Welcome to the Second Year Blog!
It is the end of another week and you have all certainly been very busy! We have our winning cake entry, a mentor interview and news from Geography and Biology!
MERITS
A big well done to the following boys for reaching their merit milestones this week. Keep up the great work!
Alexander Stylianou – 10
Jian Graffe – 30
Trivikram Prashanth – 40
SENIOR MENTOR INTERVIEWS
In our weekly blog this half term we are featuring an interview with one of our senior mentors. This week, thank you to Josh Bartholomew for answering the questions posed by our blog reps!
What are your top tips for learning at home effectively?
Try and make sure you don’t work anywhere near your phone and you’re completely free of distractions. I’ve also found it beneficial to work with my camera on, as then you can interact with your classmates more easily.
What advice would you give when it comes to choosing subject options for Third Year and beyond?
It sounds simple, but do what you enjoy – you’ll always do best at these subjects! I’d avoid thinking too far ahead, as everything will fall into place.
How are you keeping active during lockdown?
It’s pretty tricky, but motivating myself to try and go out as much as possible, even when I don’t feel like it! Exercise with one other person (to make sure it’s within the rules!) is a good way of ensuring you keep active.
What sport are you doing?
Cricket is my main sport, which obviously isn’t really happening at the moment, but at School I play Social League. I’d definitely recommend it when you get to Fifth Year. During lockdown, I’m trying to keep up with Mr Mills’ challenges.
What other hobbies do you have?
I love to read, and also watch a lot of sport. In normal times, I also like to socialise with friends too, but that’s on hold for now.
Now that you are in the Upper Sixth, what advice would you give for successfully navigating each year at School?
I’d say two main things: firstly, do as many extra-curricular activities as you can – everyone says it, but I think lower down the School it’s harder to appreciate the incredible opportunities on offer; secondly, to recognise that failure is as important as success – you’ll learn so much from mistakes that you make, so it’s not worth worrying too much about them.
What is your most memorable School experience?
Definitely when we went to Shrewsbury to watch the First XI win the ESFA final in 2019 – it was such an incredible occasion, and all 800 or so Hamptonians who were there had so much fun. That’ll stay with me for a while.
If you could go back in time, what would you like to say to your Second Year self?
Tough one! I’d probably tell myself to listen to teachers more – they’re pretty much always right. Also, to focus more in lessons, as it makes life so much easier in the long run.
LANGUAGE TASTER LESSONS
I know that you have all really enjoyed your language taster lessons this week. Take a look at the video below to get a flavour of what went on!
BOOK CLUB
Book group started this week, thank you to Avi (2H) for telling us more!
This week book club started virtually for Second Years. We read as much of a book as we want and discuss why we liked or didn’t like it. This week we selected Lord of the Flies by William Golding to read, a classic book that we are told is also really entertaining. The books we read have a whole range of genres and are chosen by ourselves, and anyone is welcome to join!
Book club is on Thursdays at 12.35. If you would like to join, please email Mrs McLusky so that you can be sent a Teams link.
CrEative Writing Awards 2021
Calling all budding authors! Do you fancy seeing your name in print? Have you always wanted to put pen to paper? Well now’s your chance as it’s time for the Hampton School Creative Writing Awards 2021!
To enter, write a short action adventure story of no more than 1,000 words and email your entry to CreativeWritingAwards2021@hamptonschool.org.uk by Friday 26 February.
All information can be found on the Firefly section for the Creative Writing Awards link below:
creative writing awards 2021 information
Young adult fiction author Sara Grant will give personalised feedback to all shortlisted finalists in each of the age group categories. Book vouchers are up for grabs too, and the winners will have their writing published in this summer’s edition of Lion Print, Hampton’s Creative Arts magazine.
Take a listen to Angus from our School Captains team and some of our creative writers from across the year groups to find out more:
ENVIRONMENT COMPETITIONS
Well done to Oliver (2J) who has sent in a picture of his lemon tree seedling!
“We got a number of seeds from a fresh lemon, and this is the only one which has survived. It took several months for it to grow to this height. Now it is sitting on a window ledge (it is still very small)”.
I am sure it will be exciting watching this grow!
BAKING COMPETITION!
Well done to everyone who sent in images of their amazing cakes – they all looked absolutely delicious!!
The winning cake this week was made by Raphael (2W) and I’m sure you will agree that the decoration is pretty amazing!!
GEOGRAPHY
In Geography the Second Year have been learning about Environmental Disasters and Concerns. These are man-made events that have had or are continuing to have, negative consequences on people and the environment.
Well done to Falak (2B) for his thoroughly researched video on the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster that you can watch here!
Boys have also been looking into the causes, impacts and possible solutions to plastic pollution in our oceans!
Here are some great examples of infographics from Sam (2H) and Elliot (2H):
And from Marin (2J) and Oscar (2B)
And read some great letters from Ollie (2W) and Sam (2W) here
BIOLOGY
In Biology this week many of you were tasked with doing a bird watch! Thank you to Eddie (2J) for telling us more!
This week for biology, for a chance to take a break from being on screens, and to help out the RSPB in their Great Garden Birdwatch, we were tasked with doing an hour if birdwatching and recording the number of birds we see landing, and what type, and then submitting our results to the RSPB via a form, before the end of the weekend. The types of birds that we were most likely to spot would be blackbirds, black-headed gulls (commonly known as seagulls) and robins, amongst many others. Some of the best ways that you could use to identify the birds are: the colours of their feathers; their size and shape; their songs; the shape of their beak; and their legs and feet.
It looks like lots of you really enjoyed this and had some great success!
Trivikram (2P) snapped these birds on the Thames
Raphael (2W) managed to take these great photos!
SNOW!
Thank you to Trivikram (2P) for sharing a picture of his snowman! I am sure lots of you enjoyed the snow at the weekend, so if you have any pictures you would like to share of snowy scenes then please do send them in!
PE & SPORTS
Looking for a workout to do this weekend? Here is Mr Hooper with another Beat the Coach challenge for you to try:
TRIVIA
Have a go at our weekly trivia questions and send in your answers for a merit!
This week’s questions have been set by Eddie (2J)
Here they are:
- What is the smallest country in the world?
- How many countries still have the shilling as a currency?
- Who was the youngest British Prime Minister?
- Which English city was once known as Duroliponte?
- Who won the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2019?
- Which football team has won the Champions League/ European Cup the most?
- Which nuts are used in marzipan?
- Which of these three isn’t a berry: Strawberry, banana or lemon
- Who is the only singer to have performed more than one James Bond theme song?
- True or false: An Emu can fly?
Answers to last week’s questions:
- How large are the largest hands on a teenager? A whopping 23.3cm!
- How many people were in the largest human image of a rocket? 11,443 people!
- How tall is the tallest cantilevered building? 314.2m
- How old was the youngest Tetris champion? 16 years old
- How much does the world’s most expensive car cost? 18 million dollars!!!
