Health Festival sets pupils challenges in a week of fun activities

• Always have breakfast, at least 5 portions of fruit and vegetables
• Have 6 – 8 drinks every day
• Get active and move more.
• Sleep well.

These were the BNF Healthy Eating Week challenges that most pupils took up this week. Healthy habits were on display with some fun activities such as our Seed Planting Extravaganza, Onion Cell experiments, Kahoot it Quiz, Fruit & Vegetable Tasting Stand, Daily Recipe Cards and watching “Ready Steady Cook”. We even had a visit from a local goat farmer and his many animals.

Monday Having a proper breakfast every day was the focus for today. Many came and got moving with Just Dance in the Studio. Ready Steady Cook: so many pupils, 140 in fact, came to watch Mr Kench and Mr Goodall cook against each other and against the clock. There was a Vegan theme to the cooking this year, finally Mr Kench won.

Tuesday Drink plenty was Tuesday’s Challenge Form Time – any day this week. Kahoot it! Drink Plenty Quiz. Seed Planting Extravaganza – 33 pupils came to plant some herbs into pots to take home. The Science department set up and ran experiments at lunch time based on – Wilting without water. Water is vital for all living cells, they looked at onion cells and observed the effects of not having enough water under microscopes. 59 pupils came and tried the activities.

Wednesday Getting Active was today’s daily Challenge Get up and go – forms planned their own activity to get everyone moving, e.g. yoga session, a brisk walk and parachute games. Unfortunately the eagerly awaited Staff Football Match was cancelled due to the very poor weather.

Thursday Pupils brought a selection of prepared vegetables for a “Form Veggie Platter” for break and lunchtime. Trying different fruits and vegetables for the first time was one of the challenges for today. It was great to see so many pupils daring their friends to try things for the very first time. 194 pupils were up for the test. Wow! Thank you to Morrison’s who provided a £50 voucher which enabled us to buy the fruit and veg.

Friday Tai Chi was tried out by 43 pupils at lunchtime. Pupils and staff enjoyed the visit from Paul Grey, a local goat farmer. He explained to the whole of Year 7 how he improves his stock by selective breeding methods, then pupils got to stroke and cuddle the goats, lambs, running ducks, chickens, guinea pigs and a rabbit. Again an amazingly well attended event with 181 pupils visiting the stand at lunch time – a great end to our 2019 Health Festival.

In total there were 679 visits by pupils to the events this week.

BHGS year 8 student performs among the top 0.13% of Maths students in the country!

Every year at BHGS, pupils from the upper band in Years 7 and 8 compete against others from all across the UK in the Junior Maths Challenge. The Junior Maths challenge is set by an organisation called the United Kingdom Mathematical Trust (UKMT) which sets a range of other challenges for many different ages. Out of a staggering 300,000 11-13 year olds, who compete in this challenge annually – the top 9,100 people are selected to move on to different rounds. 8,000 students are chosen to compete in the second round which is known as the Kangaroo and the highest 1,100 scorers qualify for the highest level which is named the Olympiad.

One student from BHGS was resilient enough to be selected for the Mathematical Olympiad. Elissa Talaee of 8 Austen received a gold certificate in her Junior Maths Challenge after scoring an outstanding 111 out of the 135 available points. The Olympiad is a 2 hour paper with 2 sections. The first section is a series of 10 ‘short’ challenging questions and the second section is made up of 6 higher level questions which require a greater understanding. The marks are awarded not only on the correct answer but by the written explanation to arrive at the answer. On Thursday 13th June, Elissa joined the queue into the sports hall with all the Year 11 pupils sitting their GCSE Maths exam. Their paper was 1.5 hours long so Elissa remained in the empty hall for the remainder of her paper. Elissa completed almost all of the two hour paper she had qualified for. Elissa was able to complete nine out of 10 questions on section 1 and five of section 2. In the end, she was a mere seven points away from earning a medal after scoring 38 out of the 70 available points. She was, however, rewarded with a merit certificate due to her excellent ranking that landed her in the top 500 out the total 300,000 students. This means that she is in the to 0.13% of all students in her age group in the whole of the United Kingdom!

Very impressive!

By Libby Manning (9 Austen) and Elissa Talaee (8 Austen)

Sixth Form head to Canary Wharf for Challenge 12 final

On Friday 8th March Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council ran a ‘Challenge 12’ event for Year 12. In house teams, the students were challenged to create an event that could raise money for a local charity. The challenge involved a variety of employment and life skills including financial planning, marketing, advertising and risk assessment. On Friday 24th May the winners, House Austen, went on to represent Bishop’s at the final at Barclays Headquarters in Canary Wharf competing against five other local schools. They were tasked with pitching an idea for an event finale for the WGC 2020 celebrations. The students had a fantastic day and were praised for their ideas; the judges commented on the excellent work that was evident in their final pitch.

 

Being more aware of drugs and knife crime

On Thursday 27th June, Bishop’s hosted a drug and knife crime awareness workshop for all pupils including sixth form. Each year group got allocated a time during the day to watch the presentations created by two people affected by drugs and knife crime.

For year 7, the day started off with a touching story describing the happy life of Josh Hanson until his mum got a phone call in the early hours of the day. Unfortunately, Josh was 21 years old when he was involved in an unprovoked knife attack at a bar in London.

Josh’s mum, Tracy, and sister, Brooke, described how hurting one person affected lots of people in the community. She also emphasised how carrying a knife around is very wrong even for self-defence, as chances are that they can be used to attack you. There is no excuse at all to carrying a knife around outside. They now have a charity in Josh’s name supporting those who have been through the loss of a loved one because of knife crime.

Next, we listened to a presentation outlining the dangers of being in a gang and drug dealing. Gavin McKenna was a man who grew up in a dangerous area in East London. From a young age he witnessed domestic violence to his mother and himself from his father. As Gavin got older, he joined a gang to keep himself protected. He thought that to stay safe he had to show that he was bad as well and not scared. He soon also got into drug dealing. Breaking the stranglehold of gang culture, which had gripped Gavin firmly, the director and founder of Air Football, mentored and guided him back to living respectfully and safely. To help others from his experience, he now does sessions to expand on former knowledge on the issues affecting young people involved in gangs.

During break and lunch, we managed to catch up with the presenters and ask questions. Many other organisations came with stalls to raise awareness and tell people that they are there to help support those who require it.

Thank you to all the teachers who keep us safe every day and to those who organised the workshop. Also, thank you to all the speakers and members of the police department for making us aware and more conscious and conversant about issues happening right now.

Aliyeen Awan (7 Austen)