You’ll heartly believe what the Second Years have been up to during Monday’s Think! club…. Sam, Ben and Nayaaz reveal all in their reports, but be warned, it’s not for the faint-hearted!
When we arrived in B5 we were sure an exciting session of Think! would ensue. The previous week we had been discussing whether the physical heart was more important than the metaphorical one. After mixed opinions we were eager to know what more we could learn about this interesting subject and were happy to find out that this week we would be dissecting a lamb’s heart! Although this was not for the squeamish, Mr Langton led us through a very intriguing process which delivered new knowledge of the physical heart. We stuck our fingers through all of its valves and arteries and located the left and right ventricles. We undertook the task of cutting through the fat and muscle around the heart – surprisingly, the muscle was soft, however the fat was incredibly hard, but we learnt that at body temperature, fat is soft. Mr Langton taught us what the heart contains, how it works and why it has its properties. We used scissors to cut open the heart, and soon after we literally ‘pulled on the heartstrings’! Thanks to Ms Garrido-Soriano for organising this interesting experience. – Sam Colvine and Ben Francis
The past two weeks in Think! have been very busy. We have been looking at the heart. Last week, we were debating the importance of emotions (shown by the simplified heart symbol) and life (shown by the realistic, physical diagram of the heart.) With a few diversions into the realms of time travel and physics, we attempted to prove either that life without emotion isn’t worth living, or that without life, emotions don’t exist, depending on which camp we were in. Then, this Monday, we traded our usual classroom for a biology laboratory- we were to be dissecting hearts… With careful guidance from the biology teacher, we cut open our lamb hearts and located the ventricles, atria, valves and arteries. We observed the thickness of each side, and learnt how to cut through muscle. The most fun was squeezing the heart to recreate the pumping motion. Next week, we are going to be designing a new heart, using both the philosophical and biological insight we have gained. Who knows what Ms. Garrido-Soriano will think up for us next? – Nayaaz Hashim
On Tuesday, the long awaited inter-form Badminton and Table Tennis Competitions took place at lunchtime in the Sports Hall. The crowd went wild as 2J stormed to victory in both sports. Let’s hear from some of the competitors:
In a closely contested table tennis contest 2J were rightly victorious as to claim the cup with 2L losing to them in the final. The winning 2J pairs were Oliver Coles and Luke Paskin. Then Huw Harris and Sandy Mitchell brought it home with a convincing 15-6 win over 2L. – Luke Paskin
On Tuesday 5 December we had an inter-form badminton competition, inter-form is when all the six forms of our year compete to see who is the best. In the inter-form badminton we played with four of our best players against two other teams to decide the semi-finalists. The aggregate of the points is what really matteered. So we won our way into fourth place although we didn’t have all of our best players, but what we did have, was a lot of fun and experience playing each other and getting to know more people from different forms. – Vathshan Ramanakanthan
On Wednesday, six schools (Hampton, St Paul’s, Tiffin Boys’, Judd, KCS Wimbledon and John Fisher) participated in the Hampton School Paarlauf. Kabir explains all here:
The Paarlauf (a German word meaning pair) is a cross-country event where a team of three runners cover as much distance as possible in 24 minutes. Declan Connolly, James Bradley and Mohammed Kabir Sait represented Hampton in the U15 A team which placed first, while Danilo Delic, Luke Walsh and Thomas Netterfield claimed second place for Hampton’s U15 B team. – Kabir Sait
We have many boys to congratulate this week as our Second Years pick up more and more merits for impressive work, extra effort or random acts of kindness. Let’s say well done to Mac Crawford, Luke McNamara, Freddie Seddon, Joshua Ross and Adithya Arvind (10 merits), Alessandro Russell, Jake Murray, Kabir Sait and Oliver Pulfrey-Baker (20 merits), Oliver Glenn, Tom Olby and Fred Darley (40 merits), Sam Colvine (50 merits) and Ben Francis (70 merits).
Finally as it’s the season of good will we have been thinking about how we can help those around us. Next week, for example, Hampton will host the annual Hampton and LEH Christmas Quiz. The event will take place at 1.05 on Tuesday lunchtime in the Main Hall. Boys can request to play as a team and individuals are also welcome and will be put into a team.
Meanwhile some forms are clubbing together to buy a present from the Good Gifts catalogue while others are collecting tins and jars of food for the Hounslow Community Food Box. See your form’s Charity Reps ASAP to see how you can get involved with these festive good deeds.
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