District Athletics Success

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Bishop’s athletes show their talents at District Athletics

On Friday 30th June, Miss Cameron, Mrs Waters, Miss Esterhuizen and Mrs Newberry took the Athletics teams in Years 7,8,9 and 10 to the District Athletics Competition at Ridlins Athletics Stadium in Stevenage.

It was a fantastic day full of excellent individual and team results in surprisingly good weather (compared to last years unexpected washout which left us looking like drowned rats for most of the day!).

Notable performances below –

Year 7 Favour Nwoka – 200m – 1st place and District Champion with a time of 29.2 seconds. Favour Nwoka – 100m – 2nd place with a time of 14.3 seconds (1st place also got 14.3 but track judges deemed the Dame Alice Owens athlete to have just beat Favour with the dip at the line) Ruby Euesden – Day – Javelin – 2nd place with a best throw of 19.61m and a new PB Isobel Lofty – 800m – 3rd with a time of 2:51.4 seconds

OVERALL – The Year 7 girls placed 3rd out of 12 schools with 40 points.

Year 8 Connie Dykes – Hurdles – 1st place and District Champion with a time of 13.3 seconds. Huri Kamara – 300m – 1st place and District Champion with a time of 46.3 seconds. NEW DISTRICT RECORD Anneliesse Agbanyo – Discus- 2nd place with a best throw of 19.65m Georgia Wharton – Long Jump – 2nd place with a best jump of 4.24m Connie Dykes – High Jump – 2nd place with a best jump of 1.31m Georgia Wharton – 200m – 3rd with a time of 31.5 seconds Huri Kamara – Triple Jump – – 3rd with a best throw of 8.36m 4 x 100m relay team (Connie, Huri, Zahra and Georgia)- 3rd place with a time of 57.1 seconds.

OVERALL – The Year 8 girls placed 3rd out of 12 schools with 56 points.

Year 9 Arabella Ashby – Discus – 1st place and District Champion with a best throw of 20.60m. Arabella Ashby – Javelin – – 2nd place with a best throw of 18.22m Dyllis Osei – Agyemang – High Jump – 1st place and District Champion with a best jump of 1.37m Dyllis Osei – Agyemang – Long Jump – 1st place and District Champion with a best throw of 4.53m Evie Dixon – 100m – 3rd place with a time of 14.5 seconds Jolana Hewitt – 300m 3rd place with a time of 49 seconds 4 x 100m relay team (Erin W, Jolana, Dyllis and Zoe)- 3rd place with a time of 57.5 seconds

OVERALL – The Year 9 girls placed 2nd out of 12 schools with 64 points

Year 10 Daniella Okoye – 200m – 1st place and District Champion with a time of 28.9 seconds. Lucy Claridge – 800m 2nd place with a time of 2:56.2 seconds Evie Jackson – Discus – 2nd place with a best throw of 19.77m Ella Studholme – Javelin – 2nd place with a best throw of 23.68m Daniella Okoye – Triple Jump – 2nd place with a best jump of 10.34m Gracie Kirby- Long Jump – 2nd place with a best jump of 3.90m Libby Porter – Hurdles – 3rd place with a time of 14.3 seconds Libby Porter – Hurdles – 3rd place with a best jump of 1.35m Ruva Rusike – 100m – 3rd place with a time of 14.2 seconds Erin Munday – 300m – 3rd place with a time of 49.3 seconds Anna Stewart – 1500m – 3rd place with a time of 05:55.3 seconds

OVERALL – The Year 10 girls placed 2nd out of 12 schools with 60 points

This left us with an overall score of 220 points and finishing in 3rd place behind Queenswood in 2nd and Dame Alice Owens in 1st place.

A fantastic day of competition and excellent effort, teamwork and resilience shown throughout. Well done to all of the pupils in the District teams! Thank you to Mrs Waters, Miss Esterhuizen and Mrs Newberry for coming along on the day and to all staff who allowed pupils to miss their lessons to attend.

International Law Firm Welcome Year 12 Lawyers

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Year 12 A-Level Law students enjoyed a day trip to London to visit Clifford Chance and meet partners and in-house lawyers from Wells Fargo, one of Clifford Chance’s clients.

On Wednesday 28th June 24 A Level Law students travelled to London to the offices of international law firm, Clifford Chance. The morning started with a tour of the impressive building, featuring a hairdressers, gym, and swimming pool overlooking Canary Wharf.

The students then participated in a careers carousel where they had the chance to interview a range of lawyers from Clifford Chance, from trainee solicitors to partners, about their current roles and how they got there. They also got to meet in-house lawyers from Wells Fargo. This was an opportunity to ask questions about a legal career and appreciate the many different options for study prior to becoming a lawyer, including not only a law degree but degrees in subjects as diverse as history and engineering.

The trip concluded with a talk by the head of Graduate Recruitment and a discussion of the skills and characteristics that employers are looking for. This included resilience, enthusiasm and the importance of researching the employer before drafting your application to them. A final talk by a trainee solicitor gave an additional chance for the students to ask questions and appreciate that if you work hard, you can achieve your goals.

The students then enjoyed a light lunch in the Clifford Chance offices overlooking the Thames. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zVv01k4xZJmxZ2dxMjcnmOQLUDf30R2g/view?usp=sharing

Insight into STEM at Computacenter

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Industrial cadet teams learn more about STEM at Computacenter to celebrate Women in Engineering Day

The two teams arrived at Computacenter excited and ambitious to learn more about STEM. The girls were given passes and were shown a presentation room by the host of the event at Computacenter where the teams would be spending most of their time in. They began with a quick presentation about what Computacenter is, what the company does and about the host and her co-worker and how they got here. The presentation was very informative and it already taught the girls that they didn’t need a career in STEM to work at a large Tech based company such as Computacenter. You need people in different departments to work different jobs that don’t require a background in STEM such as Sales, Marketing, content creation, etc.

After the presentation, we were given a tour of their large warehouse filled with hardware, where we learnt how they organised all their products and how it was exported to every customer. We were also shown all their services, such as personally customised packaging and personalised software instalments and updates. We learnt how Computacenter found the best way to reduce pollution due to electronic devices by reusing them instead of recycling them. After this insightful tour, we were put into workshops. The first one we did was driving a robot. We saw first hand how difficult it was to control the robot to make sure it would not crash, but those of us who were gamers found it much easier! The second workshop we moved onto was a face scanning machine, which scans your face and tells you what Hogwarts House you’re in. We had a look at the coding and how it worked, and we were given advice on where to get bits of code so we could create our own program. The final workshop of the day was about OBS, a streaming platform. We had a chance to perform our own little show/podcast while also being able to see all the work that goes into streaming from behind the scenes. We were then given a lunch break before we began our quick networking program. Volunteers from the Computacenter came in to talk to us about their work, how they got to their position and we were allowed to ask questions throughout the five minutes we had with each volunteer.

After a full day at Computacenter, our two industrial cadet teams had learnt a lot about STEM, from the technical point of it and the behind-the-scenes work of how to get into STEM. The girls also learnt about apprenticeships and possible work experience at Computacenter, which many thought of as they will have have to find some work experience next year. Computacenter has given our two industrial cadet teams an insight into the field of STEM and what it’s like to step into the real world. Thank you Computacenter for such an educational and wonderful experience!

Prudence C

Brick Lane Place Study

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Exploring the developing character of Brick Lane, East London

As part of the Changing Places module in A-Level Geography, we study our ‘Local Place’: Welwyn Garden City or Hatfield, and contrast it to a ‘Far Place’: Brick Lane in East London. Students work independently to further enhance their understanding of the way their own lives and those of others are affected by continuity and change in the nature of places.

The study investigates the location and locale of the study area, the historical development and how this has shaped the character of the place, people’s lived experience of the place in the past and at present and either changing demographic and cultural characteristics or economic change and social inequalities.

To help bring Brick Lane to life and make the place more memorable, Year 12 Geography students visited Brick Lane in June. This helped to develop a deeper understanding of how the character of Brick Lane has been shaped over time; as well as an opportunity for the students to create their own lived experience, in the form of a detailed paragraph on ‘their walk down Brick Lane’. Students were also encouraged to talk to locals and visitors to find out what their lived experience is. One of the attractions of Brick Lane is the varied wall art which contributes to creating a sense of place. Each painting provides a story about the perception of this dynamic place.

Senior Rounders Teams are District Champions!

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Both Year 9 and 10 Rounders teams take the gold at the District tournament.

On Monday 19th June Miss Cameron and Miss Esterhuizen took the Year 9 and 10 Rounders teams to Monks Walk for the District Rounders tournament.

The Year 9 team played Mount Grace and Chancellors in their pool games winning both to progress to the semi finals vs Stanborough. In a close game, our Year 9 team did very well and showed excellent batting skills to really take control of the 2nd innings and progress to the final vs Yavneh. Again, two very similar sides in terms of their fielding skills meant it was a close final up until the last few minutes where BHGS showed good composure and some good catches to finish in 1st place and become District Champions.

The Year 10 team played Onslow and Stanborough in their pool games with both opposition schools testing the BHGS team in different ways. After a few initial nerves by the BHGS team, the girls rallied round and improved their communication to help win both games and progress to the semi finals. The BHGS team continued to improve in confidence and skill level throughout the tournament and won their semi final vs Yavneh to move into the final game vs Onslow. As both teams had played each other in the pool rounds there were a few tactical changes to both fielding sides and placing their hits became even more important in an attempt to try and find space. Both teams did very well in taking advantage of the oppositions mistakes and consistent bowling became the difference between Onslow and the BHGS Year 10 team. In the end, the game was very close but our BHGS Year 10 team emerged as winners and finished the season as District Champions.

A big well done to both teams for their excellent performances – a great way to finish off the year!

Year 8 WW1 Battlefields Trip

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Year 8 History residential trip to the WW1 Battlefields, France and Belgium June 2023

Year 8 students travelled to France and Belgium for a History tour of the World War 1 Battlefields in our first visit since 2019.

Visiting key battle sites, such as Ypres and the Somme, cemeteries and memorials, our excellent tour guides gave the students insight into the personal stories of the men who bravely fought and died during WW1. Particularly poignant were the stories of PALS Battalions told to us as we sat in Sunken Lane on the Somme, right where those young men went ‘over the top’ on that fateful day in July 1917, when some 20,000 men died and some 40,000 were wounded. An experience that students were still talking about on our way home on the coach.

We were privileged to lay a wreath on behalf of the school at the Menin Gate during the Last Post Ceremony in remembrance of Hertfordshire soldiers, and the three students who were able to participate in this performed such an important service excellently.

Shopping for authentic Belgian chocolates was definitely a highlight and much needed at the end of a busy first day!

I want to thank all the students for their positive attitude to learning and superb behaviour. Everywhere we visited staff and members of the public commented on how polite, friendly and well-behaved our students were. The staff on the ferry were particularly complimentary!

Clever creations to combat climate change

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Two teams in Year 9 design buildings and bots to help combat the effect of climate change as part of the Industrial Cadets Bronze Awards.

Two groups of Year 9 students have been working with Dr Lota, Dr Bune and Mr Short to design novel ways of overcoming the effects of climate change, as part of the Engineering Development Trust’s Industrial Cadet’s Bronze awards. Both teams had to design a building or equipment that could help with the consequences of climate change or pollution e.g. flooding, plastic pollution. The teams worked hard to develop their ideas, build models, display their work and then present their idea to the judging panel. Each team member had a distinct role within the team and they all worked together to produce an impressive display and discussed their work with great confidence to the judges. An excellent example of developing the Bishop’s 360 collaboration and communication.

Team ‘Industrial Revolutions’ designed a building that used hydraulics to rise up during floods and extended this to collecting the floodwater for use during drought times or in nearby areas where water might be scarce. Team ‘Techettes’ designed a pollution bot, based on an octopus, that could go underwater and remove small plastics that have entered the ocean. Both teams faced challenges whilst completing their projects including having to develop new skills and knowledge and being able to meet all the deadlines. They can now look forward to attending the Graduation and Awards ceremony on the 4th July where they will celebrate with all the other Industrial Cadets, displaying and discussing their work. They will also be able to hear about topical STEM projects, attend industry workshops led by leading experts and have the chance to find out even more about the future career opportunities that are available.

Year 7 create ideas and skills from “larder leftovers”!

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Year 7 Careers Event – Sustainability with Tesco

We welcomed Tesco into the school to run a fast paced Careers event on Wednesday morning for Year 7.

Our Year 7s were put through their paces by being given a work-related task brief to complete in just two hours. This task was to design a product and advertising campaign message for using our wasted food sustainably. The task included the big issue of our futures – how to make our lifestyles sustainable – a great challenge for the young generation coming up. Also, the challenge set was designed to help develop key career skills and showed our Year 7s what employers are looking for in the future. The tasks focused on team working, problem solving, initiative, creativity and presentation/communications skills.

Our Year 7s rose to the challenge and Paul Grogan, from the Tesco Development Programmes team, commented “Bishop’s teams delivered some of our best ideas and presentations to date”. High praise from a large local employer. The sustainable products designed by our pupils ranged from new ideas on roast dinners to international themed dishes. The advertising food stories covered poignant moments with grannies to celebration of birthdays. The best designs all unlocked a prize of a £5 Tesco voucher.

Year 7 had a fun and informative morning understanding how they can help build a sustainable future by reducing food waste. Also, our Food Tech team popped in to see a wide range and originality of food ideas and all teachers witnessed the effective pulling together of teams and confident presentation skills. We have some innovative cooks and confident speakers among our Year 7 cohort!

Languages Discovery Day 2023

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Journey across the world

On Tuesday 6th June, our Modern Foreign Language Faculty held the sixth Languages Discovery Day, which was delivered by 67 Year 10 Young MFL Leaders who shared their cultures, languages and linguistic interests with 120 Year 5 Boys and Girls from Oak View and St Philip Howard RC Primary Schools. The Key Stage 2 pupils had the opportunity to experience twenty-three different languages from all around the world including special workshops in British Sign Language, Semaphore, Greek dancing, Yoruba, Persian and Maori and many more from all round the world, reflecting and sharing our diverse heritages at the school. The day was divided in 162 workshops with 31 different language and cultural foci. By all accounts the day was a great success. Special praise is due to the Young Leaders for their infectious enthusiasm which gave the event such a buzz and celebrated the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of our school!

One of our Young MFL Leader, Sophie G, said:

The students from other schools and the young MFL leaders here at our school all came together to appreciate and learn about other cultures and languages. I really enjoyed teaching the children and seeing them so eager to learn, and I know that the other young MFL leaders enjoyed the day as well. I loved looking around at the different activities the other groups planned, there was so much diverse culture that even I learnt new languages and traditions within a culture myself. I feel that I highly benefitted from this course, learning many new skills and working on my patience skills as well as learning how to adapt when children needed more support. I believe I have grown from this fun, exciting and challenging day and I hope to get involved in more activities like this in the future.