Headteacher’s NewsletterHeadteacher’s Newsletter

Half Term Spring 2011Half Term Spring 2011

BISHOP VESEY’S GRAMMAR SCHOOL

Message from the Head

David Iddon Headteacher

Staff News In January we welcomed Maryann Dye, our new Director of Music and wish her a long and happy association with BVGS and the musical life of the school. Similarly we wel-comed Alex Davis, Teacher of PE/Games, who joins the team of expert teachers and coaches in another high pro-file department. We say thanks and farewell to Fiona Conway, teacher of Modern Foreign Languages who leaves BVGS to begin maternity leave.

Every picture tells a story! More p ictures , less s tory? Not so…..there are still lots of stories behind this pictorial résumé of what we have been up to over the past seven weeks! Individual stories of major success, achievement and altruism as well as similar stories at whole-school level. Do enjoy this round-up of Vesey activities of a half-term that will be remembered for ‘working hard and playing hard’!

Happy hour at lunchtime! Students enjoy friendship, the be-ginnings of warmer days and bene-fit, thanks to Vesey benefactors, from the magnificent facility on Middle Field, available each day for recreational football.

Academic Profile

Good news of Oxbridge places revealed to three wise men of Vesey’s: Congratulations (left to right) to

Phil Griggs Mech. Engineering at Pembroke, Cambridge

Patrick Ball Earth Science at St Hugh’s, Oxford

Conor Healy History at Pembroke, Cambridge

6th Form Admissions Officer, Julie Evetts (above), dis-plays a small sample of the sackfuls of applications from would-be New Veseyans.

Talk of the town…...

…..across the city and beyond!

Tom Andrew L6, deep in concentration during a recent practical, investigat-ing the effect of tempera-ture on the kinetics of thiosulphate/hydrochloric acid reaction. Science is an increasingly popular choice, along with Maths, for entrance to our L6.

Lower Sixth Chemists in action

and ‘Forty Years on’ …….

BVGS Deputy Head, Ian Maddy, who retired in 2009, was Guest of Hon-our at the 40th running of the King Henry VIII’s Na-tional Cross-Country Relay Race on 2 Feb in Coventry. Ian was there at the inception in 1971 when this prestigious race began.

BVGS was awarded a special trophy for being the only school to have competed in all 40 years! Pictured below is the BVGS running squad, managed by Deputy Head Bill Potter. They were also awarded a trophy for the most improved school placing from 2010 to 2011.

‘Talking Heads’

The passage encouraged us to reflect on the inter-dependence between shepherd and sheep and consider, through revelation and then faith, the possibility of our dependence on the ‘Shepherd King’. A well delivered, dramatised message for Christmas and the New Year.

Ronan Davis in the Sutton Park Race 2011

Dan Evans L6 deliv-ered a 9 min Alan Ben-nett style monologue in the final assembly of term last Christmas, entitled ‘A Shepherd’s Tale’, re-telling the story of angels appearing to shepherds, watching their flocks by night.

Sincere thanks to Sportology of Mere Green for so kindly sponsoring two voucher prizes for Sports-man/woman of each term. Congratulations to last term’s winners: Ryan Brunsden U6 1st XV winger with 17 tries and a hat-trick against Princethorpe Coll. and Dan Powell 8W recently crowned National U14 Judo Champion and now selected for the Great Britain squad. Dan also plays full-back for the U13A rugby team.

Such is our academic profile locally, across B’ham and beyond, that in 2011 there are no fewer than 468 applicants from across the region (375 in 2010), seeking to join our Sixth Form.

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BVGS Charitable Donations Cancer Research and Breakthrough Breast Cancer £225.32

Help For Heroes £89.42

Great Ormond Street Hospital £27.00

Alzheimer's Society £55.52

V-Factor Event 11 Feb in Big School £957.00

Poppy Appeal £379.48

Red House Charity £30.56

Grand Total since September now stands at £9,605.31

Physics: The final lecture at B’ham Uni. this season will be: The Science of Armageddon Jay Tate, Spaceguard 8th Mar 7.30pm, looking at the threat posed to earth by impacts from space and also a demonstration of a robotic telescope.

On Wednesday 2 Feb our Yr 10 GCSE students spent the day in the Art Dept with visiting artist Jon DeNaro who taught them his technique for creating larger than life portraits. Students really en-joyed the experience of spending an extended amount of time on producing such a large piece of work. Students will spend the coming lessons completing the portraits which will then be dis-played around the school. Pictured by the plaque, members of the family of the

late Tom Wyer, governor and dear friend of the Vesey Community. We commemorate his tremen-dous work for the school and his bequest, which has enabled the complete refurbishment of one of the Maths classrooms, the award of a Senior Speech Day prize and a bench in his name.

A BVGS first: 4 teams of 6 entered the Lightning Tour-nament on Friday 4 February. We had so many players we had to arrange coach transport. They held their own against stiff opposition from KES, Solihull and Five Ways. Coaches Heather Hodkinson and Alex Mor-gan were impressed with the maturity of all the play-ers. Individually, they achieved some great wins and maintained a fantastic team spirit throughout the event.

Chess move with Coaches! Three generations of Veseyans

Blowing their own trumpet.……..and other instruments! The BVGS Brass Ensemble in practice at lunchtime

The Tom Wyer Maths Room Art

Year 8 Trip to Köln Pictured below: 38 students in Yr 8 who visited the German Markets in Köln just before Christmas.

Left to right: Dad: John Cooper (1973-75) 1st XI Hockey captain. Son: Tom Cooper 2010-11 1st XV Full-back. Grandad: Dr Nigel Cooper (1940-47) former 1st XV scrum-half and Son: Rob Coo-per (2001-08) former 1st XV winger, enjoying a moment of post match Vesey togetherness.

Music The next concert in Big School will be on Tuesday 29th March at 7.30pm. Tickets on sale after half-term.

GCSE Maths hits record number!

V-Factor Charity Event 11 Feb

Oh, what a night! Not one of the songs but our tal-ented students produced a sensational V-Factor show for 100+ Vesey guests in Big School which rivalled, if not superseded, the equivalent TV version! Simon Cowell eat your heart out! Beautifully laid tables

and a great ambience, created by ‘maître d’hôtel’ Jay Lal U6, Charity Officer, and his team of Sixth Form helpers. They were ably supported by the PAC who ran the bar and booked ‘The Picnic Basket’, our outside caterers. A great team effort on the part of students, who planned and delivered the whole event.

Winner of V-Factor 2011, Taleisha Hutton (right) with Jay Lal (left) ready to receive his guests for what prom-ised to be and proved to be another memorable night in the Vesey calen-dar. Congratulations to all involved!

A new record for the Maths department. Congratula-tions to teacher Stuart Hutchieson and his students!

News came in this January that our top set of 31 fast-track Mathemati-cians in Yr 11 had all scored A* in the early entry GCSE.

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AS & A2 level historians attended a History lecture at the University of Aston, this half term. The Lower Sixth were invited to discuss the impact of immigration on Western Europe and the Upper Sixth attended a lecture on the future of Public Policy in England.

Holocaust Memorial Day was commemorated with an assembly on the theme of ‘Untold Stories’. The ideas and themes about how the Holocaust and other genocides have affected ordinary people will be followed up in Yr 9 History lessons.

Abrar Ibrahim U6 was the lucky winner of the £300 prom dress, a prize that was raffled between the 6th form girls with money raised going to Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

L6 Careers Aspiration Interviews with Senior Learning Mentor Pam Maskell: every student in L6 has the opportunity to discuss future plans and the university application process. Advice on Gap Year, money management and alternative career paths is also available.

On 7 January Dave Goodwin and Pam Mas-kell attended the annual Admissions Confer-ence held at Aston University enabling us to keep up to date with changes within the Uni-versity admissions process.

History Crimewatch UK! Bringing History alive!

Year 7 students were invited to investigate the crime scene of the mur-der of Thomas Becket. Our young investigators were given evidence and reports in order to stimulate their study of the death of Thomas Becket and its impact on the medieval period. All Year 7 students pro-duced some fantastic models including devils’ heads and lego cathedrals in order to illustrate their opinions of Thomas Becket. The next cases for the Year 7 investiga-tors will be the suspi-cious deaths of Amy Dudley and The Princes in the Tower. Congratu-lations to both teachers and students for their work in these cordoned-off areas of crime!

David Graham pictured above with Year 7 Natural High Prizewinners in Old Big School in December.

Fifteen Yr 10 students recently attended a lecture day at Birmingham Symphony Hall to hear a mixture of top scientists discussing research in their collective fields. A wide range of topics was covered including evolution, oscillating reactions, ca-reers in Physics and black holes and time-travel. The scientists were all famous within their own subject areas and included the likes of Richard Dawkins, Steve Jones and Jim Al-Khalili who have written some excellent popular science books, plus Maggie Aderin-Pocock who recently featured in the BBC documentary ‘Do we really need the moon?’. The students gained some inside knowledge from a chief GCSE examiner on exam technique, which means they have no excuse for not excelling in their GCSEs now!

Vesey’s goes to Science Live!

On 2 February the West Mid-lands Arson Task Force and Zip Theatre performed a play for Yrs 7 & 8, raising aware-ness of the dangers of mali-cious fires and the importance of fire safety. The students’ post performance questions were thoughtful and sensitive. The students thoroughly en-joyed the performance which clearly demonstrated what could happen and how quickly things get out of hand if fires are started without appropri-ate control measures in place.

Headteacher’s Lunches

New Veseyans in the L6 enjoying a ‘business lunch’ with the Headteacher as a further wel-come to Vesey's and a chance to offer feed-back on their experience after one term. The reports were very favourable and students offered many ideas for future improvements.

Other Sixth Form News

Zip Theatre

Zip Theatre, based in Wolver-hampton, provides dramatised pieces designed for the Citizen-ship and PSHE programmes.

Wednesday afternoon mountain bike option led by Martin Lea, Head of Science, in Sutton Park on 9 February 2011.

Yr 11Geography Field Trip 14 Jan to the beautiful Ashes Hollow Valley, the Long Mynd, Shropshire, during which our students attracted compliments from members of the public, including a retired university lecturer, for their enthusiasm towards their study.

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Published for BVGS by Sharon Weblin, Headteacher’s PA sw@bishopveseys.bham.sch.uk. Printed by Jayne Joyce , BVGS Reprographics.

Heads we win? U13A & U13B Front Row forwards have heads up before a recent match against King Edward VI Camp Hill

Rugby: U18 Daily Mail Cup Round 6 on 8 Jan 2011(Last 32 from 500+ schools). Following victory over the Australians from Merewether HS, Melbourne on 3 Jan our 1st XV went into this game against last year’s quarter finalists The Bishop Stortford High School in buoyant mood. How-ever, despite an early first half try and a valiant second half of 8-7 to Vesey’s, they succumbed, unable to claw back the early deficit, 15-30 to the bet-ter team on the day. Well done to this year’s 1st XV who equalled the best progression by a Vesey side in the history of this competition.

(Left) Jon Hipkiss, at centre tries hard to penetrate the defence, whilst (above) winger Ryan Brunsden weaves his way, with good Vesey support, through the opponents he has wrong-footed.

Badminton available at lunchtimes in the

Sports Hall: Richard Slater 11B in action.

West Midlands Senior Swimming Champions

Philip Hewitt, Dominic Rickards and James Youngman

England U18 Hockey

Congratulations to 17 yr old Navraj Degun L6, selected for the England U18 hockey squad with another year ahead of him at this age range. A mag-nificent achievement which will be recorded on our National Honours in Sport board in Big School.

England U16 Rugby

Monty Foley-Williamson 10B, U15A scrum-half, evades his counter-part and distributes the ball with poise and control in a close 3-7 encounter against Solihull School on 12 Feb.

Northampton Head of the River Nene 29 Jan

A great start to our first outdoor regatta with two wins: Muzamil Shaikh below with his tankard for a victory in U15 Single Sculls. Congratulations also to our Sixth Form Crew who

Referee Dave Goodwin signals a try for Vesey’s in the U16 match v Solihull.

Left: U15 David Tonks 10B makes a break. Above: U16 Jordan Beer 11G brings down his man v Solihull.

Hockey: BVGS U18 Warwickshire Champions 2010 and favourites to win again this year were defeated in the semi-final by Solihull School in a goal-mouth mix-up against the run of play. Up and coming player to note: Will Backhouse 10W playing 1st X1. A disappointing end to the season for a tremendous 1st X1 squad but a brilliant record overall P16 W12 D 3 L1. 2nd XI P14 W5 D2 L7. U15s remain unbeaten with James Brown 10G and Drew Byrne 10B prolific scorers. U14s were defeated in the County Cup semi-final by Rugby School.

won the U18 Coxless Fours.

Left to right: U13A & U13B

Samee Khan 8G

Ben Saveker 8W

Patrick Singleton 8W

Kar Fung Yip 8B

Nathaniel Longhorne 8W

Ben Jesson 8G

Congratulations to Matt Goodall 11R (centre and full-back) who has made it to the final round of selec-tion for the U16 England squad, ahead of the naming of the England teams. Matt has also recently been promoted to the Worces-ter Warriors Academy EPDG Gold Group.

Tomas Homer U6 in action