The High Autumn Term 2014 One - Leicester High School for Girls

The HIGH
W
Autumn Term 2014 1st Half www.leicesterhigh.co.uk twitter@LeicesterHigh
e have over 80 new families who joined us in September, and I welcome
you all to your first issue of The High, our half-termly newsletter. I have
enjoyed meeting many of you at the teas for new parents, the talk on
pastoral issues and our new ‘Coffee Corner’ on Tuesday mornings, and I look
forward to getting to know you and your daughter in the years to come. I am delighted that we have had such a vibrant and exciting start to the year. A newlydecorated school and extended Drama Studio are lovely to come back to, and
the girls have experienced a wide variety of trips, speakers, art, sport and drama
activities on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Enjoy your break with your daughters,
and I look forward to welcoming the girls back to school for the lead-up to Christmas! AW
Best School in Leicester Again!
T
he School is celebrating a strong performance in
A level and GCSE results this year. With 48% of
the A level grades being A*/A, there has been a
significant increase in these higher, sought-after grades.
100% of the 42 Year 13 girls passed, and 74% gained
grades A*-B and 90% grades A*-C. The national average
of A*-B grades is 52%, so Leicester High, with 74%, has
performed strongly. Emily Hopgood and Alice Boyd
gained 7 A* A levels between them and are both now at
Cambridge University. Most girls secured their first choice
university, and all girls are to be congratulated on their
results. GCSE results day was a celebration for Year 11,
with
100% of the girls gaining 5 GCSEs or more, and 96%
gaining 5 or more including English and maths. Two thirds, (67%), of all
grades were A*/A, and 31% were A*. Two girls gained straight A*s and
17 girls gained all A* and A grades which represented nearly a third of
the year group. 100% of results for music and over 50% of results for French,
Spanish and German were A*. Grades for PE were all A*/A and for Home Economics 16 out of 17
grades were A*/A. These results mean that within Leicester City Education Authority, Leicester High
continues to be the top performing school at A level and GCSE. Head Girl gains place on Everest Base Camp Expedition
Jo Hitchcock tells the story in her own words…..
I have been accepted by a company called 360expeditions to
take part in a student expedition to Everest Base Camp and
Lobuche East this Easter. I am one of six students who make up
our Everest student team, and we will be supported by a team of
highly qualified instructors. The expedition will qualify for the residential section of my DofE Gold award, and lasts 3 weeks. After
hearing about this opportunity, I could not resist sending in my application. I know it is going to push me mentally and physically;
however, I’m ready to be pushed out of my comfort zone, and to
experience this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I am required to
raise £1600 towards my expedition costs, and a further £400
which will go directly to Place2be, a charity which provides mental
health support to children in the UK. I hope to be carrying out
fundraising events in school, which will help me to reach my target, allowing
me to fulfil this dream of an expedition’. For further information on the expedition, please visit the website www.29029feet.com. Congratulations to Jo on securing her place on this incredible adventure.
Page 2 Junior

Greengrocer Visit

Cross Country

Festivals Celebrated

House Captains
Page 3 Senior

GCSE Field Trips

Year 6 & 7 Gallery

Drugs Awareness

Badminton Coaching

Art Events
‘
Page 4 Sixth

Senior Prize Giving

National Citizenship
Service

Y13 out in the
Community

Gallery
Years 1 & 2 Down on
the Farm
O
n Tuesday 23 September
both Years 1 and 2 enjoyed a trip to Oadby
Lodge Farm to see how food goes
‘From Farm to Fork’. They enjoyed
a nature hunt around the fields and
woods, looking for berries, wheat
fields, combine harvesters and
bee hives and then they made
a pizza which they took home
to eat. Year 1 have been
learning about the grain
chain in their school work
and so to see the chain in
action was a real insight.
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Tel. 0116 270 5338
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Junior
Foundation Visit
the Greengrocers
Cross Country Success at
Event in Knighton Park
O
Junior House Captains
T
he new House Captains in the
Junior Department have now been
chosen to represent their respective houses of Beaumanor, Bradgate and
Charnwood. The girls will be expected to
be role models and encourage good behaviour and hard work in others. They will
liaise with other pupils in their house and
work closely with the House Captains in
the Senior School. Well done to all of these girls: Beaumanor: Aalishah Patankar
and Saachee Gataure; Bradgate: Trinettra Ruben and Lytheah HeskeyMorrison; Charnwood: Tara Rajprohit
and Beatrice Davies.
n Friday October 10, a number of
girls entered the Leicester City
School Sport Partnership Cross
Country event at Knighton Park with some
outstanding results outlined below:
Year 3
2nd
Alfreda Barroso-Taylor
6th
Arya Johri
Year 4
3rd
Frantasia Mbewe
9th
Mylan Basra
10th
Raquel Berry
11th
Lytheah HeskeyMorrison
13th
Beatrice Davies
Year 5
1st
Nya Patel
th
Isha Ghosh
th
Aalishah Patankar
14
20
Year 6
5th
Isobel Hardy
12th
Constance Davies
Congratulations to all the girls who took part.
O
n Wednesday 1 October the Foundation Unit excitedly boarded the school
minibus for their trip to a local greengrocer. As part of their topic on healthy eating, they selected fruit and vegetables, which
they later transformed into a delicious vegetable soup and fruit salad.
Festivals Celebrated
T
he Foundation Unit found out
about and shared the Jewish celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the
Hindu Festivals of Navratri and Diwali,
and the Eid Festival this half-term. They
had an informative talk from a parent and
sampled apples dipped in honey and
pomegranate seeds as part of the Jewish
New Year. Four girls also dressed in
special Indian suits and performed a
dance with dandiya to share their celebration of the beginning of Navratri,
which is linked with the harvest and performing kind deeds. For Diwali the girls
all sampled Indian food and dressed up
and learnt the story of Rama and Sita.
Thank you to the parents who helped
with the celebrations.
Senior
GCSE Field Trips: Biology & Geography
T
E
Twycross Zoo
G
S
ixteen of the best badminton players from Years 8 to 13 attended a
pre-season training day led by
Steve Higgins, who used to coach the
England U17 team. The girls trained hard
for 5 hours learning new tactics, improving technique and gearing up for the season ahead. They have had great success
in the Leicestershire League and hope to
maintain their high position!
Playing Happy Families!
irls
in
Years 1013
enjoyed
two
inschool
events
from artists this
term. A Royal
Academy artist
and life model
team
visited
school and the
girls spent a day
drawing
‘from
life’. This was
followed by a
workshop from
Ian Naylor, who
showed the girls
how to draw hands,
which are notoriously difficult to draw.
See the website
Senior Gallery for
more photos.
Top Coach for Badminton
Fineshade Woods
Art Events in School
London
very girl in the Senior
School attended a talk
about drugs awareness
by Dave Parvin from Drug Sense
UK towards the end of the half
term. The parents of the girls
were then invited to a similar talk
in the evening of the same day.
The talks are part of the PSHCE
programme in school which is
designed to prepare the girls for
life. Parents also listened to
Laura Cook from Jotters, a
learning support centre, speaking about the teenage years and
coping with the issues of mental
health that arise in teenagers.
Warwick Castle
Talk on Pastoral Issues for Parents and Girls in Years 6-13
Years 6 & 7
Gallery
Curve Theatre
his half term the Year 11 geographers and biologists gained some valuable fieldwork experience on trips out of school. The geographers visited Stanwick Lakes in
Northamptonshire to collect information for their GCSE controlled assessments. In
the morning, they had a talk and a guided tour of the former quarry from one of the rangers.
The area is now managed as a nature reserve and visitor attraction. In the afternoon, the
girls collected their own data and had a chance to explore the facilities the park offers, before returning to school. The biologists travelled up to The Cranedale Centre in Yorkshire to
complete part of the practical work for their GCSEs. They set traps to catch a variety of
small mammals and also set out to a river to look at the variety of animals and insects present. The girls also went out to the beach and investigated rock pools.
Sixth
SENIOR PRIZE GIVING
O
n Thursday 18 September the
School held its annual Senior
Prize Giving for Years 12, 13 and
the Leavers of 2014. The audience were
treated to magical performances by Amalia Young on the violin, Susannah Wang
and Claire Zhang, who performed a beautiful piano duet, and Sorcha Whyte, who
sang ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ which she had
sung to Prince Edward earlier in the year at
a Duke of Edinburgh event held at St James’ Palace in
London. Over 175 prizes, awards, colours and certificates
were distributed in recognition of the academic, sporting,
debating, musical and artistic achievements of the senior
girls over the past academic year. Guest speaker Miss
Claire Sparks spoke enthusiastically about how school
equips each and every one of us with the passion and courage to pursue our dreams and
ambitions, as she spoke about how her own life had changed, since she left behind the
world of PR to write her first and hugely acclaimed novel.
Year 13 Girls out in the Community
T
By Sana Sattar and Zahraa Desai
he girls tell the story of their experience in their own
words below. What they haven't said is how poised
and professional they were. They were a credit to
the School, and most importantly, themselves. Thank you
girls. ‘It was a privilege for us to be warmly welcomed by the
staff and pupils of Fleckney Primary School. We took great
pride in teaching the Year 1 and 6 pupils about different aspects of Islam and giving them an insight into the daily life of
a Muslim, reinforcing their current religious studies. We covered a variety of topics, ranging from the 5 basic principles of
Islam to its effect on our lifestyle. The students were incredibly inquisitive and confidently participated in the interactive session. It was a great pleasure
to answer their numerous questions and we hope to have enriched their knowledge of Islam. We are grateful to the staff at Fleckney Primary School for giving us the opportunity to
strengthen our communication and interpersonal skills, which are vital in development as
confident young women. This experience has proved highly beneficial to us, as we are
keen to inform young students on such a fast growing and largely followed religion in our
society. We look forward to more opportunities like this in the future’. Mr Tim Leah, Headmaster of Fleckney Primary School and LHS Governor, said, ‘Please pass on our thanks to
Sana and Zahraa; it wasn't an easy job talking about their faith to so many Year 6 and Year
1 children, but they did so brilliantly and in such a self assured and charming manner. They
were a real credit to LHS’.
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National Citizen Service
Words by Zakira Asra, Media & Marketing Prefect
O
ver the summer of 2014, several
girls from Year 11, now in Year 12,
took part in NCS, the National Citizen Service. It’s a programme developed to
help young people around the country to
build skills for work and life, while taking on
new challenges and meeting new friends.
Participants develop a social action project
to deal with a local issue they are passionate
about, and spend 30 hours putting the project into action in their community. The
scheme began with a one week residential
where they bonded with other participants
and enjoyed activities such as raft building
and fencing. Jennisa in Year 12 particularly
enjoyed her residential and said, ‘On one
night we had a huge campfire where every
team prepared something to perform and we
also had pizza!’ This was followed by a stay
at a university in student accommodation for
a week. Rou-Qian in Year 12 spent the week
at De Monfort University where the teams
took part in a Dragon’s Den-style task. All
the skills that the teams were working on in
the first two weeks were put into practice for
the third and fourth week when they focused
on their social action projects. Each team
chose an aspect of their community to help
and improve. This included centres and organizations such as special needs schools
and the RSPCA. Chantel, in Year 12, and
her team decided to go busking in town and
sell loom bands. ‘On the last day, we had a
stand at Victoria Park, sold cakes and
drinks, and managed to raise about £800 for
the RSPCA and George Ward Centre’. At
the end of the scheme, a graduation day
was held for all the participants who also
received a certificate signed by the Prime
Minister. Rou-Qian said that her favourite
part of the summer was ‘making new friends
on the residential’ and also ‘fundraising for
Ashmount School.’ Each LHS girl agreed
that taking part in NCS really helped to boost
their confidence and gave them the chance
to develop a range of important skills.
INTERESTED IN JOINING OUR SCHOOL?
Next Open Morning: Wednesday 19 November, 9-11.30am
No need to book, simply walk in!
Please contact Mrs Harbage on 0116 270 5338 or j.harbage@leicesterhigh.co.uk for more information