Celebration Evening Year 13
At the beginning of term we welcomed back our former Year 13 students to celebrate their exam and whole school achievements before they headed off to pastures new.
Our guest speaker, Mr Fred Gray, Community Governor for the school, presented the awards and spoke about his life in the Armed Forces and his current role in the City of London as a compliance officer and the life skills they had taught him. This year’s co-hort of students attained the best A-Level results ever achieved in the school’s history following on from our similar successes last year.
We wish them well in their future careers and studies.
Hannah Gallagher
We welcomed back Hannah Gallagher, Alumni student and England International Rugby player. Hannah has generously given up her time to help coach Girls' rugby at Birchwood with Miss LaLonge. She has shared her wealth of experience, skills and knowledge with all the girls. As an ex England international, Hannah has also attended some PE classes to help to promote Rugby as a girls' sport. It has been an amazing start for the students of the Girls' Rugby club, which takes place every Wednesday after school.
We would like to thank Hannah on behalf of students and staff for her time.
Miss LaLonge
Biodiversity at Epping Forrest
Twenty five Year 12 students went to Epping Forest on a field studies trip to investigate how different abiotic factors affect the abundance of plant species. After an introduction to the use of quadrats and how to identify different plant species, students spent the morning randomly sampling the distribution and height of bracken in two areas of the forest.
After a quick lunch, students compared the biodiversity of two different ponds. A wide variety of invertebrates and other organisms were found, including water scorpions, aggressive dragonfly nymphs and several species of newts.
Mrs Smith
Science
KBD Dance
The Dance department invited KBD Dance, a local dance school in Bishop’s Stortford, to Birchwood to deliver a jam packed Commercial/Hip-hop workshop to our talented dance students.
The evening was a huge success and the Dance studio was bursting with energy for the whole two hours. Students from Years 7-10 danced their socks off to a fun, upbeat routine that gave students a real buzz. All students left the studio laughing and smiling having made the most of a fantastic opportunity.
The students were excellent and KBD Dance commented on the commitment and dedication of our students. Well done to all involved.
If you would like to find out more about the weekly classes that happen with KBD dance please visit www.kbddance.co.uk
KEEP DANCING!
Miss Adams
Stonewall school role model
Stonewall school role model Rabbi Irit Shillor from the Reform Community Harlow recently visited us.
Thank you Irit for answering our questions, hopefully we can arrange a visit to the synagogue.
Rotary Technology Young Engineer Challenge
Well done to Foundation Team who won their category at the Rotary Technology Young Engineer Challenge held at Birchwood yesterday.
Many local schools took part. It was fascinating to see how students invented instruments to meet the requirements of the challenge they were set.
Autumn Music Concert
It was a wonderful evening with many fantastic performances.
Congratulations to all students who took part and made it such a special evening.
Remembrance Rocks
As we commemorate the 100 year anniversary of WW1 the school wanted to remember each of the individual Stortfordian soldiers who died and we set ourselves the target of painting poppies on rocks together with the names of the 208 Stortfordians who are remembered on the town’s war memorial.
The idea was inspired by a combination of the ‘Shrouds of The Somme’ project and also the ‘Stansted Stones’ idea you may have seen on Facebook. We accidentally missed the end of WWI and went into WWII so rather than leaving the project unfinished we have created remembrance rocks for the remainder of the town’s fallen, as commemorated on the town’s war memorial.
Special thanks to Mr Morton for making this possible.
Christmas Dinner Tickets 2018
Christmas Dinner Tickets now on sale from the cafe until Friday 30 November.
Download the Christmas Dinner 2018 menu poster
Frantic Workshop
Year 10 and 12 Drama students were involved in a Frantic Assembly workshop led by a professional actor, Richard James-Neale. The style of Frantic’s work is to create non-naturalistic pieces through the use of movement and music and the purpose of this workshop was to inspire students to work in this style as they prepare for their devised exam pieces. The work created was touching, creative and thoughtful and Richard described the students as ‘warm and engaged.’