Our School, Our Week - 11 February 2022
Our School, Our Week
We were "Back with a Band!" this week at Denmark Road High School. What a delight to hear our fantastic musicians performing again. I look forward to our upcoming concerts throughout the year.
Our Year 11 students have begun meeting 1:1 with a member of our Senior Leadership Team. This is to help support them in choosing their options for their post 16 education. To continue or complete your application to our Sixth Form click here.
On Thursday we held a very successful 'Securing Excellence' evening for invited students in Years 9-13. Thank you to all those who attended online in support of our students.
In this issue:
Back with a Band!
Step Up Programme
Year 12 EDT Engineering Project
Cyberfirst
INVEST Day 3
Geography - Intriguing India
Children's Mental Health Week
Music and Drama Celebrations
Sporting news
LRC news
Dates for your diary
Work with Us
Back with a Band!
Tuesday evening saw the return of our Jazz Band and Orchestra to the stage for the first time in over two years for our "Back with a Band!" concert. Accompanied by our school Choirs, the Brass Group, the Flute Ensemble, the String Quartet and duet and solo performances they treated us all to a fantastic night of live music. Our musicians played to a sold-out audience in our Hall and to hear the talent of our students ringing through the gallery of our historic building again was wonderful. A huge thank you to our Music Department; Mrs Warner, Mrs Day, Mrs Bowman with Mrs Shaw and our Instrumental Music Teachers; Mrs Harper, Mr Sallis and Mr King for all their hard work to put on such an amazing concert. Also thank you to our audience for supporting our students and school.
It was an absolutely amazing evening and event. The level of professionalism, talent and performance was outstanding. Please pass on my thanks to everyone involved.
David Goddard, Member, DRHS Trust Board.
Step Up Programme
As part of the Step Up programme, 48 Year 11 students visited New College, Oxford on Friday 4th February for an opportunity for a tour and a Question and Answer session with current first year students and a Law tutor.
The Step Up programme to Oxford has not only been eye-opening, but incredibly inspiring and has really motivated me to work hard as I realised my goals are attainable - me and my peers are so grateful for such a unique and enriching programme, a big thank you for everyone who made this possible!
Julia Krisnic 11M
Y12 EDT Engineering Project
Last week on the 1st and 2nd of February we went to Bath University to aid in the ongoing cadet project. The trip allowed us to explore the university, develop our ideas and socialise with people from different schools. We are working towards a method of decreasing the amount of water used while showering - over the two days we learnt how to use Arduino (easy to use hardware and software), enabling us to programme lights and screens and progressed towards a final product from the original brief.
Eleanor Steele, Elizabeth Sahada, Amelia Salazar, Phong Yan Guan and Sadiyah Kala
Cyberfirst
On Saturday, The 'Mini Marshmallows' represented the school at the Cyberfirst Girls Competition South-West Final. They had been invited as they were the top scoring team within school, having beaten the other eight Denmark Road teams. While not coming out overall winners they had already been told that they were the top scoring team in the online round. Well done, Mini Marshmallows!
On Saturday, we went to the cyberfirst girls competition finals. It was an exciting day for us because only twelve schools got into the finals for the south-west. Throughout the day we faced different challenges, each on a certain topic. The experience was enjoyable and we had fun searching the rooms for different clues for some of the tasks. We received free drinks, food, bags, pens and notebooks. We came 4th in the finals which we are all proud of. Overall, this was a great experience and we all learnt a lot. Zainub, Amber, Yasmin and Phoebe
INVEST Day 3
As part of their Drama workshop during last week's INVEST day, Year 8 students devised a short dramatic performance based on these female roles in the musical 'Six'.
Geography - Intriguing India
This term Year 7 have been studying the topic ‘Intriguing India’, and as part of that have been looking into the River Ganges. They have studied how it is important for people in their everyday lives, as well as having huge importance for Hindus in India and beyond.
They have also looked at how pollution is a big issue in the Ganges, and have been coming up with their own action plan of how to remove the pollution from the river. There have been some amazing and creative solutions from all the different classes - one example is employing local people to collect plastic pollution from the river, and showing them how to turn them into jewellery or other items. They could then sell these items, so helping not only reduce pollution in the river, but also the socio-economic development of the local community. Here are 7K completing their action plans:
Children’s Mental Health Week
Next week is Children's Mental Health Week which celebrates the theme of ‘Growing Together’.
Growing Together is about growing emotionally and finding ways to help each other grow. Challenges and setbacks can help us to grow and adapt and trying new things can help us to move beyond our comfort zone into a new realm of possibility and potential. As parents and carers, you play an important role in your child’s mental health. We’d like to encourage our students (and adults) to consider how they have grown and how they can help others to grow.
The link below provides a range of free resources for families.
https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/parents-and-carers/
Music and Drama Celebrations
Well done to the following students for their fantastic achievements!
Nara Cox Sonara - Grade 5 Ukulele Distinction - London College of Music
Ella Bowman - Gold LAMDA Acting High Distinction
Sporting News
Denmark Road cricketers off to Sri Lanka
Three of our Gloucestershire county cricketers will be jetting off to Sri Lanka next week for a two-week cricket tour to represent Gloucestershire U18 women.
Betsy Mangan, Liv Brock and Katie Jones fly out to Sri Lanka on Tuesday 15th of February, and will be based in Dambulla for the two weeks. They will play several matches, which will include a game at the Dambulla international cricket stadium.
It will be an amazing experience, playing representative cricket in an amazing country. Best of luck -we look forward to hearing how you get on.
LRC News
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There are so many events happening next week which the LRC can support with its resources. PE are running Football Week. Computer Science are promoting Safer Internet Day. It’s also Children’s Mental Health Week, with the theme of Growing Together. I’ve therefore chosen a range of books to showcase. Students may borrow any book by using our reservation system, Click and Collect, or by visiting the LRC.
Monday 14 February is International Book Giving day (https://bookgivingday.com/) and there is an opportunity in our area to help a group of people who do not have ready access to books. Cheltenham Welcomes Refugees has set up a wish list of books they would like to provide to the people who need their help. Gloucestershire Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers (GARAS) is also in need of dictionaries. If you can help, contact them via their websites: https://www.cheltenhamwelcomesrefugees.org.uk/ and https://www.garas.org.uk/.
DRHS Book Week will take place from March 1 to 4. The aim is to promote reading for the whole school community during this World Book Day Silver Jubilee year and the theme is You Are A Reader. Amongst the events decided so far include; a Big Book Club meeting for Staff and Students, a Murder Mystery Whodunnit in the LRC, Collect the Paired Staff Book Characters, a Drop Everything and Read Lunchtime and of course, the World Book Day book character parade. English are exploring Banned Books and organising a tutor group quiz during the week. I will also be recruiting for the Battle of the Books House Teams (Year 7 and 8), the Denner Best Book Award Team (Year 9) and Carnegie Shadowing Groups (Year 9 and above). For details of resources to enrich your World Book Day, take a look here: https://www.worldbookday.com/. The Scholastic Book Fair is booked for 16 to 23 March. Further details to follow! I really appreciate all your support for this event, as well as our online Book Club (https://shop.scholastic.co.uk/schools/denmark-road). This enables the LRC to provide invaluable extra reading resources for all our students. If you, your daughter or your son have any questions about joining your local library, further reading around academic subjects, reading for pleasure, or finding reliable information for school work, please contact me, as I am always happy to help. Ms Carol Cordall, School Librarian Follow the LRC on Twitter E-mail: library@denmarkroad.org
Dates for the Diary6th February – Year 7 Excellence Evening and Early Closure 2:30pm 18th February – End of Term 3 28th February – INSET Day 1st March – Return to School 4th March - PS&A Quiz Night
​Work with UsDo you have a passion for providing students an outstanding education experience and want to be part of a forward-thinking team? We have a number of current vacancies that can help you do just that with Denmark Road High School.
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