Welcome to our third Head's Blog this term. It's been brilliant to see activities for students starting again, including the house football matches which have been taking place after school.
It's also been good to hear from students about their news and activities outside school.
If you have something you'd like to celebrate then please complete the form available at this link. We'll be sharing your responses over the next few weeks.
Student News
Congratulations to Ollie Lee 10C who won the Western Counties boxing U59kg category last weekend. He is competing at the national semi-finals in Newcastle this weekend and we wish him all the best for this event.
Well done to James Brinkworth 8E and Rhys Greenfield 8W who both swim with Plymouth Leander and were selected to take part in the junior arena league during the summer.
Plymouth Leander made it through to the national finals (the only club in the South West to reach this stage of the competition).
The finals took place in August in Coventry and both boys swam brilliantly, achieving personal bests in their events (James swims backstroke and Rhys swims freestyle).
Their swim squad finished seventh overall and both students thoroughly enjoyed the brilliant experience of swimming at a national event.
James Brinkworth
Rhys Greenfield
Excellent Work
Ms Merren has shared this excellent piece of work that new Year 12 Business students have completed.This was produced by James Roberts 12ALG and Heidi Balfour 12RNC for a competition and will be entered on Two Teachers.
Sports Update
Football
It’s good to see house football back at DHSB and this week teams from Year 9, Year 10 and Year 11 were the first to kick off the season.
On Thursday Mr Campbell said, "Despite the first showers of autumn, there was a great Year 8 turnout for house football. Well done".
Year 10
Year 11
Year 8
Rugby
Mr Bunney said, "It was great to get out on the grass again this week with the Year 7 rugby team taking part in their first training session after school in preparation for Plymouth fixtures which start in a couple of weeks.
PHSEE Activities
This week we are back to our usual mixed bag of lessons for the different year groups, although as part of Wednesday's assembly lesson all students watched a new Rail Safety film from Network Rail, and also had some input from Heads of Year on behaviour on trains and buses as part of their assemblies which had a main theme of Achieving Excellence.
In today's lesson, Year 7 students covered the topic of drugs and alcohol, thinking about whether all drugs are ‘bad’, whether they consider alcohol to be a drug, and looking at different ‘is this ok?’ scenarios. The lesson also covers peer pressure, and ways to deal with unwanted pressure from friends or other students.
Year 8 students discussed cyberbullying by looking at a short film of a boy being bullied virtually outside school, and the subsequent consequences for not only the victim but others involved as well. The class took each character in turn to consider their possible motives and courses of action.
Year 9 students looked at family issues, starting with considering what makes a family, different family groups, potential disagreements and how to deal with them. They discussed cartoons demonstrating various ‘trouble at home’ scenarios such as coming in late or spending too much time on their phone.
Year 10 students began the year by looking at organisation and study skills including hints and tips to support and develop their current practice over the coming months to ensure that they are confident to move towards studying for exams.
And finally Year 11 students had three speakers, real rather than virtual which is great!
Firstly City College colleagues spoke about the possibilities offered there for next year and beyond for those not wishing or not able to return to DHSB, then CSW (was Careers South West) also spoke about the need to plan for next year as well as studying hard. We shared lots of details such as other Plymouth Schools Sixth Form Open Evenings which mainly take place this term. It is vital for ALL students to consider a sensible Plan B and we will be returning to this many times over the next few months.
The final speaker was from NCS, the National Citizen Service, who were publicising their October half term offer as well as the outline of summer activities post GCSE exams - something to look forward to!
Ms Moreton