This week Mr Manley, Assistant Head, delivered an assembly on the consequences of violence.

During the assembly we explored not only the possible consequences of violence but also the impact on both physical and mental health.

Excellent Work

Year 9 students have been exploring high skills including fish filleting. Following a recent course Miss Hunns is a Fish in School Hero promoting the use of locally sourced sustainable fish.

Miss Hunns said, “We are located so well to access freshly caught fish from the quay in Plymouth. Our aim is to introduce more fish dishes across the curriculum. The year 9 students enjoyed learning how to fillet the fish and we discussed a range of different cooking methods for the mackerel. There were some great responses to trying the pan fried mackerel with lemon juice”.

Chess Update

Well done to students who competed at a chess competition just before half term.

The first team of Caleb Caleshu, Ben Wotton, Rocky Travers and Devrim Phaneuf finished with 8/16 a second selection of Jack Chen, Muhammad Kausar, Harry McCulloch and Zak McFarlane were impressive in almost matching them with 7.5.

In the junior section there were three debutants in the team of James Trenam-Nash, Finbar Steven, Joel Jino and Daragh Grimes who also scored 7.5, while the mixed team recorded the same score with help from Jacob Crow and Rohan Wear.

Individual performance of the day was Daragh with 3.5, while Harry and Caleb scored 3.

A special mention as well for Jack, who produced an excellent win against a strong opponent in the last round. So no medals this time, but we will take on some of the county’s adult teams in our next quest for glory!

Mr Butland

PSHEE Activities

All students had an assembly this week from Mr Manley on physical safety, and this was then followed up with a variety of topics on Friday as usual.

Year 7 students combined a lesson on emotional logic, dealing with unforeseen problems and developing resilience, with learning about work related learning, actual experience, learning skills to support job roles, and learning from others. They were asked to set themselves some work related targets for the rest of this school year.

Year 8 students were also looking at dealing with adversity and how to develop resilience to cope with issues that arise, both in and out of school.

Year 9 had a debate lesson on fighting prejudice where they argued the pros and cons of immigration. They initially researched historical immigrations and were asked to argue against their own beliefs in this respect to give an added element to their debating skills!

Year 10 looked at ways of resolving conflict and considering different points of view - your version, my version and the truth - which is often somewhere in the middle.

And finally moving away from all these problem solving and maybe argument based topics, Year 11 students were visited by Barclays Bank life skills team, who delivered presentations on financial capabilities suitable for this age group including budgeting - maybe I should have stayed for the whole of this one..

Lots more next week; see you then.

Ms Moreton

Sixth Form Enrichment and Tutorial

Again an inspiring morning for KS5 students with a full range of interests.

The London Interdisciplinary College speaking about broad degrees from this new university which sits outside of UCAS.

Speakers for schools provided good insights into a range of careers in emergency healthcare from the perspective of those working in the NHS in the South West.

Guests from Barclays Bank were stoic sports and happy to be circulating in the Sixth Form Centre offering guidance on financial matters and finally, two alumni students Ben Gibbons (Physician's Associate) and Gavin Ball (Colorectal Doctor) from Derriford hosted a very thorough Q and A for students in Year 12 who are interested in Medicine.

All of this on top of tutorial sessions on planning next steps for Year 12 and budgeting and finance for Year 13.

All so fab!

Ms Davidson

Teaching and Learning Update

As we return from the half term break we begin our new cycle of staff professional development. Having looked at high quality questioning and effective modelling, we now turn our focus to a fundamental part of our Teaching and Learning approach - the use of retrieval practice to support students embed learning in their long term memory. In our DHSB Learning Cycle we provide the space for teachers to begin all lessons with a retrieval activity:

Retrieval practice is the art of recalling learned information from memory and every time that information is retrieved, it changes the original memory to make it stronger. Our teachers will use a whole range of retrieval techniques to ensure that students retrieve information in a variety of ways, appropriate to the context of the material being recalled.

You can find out more about our principle of retrieval on our Teaching and Learning Website page Retrieval Practice at DHSB.

This also has great implications for our students to enhance their own independent study - the techniques they encounter on a daily basis will not only support them in lessons but provide them with strategies they can use in their own revision. Ensuring that their revision is active through the use of flash cards, self quizzing, peer quizzing, mind maps rather than passive (re reading notes, copying etc) has the potential to greatly increase their capacity to embed learning into their long term memory.

Mr Winstone

Sports Update

Football

It’s been a busy week for the Year 7 football team. On Wednesday they played three games in the central venue league drawing two and winning one, and on Thursday they beat Torbridge High 2- 0 in the Plymouth Cup.

Mr Strang said, “Well done all”.

The U15 B team also were in action this week in the Plymouth central venue competition. They beat Plymstock School A team 1 - 0.

Rugby

Well done to the Sixth Form rugby team who played in an invitational 7 a side rugby competition this week and won their two games against City College and St Brendan's College from Bristol.