We hope that as a family you were able to enjoy some time together over half term.
We have enjoyed welcoming students back to school this week.
I’m pleased to share news about individual student successes, our half term holiday club, information and guidance evenings and this week’s sports fixtures in the Head’s Blog today.
Student News
Very well done to Oscar Westbury 7W who competed at a diving competition at Southampton Invitational during half term.
After a difficult 18 months for the Plymouth Diving Team, Oscar won bronze in the 1m board event and was very happy with the result.
In addition, Oscar has been invited to compete at the Swim England Talent Games in the John Charles Centre, Leeds in November.
Congratulations also to Ewan Lock 7S who during half term officially signed for the Plymouth Argyle U12's Academy as a goalkeeper, following an eight week trial.
Well done to both Oscar and Ewan.
Excellent Work
Our Excellent Work has been shared today by Mr Scott.
James Young 10S coded a simulation of orbiting planets around a star by using Unity and C#.
James said, “The way this functions is based on (x, y) = (cos(n), sin(n)), but with adjustments to allow for elliptical patterns”.
Revision Skills Session and Choices Evening
In addition to my normal paragraph on tutorial lessons this week, I am delighted to be able to tell you about two recent events in school, among the first to be held face-to-face after all the Covid months, writes Ms Moreton.
On the Thursday before half term Mr Manley and Mr Martin held a study skills/revision session for interested Year 11 students after school. Students had the opportunity to try out different ways of revising, to plan a revision timetable, to look at time management and stress control - and to eat a welcome pasty half way through!
Students that attended took away plenty of helpful resources as well - hopefully feeling more organised and prepared for the upcoming mocks.
Our second event was our Choices Evening, held last night, was aimed at parents and carers of students in Year 10 - Year 13 and was also well attended by many students.
We had five speakers: Sharron Robbie who heads up the Devon & Cornwall Training Provider network, Emma Hewitt the Skills lead for Plymouth City Council, Luke Bazeley from Cornwall College, Judy Kay representing Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge and finally Ralph Rizk, Head of Strategic programmes at Babcock International.
Luke also brought with him three current apprentices, one of whom was a former DHSB student, and other alumni were referenced in some of the presentations. "I was sat where you are now..." is a very powerful message to give to our students considering the different routes they may take after school, and many were particularly interested in finding out more about degree apprenticeships.
The idea of achieving your degree, whilst being paid, and also not building up levels of student debt was appealing to many of the parents, too. I think!
We reiterated the need to have a Plan B and possibly a Plan C for after GCSEs (or A levels) and to be proactive in applying for as much as possible - it is fine, for instance, to go for a place in a couple of different sixth forms, a college and also apply for apprenticeships all at the same time. Much easier to choose your favourite destination from a selection, rather than be left high and dry on results day with nothing organised.
The speakers stayed for a while at the end to talk to individuals and answer questions, and there was lots of positive verbal feedback. I will be posting copies of each of the five presentations (which contained many useful links) on the website as soon as possible. From the main DHSB website choose Careers, click through to my Careers and PSHEE website, and choose the Parents tab. The presentation links will be at the bottom of the page.
Hopefully a useful session for all those who attended, and it was certainly good to be able to carry out a face to face event after all this time!
Ms Moreton
Holiday Club
"Well, what an amazing week" said Mr Campbell, who organised our first ever half term holiday club which was full of fun and smiles.
From Plymouth Parkour to digital photo editing, football run by Plymouth Argyle Community Trust to Laser Tag, each day was different and was filled with laughter, games, learning and most of all enjoyment.
Thank you to all the instructors that made the week so enjoyable and to all the parents and carers that allowed their children to take part.
We will certainly be looking to run Holiday Clubs here again in the near future.
PSHEE Activities
Welcome back after half term, and I hope that you all had an opportunity for at least some R and R despite the somewhat damp weather!
This is an important half term especially for Year 11 students who will be sitting their mock GCSE exams, and with Curriculum Challenge Week for the other year groups.
There were Year Group assemblies on Wednesday on the topic of Building Communities, and Year 8 students also had brief talks from the Army and RAF cadets.
In tutorial today Year 7 students began a two week rotation, with half the year group taking part in a taster session for Street Dance, organised by Mr Campbell whilst the other half had a lesson teaching them about dementia, a subject that will sadly touch most of our lives at some time.
The Year 8 lesson was all about Parliament, with activities for National Parliament Week with House of Lords information, quiz, debate and Prime Minister's Question Time amongst the topics to choose from.
Year 9 students looked at organ donation, a subject which is amongst the newly statutory requirements for PSHEE - again a mix of information and debate.
The Year 10 lesson was a speaker organised by Ms Walker, joint Head of Religious Education, to link not only with citizenship awareness but also the core RE syllabus for the year group. The speaker related his experiences of the Rwandan genocide atrocities, and the lesson was obviously emotional but very informative and thought provoking.
Year 11 students have, as already mentioned, their mock exams soon so they spent this Friday (and next) on revision, and also having 1:1 discussions with tutors and Head of Year regarding their plans for next year.
So hitting the ground running as always - more information on the tutorial programme next Friday.
Ms Moreton
Sports Update
Hockey Leadership
Mr Campbell said, “It was great to see the young ambassador and leadership programme in action during the Plymouth School Sports Partnership Quicksticks hockey event. All the DHSB students did a great job officiating and coaching".
Football
A very gallant effort from our Year 8 team in the U13 national cup fixture. Despite the 6 - 1 loss, all the students should be extremely proud of themselves as we were up against a really tough team from Eggbuckland.
Mr Campbell said, “Well done”.
The Year 9 football team advanced through to round four of the national cup with a good win against Eggbuckland.
Well done boys - great to watch, said Mr Bunney.
Plymouth Schools Cross Country Championships
Mr Carpenter said the school made history yesterday with our first ever win in the senior girls category at the Plymouth Schools Cross Country. Well done to Sixth Form student Kristyna Cade 6RNC.
Also, Year 7 students took first and third places in their competition together with top performances from all the team.
Overall it was a fantastic day for DHSB.
