Fantastic Cross Country performances from Bishop’s!

On Tuesday 8th November, Miss Cameron and Miss Esterhuizen took 24 girls to represent Bishop’s at the District Cross Country competition at Queenswood School. There were teams in Years 7,8 and 9 and a Senior team (mixed Year 10 and 11) with 6 girls per age group.

The weather was sunny, albeit cold, and for pupils in Years 7 and 8 this was the first time they had attended the District Cross Country competition as it did not run last year.

Weather conditions held steady throughout the competition which made for some very exciting races and excellent performances from all teams.

BHGS District Cross Country teams – Year 7 – Miruna B, Hurinatu K, Ruby L, Georgia W, Violet B and Zahra L. Year 8 – Erin W, Sophie B, Ella H, Mia J, Cecile R and Jackie R. Year 9- Ruby S, Erin M, Libby P, Anna S, Jess H and Chloe A. Senior Team – Daniella S, Amelie R, Amelie H, Roxy M, Millie R and Katelin R.

A particular well done to the following girls who came in the top 10 for their age group – * Miruna B who came 8th in the Year 7 race, * Erin W who came 10th in the Year 8 race, * Ruby S and Anna S who came 3rd and 9th place respectively in the Year 9 race and * Daniella S, Amelie H, Amelie R and Roxy M who finished in 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th place respectively in the Senior race.

Each team competed separately against other schools in the District and finished in the following places overall – * Year 7 team finished 3rd out of 9 schools, * Year 8 team finished 4th out of 10 schools * Years 9 and 10 both finished 2nd out of 8 schools.

This resulted in BHGS finishing in 3rd place out of the girls schools and 5th place overall (even more impressive when you consider this is boys and girls results combined and we have no boys to enter!) A brilliant effort from everyone – well done girls!

The next round of the Cross Country season is the County Cross Competition which takes place on Saturday 5th February 2022 at Westminster Lodge in St Albans. This is an individual not a team event so girls will be selected to take part and informed via letter if they are successful.

November saw the return of another successful Maths Week England at Bishop’s Hatfield Girls’ School

November saw the return of another successful Maths Week England at Bishop’s Hatfield Girls’ School. Pupils from years 7 to 9 were tasked with researching famous Female Mathematicians and took a closer look at some of the most inspirational figures from recent times.

Year 7s enjoyed discovering how Ada Lovelace contributed to the earliest concepts of what we know as a modern computer (the ‘Cogwheel Calculating Machine’). They then participated in a codebreaking activity in which the girls used their analytical and Mathematical abilities to crack a code in order to solve the heinous hotel crime!

Katherine Johnson (otherwise known as ‘The Human Computer’) was the figurehead studied by the year 8s who found out how she was instrumental to NASA and performed much of the Mathematical analysis completely by hand to calculate the trajectories that led to the Apollo moon landing. Pupils then applied their ability to solve a series of problems themselves, enabling them to solve a mystery of their own!

In year 9 – pupils found out about the exciting architecture produced by Zaha Hadid (who is actually the namesake of one of the Bishop’s ‘houses’). They explored some of the features which make a city attractive, and even produced their own mini cities incorporating key characteristics such as ‘order and variety’. On top of all of these, two competitions were run in which students explored their own ‘famous mathematicians’ performing research, culminating in a poster which explained their chosen mathematicians’ discoveries. A huge congratulations to Maisie Isbecque (7Fr), Libby Porter (9Au) and Lillia Rustem (8Fr) who came 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively and won both house points and a gift voucher. The second competition which was open to year 7s involved a fun logic-problem to see “Who Owned the Fish”. Well done to Gabrielle Kehagias who correctly identified the German as the owner of the aquatic creature.

Year 10 Geographers investigated urban change in Newham

Intrepid Geographers in Year 10 set off for a day of fieldwork and research to investigate the impacts of urban redevelopment in Newham as part of their GCSE Urban Change topic. We arrived at the Olympic Park and were all impressed with the The Orbit sculpture, and then went on a self guided tour to consider how the area has changed in appearance in the decade since the Olympic Park was established. Pupils identified changes to the environment and built landscape, completing a variety of activities at different stations around the Park. We were particularly interested to notice how the concrete wall of the River Lea have been altered to encourage plant life, increasing biodiversity and adding to the visual appearance of the area. We even saw large birds perching to fish by the side of the river!

Following a rather chilly lunch break we moved on the Museum of London Docklands where we discovered more about how the East End changed as the Docks experienced the impacts of deindustrialisation. The Museum galleries were very interesting, and we were able to further develop our understanding of how the area has changed in the past 30 years by contrasting historic photos with the sights of the Olympic Park. It was interesting to contrast the Museum building itself, in one of the old wharfs, with the surrounding glass skyscrapers.