Onwards - July 2012 - South Wilts Grammar School for Girls

ONWARDS
Speech Day
Our annual Speech Day is a wonderful event held in Salisbury Cathedral every September. It
is an opportunity to congratulate students on their achievements of the previous year and
celebrate all our students’ hard work and commitment. You may be aware that we award
subject prizes for GCSE and A Level, as well as prizes for commitment, achievement and
community service for all year groups.
We are currently looking for sponsors who might be prepared to support a particular GCSE or
A Level subject prize. This might be an individual, company or group who wish to contribute
£15 each year and add their name to a prize. All prize-givers are invited to celebrate with us in
the Cathedral and at the drinks reception.
If you would be interested in sponsoring one of our prizes please contact Mr Jones at
smj@swgs.wilts.sch.uk.
We currently have sponsor vacancies for the following prizes: Prize for Deputy Head Girls;
Prize for Chair of 6th Form Committee; Prize for A Level German; Prize for A Level French;
Prize for A Level Physical Education; Prize for GCSE English; Prize for GCSE Geography;
Prize for GCSE History; Prize for GCSE Religious Studies; Prize for GCSE Art; Prize for
GCSE Music; Prize for GCSE Drama; Prize for GCSE German; Prize for GCSE French; Prize
for GCSE Information Communication Technologies. (Mr Jones)
Year 7 Mathematics and Languages Enrichment Activity
On 9th July 2012 (Montag oder Lundi), Year 7 spent the day taking part in a
mathematics and languages enrichment activity.
This was a fantastic opportunity for all the students, and involved translating
complicated maths problems from Deutsch or le Francais, to eventually solve. To
stand any chance of completing this difficult activity, each student learning German was
paired with another student learning French.
All pupils worked very well during the course of the day, although many had never met their
partner beforehand. After the event, a student from 7B commented, “We got on together very
well, and had become firm friends by the end of the day.” The challenges provided fantastic
opportunities for the year 7 students to expand their knowledge of vocabulary in the foreign
languages, and will be very useful to them in the future.
As well as testing the students’ linguistic skills, it also challenged their maths. The translated
puzzles were complex, and some even took the best mathematicians several attempts!
Luckily, the maths and modern languages teachers were always available to help, and agreed
that all the students had benefited greatly from the activity.
There was a wide variety of activities, some of which were more challenging than others. One
of the hardest involved making a solid cube from different sized blocks, which sounds much
easier than it is in practice! Other themes included tangrams, logic puzzles, shape games,
word problems and algebra.
A pupil from 7E commented, “I have really enjoyed the
day, and have gained some very useful vocabulary, as
well as some very valuable problem solving skills. This is
an event that I definitely think should be run again for
future Year 7’s, and I am sure that they would enjoy it
just as much as I have!”
Au revoir et Tschuss! (Connie Chamberlain and Amelia
French 7E)
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