018 published by the Birmingham Mail.

The guide is put together annually based on local government data and by using 50 different measures such as pupils’ attainment, average grades, the quality of teaching and school inspection information. HGS received the top overall rating of 5 Stars as well as the top rating of 5 Stars in the key groups of:

Attainment

Progress

Attendance

Outcomes.

This places HGS as a Top 10 Birmingham school as we are ranked 3rd out of all the schools in Birmingham.

This is a significant achievement and all staff and students are to be congratulated.

Focus on Education

As public exams reach their conclusion for another year it is worth remembering that the practice of remembering in a test doesn’t just lead to an exam result but also improves future recall of information. In this TES article Daisy Christodoulou describes a study from 2010 where some students attempted to learn by studying more while another group revised by testing. They found that those who revised by testing had much higher levels of recall than those who simply studied the material, and that they also performed better when asked to apply this knowledge flexibly.

Wyndcliffe Primary School Outreach

Following our Literacy transition project with Wyndcliffe Primary School, Dr Bird and Mr Dubay were invited to watch the school’s rendition of ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ on Wednesday 20th June. The lively performance was well received and accurately depicted the common themes and tropes found in this gothic mystery. It was inspiring to see students at Wyndcliffe engage with a difficult text and it has been an absolute joy to witness the students’ growing thirst for reading, engagement with texts and developing their knowledge of mental health and wellbeing issues through the Literacy transition project we jointly conduct with Wyndcliffe Primary School.

The English Department at Handsworth Grammar School is always looking to foster links with other schools. If your school is interested in developing links and sharing best practice, please contact Mr Dubay.

English Department

St George’s Park

On 20TH June Mohit and I went to St George’s Park (England’s training ground). We had a training session with one of the best clubs in the world; Real Madrid. We did some drills, finishing, passing, movement and also played a little tournament at the end. It was a brilliant experience as this was my first time training with a coach from a different country and learning new skills. We also learnt new tactics that the coach showed us on his board. Thanks to Mr Campbell PE teacher for taking us.

Zakir Islam 8G

 

It was one of the best football experiences I’ve ever had. Training at St George’s Park and being coached by Real Madrid. I really enjoyed having a taste of Spanish football and being part of it. I learnt a few tips on possession and shooting which have helped my football ability. I will never forget that great day! Also thanks to Mr Campbell for taking me.

Mohit Naphray 8N

 

On 20th June 2018 we set off to St George’s Park the Headquarters of the England football teams and the FA Education programmes. Real Madrid and Inspire Sport had invited local children to free coaching sessions and discuss possible tours to Spain to see the Real Madrid Facilities. Two Year 8 pupils Zakir Islam and Mohit Naphray were the lucky pupils to be selected by Mr Griffiths.

The boys were exposed to various drills on finishing, movement, ball distribution and decision making all using the Real Madrid philosophy of constant use of ball skills.

The day concluded with a mini tournament and a presentation of certificates and badges to all participating schools. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the day and hopefully took away some new ideas.

Mr S Campbell

 

Outreach: St Clare’s Catholic Primary School

On Wednesday 13th June 2018, fifteen pupils from St Clare’s Catholic Primary School attended KEVI HGS and participated in two interactive STEM workshops, both of which were designed to give them a flavour of what our students do at KS3 and beyond. During periods 1 and 2, they attended the Design & Technology workshop, during which they designed their own custom pen and pencil holder (to take home) at our brand new design studio, using 2D CAD (Computer Aided Design). The laser machine was then used to cut their acrylic designs. Finally, they used the Line bender machine to fold their acrylic design and attach it to a wooden base. The pupils also watched watch our cutting-edge 3D printer in action, making a frog for their teacher to take away; and enjoyed exploring the tools and toys previously printed.

Following a brief break at the canteen during, which they enjoyed drinks and biscuits, they went for a tour round the school and enjoyed seeing our students during break time, and were complimentary about their behaviour. The tour ended with the pupil in the Science labs, which hosted the Science workshop. During this workshop, the pupils took part in a variety of stimulating practical activities that included looking inside cells using powerful microscopes; using Bunsen burners to carryout flame tests of select Alkali and Alkali-Earth metals); burn magnesium (making sparklers); put their hands through the flame; and understand how fireworks. They also enthralled by the exploding hydrogen balloons; screaming jelly baby; whoosh bottle; and much more.

To finish off the day, the pupils were issued with yet more drinks and biscuits as well as flyers about the 11+ familiarisation programme and encouraged to sign up and complete the online training material in preparation for the 11+ in September. Both staff and pupils thoroughly enjoyed their HGS experience and we look forward to, once again, working with St Clare’s Catholic Primary School to enthuse more year 5 pupils, next year.

Mr F. Ahmed & Mr. D. Bansal

 

 

 

 

Please click here to view the gallery.

 

WM County Track & Field Championships

On Saturday 9th June three pupils were selected to represent North Birmingham district at the West Midlands County Track and Field Championships held at the Alexander Stadium. They were selected due to gaining qualification spots at our earlier Camp Hill Athletics Meet. The standard of the competition at the meet was extremely high. That being said the boys’ overall put in some fantastic performances taking home two silver medals and one bronze.

 

Nigel Agboola (7H) – Silver – 200m (27.0s)

                                   – Silver – Discus (18.89m)

Divine Wodi (9A) – Bronze – Long Jump (5.28m)

Daniel Otalundun (9A) – 11th  – 100m (12.8s)