HCH Community Pride Day- The photographs!Thank you to all of you who took part in yesterday’s HCH Community Pride Day by wearing your pink and black school colours. This celebrates how we are all still together as a community despite the distance between us. See if you can spot any familiar faces in the gallery below!
The HCH Daily Doodle!The fantastic HCH art department have been hard at work putting together a series of daily doodle challenges for families to complete together during this period of self-isolation and school closure. Why not have a go at today’s daily doodle with your family this evening? We will post a new one every... Continue reading+2
Science Week Day 4- Bath bombs, Genomes and The Science Week FairPupils in Years 5 to 8 made some beautiful smelling, fizzy bath bombs today by mixing together some weak acids and bases. They flavoured their bath bombs with their chosen flavours and colours to make lovely gifts to take home. Matthew Brown, a software developer from Genomics England led an assembly... for Middle and Upper Years pupils to discuss how advances in sequencing the genome have the potential to revolutionise drug treatment and early disease diagnosis. For further information about Genomics England, visit https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/about-genomics-england/ And finally, in the school theatre we held the first Science Fair at HCH. Students contributed work and projects that they felt had scientific underpinning. Works included models, research projects, and creative work inspired by science. Students, parents and teachers attended the science fair and were certainly impressed by the variety of displays and projects, from songs to mechanical models and large-scale poster presentations!See more
Science Week Day 3- Personality tests, DNA and sustainable energyAs Science Week continues, our students are full of enthusiasm for the variety of activities on offer. Each talk, workshop or demonstration is providing an opportunity to deepen their understanding of their Science curriculum and the world around them. Our Psychology teacher, Laraib Saeed provided an... opportunity for students to assess their own personality traits using the Big Five Personality test. The test is often used to help determine career paths based on how an individual would react in different situations. Middle and Upper years pupils attended a Science Week assembly on Sustainability led by Yasmina Mikhael. Yasmina is Head of Sustainability at Long and Partners and has a wealth of expertise in renewables and the built environment. And finally, Head of Science Abi Howard ran a workshop for Middle and Upper years pupils, explaining how DNA can be extracted from cells. Students had the opportunity to extract cells and DNA from kiwi fruit as part of the practical workshop! See more
Science Week 2020 Day 2- Bubbles, Our Brains and Big ReactionsIt is day 2 of Science Week and our students have been enthralled by some fantastic talks, workshops and practical demonstrations. Year 5 pupils from local primary schools joined HCH pupils from years 5,6 and 9 for an inspiring practical demonstration, led by Dr Thomas McCarthy Ward entitled “The Magic... Continue reading+8
Science Week 2020 starts with a bang! Today marks the start of British Science Week, a national celebration of all the sciences. The science department has organised an action-packed week of enriching lessons and activities for pupils of all ages! Today, pupils in the Middle and Upper years had the opportunity to take part in a heart dissection... workshop with Head of Science, Abigail Howard, ably assisted by our A level Biology students. The pupils were dissecting and analysing the different sections of the animal heart whilst discussing the use of dissection in medical and research practices. Our Early and Lower Years pupils were treated to an explosive assembly led by our Chemist, Dr Thomas McCarthy Ward. Children in Reception class to Year 4 watched in awe as Thomas demonstrated how light is produced in different ways, by heat, by chemistry, and by biology. The children discussed the many things scientists have learned by looking at light, from testing for poisons, to understanding distant stars. Today’s activities certainly whetted the apetite for a host of practical workshops, talks and demonstrations during the next four days at school. See more
HCH works towards Eco-schools Green Flag statusThe environment and natural world is treasured at HCH and with this in mind we are delighted to announce that we have begun our journey towards Eco-schools Green Flag status. This is an ongoing and multi-faceted project in which students take the lead to bring about positive environmental change in their... community both at school and at home. The first step has been to set up our school eco-committee in which representatives from across the school, from Year 1 to Year 13, meet to implement direct action in order to improve a variety of environmental factors across the school. This process starts with an environmental review whereby students conduct an audit of environmental initiatives and processes taking place (or not) throughout the school before then using this information to form the basis of an action plan. The audit examines numerous environmental elements based broadly around 10 topics (biodiversity, energy, global citizenship, healthy living, litter, marine, school grounds, transport, waste and water). We will be setting up a new eco-board in order to provide updates and information on the project that will be on permanent display in the main hall and will be in place in April 2020. As a student-led initiative, it is our students who will be implementing and facilitating the changes that will help improve our environmental practises and understanding. They will be reaching out to parents, governors and teachers alike to participate in this exciting process. Should you wish to learn more about the initiative please take a look at https://www.eco-schools.org.uk/ or contact Tom Clery at tcc@hchnet.co.uk See more