Highlights - Southend High School for Girls
Transcription
Highlights - Southend High School for Girls
Southend High School for Girls an Academy Grammar School Southchurch Boulevard Southend-on-Sea Essex SS2 4UZ Phone: 01702 588852 Fax: 01702 587181 E-mail: aslater@shsg.org Issue 15 Inside this issue: 2 Münster Exchange FMSP Maths Feast 3 Intermediate Maths Challenge Bodas de Sangre Year 9 Careers Day Pi Day 4 Harry Potter Night The Benefits of English made 5 Crystal Clear World Book Day Competitions Spanish Exchange Year 9 Curriculum Day 6 Year 7 Flexible Friday One to Watch—Yasmeen Bey News from Music 7 BBC News School Report 8 Brain Day SHSG Masked Ball Spring 2016 Southend High School for Girls Termly Newsletter Message from the Headteacher www.shsg.org History Trip to Russia Highlights There is something on our calendar almost every day of the year and the students have fantastic opportunities both in lessons and beyond. Highlights and the gazette give a glimpse of what goes on at SHSG. For example this term we have had a geography field trip to Scarborough, Spanish exchange visitors in school and our German students have been to Germany on their exchange. Everyone, through the House system, works to ‘give something back’ which this year has been focussed on local charities. During charity week students raised almost £3000 through lunchtime activities, run by the house captains, such as ‘Where’s Wally’, a slave auction, bench ball. This term we have had our second Harry Potter evening, thank to Ms Wakeman’s organisational skills and our second Poetry by Heart competition under the direction of Mrs Wimsett. Science week began with science captains and Mrs Brown performing to the whole school in assembly and this was followed by a week of activity based around science. The music department was as active as ever with a 6 th form concert and a weekend trip for ‘masterclasses’ at Ingestre Hall, which was followed by a teatime concert. The music department is of course heavily involved in our musical – Hairspray. Have you got your tickets yet? SHSG continues to work with primary schools; we have delivered a maths day, an Africa day and a MFL theatre day this term. Eleven schools came in to share the fun of Pi Day on the 14th March – for those who like numbers in the USA date system 3.14.(1)6 was the date of Pi Day! There were tables of pies and we were able to donate £1000 to a local keyhole cancer charity, a mountain of pie to HARP (homeless charity in Southend) and a substantial sum of money to the NSPCC. Mrs Imbush and the maths department work tirelessly to make this day such a huge success and were supported by Rachel Riley (ex student) who spent much of the day being motivational and mathematical. We were able to celebrate our prize winners at the Palace Theatre once again. This is always a lovely event when those who have excelled in effort, community work or academically can be acknowledged. The students looks resplendent in their uniforms with colours, SASH and merit badges on their lapels. Dr Wendy Cordess, a local doctor and ex SHSG student gave an inspirational speech and I am sure a number of girls will follow in her steps and study medicine after her encouragement. The Spring term has been the season for babies with three born within weeks of each other. Mrs Binns and Ms Ladner both gave birth to daughters, whilst Ms D’Auria had a baby boy. All mothers and babies are doing well. The Easter Holidays are upon us and for students with external examinations on the horizon the two week break is revision time. The forthcoming weeks are anxious times for year 11, 12 and 13. We will do our best to balance the pressure which examinations bring with the need for relaxation and anxiety reduction; examinations are important but so is student wellbeing. I am sure that the students will be revising hard over Easter but they also need to give some time to themselves to recharge their batteries in between periods of revision. Years 7 to 10 also have examinations shortly after Easter. They also need to review their work so that they can do themselves justice in these assessments. Ms Brierley French play for primary school children On 15th March, as part of our Primary Foreign Languages outreach work, we welcomed at school over two hundred and fifty primary school children from 9 schools in the borough: they came to enjoy a play entirely in French performed magnificently by the well-known company, Théâtre sans frontières. The children had worked on the songs and story in the weeks preceding the show and could participate fully in this interactive play. Not only did the children hear and speak French for a whole hour but they also experienced a variety of theatrical styles, from physical theatre to puppets, from slapstick comedy to silhouette shows. A feast for the ears and eyes which the children relished. Pupils from one school on their way home were eagerly asking: will there be another one soon? Mrs Valencia, Primary Modern Foreign Languages Coordinator History Trip to St Petersburg, Russia Highlights Page 2 From 19th to 23rd of February, we were lucky enough to spend five wonderful days in St Petersburg. Our trip was centred around Russian history, particularly the last years of Imperial rule and the 1917 revolutions to supplement our studies on 19 th and 20th century Russia. We visited many beautiful sights, including the enormous Hermitage Museum and the formidable Peter and Paul Fortress. To everyone's delight, it snowed nearly every day and no-one was averse to snowball fights in front of the Winter Palace (even if we did accidentally hit a statue of Tsar Nicolas II). Flying snowballs aside, a particular highlight was Catherine the Great's magnificent palace. The massive exterior, the most beautiful shade of blue, decorated with pure white pillars and gold leaf, was stunning enough. However, the interior was something else. Whilst only 36 of the rooms in the huge palace had been restored, every one that had been was meticulously and ornately decorated. The ballroom was by far, everyone's favourite (and not just because we recognised it from the BBC's recent production of 'War and Peace'). White walls with gold leaf everywhere you could possibly look and an uncanny amount of mirrors, a mythical King's most luxurious chambers could never hope to compare. The Croatian choir that spontaneously broke in to song was the icing on the cake. Clichéd as this sounds, it really was like stepping back in time. It wasn't difficult to imagine Catherine the Great entertaining the Princes and Princesses of Europe in her marvellous palace, everyone laughing and whirling around in unimaginably luxurious dresses. Everything in the city was so colourful- a much welcomed contrast to the dull, grey skies. We had a brilliant guide, Maria, who told us everything we could ever wish to know about the history of St Petersburg, as well as introduced us to some Russian songs which epitomise the idea of the "guilty pleasure." There wasn't a thing about Russian history that she didn't know and no question had any hopes of catching her out. We all certainly miss her a lot! It was very tiring at times but everyone on the trip thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an unbelievable experience that none of us will ever forget. "We all really enjoyed the snow!"- Rachael Holliday "It was great fun!"- Will Unwin Eleanor Davis, Year 12 Münster Exchange At the beginning of March, 28 girls in year 9 took part in the long established pupil exchange between Southend High School for Girls and Annette von Droste-Hülshoff Gymnasium, Münster. We spent the first weekend with our host families who we knew already as our partners had stayed with us in Southend the previous September and since then we have been avidly facetiming. We went to school on Monday with our partners and sat in various lessons. English was straightforward, but embarrassing as we had to take part. They don’t have interactive whiteboards like at SHSG so there was chalkdust everywhere. On Tuesday we had a guided tour of Münster and learnt a lot of history. We had a joint excursion with our partners to the famous Universum Science Museum in Bremen on Wednesday, then on Thursday we went to Cologne and climbed 450 steps to the top of the cathedral for a magnificent view of the city and the Rhine. After a brief shopping spree we were taken to the German Olympic Sport Museum for an active hands-on tour. After lessons on Friday we all went bowling, then said a tearful goodbye before departing later that evening. We all made the effort to speak lots of German and it’s amazing just how much we have improved. We are all going to keep in touch with our partners and meet up again sometime in the future. Es lebe die Deutsch-Britische Freundschaft! Mr Shipton, Head of German and the exchange students Issue Page 3 15 FMSP Year 10 Maths Feast in February Chloe Ayling, Tamanna Jithesh, Holly Mepham and Christy Saju were excellent ambassadors for the school when they represented SHSG in the FMSP Year 10 Maths Feast Competition at KEGS just before half term. They trained for weeks and this paid off with their confidence in tackling the varied challenges. Although no overall placings were given our girls certainly held their own in competing with the best teams from across South Essex. Mrs Imbush was very proud of their enthusiasm and tenacity. Well done girls! UK Intermediate Maths Challenge 2016 This year’s challenge took place on Thursday 4th February which was an inset day. 20 students from years 10 and 11 volunteered to come into school to take part. The majority of the students attained either a bronze, silver or gold award, and all should be very proud of their achievements. Sophie Biggs in year 11 and Beverley Ngo in year 10 both qualified for the next stage, The Pink Kangaroo. This is the second year running that Sophie has qualified for this prestigious competition. We wish them both the best of luck for the end of March. Mrs Owens Bodas de Sangre at King's College On 14th March, a group of 22 sixth form students of A level Spanish took the train to London to see a production of the play they are studying, Bodas de Sangre, by Federico Garcia Lorca. The play was performed by undergraduates from the Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Department at King's College, London and the actors delivered their lines in Spanish, English and Portuguese. It was an impressive performance by students with differing levels of fluency in the languages, and it was a great opportunity for our students to see the play brought to life. We all had different favourite interpretations; many said that the role of the Mother was their favourite whilst others thought that Leonardo's wife was expressive. Novio was a firm favourite with many, thanks to his looks! The musicians - three in total, all singing and playing acoustic guitars - brought a magical element to the play and were very talented. It was a worthwhile trip and has enabled our students to have a new point of reference for the great tragedy that forms the first of Lorca's masterly rural trilogies. Ms McKeown, Director of Faculty for MFL and Head of Spanish Year 9 Careers Day As part of their careers programme, Year 9 heard talks from over 20 employers on careers as diverse as psychologist to costume designer. This year there was an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) based careers. Former pupil Katie Turfkruyer, now one of McLaren’s dedicated STEM Ambassadors, spoke about her role as an engineer and brought a ‘sample’ into the school for the girls to look at. The event was a really good chance for girls to find out about opportunities open to them and gain an insight into the world of work. Mrs Nicholls, Head of Careers Highlights Pi Day with guest Rachel Riley Page 4 We were delighted to have Rachel Riley join us for our Pi Day Maths Festival here at SHSG on March 14th. We had over 100 students competing from 10 schools across Southend and in all keystages! The pie baking competition was very popular with such a high standard of entries that Rachel found it so hard to have choose a winner. Well done all entrants and, in particular, to Abinaja Ilangovan and to Emily Uden for winning the KS4 and KS4 categories respectively. The reciting the digits of Pi competition takes so much work from the competitors and everyone was astounded by the number of digits that students have been able to memorise. Louise Hynes took the KS3 trophy with 292 digits !! She had some tough competition from Ines Matheron who wasn't far behind! We also had an excellent field of Piems which are poems written with the number of words in each line following the digits of Pi. So all in all a cross-curricular cross- keystage extravaganza with maths as the centre of course! Thank you to Drew Backhouse for making the fabulous trophies. There were over 20 activities, workshops and competitions and I would like to thank the Pi Day volunteers - all 59 of them - for their exceptional hard work and flexibility in preparing for the event. These life skills in organising such an evening will be valuable in their future careers. Also thank you to Claire Otasowie in Year 12 for giving up her Saturday morning to help put up all the fabulous maths posters for Pi Day. These are on display at Southend Forum. Mrs Imbush, Head of Maths Harry Potter Book Night Photo shows a cheque for £1,000 being presented to the NSPCC. This was raised by the Crochet & Craft Club at SHSG On the night of Friday 11th March Southend High School for Girls transformed into the magical world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Girls became witches and boys became wizards, teachers became professors and the library became the Great Hall. Children stepped into another world. Our own fabulous Professors Wiz and Bang (Mrs Aylen and Mrs Murphy Brown) gave a magical demonstration of potions and spells. There were divination classes run by the wonderful professor Trelawney (otherwise known as Mrs Moffat), Potions classes run by the eerie Professor Snape (Mr Aldridge), Spells classes run by the fabulous Miranda Goshawk (Mrs Brown) and Professor Sprout (Ms Wakeman) was on hand to talk about Herbology. There were house captains running round the Hall proudly chanting "Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor !!" Butterbeer was sold and drunk by the gallon, wands were choosing their wizards left, right and centre, textbooks were sold to first years, the book of monsters snapped off many a hand and snitches were literally flying off of the shelves. Professor Moody (Mr Moroney) thundered around the school ordering students around and encouraging magical talent and Rita Skeeter( Mrs Bull) was promenading around the school spreading and reaping gossip to report back to the daily prophet. "It was amazing to see everyone get involved in something together, and especially something as widely loved as Harry Potter!" said a parent. " I loved being able to interact with all of the characters from the books!" said a current year 8 pupil. For one night the school was no longer full of muggles, it was full of witches and wizards bringing with them a world to be enjoyed by everyone." Anya Neal Year 12 Issue 15 Page 5 The Benefits of English Made Crystal Clear Like their colleagues, English teachers know a lot about their subject. Most questions they can answer with ease: “yes, that is an inverted subordinate conjunction”, they explain with confidence, or “no, relative clauses must start with a relative pronoun”. But there are some questions they cannot answer and, when the students don’t know, the teachers are unsure and the internet is of no use, there is only one man who can help; a linguistic hero and legend of English language: David Crystal. On 12th February, two Year 13 English Language classes were incredibly fortunate to be able to attend the annual e-magazine conference held in London, which, far from an academic event, more resembles a popular festival, with queuing students, passionate fans and a full venue (Mrs Osborn stayed up until 3am just to get the tickets. Yes, 3am!) Guest speakers included Dan Clayton (writer for the e-magazine), Deborah Cameron (The Myth of Mars and Venus) and – of course – the headline act, David Crystal. The day was broken up into speeches, debates and discussions, each more interesting than the last. All pupils thoroughly enjoyed their experience at the conference, made invaluable notes (or, at least, later copied their teacher’s scribbles) and left enthused with the power of linguistics. The students would like to express their gratitude to the English department for organising the trip and would highly recommend the experience to existing students studying at A-level or prospective students further down the school (even if it is just to see Mrs Hathaway blushing with excitement!) The e-magazine, The Myth of Mars and Venus and a plethora of David Crystal’s works are available at the school library. Toby Sales, 13 MAH World Book Day Competitions Lots of girls took part in the competitions to match the teachers with their books and hunt down clues to our literary murder game. Congratulations go to Ella Chantree and Jessica Barlow in year 7 who worked together to guess ‘Who was Reading What, they are splitting the prize money and get a £5 book token each. Cherie Choong 8E was picked from the many correct entries from our game of ‘Literary Clue’ and also won a £5 voucher and Chianna Pettitt in 7E won a £15 book token for her witty and inventive newspaper report on the murder. The Spanish Exchange 2015-16 En Septiembre 2015, fui a Valladolid en España con el colegio como parte de un intercambio. Allí, me alojé con mi intercambio español para cinco días y en Enero de este año, los españoles vinieron aquí. Pasaron seis días aquí en los que fueron a las ciudades famosas de Inglaterra como Cambridge y Canterbury y aprendieron nuevas cosas sobre nuestros estilos de vida. Por ejemplo, en el viernes, nos acompañaron en clases. Pienso que les gustó pero sus clases eran un poco diferentes porque sus días a colegio terminan a las dos y media. When the exchanges came here, they spent the weekend with us and our families. I decided to take my exchange partner called Andrea to London with a couple of other friends with exchanges. We wanted to make the most of the time we had together so we tried to pack in as much as we could into the weekend so on the Saturday we took them to the London Eye (which they were quite afraid of at first.) Then we took them to Trafalgar square and then shopping around Leicester square so they could buy souvenirs for their families. Overall, I think they really enjoyed their time here, experiencing a different culture and getting to know each other better. Esta oportunidad me ha permitido a usar todo lo que he aprendido de colegio y encontré que puedo hablar más español que creía que podría. Andrea y yo nos llevamos muy bien y me ha invitado a venir y alojarse con ella y su familia en el verano! Megan Brooks, 10M Year 9 Creative & Performing Arts Curriculum Day Highlights Page 6 ART - There were two art groups. Group A worked with clay in the style of Antoni Gaudi to produce a decorative slab pot – this was fired in the kiln and will be painted or bronzed shortly before being taken home. Group B painted a glass jar in the style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and also created a print based on his floral designs. DANCE - Students had the opportunity to learn a number of Jazz style dance routines with Aila Floyd - a founding member and choreographer of the acclaimed London-based Charleston dance group, The Bees Knees. This was performed at the end of the day accompanied by musicians in the same year group. DRAMA – Students participated in a day of practical drama with the ‘Ensemble Theatre Company,’ an innovative young theatre company based at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. FOOD TECH – Students made three authentic Spanish dishes – Coca Bread, Stuffed Tomatoes and Magdalenas. MUSIC - Students learnt several Swing, Lindy Hop, Trad Jazz and Charleston pieces of music and performed alongside the students in the dance group. PE - Students visited the David Lloyd Centre in Eastwood for the day and participated in a variety of activities including Badminton, Cardio Tennis, Spinning and Body Pump. PRODUCT DESIGN - Students created lamps out of wood and plastic inspired by an Art Movement of their choice. TEXTILES – Students produced textile art pieces inspired by the colour, texture and form of Antoni Gaudi. Year 7 Art/Geography Flexible Fridays in March Half of Year 7 visited Belfairs Wood and half participated in a full day of art. The Art groups began the day by drawing outside in the freezing cold, observing all the many trees in the school grounds, looking carefully at their structures. They then worked on different projects based on their initial drawings; producing torn collages, charcoal drawings, limited colour palette paintings and batik pieces of woodland flora and fauna. The students also looked at artists Piet Mondrian and Vincent Van Gogh and the way they painted trees. One to watch—Yasmeen Bey, Year 10 Many congratulations to Yasmeen Bey, Year 10. Last September Yasmeen entered the “European Digital Girl” of the year competition which was organised by the European Union in recognition for “Excellence in Computer Science”. She had to write a long essay and put together a video as part of the competition. 35,000 other girls entered and Yasmeen came first. She went to Luxembourg to receive her prize (she also won a Kindle, a big computer and some Amazon vouchers) There, she met the Vice President of the EU (Frans Timmermans) and some top people from Microsoft. She was approached by Microsoft and has been offered an internship there this summer. Yasmeen also recently won the "British One to Watch Award". She has been singled out as an under eighteen year old who is tipped to be one of the top computer scientists in the future. Yasmeen was one of 6,000 entrants and on top of the shiny plate she holds in this photograph Yasmeen has won a £40,000 scholarship from Google for university tuition. News from the Music Department Highlights Page In November, Chamber Choir performed in the annual Southend Music Festival for the second time. As they had done in 2013, the ensemble, directed by Ms Elliott, once again won The Doreen Bowyer Prize for The Most Promising Children’s Choir but also were awarded The Chas Waller Silver Challenge Shield No. 1 for a wonderful performance scoring 89/100 (honours), being complimented on their ‘purity and clarity of singing…rhythmic precision at the heart, excellent intonation and dynamics were varied with aplomb.’ and ‘there was a real sense of your being a high-class group’; high praise from a well-respected and experienced adjudicator and musician. Congratulations are also extended to all of our students who were successful in solo and ensemble classes throughout the rest of the festival. The Spring term is traditionally a quieter time for the Music Department, but perhaps not this year! January saw the first Music residential for many years, involving fifty students from Years 7 – 12, we travelled to a wonderful stately home, Ingestre Hall, in Staffordshire for a weekend of music-making. Over the course of the weekend we rehearsed eight different ensembles, with only two hours of rehearsal time each, performing the finished product in a great concert on the Monday evening to show our hard-work. The weekend was thoroughly enjoyable, great music was made and new friendships were formed; the Saturday evening’s talent show was genuinely impressive and the 6th Formers’ rendition of Spice Girls’ Wannabe was entertaining for us all. It was a great opportunity for students to explore their creativity outside of the school environment and enjoy playing music for the love of it. Continuing with the theme of new traditions, this year we held our inaugural House Music competition. Taking place over five lunchtimes, students first competed within their own house to have the opportunity to appear in the final. The competition showed the diverse range of talent that we are lucky to see each day in School, but it was brilliant to see students performing so confidently on a much larger scale in front many of their peers. Congratulations to all who took part, with special congratulations to the winners of each House, and the Ensemble competition: Hera – Hermes – Aphrodite – Athene – Artemis – Ensemble – Edward Morgan Caitlin Smith Abbie Charlton Victoria Manicom Isabel Clarke Estee Dannhauser and Ashriel Edem, Hermes The overall winner of the competition was Athene’s Victoria Manicom who performed Adele’s Hello with complete assurance and maturity. Thank you to Madeleine Rigby and Edward Morgan for forming two new extra-curricular clubs this year, Clarinet and Guitar Ensemble – thank you both for giving your time to establishing these ensembles! Another new ensemble for this year is Novem Consort, formed following our trip to Seville, is an unaccompanied, sacred choral ensemble featuring some of our finest singers in the School. They first performed at the School Birthday and, in addition to the Christmas Concerts, have also performed at Prize Giving at the beginning of February and a borough-wide celebration of music, Southend Makes Music, at the end of the month. Coming up we have our annual Soloists’ Concert on Monday 21 st March, a marvellous evening which provides an opportunity for any musicians to perform and show their instrumental skills which they have worked independently to master. It is a particularly important evening for those students, such as pianists and vocalists, whose ensemble opportunities are somewhat limited due to the nature of their instrument. Thank you for your ongoing support of our concerts throughout the year, it is largely down to ticket sales and generous donations that we have been able to purchase fifteen computers for MU2 so that all students will be able to use the latest technology in their lessons; this is a huge asset to our Department and the students’ experience of Music will be vastly broadened as a result. Following the Easter holidays, the Summer term will see the first large-scale musical production for a number of years at SHSG: Hairspray! The cast, crew, band (and staff) have been working incredibly hard to make this show spectacular since July of last year and we would love to see as much support in the audience as possible. Tickets are available at the School Bank, priced £10 for adults and £6 concessions; due to the nature of the event, all seats are allocated at the time of buying a ticket – so the earlier you buy the best choice of seats you will have! Do buy in advance to avoid disappointment. 7 BBC School News Report Every Thursday, since October, Students from SHSG have been working on reports for the BBC School News Report. Along the way we have been picking up skills in researching, filming, editing, interviewing and so much more from the wonderful expertise of Ola and Leila in Year 13. On Thursday 10th March (Newsday) Michael Millham, apprentice broadcast engineer for the BBC came in to help us finalise our reports. We worked in separate groups and each chose a topic to base our day on. We gathered information via interviewing and researching information about each topic. Some of us had people brought in and we were filmed talking about a topic. The topics are: Pi day, local area news, Hairspray, University opinions, Wallasea Island. We enjoyed learning how to film and edit our footage. Moreover, we loved doing the interviews. The day was an incredible experience for us to get an insight on what goes on behind the scenes in a BBC News Report. “The time went so fast because we had so much to do!” “It was very satisfying to see the end result. We loved having the responsibility to edit our own footage!” For a link to the BBC school report from the school website click http://southendgirls.school-site5.net/?_id=727 Purba Audhura, Year 7 Brain Day On 9th March AS and A Level Psychology students attended ‘Brain Day’ – an introductory session in neuroscience. Dr Guy Sutton, Director of Medical Biology Interactive and Honorary Consultant Assistant Professor at University of Nottingham Medical School led the students through a brain dissection identifying anatomy studied on their course. Students were able to get hands on with the regions of the brain and identify areas involved with the senses, memory and mental illness. Students then attended lectures on normal and abnormal brain function, sex differences and methods of study including neural recording and decoding, neuroimaging and brain stimulation. Ms Ketley said ‘this was such a fabulous opportunity for students to apply their study of Psychology and physically see the structures that influence our behaviour. Psychology includes a lot of biological content so to be able to physically hold the pineal gland or cut through the hippocampus enabled the students to not just imagine how these structures influence our circadian rhythms and memories! Even at university, it is unlikely that students will have the opportunity to dissect a brain’. Ms Ketley SHSG Masked Ball The second SHSG Ball is only round the corner! As you may be aware already, it is a Masked Ball and tables can be booked via the school website (see the latest rolling news). After the great success of the Centenary Ball in 2014, we are hoping to see even more people dancing the night away to the tunes of Glitterball” and raising money for the School! We would therefore be grateful if you could donate potential raffle prize items by either leaving them at reception marked for the attention of Lindsey Oakley or by emailing her at clm3@talktalk.net. Many thanks for your support! Susanne Barton on behalf of the Ball Committee