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April 28th

2017

Issue 11

Achieving our potential and enjoying the journey

An Inspector Calls T

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And no, we don’t mean an Ofsted inspector but a liter-ary one! 110 girls from Year 11 took part in ‘An In-spector Calls’ Workshop on the afternoon of 31st March. ‘An Inspector Calls’ by J B Priestley is a set text for GCSE English Literature and covers many moral and social issues which the girls find fascinating.

Actors came in to school to help bring the play to life and to discuss and explore the main themes of the play as part of the girls’ revision before their GCSEs in the summer term.

Sixth Form Psychology Trip to London Zoo

31st March 2017

42 Year 12 and Year 13 Psychology Students at Bishop’s Hatfield Girls’ School visit-

ed London Zoo on Friday 31st March. The group toured the Zoo visiting various an-

imal enclosures including the tiger, monkey and bugs’ enclosures and the Reptile

House to consider why some animals cause phobic responses. They considered

their emotional reaction to different animals and also measured their pulse rates to

evaluate their physiological response to the animals.

The students then had the opportunity to

take part in a group hypnosis session to

rid themselves of their irrational fear of

spiders and then many were willing to

hold one of London Zoo’s habituated ta-

rantulas. All in all, a very enjoyable and

informative day!

The highlight of the trip was two talks by

John Clifford, a Clinical Hypnotherapist,

on the causes and treatments of phobias.

John gave some interesting anecdotes on

patients he has successfully treated for

spider phobia including a woman who

broke her leg jumping out of a first floor

window to escape a spider and people

who do not leave their house during the

summer months because of their fear of

coming into contact with spiders.

7H Humanities

To finish off our unit on pilgrimages, each group was given an ‘unknown’ pil-

grimage to research and teach the rest of the class. It was the perfect oppor-

tunity to use our new chrome books for research and buy Easter Eggs as re-

wards!

Year 12 Philosophy

Stepping Stones

In Philosophy, when writing an essay, you must ensure your writing is both analyt-

ical but also balanced. As a class we were really struggling with this so Miss Gross-

man made us write arguments for and against a particular statement on separate

pieces of paper. We then had to jump from one ‘stone’ to another ensuring that

we were connecting each argument together. It was fun and really helped!

Year 7 District Netball Tournament

On Tuesday 28th March, the Year 7 A and B Netball teams travelled over to Stanborough School to compete in the District Netball Tournament.

Due to only 5 A teams entering the tournament, the 7A team played a round robin format, playing each of the other teams once.

The girls won all 4 of their first games against Dame Alice Owen’s, Monk’s Walk, Stanbor-ough and Yavneh setting up a final with Chancellors who had also won all 4 of their first games.

The league game that both teams had played in only a few weeks saw Bishop’s win by 2 goals (their closest result all year) so it was expected to be a close game.

In the end, the determination and outstanding teamwork saw Bishop’s take an early lead and hold out to win 10-4 and win the District Netball Tournament!

A huge congratulations to all of the Year 7A Netball team who have been incredibly dedi-

cated and hardworking throughout the year; a well-deserved result!!

The 7B Netball team had a tougher task in front of them as, with more teams in their cate-gory, they would have to play their pool games in order to progress to the semi-finals. The girls beat Yavneh, Chancellors 2nd team, Monk’s Walk and SFO to progress to the semi-finals.

The B team then beat Dame Alice Owen’s to set up a final with Chancellors 1st team. The girls went into the second half down 4-1 and showed incredible resilience and determina-tion to bring the score back to 4-4 with 1 minute remaining. Sadly, the girls just lost out to a well worked score from the opposition to lose the closely fought final 4-5.

Year 7 District Netball Tournament

A huge congratulations to all of the 7B Netball team, the loss in the final was the only game

they had lost all year so we are still waiting to hear if they have won the league. The girls

have been fantastic in their attitude to training and showed excellent teamwork through-

out the whole season.

A big thank you to Miss Cameron and Mrs Redpath for taking and officiating the teams in

this tournament.

District Champions - 7A Netball Squad

District Runners Up – 7B Netball Squad

Malak Fahmy Scarlett Grey

Posy Harris (Captain) Katie Honour Lucy Kiernan

Imogen Lightning Megan Reid

Amaani Soetan Hannah Townsend

Emily Wright

Jasmine Channa Diana Coraci

Charlotte Gibson Ana Golban

Sophie Knapp Emma North (Co-Captain)

Jo North (Co-Captain) Amy Smith

Maddie Teixiera Esther Ugboroghu

MFL Young Leaders

On Monday 24th April our 48 Young MFL Leaders revisited St Philip Howard and De Havil-land primary schools to run interactive French and Spanish learning activities with Key Stage 2 pupils. This formed the second part of the programme which required the Young Leaders to develop, adapt and improve their teaching techniques first trialled during the first visit in February.

Below is feedback from one of the KS2 class teachers:

Our children greatly appreciated “the fun games” and your “kind, supportive and funny” students. They understand how powerful games are for learning and recog-nise the good student role models they are. It is lovely to strengthen relationships be-tween primary and secondary schools and the games and activities nicely comple-mented the material the KS2 pupils had learnt and introduced more…..The children have shown a positive interest and curiosity in the MFL afternoons and are excited and looking forward to when they go to secondary school, having met some great representatives.

On Thursday 27th April the Young Leaders fed back their experiences to Year 8 in an assem-

bly. Hopefully this will inspire the Young Leaders of the future to build cultural and linguis-

tic bridges in future programmes.

Food Industry Workshop

On Tuesday 25th April Daniel McCelland from Edwards and Blake (our school caterers) visited the

GCSE Food students to discuss career pathways

and potential opportunities within the food indus-

try as a whole. Daniel treated the group to a

demonstration of knife skills, and explained some

of the techniques he had shown. The girls were

fascinated to discover the potential of Food as an

option choice subject, and were very keen to par-

ticipate in the practical packaging activities. Con-

gratulations to all competition entrants, and well

done to the winners Cerys, Ellen, Faye, Mollie,

Kaitlin and Ana (known as the 3.14 team) for their

pie concept. Many thanks to Daniel for giving his

time so generously and for his inspirational talk.

Over the weekend 20 girls participated in the practice expedition for their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. The routes, which were planned by the girls themselves, travelled over many varied footpaths and fields of Hertfordshire, before camping overnight at Tolmers Scout camp near Cuffley.

The girls carried all of their equipment, including tents, cooking stoves and food, whilst walking for about 24 miles over the course of the 2 day expedition.

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Expedition

The groups must navigate their own way using Ordnance Survey mapping, and must also

pull together as a team to overcome challenges faced while pitching their tents, cooking

their meals and coping with the somewhat changeable weather – rain coats one minute

and sun cream the next!

Great fun was had by all, and the girls really demonstrated the spirit of the expedition –

helping each other and having a laugh along the way. The highlights include the sense of

achievement in having navigated that distance without adult help, the fun to be had in

working with a team, and also the marshmallows around the campfire during the evening.

The second expedition is in a few weeks’ time, so good luck girls – you’re going to be fan-

tastic!

Science at work!

On Friday 21st April, 4 Year 8 students attended the Salters Festival of Chemistry at UCL. They took part in a forensic science competition, ana-lysing 'blood' samples and fin-gerprints as well as cracking codes to identify the burglar. In the afternoon they watched Professor Andreas Sellar demonstrating the properties of dry ice and culminating in making ice cream with liquid nitrogen!

The Senior District Athletics Championships were held at the Gosling track in Welwyn Garden City on 26th

April.

The Bishop's team consisting of mainly Year 11 girls with one Year 12 went with high hopes of finishing in the

top three.

The team got off to a flying start when Ella Hemmings stormed to victory in the hurdles followed by a second

place from Lauren Clark in the 100m.

Despite fierce competition from Dame Alice Owen’s and Queenswood who had won this competition for the

last few years, the Bishop's team continued to impress.

After a personal best for both Maddi Draper in the high jump and Molly Challis in the 1500m the overall vic-

tory was sealed when the relay team consisting of Hannah Manhood, Lauren Clark, Georgina Tallon and Alar-

na Foster left the others in their wake.

As many of the team will be able to compete for Bishop's again in Years 12 and 13 we are aiming to keep the

trophy for a few more years

Team members—

Molly Challis, Lauren Clark, Maddi Draper, Alarna Foster, Ella Hemmings, Georgie Newberry, Georgina Tallon,

Stephanie Tallon ,Paulina Trzcinska, Katey Yarwood.

Athletics Success!

9O were meeting their penpals from Greifswald, Germany

On our last day before Easter, 30 pupils from our partner school in Germany

visited BHGS. We met them in the 6th form café where we exchanged gifts

and ate Mrs Ruffhead’s chocolate squares (mmm, lecker!). We tried our Ger-

man and they responded in English.

We took them on a tour through our fantastic new building. As expected, they

loved, loved, loved the Dance Studio, Sports Hall, music room and the food

room. We found out that the pupils do not learn the following subjects: Food

(they do not even have a teaching room) and Drama (which they only do as an

after school club). In music lessons they do not learn any instruments, but do a

lot of singing.

The German pupils attended some lessons during period 3. Some went to a

computing lesson, where they joined in actively. Others attended a Year 11 Ge-

ography lesson where Mrs Langston made them work hard J. They also saw

History, Humanities and German lessons.

A big thank you to all the teachers who welcomed them!

After our lunches, we showed them the old building from the field, and some

of us played basketball.

Period 5, we met in the Hall and presented different aspects of our school,

obviously in German (and made Dr Venz very proud!).

Two German pupils had to improvise because their power point did not work.

We were very impressed with their level of English. They told us about their

school (2 buildings!) and their home town Greifswald.

They taught us a traditional German round, which they sang beautifully and we

joined in.

We then taught them funky dance moves to the ChaCha Slide. Such fun! Das

hat viel Spass gemacht.

We had a fantastic time and hope to stay in touch with them.

9O, Mrs Ruffhead and Dr Venz