It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at DHSB.
Today we held our Christmas jumper mufti day, raising funds for Save the Children.
This year the UK government is doubling all Christmas Jumper Day donations to support Save the Children and their life-changing work in Kenya, helping mums-to-be, new mums, babies and children get the food and medicine they need to be strong and healthy.
With twice as much to gain, today was a good opportunity to raise money for a great cause and to help Save the Children with their fantastic work.
In the last few weeks we have collected items of food for the Gift of Hope at Hope Baptist Church and for the Oasis project at Plymouth Foodbank.
Students have also brought in a large number of Christmas Puddings for Project 35 at Plymouth Argyle Football Club.
And finally, during the Christmas season, at the Carol Service on Monday we will be making a collection for the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal.
Many thanks to all who have helped us to support others this year.
House Assemblies
The themes covered in today's assemblies, led by house captains, were the importance of charity and human rights day which is on Saturday 10 December this year.
During the assemblies the house captains also announced the names of the 20 students who have completed their Bronze, Silver or Gold DofE Award in the last two months before sharing the updated house competition results.
DHSB Christmas Card
This week I had the enjoyable task of judging our Christmas Card competition. This was very difficult as there were many fabulous entries.
Congratulations to George King 7W, George Price 8N and Jeremi Sztuca 8N who drew the winning designs, pictured here.
George King
George Price
Jeremi Sztuka
Carol Service
Our Celebration of Christmas Carol Service will take place on Monday 12 December 2022, at 19:00 in the Minster Church of St Andrew, Royal Parade, Plymouth.
Year 7 students are preparing for the Carol Service and all parents, carers and friends are warmly invited to join us. Admission to the service is free and there is no requirement to book tickets.
The service will end at about 20:00 and as families leave there will be an opportunity to make a donation to the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal. Funds raised will help the Salvation Army to support homeless people and provide boxes of groceries and modest gifts for families in poverty.
Christmas Cracker Concert
Parents, carers and friends are also invited to our Christmas Cracker concert on Wednesday 14 December, starting at 19:00 in the Edgcumbe Theatre.
Mrs Luing-Holmes promises that this will be a 'feast of entertainment for all the senses'.
There is no need to reserve a ticket and all are welcome on a 'pay what you can' arrangement. A bar and snacks will be available from 18:00 and the concert is expected to finish at around 20:00.
Please join us!
Excellent Work
Mrs Wardle writes, “During CCW Year 8 students took part in a humanities day where they undertook a combined study on climate change. From the historical perspective of colonisation, considering the impact on the environment and culture, we proceeded to investigate our global neighbours, exploring how communities across the world have been responding to the climate crisis. This culminated in students participating in an 'Eyes of the World' campaign on behalf of CAFOD. Students worked hard on each stage of their learning journey, even speed building wind turbines from paper and brown tape to reduce their country's reliance on coal and gas".
Click this link to see more excellent examples of Eyes of the World.
Student News
Many congratulations to Alex Francis-Hale 9S.
Alex competed at the regional schools trampolining competition hosted by the British Gymnastics Association yesterday and, representing DHSB, won the gold medal in his category (boys year 9 - 10 novice).
Also well done to Jack Flower 10C who was selected to participate in the recent England national talent identification day. This involved spending the day at Hartpury College in Gloucester, where he trained with the England coaches and was observed by talent scouts from all of the premiership clubs.
Jack's selection for the England longlist was based on many hours of filmed observation of him during matches and training sessions over an extended period of time.
Jack performed superbly and conducted himself professionally throughout the day and was a credit to himself, his family, his football club and his school.
Chess Update
Well done to the school team who competed at Torquay recently. Team members included Caleb Caleshu, Jack Chen, Rocky Travers, Ben Wotton, Mohammad Kausar and and Jonah Struthers.
They won two of their three matches despite taking on a tough Millfield team and will proceed to the knock-out phase after New Year. Mohammad's performance in winning all three of his games was excellent.
Buoyed by their success, three of the team then travelled to the Devon individual championships. Well played to Jack Chen and Ben Wotton who exceeded expectations by winning third prize in the U15 age group. Caleb Caleshu narrowly missed out in his attempt to retain his Devon U18 title and had to be satisfied with the runner's-up trophy. Well done to all.
We’ll find out the name of our school Christmas champion in the last week of term.
Summer 2022 GCSE and A Level exam certificates
Exam certificates are now available to collect from our Visitor Reception from 9.15 to 15.15 daily during term time.
If you are collecting your certificates please bring ID with you and if you are nominating someone to collect them on your behalf please email the Exams Officer karen.edwards@dhsb.org to confirm your permission in advance.
PSHEE Activities
Our main tutorial lessons this week were on Wednesday and Year 7 students were feeling festive as they made their final preparations for the Carol Service on Monday 12 December with Mrs Luing-Holmes.
The Year 8 lesson was all about cultural traditions and how some of these can contravene UK laws. They also learned about different forms of marriage or civil partnerships, and again considered the legality of such unions.
Year 9 students had their last chance to polish up their presentations, ready for the judging of the Employer challenges today.
Babcock, Princess Yachts, Citybus, Plymouth Argyle and Bailey Partnership came into school to watch the presentations and awarded a small prize to the group in each class that they felt had best answered the challenge set.
Some very imaginative and professional ideas were on show, and this was a great chance for students to network with real local employers.
Princess Yachts
Plymouth Citybus
Babcock
Plymouth Argyle
Bailey Partnership
Year 10 students completed their tutor carousel with the final rotations around an eclectic mix of topics including:-
Travelling and South America
Driving and buying a car
Photography, image manipulation and fake news
Plymouth Sound National Marine Park, NI and the UK
Since Hitler considered himself an artist, is a painting by Hitler art?
Which one would you find most interesting?
Finally, Year 11 students attended a short presentation by Access College (formerly DbS Music) to inform them about another possible post-GCSE avenue, and then returned to class to review the mock exams.
This morning, there were House assemblies for all but Year 9 on the importance of charity, and of course today was also Christmas Jumper mufti day raising money for Save the Children.
One week to go until the end of term. Next week we have the year group celebration assemblies and a whole school end of term assembly with Mr Roberts.
I wish everyone a restful and thoroughly enjoyable Christmas break - lots more to come from PSHEE, Citizenship and Careers in 2023!
Ms Moreton
Sixth Form Enrichment
This week we'd like to highlight the kind efforts of Cara McVeigh 13 ALG who has volunteered to support a project which is raising funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Cara is offering 1:1 swimming coaching over the weekend of 17th/18th December at the Plymouth Life Centre in exchange for a donation to the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Cara is a qualified level 1 and 2 swimming teacher and works part time at Meadowlands Leisure Centre in Tavistock She has won medals for Devon County and South West Region and she swam at national level.
Please support her and this fundraising project if you can.
Information Sharing
Annual Childcare Parents Survey
The Anual Childcare Parents Survey is now available online and will run from 15 November until 15 December 2022.
This is an annual survey for all parents and carers of children aged 0 - 14 (18 with Special Educations Needs and Disabilities (SEND)).
The completed survey helps Plymouth City Council to look at what is working well and what needs to be improved in the childcare sector.
Please help by completing this if you can.
Plymouth Routes into Stem
The highly popular Plymouth Routes into STEM programme will be running again in February half term 2023. This is an innovative three day local non-residential experience that provides young people in Year 10 with an understanding of the amazing opportunities offered by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) based careers.
Applications are now open and places are limited. Please click on this links to find out more.
Plymouth Argyle Women’s Football Club
We've been asked to let you know that Plymouth Argyle Women’s Football Club have a fixture on 8 Jan 2023 against Cheltenham Town Ladies at 2.00pm at Home Park.
Families are invited for an afternoon of fun and games and then to watch the Ladies play football in the stadium.
Sports Update
Football
Congratulations to the Year 7 football team who beat Tavistock College 3 - 1 to go into round six of the national cup.
Mr Strang said, “Well done to all the squad”.
The Year 10 football team is playing Worle Community School today and we'll bring you the result if we can.
Also this week saw lots of after-school house football fixtures. Well done to all involved.
Basketball
Our Year 7 basketball team played in a tournament at the Life Centre this week. They played five games, won three and drew two. Mr Anderson says he is very proud of the team.
Mr Anderson also took Year 10 and 11 students to Coombe Dean on Tuesday for a basketball fixture. He said the team played well but unfortunately lost the game to a very strong side 52 - 28.