Jordan ran a Personal Best in the Mason Trophy event on Saturday at the Alexandra Stadium and then he travelled to Bedford, where he won the silver medal in the U18 100m hurdles.
He is now ranked No. 1 in GB for the U17 100m hurdles. He has a very good chance of being selected to run for Team GB in this year’s European Championships. We wish him the best of luck!
The Year 7 Cricket Team proved that practice does equal success in their latest fixture against Broadway School. Having been narrowly defeated in their previous game, the Year 7 Cricket Squad have been religiously at training to work on their areas for improvements. Their training has paid off with a huge win again Broadway School by ten wickets! Broadway won the toss and elected to bat first. With some exceptional bowling from the team we managed to bowl Broadway out for just 26 runs, then surpassing their total in just four overs with no wickets falling! An excellent afternoon of cricket on show from the boys who were a delight in representing the school. The victory means that they go in to the Quarter Finals in the cup.
MOTM – Noah Mohmand (7A) – claiming 4 wickets.
From Birmingham to Buckingham Palace
Ex HGS pupil Mark Rowley QPM was made a Knight in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List which was published at the weekend. Sir Mark was until very recently the Assistant Police Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the Head of UK Counter-terrorism. This position made him the second most senior Police Officer in the UK. We send him our warmest congratulations on such an honour and achievement.
On Tuesday 5th June 2018, ten pupils from St Matthew’s C of E 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 Matthew’s C of E Primary School to enthuse more year 5 pupils, next year.
Mr F. Ahmed & Mr. D. Bansal
On Wednesday 6th June 2018, thirteen pupils from Sledmere 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 Sledmere Primary School to enthuse more year 5 pupils, next year.
Mr F. Ahmed & Mr. D. Bansal
With the weather taking a beautiful turn and the winter behind us it is time to turn our focus to some Athletics. The King Edward VI Camp Hill Meet held at Norman Green Stadium saw all the schools athletics teams from Year 7 through to Year 10 compete. Our pupils were a credit to the school and displayed some excellent performances with fantastic levels of effort put in by all involved.
The Year 7 Team made a fantastic debut achieving 5 podium finishes, consisting of 3 gold and 2 bronze medals. Overall they finished an impressive third place in the standings and just one point behind second place King Edward Stratford. A team to keep an eye on for the future.
Year 7 Team
Gold – Nigel Agboola (7H)– 200m (26.26s)
Gold – Nigel Agboola (7H) – Discus (20.01m)
Gold – Solomon Kolap (7N) – 300m (47.34s)
Bronze – 4x100m Relay Team – Solomon Kolapo (7N), Nigel Agboola (7H), Jiaxi Lu (7W) and Corey Wainwright (7G).
Bronze – Jiaxi Lu (7W) – Long Jump (3.91m)
Year 9 Team
Silver – Daniel Olatundun – Triple Jump (11.00m)
Bronze – Divine Wodi – Long Jump (4.85m)
Bronze – Lovelle Small – Discus (22.75m)
Year 10 Team
Silver – Francis Czech – High Jump (1.45m)
On Monday 30th April 2018, a team of students participating in the ‘Legacy’ program hosted a charity dinner to raise money and awareness for the homeless. ‘Legacy’ is an optional project offered by the school in year 12 as a way for students to give back to their community and allows them to focus on developing a social action project to combat a local issue of their choice. The team had previously done bake sales within school, which proved incredibly successful.
‘Project Reform,’ hosted a successful fundraising evening at the award winning restaurant ‘Eurasia,’ which is owned by Shamim Haque, the father of one of the team members, Abdul Haque. Award winning Chef Amjad Ali (crowned the best in Indian cuisine with the Tommy Miah Best Chef Award), served a special menu to all guests that evening – the food was one of the best the students had ever tasted.
The evening began with all students arriving at the venue and greeted in a hospitable manner by all the staff; they made sure the students were comfortable, providing free drinks, and overall making the event a pleasant experience. Customers came from all over the West Midlands, ranging from Wolverhampton to Shropshire, and included guests of honour Mayor and Mayoress of Bridgnorth, Councillor Ron Whittle and Cllr. Mrs Carol Whittle. The people were incredibly generous in their donations, with local school ‘Brockton C of E Primary’ managing to raise £64 to support the cause. We received a great reception from the customers, who were eager to support the homeless as they often came over and talked to us about our project. Hannah Qadeer, Aadam Zaman and Abdul Haque went round to the different tables and managed to sell a great number of raffle tickets to the kind people of Bridgnorth. The first-place prize was a £40 voucher for the restaurant; second place a basket of chocolates and third place was an expensive bottle of champagne.
After starters had been served, Suhaib Hamad, Abdul Haque and team leader Britney Okhiria stood up to do a speech thanking the restaurant and its staff, while also spreading awareness about homelessness in a snappy two minutes. Donations were beginning to flood in from the guests with Mayor Whittle gifting the team £40. As people began to leave, they came round to thank us for the evening and expressed their support for our cause, eager to help us in any way possible. In total, the students managed to raise around £804.00 from the evening which will be used to provide care bags for one hundred homeless in Birmingham, providing them with the essential tools to survive.
A kind thank you would like to be given to ‘Eurasia’ for hosting the evening, and all the staff for providing a hospitable environment for the team. Thank you to David Masih and Shamim Haque for providing transport to and from the restaurant.
Project Reform Members: Britney Okhiria (Team Leader), Hannah Qadeer (Deputy Team Leader), Abdul Haque (Secretary), Aadam Zaman, Ibrahim Kabir, Samadul Chowdhry, Brandon Masih and Suhaib Hamad.
By:
Suhaib Hamad 12JST
On Wednesday 21st March 2018, 19 Year 12 and 13 students, under the ever-watchful eyes of our physics teachers, flew over to Geneva, Switzerland, for a few days of physics and cultural enrichment.
Day 1:
The first day began with a few mishaps whilst checking-in (involving Mr Jones repeatedly stating “no water means no water” and one Year 12 student turning up at Birmingham Airport slightly late!). We then boarded what was to be a relaxing flight to Geneva. After touchdown and a short train journey, we headed through the main town, taking time to enjoy the much fresher Genevan air, a departure indeed from Birmingham. We became acquainted with the city sites that we would come to love over the next two days. Arriving at our hotel, we were given time to wind down in our rooms – which were some of the more spacious encountered on school trips – before heading out to eat at an Italian restaurant, previously reserved by Mr Jones. Here, we were treated to authentic Italian main courses, from pizza to spaghetti carbonara, with tiramisu for desert. We were then given some free time to explore the twilight streets before returning to the hotel to turn off the lights at 11pm local time.
Day 2:
The day began with a continental breakfast being brought to our rooms, before we set out on our physics-based adventure. Whilst most would have taken their time to take in the Genevan sights, Mr Jones marched onwards with his band of quite merry Sixth Form students towards the boat which was to take us to ‘Le Musée d’histoire des sciences de la Ville de Genève’. It was great to see some of the older exhibits, ranging from microscopes to solar system models to equipment used by Genevan Scientists.
Following our trip to the Science Museum, we travelled to CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider and, in general, all things physics! We were greeted by exhibits explaining breakthroughs in physics, current mysteries within particle physics and a video demonstrating the discovery of the Higgs Boson. We were also given talks about the structure of the establishment and shown components that make up the particle accelerators. We even – albeit briefly – crossed the border into France (which came as a surprise to some). We finished the day by dining at the ‘Holy Cow’ restaurant before being given more time to take in some of the exciting night life before heading to bed after a much more exhausting day.
Day 3:
With a slightly later start to the day than previously, we took the time to visit ‘La Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Genève’, which holds cultural significance as it became the base of John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. Here, we ascended the Church Tower for a grand view of the city. Looking towards Le lac Léman (Lake Geneva), we could see Le Jet d’Eau (the famous water jet) working for the first time during our trip, providing a scenic look to the port; we also had a good look around the old town. We then headed to Le Musée d’art et d’histoire, which had an interesting set of artefacts and a fancy café. We spent our last few hours in Geneva having our money extorted from us to pay for souvenirs and chocolate before heading home.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip and it would be great if our Physics teachers Mr Jones and Mr McCarron ran this trip again in the future.
Brandon Masih, Year 12
From the 13th to the 16th of October 2017, 40 students and 4 staff went on a trip to Munich. After arriving at Birmingham Airport at 4am on the Friday, and then having a 2 hour flight to Munich, we were all tired, but we started abroad with a walking tour around Munich. It was very interesting and we all increased our knowledge of Munich, learning about the origin of Oktoberfest, past rulers of Bavaria and the history of the City. By 7pm, we had eaten and were settling into our rooms; we spent the rest of the night chilling in the hotel. The rooms were quite spacious and had a good WiFi connection, and there was a pool table, darts board and a table-football table in the bar area downstairs.
On the Saturday, we started the day on a more serious note. This is because we visited the concentration camp in Dachau. We were told many sad stories and taught about how life was for the prisoners; we saw artefacts from the time that the camp was in operation too. After the tour, we had time to shop around Marienplatz in the centre of the ‘Old Town’ of Munich. As well as shopping, I spent a lot of the time looking at the Liverpool- Man Utd score! After we all shopped, we went to the Deutches Museum. It was an interesting museum as it contained many exhibitions on engineering, cars and trains. Then we had the rest of the day to eat, chill in our rooms and play darts and pool in the games room.
We were all excited on Sunday because we were going to do a lot of cool things. The day started off by going to Olympic Park (developed for the 1972 Olympic Games), which got our sports fans very excited. After being able to see most of Munich from the top of the Tower, we spent time at BMW World and Museum which gave us the chance to see and even sit in vintage and modern cars. After a game of bowling, we headed to Munich’s Hard Rock Café for our evening meal, where we had the chance to eat some great food and to buy souvenirs.
Monday was going to be the last day, but was going to be the best as we were going to have a tour of the one and only Allianz Arena. From far away, the stadium looks amazing, but from up close, it is magnificent. The tour guide was amazing as she knew Bayern Munich and the Allianz Arena from top to bottom and she could answer every question that came at her. She also made sure we could experience everything we could possible, from being in the away team changing room to walking down the tunnel as two separate teams while the infamous Champions League anthem played. The tour was the perfect way to end what had been an amazing school trip.
We’d all like to thank Miss Hartill, Mr Jones and Miss Blochard for making this amazing trip possible, as well as Mr Campbell who didn’t forget to leave his witty sense of humour in Birmingham (and Mr Jones said that he left his wallet there too).
Rohan Minhas 9A
On 12th March 2018 a group of year 12 and 13 geography students visited the Lake District, Cumbria to conduct our investigative fieldwork. The trip was a 3 night stay in which the group explored different aspects of geography; both physical and human.
Fieldwork is a fundamental element in the tradition of Geographical research and teaching. The fieldtrip to the Lake District aimed to provide us with skills of data collection, using appropriate techniques, in a safe manner, while thinking about the sensitivity to the impact of their investigations on the environment and stakeholders.
On the 12th of March we set out for the county of Lancashire, with the Lake District insight. We left at approximately 8am and endured a 5 hour journey at the expense of Mr Bird’s musical taste! Upon our arrival we were shown around the accommodation and were then quickly on our way to the coastal area of Morecombe to carry out a preliminary investigation about how an area changes over time due to several geographical concepts.
On the 13th of March we were given the opportunity to trek up the Coniston Hills, famous for its copper mines. While up there we studied the previously glaciated landscape, whereby we were able to depict the course of the glacier 18,000 years ago. After a tiresome but enjoyable walk, our eyes were gifted with a beautifully sculpted corrie lake. This was where we were able to relax and have lunch for half an hour, whilst taking advantage of the clean fresh air and scenery.
On the 14th of March we were split into groups whereby we chose to either conduct our field study based on the Human Geography or Physical Geography. Students like Kyron and myself chose to visit the coastal, seaside town of Morecombe, in which we studied the area using different index models to draw conclusions about the levels of decline in the area. On the other hand the physical group took a trip back up to Coniston Hill to conduct fieldwork to help show the course and direction of the former glaciated area.
Overall, I can easily say that the trip was highly enjoyable as well as informative. We gained an insight into the rural lifestyle in which Miss Wharton has sadly left us for! It was quite refreshing and inspiring landscape for us too! The centre which hosted us demonstrated great hospitality skills, which we were very thankful of. Surprisingly the food was quite nice and made the overall experience better. Our highlight of the trip was thrashing another school 4-1 in a game of football, (they had 3 Manchester city youth academy players) this was a great achievement for us. As a whole this trip has brought the class closer together. Our thanks go to Ms Wharton and Mr Bird for organising the trip.
Justin Fletcher & Kyron Chander
