Newsletter to Parents April 2020 Edited by Mrs Sahi / Mr Smeath

Highlights

Magistrate Mock Trial

The Magistrate Mock Trial is a national competition for students in

Year 8 and 9. It involves the students acting out a court case and it

allows them to get an idea of what it is like in a court and how cases

are organised and presented during trials.

Under the supervision and guidance of Mr McCann and Ms Ritson, a

determined team of 15 came together and worked hard to present a

case at The Reading Crown Court on the 14th of March.

Parents and all visitors to the school

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main reception area at the front of the

school. Please do not use the pupils’

entrance. Safeguarding our pupils on

the school site is a priority.

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Key Dates

Herschel Grammar School

The group of 15 was separated into two groups, the defence and prosecution. The defence team

was accountable for proving the defendant (the person accused of the crime) innocent, whereas the

prosecution team’s aim was to prove the defendant guilty. For each, there were two lawyers;

prosecution lawyers and defence lawyers. Each lawyer had a witness from their team and a witness

from the other team to question and the key aim was to ask questions to both that sided with their

argument. We prepared for months leading up to the competition and we were visited by

Magistrates who were part of the competition to help us improve our skills.

When the day arrived, while we were all a little anxious, we were also very self-assured and

enthusiastic as we were well prepared and had worked extremely hard. We competed against two

schools, the defence team against one school and the prosecution team against another. We won

both our competitive cases and were able to convince the magistrates of our points both times.

The best performing school was crowned the winner and this occasion it happened to be… Herschel

Grammar School! We got through to the regionals as we were the best performing school and also

got a cash prize! Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, it seems the rest of the competition has been called

off.

This competition not only built up our confidence but also our public speaking skills and ability to

prove our point. We had a memorable time playing our role in representing our school and

winning the competition! We would definitely recommend this as a very exhilarating experience

for students interested in law or considering it, as it certainly made us more interested. It certainly

was a fun and unforgettable experience.

By Fatima Shahzad, Year 9

DT department making face visors for

St Mark’s Hospital, Maidenhead

Social distancing during manufacturing was put to the test by the D&T department this week. To

help with the supply of PPE to medical staff, we have been busy making face visors for Berkshire

NHS out of our material stock of polypropylene. Using a laser cutting file developed with the help

of Kitronik (one of our suppliers), we were able to produce 80 face visors.

These were kindly delivered to St Mark’s Hospital in Maidenhead by John Gardner.

#makingmatters #betterbydesign

Mrs Smith, Head of Design & Technology, HPP Coordinator

DT Jaguar Land Rover Trip with Year 9

On the 11th March approximately 50 students, including me, visited Jaguar, Land Rover in Solihull.

Students departed school at 7.30, bright and early in the morning. Everyone was looking forward to

an exciting day ahead. We were in Birmingham in no time. Honestly, it didn't feel like 2 hours at all.

After we were in the building, we all seated ourselves in the spacious classroom. To start with, we

had a brief presentation about the company and the 300-acre site! Along with that, we learnt some

fun facts and a bit of history about the various models and future goals of the company. Currently,

Jaguar, Land Rover is owned by Tata, an Indian company. Afterwards, everyone was split into 4

groups, where half of the pupils completed mini engineering activities and the other half took a

guided tour around the site.

We travelled around the site in minibuses, as the manufacturing plant was enormous. Assisting us

were experienced workers, who answered our questions and toured us around. The machinery was

fascinating and it was an amazing experience to see so much automation in the factories.

After the first half of the day, everyone came back to the classroom for lunch. Then we proceeded

with our next activities. Our first activity was to manufacture mini trolleys and deliver them on time.

This helped us learn about the importance of lean manufacturing and we also developed our

team-working skills along the way. Our final challenge was to create a one-wheel vehicle in 10

minutes! We had to compete in a relay race with our product, balancing a cup of water. It was

quite difficult when the wind and rain weren't cooperating, but in the end, my group won. At the

end of the day, we were all exhausted but we had thoroughly enjoyed this unique experience.

By Moksha Patel, Year 9

Young Enterprise, Windsor Trade Fair

Our two Young Enterprise teams had yet another round of success at the Windsor Trade Fair on

Saturday the 7th March. The ever enthusiastic Herschel teams won 2 out of the 3 awards given out!

Eco chain, a fantastic group of students with rock solid work ethics, who have come together at

Herschel this year - demonstrated their effectiveness as a team when they won the Second

Runners-up Award. From the pitch at their stand, to their confidence, every aspect of their

teamwork was immaculate. They increased their product range to include handmade portraits of

endangered sea life in addition to their reusable straws. The judges were very impressed.

Our second team, Tribe, is a group of students all of whom have known each other for the last 5

years and are true ambassadors of Herschel. Their team oozes enthusiasm and energy which coupled

with their belief in their product could be felt in their sales and marketing technique. Their organic

cotton t-shirts with hand-printed pictures of endangered species and a lovely message 'Love Earth

Love Life' was a great hit amongst the public. Their teamwork and enthusiasm was recognised by

the judges as they were awarded the First Runners-up Award.

The two teams worked hard to get together a successful business and for most this was their first

ever public venture. The teams thoroughly enjoyed the journey despite the hard work and pressure

of approaching deadlines, stock delays and not to mention the Coronavirus implications that were

just beginning to start in March...

Please join us in congratulating the teams on their great achievements!!

By Mrs Malik, Head of Learning Year 10, Assistant Head of Mathematics

Young Enterprise - Tribe

Being the Managing Director of Tribe has been an exhilarating experience for me because of the

fact that I have been able to work with extremely talented colleagues, who are also some of my

closest friends, to create a hugely successful and fully operational enterprise. It has taught me the

importance of valuable skills such as time management and communication within a business and

has also allowed me to gain insight into a role that interests me as a future career option. Above

all, I strongly believe that the prevalent reason behind our achievements in the Young Enterprise

competition is our unmatched passion in the product that we have created and the concerning

issues that it strives to bring to light. Through our Tribe clothing, we are promoting the dire need

for the conservation of endangered species, which is represented by the choice out of five hand-

designed geometric, endangered animal emblems to be hand-printed onto the t-shirts. As well as

this, focusing on sustainability is a value at the heart of our business, which is why our slogan,

“Love Earth” is prominent in the branding of the t-shirts; our packaging is completely recyclable

and our clothing is made only from 100% organic cotton.

Simply selling a product is not our mission; we want to sell you the opportunity to join a movement

and raise awareness alongside us by wearing our t-shirts as a symbol of pride and purpose, truly

becoming a member of our “tribe”!

By Lakshay Talwar, Year 12,

Managing Director of Tribe.

An Inspector Calls The English Department were delighted to host The Globe Players on Tuesday, 3rd March. Year 11

students were treated to a fantastic live performance of ‘An Inspector Calls.’ The pupils were able to

join in a question and answer session following the performance, where they explored the wider

themes and posed questions to the actors regarding their craft and interpretations of the play.

The exciting new presentation proved extremely popular. Key scenes from the play were performed,

illustrating how the various members of the Birling family react to the death of Eva Smith. The

performance also examined the play’s structure, the use of language, and the social and historical

context of the Edwardian era. A most enjoyable morning!

By Ms Evans, Head of English

CyberFirst Girls Competition – National Final

This year, we were successful in reaching the grand final of the CyberFirst Girls Competition, a

national competition where teams of year 8 girls solve challenges surrounding cyber security. The

finals were in Cardiff, so we all got the train. When everybody had arrived, we hopped onto the coach

for our afternoon activity. When we reached there we realised we were at the royal mint coin factory.

Then we watched a small film about coins and got a tour of the factory and what each machine does.

After that we got to make our own rare coin and keep it. Then we took loads of green-screen photos

and we had to pretend the coins were falling on us. Then we went back to our hotel.

When we got back to our hotel, we were given the keys to our room and after encountering some

slight problems (we locked ourselves out), we got changed into our smart casual clothes ready for

the dinner at Cardiff Castle. It was a short distance, so we walked there and we were welcomed by a

goat (it was a sort of cute goat). We went in and were served drinks and after a while we were taken

to another room to listen to some drumming; it was loud. After that we were taken into the actual

dining room. The room was really nice, and the table was all set and it looked really fancy. It took

some explaining to understand all the cutlery and glasses, but we worked it out and we really enjoyed

the food, especially the really cute desserts. It was a really fun night.

After breakfast, we were taken to the competition venue. When we arrived, we were asked to take a

seat while we were told more about the competition. We were then led to the gameplay area, where

we logged in, ready to compete. We were in a real-life scenario where a global sporting event – the

Olympics, which were to be hosted in the country ‘Pajan’ - had been hacked in a ransomware attack.

It was our job to find out who hacked it and why, before presenting our findings to a board of

inspirational women from the cyber security industry. At the start of the day, we hovered in the top

3 before dropping to 4th place, then 5th. We started to think more, solved more questions and earned

more points – we were rewarded with a position of 4th place. Although we didn’t win this year, we

are extremely lucky to be in the top 8 schools nationally and we’ve had an amazing experience.

Overall, CyberFirst was a great experience for us. Everything about it was amazing, including the

qualifier round, the semi-finals, the royal mint, the dinner and especially the actual competition. We

all got to try new things and I'm sure we’ll never forget the great fun we had. We just entered the

competition, thinking it would be fun, we had no high expectations of ourselves, but soon, we

realised where this led us up to. Entering this competition was a really good idea and we will never

regret it!

Football Tournament

Last term, the Year 7 and 8 girls football team headed off to the power league football tournament.

Despite not having played any matches recently, we managed to pull off an amazing round one of

the tournament, which allowed us to qualify for the higher knockout stages in the next round.

There was a bit of a stumble in the first match when we were still finding our feet; a lot of us hadn’t

played together before as new members had come, old ones had left and year sevens had joined

the team. We quickly recovered though, winning the majority of our matches apart from the first

and a draw.

In the second round things got tougher. The harder teams had gotten through and the level of

difficulty was raised. First there was a mini group stage which we got out of undefeated and then it

was time for the semis and finals. In the semis we faced Eden Girls School B team who put up a real

fight. However, we powered through holding strong in defence and attacking at every opportunity.

This led us to the final where again we faced Eden Girls, but this time the A team. When we realised

who we were playing our heads did kind of drop, because we knew how good they were and had

been dreading playing them since the first match of the tournament. After a quick team talk the

match was underway and it was brutal. The ball was flying everywhere and it was hard to control the

game with everyone scrambling to get the ball. We stayed strong and the ball was slotted into the

back of the net; this was when they put up a harder fight. Our defenders and keeper stayed strong

as we won the tournament, and I would just like to say I’m so proud of everyone who played and we

have to do it again!

By Cerys Rutherford, Year 8

Netball Tournament

The netball tournament was a huge success for our team. The girls in the team were anxious as to

how it would turn out as there were a few schools that we knew would challenge us as we had played

them in matches before. We also hadn’t had a chance to practice for a good 3-4 months before this,

not fitting in a single training session before the tournament, due to the weather and the sports hall

being unavailable. While we didn’t win every single game, we managed to secure second place in

our group after our first and only loss in the tournament against a highly competitive school, St

Joseph’s Catholic High School. However, as a team we didn’t let this bring us down and we were

determined to win. In the semi-finals we had a close game which was played in the rain and this

tired us out. Even then we pushed on through and played against St Joseph’s Catholic High School

again. We also won this match which meant we were the winners of the tournament!

By Esha Gill, Year 8

Step into the NHS Competition – County Winner

When I was first told that there was a competition that I could enter, I was thinking ‘great, this will

be awesome!’ In the assembly we attended to hear of this Step into the NHS competition, I tried to

think of what I can do for this competition, I instantly got the idea of a game of Monopoly because

I had to make children understand the steps of becoming a doctor (the role I chose).

After I went home, I created a presentation as a plan for my entry. I searched up Monopoly boards

to see how they arrange the order of the board, from the cheapest brown cards to the expensive,

blue Mayfair and Park Lane cards. I thought I could do the same but make the cards in the order of

becoming a general practitioner. For the rest of the game I inspected one Monopoly item and made

it into my own Doctor Poly game. I tried to make the making of Doctor Poly fun because it was

optional to do, I could have just given up! But no, I wanted to get this finished so maybe I could play

this game myself! After I was done, I thought I had tried my best because I put all my effort into it;

if I lost the competition, it wouldn’t matter since I knew I had tried. We had to wait for a few weeks

after a video of our games were sent to the judges and I completely forgot about the competition

until one evening, I just finished my homework just in time to get an email from Miss Wood. I opened

the email and quickly read it, I was absolutely astonished! I had won! I was county winner because

of my Doctor Poly game! I was not expecting this email, maybe it was sent to the wrong person? I

read the email again, it had my name on it and it was sent directly to me so I had definitely won! I

realised that perseverance and resilience with some effort and care will always come to a great finish!

This is what the competition organisers had to say:

“Recently myself and my colleagues met to judge the shortlisted entries for the Step into the NHS

competition, and I am delighted to inform you that we have chosen Nuha Ajmal Khan’s entry of the

GP monopoly board as our county winner for Berkshire. We were very impressed with the job

description, concept and execution on the job advert, it was clearly incredibly researched and so

much effort had gone into the final piece, which we were all very impressed with.”

By Nuha Ajmal Khan 7S

Le théâtre en français

On Tuesday 10th of March, French students from Years 9, 10 and 11 were lucky enough to watch an

amazing performance by the Onatti theatre group. This year they performed a very funny comedy

called Les Garçons. The actors incorporated both simple and complex French vocabulary and

expressions into a familiar and hilarious babysitting scenario, providing a break from typical

classroom atmosphere whilst testing our abilities with regards to knowledge of the language.

Students could not keep a straight face during the play! Everyone was captivated by the hilarious

flow of the storyline. To add to the lively and enthusiastic atmosphere, the play was not only

action-packed, but filled with audience participation - making everyone feel included and involved

within the play. Overall students at Herschel thoroughly enjoyed the play and are wholly grateful

for the opportunity we were given. This experience makes the subject fun and enjoyable and

boosts enthusiasm. Thank you to the MFL staff for organising this event!

By Zainab Inam, Maariya Khan and Harman Gill, Year 10

Global Canvas 2020 Endangered Competition

In the midst of all the GCSE revision two weeks ago my mum, my sister and I were graced with the

news that an art piece we had been working on for months had come in 2nd place out

of 21 different countries and over 5000 entries!!

The art had been for the Global Canvas 2020 ‘Endangered’ themed competition ran by the David

Shepherd Wildlife Foundation and we had been working with the group ‘Antz Kidz’ for it, teaching

the children many different ways of creating art with recycled materials. What made our art so

special was the fact that it was made almost entirely out of the recycled materials we taught about.

Working on and receiving the news for this art piece has been something we have been looking

forward to for over half a year. Throughout this we spent entire nights awake slowly creating and

assembling the piece, as well as devising different ways we could put our recycled materials to use.

We then used this to teach workshops to the children of ‘Antz Kidz’. It was an enjoyable journey

despite the stress involved in creating it.

On March 12th we got to see our artwork in the Natural History Museum amongst other successful

finalists and were able to learn about all the other amazing interpretations of the ‘endangered’

theme there were. Now it is likely to be displayed somewhere in Slough where we, and others,

would always be able to come view it. This artwork is something my family and the people at Antz

Kidz are very proud of because of all the heart we put into it. It is large, detailed, and also has a

detachable cage attached to it, but our main success was in getting the message of endangered

animals across. It was an opportunity to both teach and create on an issue close to our heart and I

am thankful to have been a part of the process.

By Prima Gouse, Year 11

Looking for Talent

We would love to hear about our students’ achievements in the wider world. Please

send a brief description of any such outstanding successes to

talented@herschel.slough.sch.uk, stating the students’ name and form.

We will celebrate them in forthcoming newsletters.

Mrs Smith, HPP Co-Ordinator