Our School, Our News - July 15th
Our School, Our News
In this issue:
Archery
Art
Art Textiles
Badminton
Cricket Round up
Fantasy Football
Food and Nutrition
Help Us Grow
LRC
Lost Property
Music Exam Success
RSPCA Young Photographers Awards
Samba
Sports Day
Summer Concert
Swimming
Virtual Work Experience
Work with us
Archery
Congratulations to Louise Basset on her great achievements in archery:
I went to the Junior National Outdoor Championships 2022. I got bronze
individual on Saturday, silver individual on Sunday and then gold mix
team on Sunday too. I also shot 2 PBs. On both days there were 12
people in my category (several of which being GB archers). It was very
tense but I really enjoyed it.
Art
Term 6 has been busy and exciting for the Art Department with lots of super work being created. Year 7 have been studying Native American Art and have produced a range of excellent outcomes demonstrating their creativity, skill and understanding. Year 8 have been exploring the work of sculptor and artist Lynn Chadwick and working to create sculptures inspired by the key characteristics found within his work. Year 9 have been studying the work of Chinese landscape painters and have had the opportunity to explore mark making, mixed media and refined application of materials whilst also exploring and experimenting, developing their own artistic voice and style.
Year 10 and 12 have been working incredibly hard on their sustained studies and coursework producing high quality and refined outcomes.
This term Art Club have been exploring a range of artists, materials, techniques and processes. Pupils have studied the work of David Shrigley, Bridget Riley and Tracey Emin as well as making and exploring various techniques and mediums such as illustration, friendship bracelets, mask making, printmaking and sculpture. Art Club will continue next academic year - keep an eye out for the Art Club posters!
The Art Department hopes that you have a fab summer holiday - don't forget to visit lots of art galleries and create lots of exciting artwork.
Art Textiles
Key stage 3
KS3 have been creating Kimono inspired jackets. They look amazing.
Key Stage 4
Badminton
On 2nd July Rithikaa Boobalan, Siya Patel, Bhumi Senthil Kumar and Kate Kulkarni took part in the Gloucestershire Badminton community tournament. They all impressed the county coaches.
Kate won a silver medal for her singles and Kate and Bhumi won a bronze medal for their doubles.
Biology News
Cricket Round up
There has been a lot of cricket played in the last couple of weeks, so here is a summary of everything that has been going on:
The U13 county softball competition saw us enter a Y7 and a Y8 team, and both teams did really well. The Y7s beat both teams from the Forest School, and lost narrowly to Newent. The Y8s went one better and beat Newent to top their group, qualifying for the county final against Redland Green School. In the best of three final, Redland Green proved too strong with a number of strong cricketers, and won all three matches, meaning we finished runners up in the U13 county softball competition this year.
Some of our Y7s also played for the school for the first time in a friendly match against Severn Vale this week. In a lovely match, the scores were very close, with Denmark Road scoring 55 from their innings, while Severn Vale finished on 48
The U15s have also been busy, starting with a hardball friendly match against King’s, where unfortunately King’s came out on top this time, prevailing by 28 runs.
We entered two teams into the U15 county softball competition at Thornbury, and a good time was had by all. The B team performed creditably in their matches against Newent, Winterbourne and Downend, and it was great to see them play some competitive outdoor cricket for the first time in three years. The A team proved too strong for all opponents, and won the tournament comfortably to finish as county champions.
They qualified to represent Gloucestershire at the regional finals at Taunton on Wednesday, where they faced the winning schools from Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and South Wales. They played the strongest team in the competition - Parkstone Grammar from Dorset - in their first match, and were set a challenging total of 82 to try and overhaul in their innings. Despite an excellent 14 from Bea, we were only able to muster 38 against their excellent bowling line up. Parkstone would go on to win all their matches comfortably and were worthy winners of the competition, having only lost narrowly to our nemesis Clifton College in the regional final of the Lady Taverners indoor competition.
Game two pitted us against Holyrood Academy, and this time we batted first, with Izzy and Amelia both retiring on 20 not out as we scored 68 for 1. An improved bowling and fielding performance restricted our opponents to 57 for 6, with wickets for Flo, Izzy and Abbie to go with three run outs.
The next match against Mounts Bay saw us rack up our highest score of the tournament - 94 for 4, with Amelia (21 retired) and Bea (24 retired) again making the stand out contributions with the bat. This time there were wickets for Aanya, Amy and Bea as Mounts Bay could only make 59 for 3 in reply.
Match four was against Churston Ferrors, where we scored 62 for 7, with Flo top scoring on 19. This was a close match that went down to the penultimate over, with our opponents coming out on top with five balls to spare.
Our final match against Ysgol Cwm Brombil saw us bowl first, and the Welsh team made a total of 66 for 2 from their innings, with Aanya taking two wickets in two balls and Sim fielding excellently. This match was even closer and went down to the last ball of the innings after Gabby and Flo had both retired on 20 not out, and Izzy and Aanya scrambled a single off the last ball to win the match.
This result was enough for us to finish runners up in the competition, which is a fabulous result for them, and just rewards for an excellent year of cricket in which they have won the county outdoor finals, come runners up in the county indoor and regional outdoor finals, and reached the third round of the national outdoor competitions - well done team.
U15s bow out in the last 32 of the National Cricket Competition (19/5/22)
Having made it through to the last 32 of the competition, and the only state school left in the South West region, we were drawn against a very strong Clifton College who lost in the final of the whole competition last year. A brilliant spell by the Clifton opening bowlers saw us slump to 18-5 after the first six overs. Abbie Kinder and Bea Whitelock batted really well to put together a little partnership of 24 runs, before Bea was bowled for 8. The tailenders also battled hard and prevented Clifton from bowling us all out, finishing on 65-8 from our 20 overs. A special mention must go to Abbie who was undefeated on an excellent 20 not out against some outstanding bowling.
In reply, Clifton opened their innings with two strong county players, who showed both skill and power in punishing any slightly loose bowling. Despite a good spell from Flo Hampton, who bowled her four overs for just 10 runs, Clifton chased down the target comfortably in just 9.3 overs, with Abbie also picking up the only wicket to fall.
The team should be really proud of themselves for getting this far with a team almost entirely composed of Y9s in a Y10 competition, led very well by Flo. The competition is dominated by independent schools, and we were one of only 14 state schools to enter out of 97 schools in total, and one of only five or six still left in the competition at this stage - an amazing achievement.
Fantasy Football
We would like to invite any of you that play Premier League Fantasy Football (FPL) to join our Denmark Road High School Mini-League for this upcoming season.
If you're one of the nine million people around the world who played FPL last year - just press "Join new league" and add our code um8y2b when you set up your team for the new season.
If you are new to FPL then - why not play this season? It only takes minutes to set up a team. You have a budget of £100million to pick the Premier League players to win you the inaugural DRHS league. Don't know anything about football?? No problem - you can just press 'auto-pick' and ride your luck!
To join, follow this link: https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/um8y2b
The season starts during the school holidays on 5 August 2022. To be scoring points from the first week you must have entered your FPL team by 6:30pm on Friday 5th August. The quickest way to be in the game is to choose 'auto-pick' and join now. You can change it as much as you want before the deadline. The hardest bit is choosing your team name!
Good luck to all those who join the Denmark Road High School Mini FPL League.
Food and Nutrition
Year 7 and 8 have spent the year travelling around the world making dishes from different countries.
Now students are cooking dishes that they eat at home.
Help Us Grow
A little reminder that we'd really appreciate a (financial) HUG!
Why we're raising money
If we are to build on past successes and continue to be able to offer our students a wide range of academic and enrichment opportunities in a safe, nurturing environment that promotes progress and wellbeing for all, then we need a financial boost.
Funds raised will be used to develop our curriculum and facilities so that students continue to Discover, Realise, Honour, Shape.
By supporting our campaign through donations of regular or single amounts you can help us achieve:
- £35,000 Furnishing five new classrooms including two state-of-the-art Science Laboratories.
- £10,000 Equipping two classrooms with Information Technology including interactive teaching walls
- £60,000 Providing three class sets of new laptops
On behalf of our school, we thank you.
Donate here
LRC
Thanks to the amazing Library Prefect Team, the long-awaited Battle of the Books House Quiz took place, despite my absence yesterday. Six House Teams from Years 7 and 8 have spent the last few months reading 10 books, under the mentorship of the prefect team, ensuring that everyone was reading, the books were passed around in a timely way and setting practice questions, talking about the books, sharing snacks and putting together bunting! I am looking forward to marking the quiz sheets and declaring the winner of the House Cup next week.
I’ve set a Read Around the World challenge for this Platinum Jubilee Summer – to read books set around the world, yes, including different parts of the British Isles too! Students can log what they are reading on a Google Sheet, to provide information for new Reading Guides next school year. Students can also register for mystery loans to be collected next week – taking a chance on a new book, genre or author helps us to grow as readers! I’m encouraging students to borrow as many books as they’d like from the LRC, fiction and non-fiction, as long as their library accounts are all up to date.
Thanks are also due to three of our own Work Experience students, Ruby, Jess and Charlotte, as well as Mrs Crane’s son, Finlay, who have worked so hard this week to get books back onto the shelves, under the able instruction of Mrs Pat Lipinski, from Library Services for Education, Mrs Shaw and Mrs Adamson. They are also taking on putting up some new displays to encourage reading and LRC use. I am looking forward to seeing all their handiwork when I return.
As well as our own books, of course, there are many public library activities happening over the summer. Gloucestershire Libraries have many events scheduled and are running the Summer Reading Challenge once again. You can find details of their summer events here:
https://gloucestershire.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/WPAC/EVENTS?HOMEPRMS=EVSESPARAMS
The Summer Reading Challenge has an environmental theme this year, called Wild World Heroes. It runs until September and here are the details: https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/gloucestershire-county-council-news/news-july-2021/be-a-wild-world-hero-with-gloucestershire-libraries/
If you don’t live in Gloucestershire, your local library systems will run similar events and the reading challenge is actually a national scheme. You can join Gloucestershire Libraries online, and can borrow e-books, e-audiobooks, e-magazines and have full access to online services until you are able to collect your library card. Look here for information: https://gloucestershire.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/MSGTRN/WPAC/JOIN
All libraries are, of course, free to join and to use.
The Reading Agency is also running a challenge with a scientific theme: https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/
The Scholastic Book Club is open over the summer. You can elect to have your books sent to your home, or wait until September to have them sent to school. The LRC gets 20% of the value of your order in vouchers to spend on new resources for our students. I am always appreciative of your support. You can order from here: https://shop.scholastic.co.uk/schools/denmark-road
Have a wonderful summer, filled with books and new adventures!
Ms Carol Cordall, School Librarian
Follow the LRC on Twitter 
@DRHS_LRC and Instagram 
drhs_lrc
E-mail: library@denmarkroad.org
Lost Property
MONDAY 18th JULY at BREAK TIME and LUNCH
Items of lost property will be displayed in the HALL on tables. Come and take a look. If you've lost a
coat, any uniform, water bottle, items of jewellery or lunchbox for example it might still be there
waiting for you. Any items left uncollected will go to charity.
Music Exam Success
Congratulations to the following students:
Viola Results
Martha Green - Grade 8
Flute Results
Imogen Winters - Grade 6
Imogen Winters - Grade 6
Lydia Wang - Grade 6
Deepa Raghuram - Grade 5
Rakshave Arunachalam - Grade 2
Maisie Beames - Grade 2
Ananya Abhishek - Grade 1
Nevedhika Rajanataraj - Grade 1
Piano results
Sami Sharma - Grade 3
Marianne Baker - Grade 2
RSPCA Young Photographers Awards
Samba
Year 9s had a fun last lesson on 14th July - Samba in 30 minutes with Mrs Bowman. They even managed a quick performance in the hall before the end of school.
Sports Day
Thank you to all of the staff, students and captains that helped Sports Day to run as well as it did. It was lovely to see our parents/carers at the event too; we hope you enjoyed it.
Our students were impeccable and competed with such enthusiasm for their houses, especially considering it was so hot.
Several of our students broke the school records:
Flo Beevers - Javelin
Laura Blair - HJ
Emily Brown - HJ
Very well done!
Special awards go to:
Victrix Ludorum - Emily Brown and Flo Hampton
Victor Ludorum - Daniel Stewart
Finally, a big well done to Hartland who were the 2022 winners.
Summer Concert
Come and join us for our Summer Concert - both past and present students and their families are invited to what will be Mrs Bowman's last concert at DRHS. Mrs Bowman has taught at the school for over twenty years and will be very much missed. We wish her all the best for her future endeavours.
Visit the Online Shop to buy tickets.
Swimming
Three pupils travelled to the London Aquatics Centre at the weekend to compete in the National Combo Cup for Artistic Swimming. Competing for Cheltenham against 36 other clubs from across the country they did exceptionally well. Natalie competed with the 13/15 team who won the BRONZE medals, whilst Madeliene and Marianne competed in the 13/18 team which came in a very respectable 6th place.
Virtual Work Experience
Work with us
If you or someone you know would like to work with us, please have a look at our current vacancies:
Follow me @DenmarkRoad365
Please follow me on Instagram at drhshead and Twitter @denmarkroad365. You will see a snapshot into DenmarkRoad365 and the life of a Headteacher at one of the most amazing schools in the country. - Claire Giblin