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Ex Pupil, Carl Garvie visits KEHGS

Carl Garvie a former pupil of the school who is now a successful barrister visited the school on December 4th to speak to year 12 and year 13 students about his career in the legal profession.

Carl who left the school in 1980 after winning a place at Cambridge, talked about his fascinating career, first as a solicitor, and then as a barrister specialising in commercial law. He talked about the personal qualities needed to be successful in a legal career, and encouraged our students to aim high in their careers.

Many thanks to Carl for giving our students the benefit of his knowledge and experience.

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Focus on Education

The UCL Institute of Education published the results of a study last week that again demonstrated the benefits of reading for pleasure for young people. The longitudinal study using data from eleven thousand, fourteen year olds found that those who read for pleasure most days understood twenty-six per cent more words than those who did not. The results may not surprise, but the impact of such a difference is significant. If a teenager cannot access twenty-six per cent of the words in a piece of text that they are required to read for their academic work it is likely that they won’t be able to understand its full meaning. Meanwhile, those who can understand the text have no such barriers to their academic progress and it is therefore likely that the gap in achievement will widen over time. To read more about this study on the UCL website please click here.

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Gold Award for KEVI HGS

King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys has been awarded the Gold Award by the National Citizen Service (NCS). This award is in recognition of our outstanding performance – congratulations to all involved in this valuable scheme.

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DT Laboratories Official Opening

Thursday 30th November 2017 saw the official opening of the Professor Joe Biddlestone DT Laboratories by Patrick Burns, Chair of the King Edward VI Foundation. It was a wonderful occasion and was enjoyed by all.

Head of DT, Ms Bullock spoke first and highlighted the developments that the DT team have made over the last couple of years such as the introduction of GCSE and A Level Product Design as well as collaboration with King Edward VI Aston School and DATA (Design and Technology Association). Most recently the team won a national competition (The Ripple Effect) sponsored by Misco, HP and Intel which saw them be awarded a HP STEM and Creative Learning Studio worth over £20, 000.

Headmaster, Simon Bird then spoke about the work that had been put into creating the fabulous new facilities and how it had been a fantastic team effort. He thanked the DT department for their energy and creativity, the IT team for their excellent advice and support and the Bursar for driving the project forward. He then thanked the various companies and contractors who had been involved in the project:

Martin Evans Construction

Severn Group

Hobarts

Zioxi

Lee Stimson Painting and Decorating Services

HP

PCM

Dr Bird went on to emphasise that these new facilities are designed and created to enhance our students’ learning experience and to ensure that we remain at the cutting edge of both design and technology. This was emphasised by the fact that KEVI HGS is now a Hobarts Centre of Excellence School. The development of our students and staff is at the heart of all we do. He then went on to dedicate the Laboratories to Professor Joe Biddlestone who has been a Governor for some 30 years as well as a Charity Trustee. It is apt that they are named in honour of him as he has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham as well as giving so much to KEVI HGS in wise, erudite and effective leadership. We are truly grateful for all that Professor Biddlestone has done for our school and the evening and presentation was a way of marking our thanks. By way of response Professor Biddlestone thanked everyone for the evening and his presents adding that he had thoroughly enjoyed his time as a Governor and was delighted to have played such a positive part in the developments of the school over the past 5 years or so.

Mr Burns then officially opened the Laboratories and said how delighted he was to see such an investment in teaching and learning, the collaboration across the 3 King Edward VI Grammar Schools in the north of the city and he took the opportunity with his Chair of the KEVI Foundation hat on to welcome KEVI HGS to the Foundation and Academy Trust – even though he is an Aston old boy!

The evening closed with viewings and hands on demonstrations of the facilities and equipment followed by refreshments in the Sixth Form Centre.

  

 

 

 

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Remembrance Assembly 2017

King Edward VI Handsworth Grammar School for Boys held its annual Remembrance Assembly in Big School on Friday 10th November 2017. We were delighted to welcome a number of Governors, Charity Trustees and Old Boys to school to mark the occasion and share in this significant and important annual event. The Reverend Dr Bob Stephen who is Chair of the Governing Body and Rector of Handsworth led the act of Remembrance as well as delivering a very timely and thought provoking address which highlighted the necessity to work towards peace in all we do. He highlighted that important facets of life such as showing respect and tolerance of each other, being kind and compassionate and celebrating our differences are all highly significant steps on the road to peace.

The Senior Prefect team of Suraj Sanhi, Maryam Shafiq, Shoaib Farooque, Anastasia Martin and Arran Bola all took an active part in the Assembly by reading poems and reflections whilst Suraj laid a wreath at the stained glass window with Mr Simon Farrell who is the Senior Vice President of the Bridge Trust Society. It was a very special event and a fitting tribute to the Old Boys whose names are listed on the memorial plaques in Big School. Big School was full as both Year 7 and Year 13 students attended the assembly whilst the remainder of school observed the occasion in their Form assemblies.

Haec Olim Meminisse Iuvabit

 

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Prizegiving 2017 – Eton meets Handsworth

Our annual Prizegiving was a very special occasion as it was our first as a member of the King Edward VI Foundation and King Edward VI Academy Trust. We welcomed The Reverend Steve Gray, The Conduct of Eton College as our Principal Guest. He spoke about the opportunities a School like ours affords its students and encouraged them to get involved in all that we have on offer such as the house system, sport, drama, debating and music. He was delighted to note the progress made at KEVI HGS over the past year. He highlighted the need for perseverance, careful planning and support from family and school so that if and when a setback occurs it can be effectively overcome. It was a lovely event and it was fantastic to see so many families together as we celebrated the success of our School community.

 

 

  

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Student Council Conference

On Thursday 19th October, King Edward VI Aston School hosted the first ever Student Council Conference event. Here, all nine King Edward Schools were invited to give presentations explaining the importance of their respective school councils, how their councils run and what they have achieved in the past few years.

The event started at 9:30am and ran till 3:00pm. Six representatives from our school: myself, Suraj Sanhi, Maryam Shafiq, David Akinfemiwa, Talbir Singh and Jack Griffiths attended the event representing our school to give a presentation. The purpose of the presentation was to highlight the impact of our school council’s hard work, hoping to inspire other schools to take onboard our actions and implement them into their own schools. Every presentation given by each school was unique, each school implementing different changes around their schools; ideas that would later on be discussed in an Action Plan activity later on in the day.

Just before the lunch break, myself, Maryam and Jack went up to present. Our presentation lasted approximately 15 minutes with a short Q&A session afterwards where other students were able to ask questions to gain a better understanding of the structure and efficiency of our council. Our presentation focused on our school council’s input to the Astroturf pitch on Baker St, Show My Homework, water fountains, new lockers and so on. King Edward VI Aston were fortunate enough to have the event sponsored by Subway, Domino’s and Morrison’s, allowing their lunch services to be catered for by Subway and Domino’s. The lunchtime break lasted an hour, allowing individuals to mingle and socialize with other schools.

Throughout the day, three discussions took place splitting everyone up so they were with students from other schools. A number of questions proposed by the main speaker enabled each individual in their groups to discuss possible answers to the proposed question e.g. “If your school had an unlimited amount of money, what would you buy?”

Finally, to end the day was the “Action Plan” activity where each school made a plan of what possible ideas could be proposed, taking onboard what other schools had said earlier in the day in their presentations.

Overall, the day was a success; socializing with others, watching presentations and taking into account other propositions from other schools. The vision of the event is for it to become an annual tradition, with different schools hosting each year, therefore formalizing an interaction between every council within the Schools of King Edward VI and incentivizing further achievement. An event like this is to motivate councils to push for greater changes so they have something impactful to report in the future.

Arran Bola
13BGE

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KE VI HGS launches new Prospectus

Our new prospectus is now available. Click here to view it.

Blank catalog, magazines,book mock up on wood background with cup of coffee

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Effective Revision Tips

What are the most effective ways to revise so that you retain knowledge and understanding for future use? This is a question that we have addressed in the past but it is so important that it is worth revisiting. In this article, in the Guardian, we are given a clear summary of what works and what doesn’t based on analysis of hundreds of studies by researchers in the US. If you want to commit ideas to memory, you should test yourself on the material and do this in a distributed way, rather than trying to cram everything at the last minute. It also confirms that learners should be wary of just re-reading and/or highlighting as research suggests this has very limited value because it is not making them think very deeply about the material.