UoBSchool Community Newsletter: November 2017
Another month over, and what have we done? Here’s this month’s round-up of happenings at UoBS…
Rugby Festival
We held our third annual rugby festival at the beginning of the month, with pupils competing in colleges in games of touch rubgy, netball rugby, hugby and contact rugby, notching up points towards the College Cup. See more photos over on Facebook.
Dates for your Diary
With the festive season coming up, as you might expect we’ve got lots going on in School. Here are some dates for your diary:
- Friday 8th December 2017 — INSET Day, School closed for pupils
- Thursday 14th December 2017, 6–8pm — Winter Concert — book here
- Thursday 21st December, 3.15–4.15pm — Carols around the Tree
- Friday 22nd December 2017 — Last day of term — all pupils finish school at 12.30pm
- Monday 8th January 2018 — 8.30am, First day of Spring Term
Skills Skills Skills
Year 9 took part in The Skills Show at the NEC, alongside thousands of young people from across the UK. They had the chance to be inspired to learn more about different careers, and they learnt how the skills they are developing at school relate to the world of work. From the science of being a chef to the art of painting and decorating to the computer science involved in engineering, our students spoke to hundreds of people with different careers.
Send My Friend to School
The Send my Friend to School enrichment group gave 3 fantastic assemblies in 3 days to over 700 students, including Years 7, 8, 9 and Sixth Form. They even had a video address from Ziauddin Yousafzai, Nobel laureate Malala’s father. The team also wrote letters to MPs to call for an end to education inequality around the world.
Language Perfect Championships
We took part in the Language Perfect Northern Championships this term, competing with schools and students from across the Northern hemisphere (including students from South Korea, China and the USA) to take online language challenges. Our students put in a fantastic effort, winning 16 certificates, and finishing a brilliant 8th in the UK for French, and 13th for German! Bon effort for everyone who took part.
Children in Need Fundraising Success
Our Student Guild held a successful first fundraising event in support of Children in Need, with everyone wearing spots and raising lots. They also held a delicious bake sale on Friday 18th November, and as a School we raised £285.58.
Magnificent Mathematicians
A selection of Sixth Form students entered the UKMT Senior Mathematical Challenge, gaining two gold, five silver and six bronze awards. Joshua Ryman placed in the top 1000 nationally to qualify for the British Mathematics Olympiad paper and Rashid Faqiri placed in the top 6000 to qualify for the Senior Kangaroo. Mr Jhalli also took a team of four Sixth Form students to King Edwards Camp Hill School to compete in the Birmingham Senior Team Maths Challenge. They placed an incredible 5th out of over 20 schools! Congratulations to all of our talented mathematicians.
Sixth Form Horizons Series
This month’s Horizons Series saw even more fascinating lectures for our Sixth Form from academics from the University of Birmingham. We enjoyed the following Horizons Lectures:
- Professor Michael Tausz: Fascinating trees and forests and why we care about them
- Dr Danielle Beswick: Global Britain vs Fake News
- Professor Kristján Kristjánsson: What is character and why is it important?
- Professor Steve Busby: The amazing world of microbes
- Dr Wendy Symes: How can I achieve my potential?
A graphic recorder joined us and created the visual below of Dr Danielle Beswick’s fascinating talk on fake news, as part of the Festival of Social Science 2017.
Peer mentors
We appointed a team of peer mentors, who will be trained in mentoring skills to learn how to support their peers. They will be meeting with their mentees on a regular basis, providing support, guidance and practical ideas for how to develop both social and academic skills to help them excel at UoBS. Well done to the following pupils who were appointed as peer mentors this year: Aisha, Ben, Harsh, Gurchaton, Malaika, Selena, Mia, Krisha, Sarina Amir, Casey-Mae, Dylan, Hana, Arzu, Faiza, Sianae, Lewis and Tasnim.
Our Sixth Form is now open for Applications
We are now open for applications for our Sixth Form for current Year 11 students who wish to join us in September 2018. If you have friends or family currently considering where to apply for Sixth Form, send them a link to our Sixth Form pages on our website, and spread the word about our second Sixth Form Open Evening on Wednesday 17th January 2018, 5.30–8pm. Book here
Anti-bullying week
Students in all year groups practised their creativity and compassion virtues during PLAD this month by discussing what we can do to tackle bullying as a school community and contributing to a giant banner to raise awareness about anti-bullying.
Buzzing about Books
7A were excited to be the first recipients of their Book Buzz books this week! This scheme run by BookTrust enables schools to gift a choice of books to Year 7 and 8 pupils. Choices were made back in September and pupils have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of their books. Over the next two weeks all Year 7 and 8 pupils will be getting their free book — an early Christmas present!
Book Fair: 18-22nd December
After great success last year the Scholastic Book Fair will be visiting UoBSchool again in the last week of term. Last year we raised nearly £400 for the School library. Look out for a letter from School which will explain how to get the best value from the fair.
Sovereignties of Birmingham
Sixth Form students took part in a ‘Sovereignties of Birmingham’ lecture with George Kyris from the University of Birmingham’s College of Social Sciences, as part of the Being Human Festival which took part across Birmingham. Our students were commended for asking some very thought-provoking questions, and generating brilliant cross-generation discussion with fellow audience members.
Enrichment Highlights
Knitting Club — Our first season of Knitting Club this year concluded with students crafting some brilliant first creations, including this lovely knitted bear!
Read your way around the World — pupils have been to the moon and back in this enrichment uncovering books featuring places around the world and beyond.
What’s Inside? Pupils took apart a broken lawnmower to discover what’s inside in this new enrichment. They were surprised to find it was more complicated than they had first thought, and even had some bugs thrown in as an added bonus.
Curriculum Highlights
As well as wonderful (and sometimes weird) enrichment sessions, our pupils enjoy lessons from our inspiring team of teachers. Here are a few highlights from lessons this month…
- English — We’ve seen some fantastic analysis of Bill Sikes’ character from Oliver Twist. Well done to Year 9 pupils Hassan, Remaya, Tasneem, Aideloje, Haider, Oliver, Jacob, Gabriel, Alice, Sharose, Sophie, Luke and Tom!
- History — Year 8 have been re-enacting battles in the School corridors (during history lessons) with Mr Ward.
- Languages — Year 9 have been reflecting on their corrections to improve the accuracy of their written work, with some excellent lessons identified.
- PE — Year 9 replaced PE kits with cooking aprons to cook up some tasty healthy lunches as part of their Sports Science sports nutrition module.
- Art — Year 8 are currently looking at Banksy, and taking part in thoughtful discussions about the concepts behind his work, and the general idea of conceptual art.
- Religious Studies—Year 7 deepened their understanding of symbolism and rites of passage by planning a baby welcoming ceremony on their imaginary religion-neutral island.
- Chemistry —Year 8 have been looking at balancing equations. This was Sahara’s first attempt — great perseverance shown!
- Design Technology — Year 9 have been getting ahead of the game for GCSE by learning how to design and create flatpack storage and display units.
Let’s fill this town with artists
Our Year 12 artists went on an art tour of Birmingham, where they practised street photography in the colourful neighbourhoods of Digbeth, and were fortunate to get a guided tour of the Ikon gallery.
Pop-up Exhibition
We also had a pop-up art exhibition organised by Year 13 artist Dan Price, with artwork from all year groups on display for everyone to enjoy. We were particularly impressed with the high standard of work on display from Key Stage 3, with Year 9’s study of skulls, and Year 8 drawing some very life-like keys. Dan combined the exhibition with his A Level geography coursework, researching creativity and the use of space, in this case researching community perceptions of the drama studio.
Spiritually Us
Year 8 students on the ‘Spiritually Me’ enrichment have been exploring different faith centres in Birmingham, with trips to the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, Birmingham Oratory, and the Bournville Quaker Meeting House (left to right below). Our pupils have shown incredible curiosity, and asked superb questions. A big thank you to all of our enrichment partners for hosting us.
Sporting Successes
- A brilliant first win for our Year 8 netball team over Hillcrest at home, and congratulations to Year 7, 8 and 9 netball teams who won their matches against St Thomas Aquinas. (Top row below.)
- Students represented the school in boccia and curling, many of whom were competing for the first time. (Middle left below.)
- Hot off the back of the Rugby festival, we enjoyed an amazing evening of Girls’ Contact Rugby, playing against other schools from Worcester and Birmingham in a tournament, with fantastic coaching from our Year 9 Coaches Remaya, Anya and Mia. (Middle right below.)
- Great spirit shown by our girls’ U15 and boys’ U12 football teams against Shenley Academy. (Bottom left below.)
- Well done to the Under 13 girls’ football team who got through to the next round of the Midlands Cup. (Bottom right below.)
A Choral Christmas
One of our talented Year 13 students Louisa is performing in the concert ‘A Choral Christmas’ at the Symphony Hall with the CBSO. It is being hosted by Strictly Come Dancing’s Ore Oduba, and Louisa invites you all to join in the merriment. You can find out more and book tickets here.
Let’s Get Quizzical
Our very own parents’ association, Friends of UoBS, are hoping to banish the January blues with a family quiz night on 26th January 2018 from 6.30pm — 9pm at school. Tickets, available on the door, will be £3 for an individual or £10 for a family. All proceeds will go towards buying some extra outdoor equipment for the school playground. Quiz-goers are welcome to bring food and drinks with them and tea and coffee will be available to purchase. The committee are also hoping to be selling second hand uniform, so do remember to drop off any worn but good quality items your son or daughter has grown out of with school reception.
That’s all from us this month.
Thanks again for reading our Community Newsletter, and we wish you a great start to the festive season.
Best wishes,
All at the University of Birmingham School
