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Cyber Forensics Workshop

On Tuesday 6th of February, the Computer Scientists of Year 11, 12 and ICT students of Year 13 were fortunate enough to receive a lecture from a Cyber Security and Digital Forensics expert from Birmingham City University. It was a truly inspiring and informative talk, as Mr Shabbir discussed the dynamic nature of the world as we know it: ever-changing due to innovation and increasingly powerful technology, and (as always) the demerits of this change – hacking, viruses, ransomware and so on. The seminar engaged the students in various activities, such as spotting out the seemingly meaningless digital devices in a home that can be used to find out the causes of a death. For example, the smartwatch worn by the deceased measures their heartrate and therefore could show the time of death. He talked about Steganography – the art of hiding data within other data: for example, using bit manipulation to hide a name, number or even another picture within a picture. Data hidden using steganography is extremely difficult as it is nearly impossible to know what you are looking for. For this reason, Mr Shabbir explained, this technique is being increasingly used by criminals worldwide. However, new and exciting technology is being introduced every day to help combat this issue. He also explained how digital forensics involves more than just cyber crime and it can be used in conjunction with normal crime e.g. a bank robbery, or even in civil cases like determining who receives custody of children in a divorce. The soon-to-be professor summed up the talk by informing the students of the various undergraduate (BSc) and postgraduate degrees available at BCU: Big Data Analytics, Computer Forensics and Advanced Computer Science (postgraduate only). Overall, it was a fascinating experience that the students, as well as staff, quite thoroughly enjoyed.

Wriiten by:
Britney Okhiria, 12AFI

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English Writing Workshop

Ten year 7 students participated in an English Writing workshop with Aaron Jones, former Handsworth Grammar School student, on 26th February 2018. The students involved found the workshop engaging and particularly enjoyed writing creatively about random objects. There is a likelihood that their writing could be published in a creative writing magazine (fingers crossed!). We wish our students all the best in this project and would like to thank Aaron for delivering an engaging workshop.

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QE Hospital Certificate of Appreciation

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Focus on Education

Some interesting research published in the Netherlands at the end of January shows that confidence in achieving good results can assist in gaining them. The authors write that this is ‘possibly because it increases ambition, morale, resolve, persistence, and hence the probability of success.’ Approaching the examination season in positive, optimistic fashion is therefore likely to bear dividends. Please click here to read a summary of the results; the full research paper can be accessed here.

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Maths Feast

The trip to the Maths Feast, which was arranged by Mr Sangar, was both enjoyable and informative. It was made up of 5 rounds and was designed to look like a food menu. It was designed to test your algebraic and arithmetic skills and worked on topics not covered in the class room such as the 3d cube challenge. After the morning rounds there was a brief lunch break and then we resumed with the dessert round with shapes. In conclusion the trip was a nice day out with fun maths involved so I would recommend it to anyone who gets offered this opportunity.

Terence Nduka 10N.

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Intermediate Maths Challenge Results

Our Year 9 and Year 10 Mathematicians made an excellent showing again in the recent Intermediate Maths Challenge. HGS students achieved 9 Gold Certificates, 21 Silver certificates and 19 Bronze certificates with 6 students qualifying for the next round. This is a wonderful achievement.

Year 9 

Rajan Aulakh and Assad Jaffari qualified for the next round and achieved Gold certificates. There were 4 Silver and 7 Bronze certificates awarded to HGS students.

Year 10 

Pavanjot Dhillon, Hammad Butt, Jasbinde Singh and Yusuf Sakhawat all qualified for the next round and were awarded Gold Certificates. Hubert Walczak, Muzaffar Haqqani and Jason Bhatti also achieved Gold Certificates. There were 17 Silver and 12 Bronze certificates awarded to HGS students.

Congratulations to all involved.

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Year 8 Physics Trip

On Friday 26th January ten Year 8 students went to Oxford University on a physics trip. We did three main activities. The first one was called ‘super salad spinners’.  In this, we learnt about particle accelerators and built a mini accelerator from a salad bowl and some metal tape.  Two strips of tape in the bowl were charged negatively and two positively.  A ping pong ball with a special coating would then get a positive charge and be attracted to a strip of negatively charged tape and then get a negative charge, and so be attracted to positive tape.  As this repeats the ball goes around in a circle; our ball went around twice. In the other activities we carried out a lot of practicals, and saw demonstrations, about electrostatics.  These included Van de Graaf generators, charging by rubbing and splitting a flame using charged metal plates.  During the day, we were given marks for filling in workbooks and our contributions.  At the end, we had a presentation and Handsworth Grammar School were narrowly beaten into second place out of the eighteen schools that went. The trip was great fun and taught us a lot about physics.

Eisa Yacoob

 

Click here to view more photos in the Image Gallery.

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Year 7 Football Success

The Year 7 Football team have continued their unbeaten run with a 12-0 victory over Aston Manor. This puts them top of the Aston League in their age group. They have a record of Goals for 37 and Goals against 2 as it stands today. Congratulations!

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Sports Update

The PE department continue to enjoy sporting success:

The Under 14 and Under 16 Badminton teams both beat Hamstead Hall 6-0 in their latest fixtures.

The Year 10 Football team beat Broadway 3-1 in their recent Aston League match.

At the recent Birmingham Schools Individual Table Tennis Tournament Yaseen Ahmed and Sadeem Ali both reached the Quarter Finals at Under 14 level and Thien Tran reached the Semi Finals. Donald Suresh reached the Quarter Finals at Under 16 level.

Congratulations to all involved in these successes.

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The Great War Debate

On the 9th February we visited John Henry Newman Catholic College to be part of a debate which assessed whether The Great War is commemorated in the right manner in England and the UK.  After a more physical view of what the war was like, through the presentation of uniforms, guns and other lethal weapons used in the First World War, five experts on this topic led the debate, with several questions asked by students from different schools. I think it was a great experience in order to get an insight into different people’s thoughts and views on the topic. There was, of course, plenty of questions from us, who were keen to challenge the views and opinions of the experts. We looked at the ways other countries commemorate the First World War, and argued whether we do enough to commemorate the war, and everyone who fought in it. It gave me a deeper understanding of what the war really means to countries around the world, and how they continue to remember it even almost 100 years after the armistice was signed.  (Abdullah Naveed, 11A)

The trip to John Newman Catholic College informed us about World War 1 and how we view and remember it today. It opened with a very intriguing segment in which we learnt about the different aspects of life in the trenches and how soldiers had to deal with them. It also showed me how much WW1 affected our culture and language to this day. For example, words such as “sneakers” and “chat” came from WW1. The debate was also quite enlightening . The panelists talked about the different people who fought for the allies in WW1 like India as well as some countries in Africa, who they saw as forgotten, especially in countries like England when remembering the tragedies of World War 1. The panelists also informed us about the people who are overlooked when we commemorate the tragedies of WW1, including the children who were hired to replace fighting soldiers in coal mines, some of them as young as 12. Overall, I think that the trip was quite informative, mostly engaging and gave a detailed account of the Great War. (Matthew Baptiste, 11G)