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.

On Wednesday 13^th 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.

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.

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.

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.