• Animation '09

Following a stray comment in a Computing lesson, Emily Presswood (10X) and Katie Duncan (10X) decided to make an animation entitled “Cheese around the world” which resulted in them being invited to the presentation ceremony for the above national competition at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry. Joined by another entrant, Hayley Cross (7X), we arrived in sunny Manchester just in time for the girls to receive a ‘Highly Com-mended’ award and a small financial prize.

The overall winners received lavish prizes: laptops, games consoles, £500, etc. but we all went home with a goody-bag from the sponsors, EA Games, including a t-shirt and one of their games – Spore. [Mr Frost has now evolved to the point where he has 4 legs and eight eyes!].

After the award ceremony we watched a presentation from EA where they showed us how the ‘intelligence’ in games is developing all the time, and told us of all the jobs out there in a thriving British industry(!) while stressing the importance of studying Physics and, particularly, Maths as they went.

All the winning entries are on : http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/Animation09/gallery/winners/KS4/ and are
well worth a look, particularly the overall winning entry “Hip to be a square” produced by a pupil in KS3

Well done to the girls who took part, especially given their limited experience with the software. Entrants could use Scratch, Alice or Flash – the first two are both free to download at home, and we’d encourage you to give them a go. I hope that many more of you will feel inspired to create an animation for next year’s competition!
Mr Frost, ICT & Computing (njf@kegschg.bham.sch.uk).

• Junior Maths Challenge and Olympiad

Years 7 and 8 sat the Junior Maths Challenge just after Easter and the results were excellent. 48 students gained Gold certificates, 58 Silver and 73 Bronze. Special mentions must go to Eva Morton and Jessica Climer, both in Year 8, who qualified for the Junior Mathematical Olympiad. The results for this were announced just a few days ago and I am very pleased to report that both Eva and Jessica were awarded certificates of distinction and Bronze medals by the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust for their superb performance in the Olympiad. Well done to them and to all the girls who achieved success in the various maths challenges that took place last year.

• Year 10 Mathematics Festival

On Wednesday 16th September, four excited and curious students (Chuyi Yang, Maria Jones, Zahra Rumani and Sama Al-Sharifi) set out for Birmingham University to attend the Year 10 Mathematics Festival, accompanied by Miss Bodalia. The purpose of our trip? To find out for ourselves just how much fun maths can really be!

The event started with an interesting investigation into forensic science, coordinated by Dr. Chris Good from the University of Birmingham. Forensic scientists can sometimes tell by finding out proportions and average lengths what the height and gender of a person was from a single bone, so we investigated relations in measurements of the body. We started by measuring each other’s height, head circumference, foot length etc., and worked out the ratios of these lengths and compared them with our friends. We also plotted graphs to see if there were any correlations or obvious differences between genders, or to find out if there were in fact no links between certain body parts of a person. We drew conclusions from all our information. For example, in the words of Dr. Chris Good, “Having large feet doesn’t mean you have a big head.”

After a short break, we competed in a team relay competition coordinated by Dr. Joseph Kyle. In each round,each team answered four questions. To win, you had to depend on your accuracy and speed (both in working out the questions and running!). There was also a team of teachers who worked against us, but our team (called Team 22B, consisting of the four of us and two girls from Selly Park) beat the teachers and the other groups! Our prize was a nice certificate.

Afterwards we had lunch, and then had a lecture called Mathematics, Magic and the Electric Guitar given by Dr. David Acheson. Dr. David Acheson is the author of the popular maths book “1089 and All That” and also appeared on TV for his amazing upside-down pendulum, which with fast vertical vibrations was able to defy gravity! His talk included some fiendishly difficult (but astonishingly surprising) proofs and questions, a brilliant experiment with a net curtain wire, a little boat with two turtles sitting on the top and also, his amazing orange toy spider. The day ended with a marvellous performance on his electric guitar, explaining about vibration frequency formulae.

It was a truly enjoyable day and many thanks to Mr. Bettison for organizing the event, and also to Miss Bodalia for supervising us. We definitely had lots to take away; a most inspiring experience, lots more mathematical knowledge, a nice certificate, and, of course, a free ruler

• French Exchange

We were excited about meeting our French exchange partners, whom we hadn’t seen since the end of January.

We arrived in Riom around six o’clock French time and were met by excited French students and their families.Once found by our hosts, we set off for a weekend with the family, speaking continual French. It may sound tricky, but understanding the French turned out to be relatively easy once you knew what the subject was about. The families were very helpful and understanding although they sometimes had to resort to miming to get us to comprehend!

Over the weekend, we had lots of time to get to know our partners, their families and the lovely Auvergne region. Many of us went shopping in Clermont-Ferrand, the nearest city, and up to the top of the Puy de Dôme, a mountain higher than Ben Nevis, for a picnic and lots of good photo opportunities. We all had ample opportunity to sample the delicious French food – which included baguettes and a selection of cheeses with every meal.

For the rest of the week, we accompanied the French students to their lessons and visited more of the surrounding area. Despite the variable weather, we saw many picturesque villages, climbed to the top of a tower for lovely views, and visited a beautiful church. Back at the French school, the Lycée Virlogeux, we went to a variety of lessons with our exchange partners; it was interesting to compare the school and teachers with our own.

The end of our fantastic week came far too quickly. We departed early on Thursday morning and were all sorry to leave the lovely students and families we were staying with; many of us determined to go and visit them again as soon as possible! For everyone, the exchange was a brilliant experience; we learnt a lot about the French language and culture, and many of us noticed dramatic improvements in our French accents, having great fun at the same time! Thanks to Ms Cox and Mr. Renault for organising the trip.

• Camp Hill Girls working with the Brownies

As part of the MFL department’s subject specialism work, on the 1st October I took three Year 13 students (Frances Arnull, Susan Charlton and Aimée Greenwood) to the local Brownie pack meeting held in Colmore Junior School. The aim of the session was to teach the Brownies some French songs in order to help them achieve their World Cultures badge. After a quick French warm up the girls took over the session and taught the Brownies how to sing “Frère Jacques” as a round and also our old favourite “Picque-nique à la plage”. The Brownies were very enthusiastic and loved learning from our students. Frances, Susan and Aimée were very impressive and employed a range of fun techniques to help the Brownies learn. The session ended with some number games and we were warmly invited to return later in the term with some more activities and games. Thank you very much to the girls who gave up their evening in order to help promote foreign languages in the community

• AS French Class visit to Colmore Primary School

As part of our languages specialism members of the Sixth Form French class went to teach French songs to Year 5 classes at Colmore Junior School. On 3rd July Alex Crichton and Milandra McGrath led the way starting with the song Un, deux,trois which the children seemed to enjoy immensely as their French improved throughout the song.

We were invited back on the 14th July, when the second group, Frankie Arnull, Siobhan Page, Holly Edwards and Vicky James taught the class two old favourites, Frère Jacques and the French version of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

I think we all had a wonderful time with the happy, energetic children and really appreciated the opportunity to go and teach the children the songs and improve our leadership skills. The opportunity has given us an insight into teaching a language and also helped with our French too!

• KECHG school supports the KEC Recommending Body for ITT training

We are supporting the training of teachers of all subjects at secondary level through the King Edwards Foundation Consortium. Our ICT technicians work with the lead staff at the Foundation Resources centre to ensure the smooth running of their networked computers and projection facilities. In addition to this we have developed a personalised programme of support for trainees which are not successful at passing the QTS Numeracy test on their first attempt. In the past trainees from the RB have also attended ICT training sessions held at the CLC in Kings Norton, which has given them experience of using some of the software that is frequently used in a classroom situation.

• Y9 Maths Enrichment classes for Level 8 pupils

Enrichment classes were run for Year 9 pupils in June to enable the pupils to gain the skills and experiences necessary to secure Exceptional Performance for their KS3 Teacher grade. Nine girls attended along with pupils from Camp Hill Boys School and Queensbridge School.

• Y13 Cross-curricular trip to Drayton Manor Park

Y13 Mathematics and Physics students visited Drayton Manor Park last summer to experience Mechanics in Action.

• Podcasting in Mathematics

The department hosted a South Network Podcasting meeting where 4 local schools were represented. This project links in with the Core Focus Group that a member of the mathematics staff also attends which also has a focus on podcasting. We now have very easy access to two sets of cameras and computers etc to enable pupils to create their own mp4 podcasts, and have recently purchased some additional iMac computers. We are eagerly waiting to see/hear the results of the input from Y7 in this project.

• School meets High Performing Specialist School (HPSS) Criteria

In May we were very pleased to be contacted by the DCSF to say that we had met the criteria for HPSS due to our excellent results and outstanding Ofsted inspection. We have recently submitted our choices for our second specialism from the options offered by the DCSF and will hear in November as to which option has been successful. Additional funding for this new and exciting phase of our specialist school work should be available from April 2009.

• Y10 Visit to RAF Cosford and Education Business Links Award

The Y10 visit to RAF Cosford on 19th February was particularly successful and developed the pupils’ understanding of the range of careers and professions within both the RAF and museum sectors. Pupils took part in team challenges, and developed their communication, team work and problem solving skills.

The careers-based activities included discovering the role of a museum curator and how the history of artefacts can help teach people what life used to be like. The pupils also had the opportunity to design and launch rockets in one of the main hangars, meet and question RAF photographers and find out about their role both in conflict and media presentation.

The pupils were given the opportunity to use some of the specialised cameras and recording equipment themselves. The final activity based at the museum involved pupils guessing the profession of an individual through items he used in his everyday work. During a busy lunch period the pupils swapped sites and those who had been at the museum during the morning spent the afternoon manoeuvring their team through a low ropes course and taking part in complicated problem-solving challenges in a class room environment.

The museum was very impressed with the pupils and our tailor–made day has been used as a case study in a local publication, we have also won Education Business Links Award for successfully developing this work with a local company.

• ReCom Adult ICT class

A group of visitors from Solihull come to the school on Monday afternoons for some basic ICT skills training. Some interesting sessions took place as most of them had not used a computer before. They learnt how to use a mouse, some basics of touch typing, how to find and use websites, how to create, save and format documents in word and how to e-mail someone.

• Brownies Computer Badge

Over 30 Brownies from 36th Birmingham pack which meets at Colmore Primary School have visited the school for 2 of their recent meetings and with staff and parental support have worked through the skills required to gain their Brownie Computer badge, they all had a very enjoyable time, learning new skills and finding out more about Brownies than they knew before.

• Y7 Maths Relay Race

While the rest of the school had their pupil review day interviews last month, Mathematics was promoted with our newest pupils in the form of a Relay Race. The girls worked in teams to solve a range of problems, the answer to one step being necessary for the question in the next step. Each person in the team was responsible for a step and the first person past the finishing line with the correct answer won the race.

• Y8 Maths Puzzle Day

Pupil Review Day gave us the opportunity to arrange a Maths Puzzle Day for Year 8 girls. The Happy Puzzle Company provided a variety of fun, but challenging 3-D hands-on puzzle tasks each taking of which took the teams a few minutes to complete. The challenges required the teams to work together and to develop strategies to solve the problems.

• Further Mathematics Conference

Year 10 students attended this conference at Cadbury College, where they listened to a range of talks and attended workshops which broadened their understanding of Mathematics in the wider world and hopefully will have encouraged them to take their Mathematical studies beyond GCSE and A level.

• Excellent GCSE Statistics June 2008

After much hard work throughout the year, the majority of Year 10 students took their GCSE Statistics examination. They then resumed their GCSE Mathematics course and eagerly awaited their results. Their performance was truly outstanding with 104 girls taking the examination of which 89.4% girls gained either an A* or A grade.

• First KS4 AS Computing cohort embarks on course for qualification in June 2009

46 Y10 students started work on an AS Computing course in September 2007 alongside their GCSE course in ICT. We will be very interested to see how well they get on when they sit their first AS unit in January 2009.

• Sixth form work experience placements

Some of our Y12 students have taken advantage of an offer from the Centre of Business Excellence in Birmingham to arrange them work experience placements for the holidays. The pupils all flew through their interviews for these positions in a range of employment sectors which include Accountancy, Recruitment Agencies, Financial, PR and Marketing, Legal, Estate Agency and Insurance and Banking. Sixth form have also been taking part in community service activities to support departments around the school.

• CLAIT Adult ICT class

Adult learners from the local community have been participating in ICT lessons on Wednesday afternoons leading to a CLAIT qualification. All but three have now passed the web module through BBC Webwise. Members are using practice materials to develop spreadsheet skills. Candidates are now approaching the point where they can begin to be entered for modules to gain accreditation for their learning. The Webwise module should cover one of their three units they require. The other two are spreadsheets and File-handling/word processing.

• Y6 Thinking Skills in Mathematics

This course takes place annually for two local primary schools, King David and Moseley C of E School. Some of the sessions were held for each school separately, one was held with both the Year 6 classes at one primary school and the final session was held here and included some ICT based work and a Maths Trail. The pupils benefited from working with new people and also from spending an extended period of time in a secondary school prior to their own secondary induction day.

• Y8 Mathematics and Science Enterprise Days

Last summer all of Year 8 had the opportunity to participate in a whole day of maths in enterprise involving the financial constraints of running a business which fished for shrimps! In Science they had the opportunity to design a fire extinguisher, manufacture the carbon dioxide to fill it, present their designs and consider the financial implications of their design choices.

• Stirchley Primary School Year 4 Topic based Mathematics Project

This project worked with the children in Year 4 over half a term to help them improve their links between mathematics and other areas of the curriculum. The lessons included sessions on using Mathematics areas as diverse as History and Cooking!

• Y9 Careers Afternoon

The Y9 Careers Conference took place on 17th March 2008 and involved representatives from a range of careers and companies including engineers, lawyers, accountants and the Fire Brigade. Pupils participated in 2 taster workshops and gained an insight into the roles that different people have in the organisations they work for.

• Y7 Rover trip

Year 7 pupils visited the Land Rover factory in Solihull. They completed various control challenges in one of their sessions and also had a tour of the factory to see the robots in action in the other session of the day.

• Computer clubs

A computer club for girls runs throughout the year to increase pupils’ interest in ICT and related areas.