WELCOME TO THE SECOND YEAR BLOG!
Happy half term, Hamptonians! I can’t believe we’ve made it to the end of our first half term; it has gone by so quickly but also feels like you’ve been Second Years forever! Well done on such a brilliant start to your Second Year, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you all so far. It’s been another great and busy week, full of musicals, sports and co-curricular clubs, so I’m sure you’re all very ready for the break!
I hope you all have a fantastic half term holiday, and don’t forget to let me know about any special achievements over the two weeks so we can celebrate your success when we return!
MERIT MILESTONES
Another bumper week for merits! Well done to the following Second Years:
A bumper week for merits!
Macsen Brown – 10
Alex Gancz – 10
Mattie Rogers – 10
Johnny McMonagle – 10
Edo Cominacini – 10
Yule Oh – 10
Jay Aragon – 10
Archie Skinner – 10
Navraj Dhillon – 10
Oscar Schofield – 10
Josh Button – 10
Sam Diggins – 10
Finn Readey – 10
David Wu – 10
Joshua An – 10
Jai Kothari – 10
Devan Dhariwal – 10
George Halberstadt – 10
George Vincent – 10
Inwoo Yoo – 10
Siddhant Shetty – 20
Joe Bates – 20
Manav Krishna – 20
Anthony Simonov – 20
Devam Kumarswami – 20
Armaan Virdee – 20
Shishir Vaddadi – 20
Oliver Yang – 20
Tutor Question of the Week
Each week the pupils decide on a question to ask all the Second Year form tutors. This week’s question is still linked to food, which seems to have been a bit of a theme for this half term!
What is your favourite cuisine? (Options given are the top four most popular based on our research!)
- Indian – Mr Worrall, Mrs Owen
- Chinese
- Italian – Miss Winstock, 2W, 2F, 2P, 2L
- Thai – Miss Holt, Miss Tiller, Mrs Whitwam (she even lived in Thailand for a while!)
Looking Back
I can’t believe that the half term is finished! It seemed that just yesterday I was walking nervously into School for my first day of Second Year. I had been nervous and asked questions to myself like: Would my teachers be nice? Would I find the classes hard? Now looking back, I find these questions silly as they are simple for me to answer now. It has definitely been a great half term and I look forward to coming back into School very soon.
By Siddhant S (2J)
Little Shop of Horrors Review
Great to hear so many of you made it to the Hammond Theatre this week to watch the spectacular Senior School musical, let’s find out more:
Over the past week, the Senior Musical of Little Shop of Horrors has been running. I won’t spoil it, but it was amazing! It was about a man in a plant store, and how he grew an amazing plant, that turned out to be animate, and ate humans! It was so funny to watch, the actors from Hampton and LEH were so talented and all of them were exceptional too. The production was excellently made, with a whole tech crew and orchestra behind the stage. It felt like I was at a West End show! The puppetry of the plant was also very good, my favourite being when the plant sung and started eating people! The cast did a really good job of practising and perfecting every little detail in the play. They have been performing for four days! The staff, crew and musicians were outstanding, they did so much hard work to make the show happen. It was truly amazing to see such a show.
By Vihaan K (2P)
Take a look at some of the photos from Little Shop of Horrors. Remember…don’t feed the plants!
Fantastic fundraising!
This half term, George S (2H), Dean B (2W), Louis S (2H), Matthew K (2H) and Joshua DL (2H) are taking part in a 24-hour Cyclethon in aid of CARA (Children At Risk in Asia). Between us, we will do 24 hours of cycling and aim to cover 100km as part of the effort for the main fundraising event of 24 hours of cycling with no breaks, only swapping the person who is cycling. The charity is raising funds to help underprivileged, malnourished children in Thailand and migrants get enough resources to live happily.
By George S (2H)
Cricket training
After a day at school, cricket training offers a welcome escape. This week’s session had some unexpected turns, making it a session to remember. We started with intense bowling drills in the outdoor nets. The satisfying thud of the ball against the stumps and the friendly competition among teammates created a great atmosphere. But when the weather took a turn for the worse and it started raining, we moved indoors to the Sports Hall. From the balcony, we had an unplanned break watching an exciting basketball game. The cheers from the crowd and the fast-paced action added a different twist to our training day.
Once the basketball game ended, we resumed our cricket training, this time focusing on our batting. The sound of balls meeting the bat was a satisfying backdrop as we worked on improving our skills. The combination of cricket practice and an unexpected basketball break made our training session quite interesting.
By Devam K (2B)
Subject of the week: Design and Engineering
Last Friday, I had Design Engineering with Ms Woodward. Right now, we are making metal miniatures – mini men made of steel. Two weeks ago, we started cutting two long holes in a rectangle to separate the two legs and two hands. I also cut the arms off, so that I put the arms to the side, to let him play the drums. I also bent the legs to allow him to be seated. Last week was the fun part though. I got to use a blow torch to weld together the drumsticks, arms, and body. It shot out a long blue flame with a small bright cone at the base. I welded them together and then used sandpaper to get the lumps off it and that was it for now.
By Shishir V (2J)
Remarkable Religious Studies
I have been really enjoyed my Religious Studies lesson this week, we are working on our own poster about Christmas in another country and inviting someone to a traditional festival. I decided to research about Christmas in Spain, as they have an interesting culture, and they celebrate Christmas differently and at a different time. Spain celebrates Christmas on 5 and 6 January and receive their presents on 6 January. Their Christmas dinner consists of roasted turkey with truffles with Mazapán (made of almonds, sugar and eggs) for dessert. However, in some north-west cities in Spain, they have seafood, including small crabs and lobsters. It was very fun researching about the traditional Christmas celebration in small and I really enjoyed Religious Studies this week.
By Oliver Y (2P)
Clubs of the week!
Diversity and Inclusion Club
Last Friday, my friends and I went to Diversity and Inclusion Club, after hearing about it from the teacher who runs it, our Biology teacher Mr Cumberbatch. Up in one of the biology labs, I arrived to see my friends and other boys and teachers sitting around a table, in a deep discussion about our identity. As I joined them, nervous and hungry for Mr Cumberbatch’s food which he said was top class, I sat down and added to a sheet listing all the things which makes us unique. It only took a few minutes for the first time nerves to settle before I chimed in with a few more points on a very interesting subject. As time wore on, us and the other three teachers became rapidly engrossed on the topic. It was a certainly enriching experience, as we understood more about the idea of losing or keeping your identity, and what it means to you. It was a definitely a fascinating discussion, and even though Mr Cumberbatch forgot to get food, next week he said he will order some special type of rice, so I would definitely recommend coming along and learning a bit more about yourselves and others. It is on a Friday at 12:35pm in S43.
By Vayun J (2W)
Drama Club
On Thursday, I had Drama Club where we are just starting learning Macbeth for our performance in a few months! A few weeks ago, we had auditions for certain roles in Macbeth like the witches, Macduff, and Macbeth – of course! Last week we got the results, and I was second witch in the first three scenes which was exciting since I hadn’t been in any plays for two years and hadn’t been in any at Hampton. So, we started off today by splitting into three sections and I rehearsed with Mrs Jones! Me and two other pupils started off the rehearsal by putting on our best witch accents and acting out the first one and a half pages off Macbeth which was fun, and we got very useful information from Mrs Jones about where we should come in and out as well as how the words fit in with the actions. In the end, I think it was a great thing to get involved in!
By Gabriel KS (2B)
History Society Quiz!
I have been to History Society every week of the term so far, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. As of yet, it has been a quiz every week, which I love, because I am a big fan of quizzes. The first round is general knowledge, where the quizmaster – generally Mr Roberts, Head of History – reads out a question like ‘What year did WWII start?’ We, my team and I, would write “1939” on our sheet of paper, and at the end of the round, we would mark it. The next round is my personal favourite. An AI will generate images based on prompts put in. These may be very accurate, or incredibly inaccurate, but it is great fun to guess the historical events pictured. The third round, and by far and away the most difficult is when the quizmaster puts a historical event into chat GPT and asks it to summarise the event, without using the name of the event. There are ten words stated, and you must guess three of the ten words to get a mark, and one or two of the words for half a mark. After all three rounds are done, the marks are added up and the four teams with the highest score get a box of maltesers! Last week, my team of Second Years came second even though there were lots of Lower Sixth and Upper Sixth teams there. History Society is great fun. It is in the Lecture Theatre at 1.10pm every Friday and so if you feel like it might be interesting, come and give it a try!
By Ben B (2B)
Chemistry Project Club
Waiting outside the lab, we knew this week of Chemistry Project Club was going to be a good one: we had made our first bath bomb batch last week and couldn’t wait to see the results. Additionally last week, Dr Puljc’s sweet supply had run out – so this week we were owed a double ration! As Dr Puljic opened the door, we hurried in, grabbing safety specs and dumping our bags at the back as we went.
We started a bit more carefully this time – a learning from last week – and carefully lifted the bombs out of the tray. Looking at them, we noticed that the mixture inside had poured out a bit from the mould before they had set. This gave them a lopsided back, but we disregarded that for the moment. With five minutes of cautious squeezing and pulling, we managed to ease out the bath bombs from their moulds. They smelled great! They were a bit crumbly and weren’t perfect, but we were very happy with our first batch.
Once we had finished admiring our work, we began making our next batch of bath bombs. Having decided that our previous batch would be our trial, but that this would be one of our ones used in the experiment. We began mixing. It began well, there were no breakages or spillages, we followed the instructions and we had put down tissue to catch chemicals, however as one of the final steps, we added the wet chemicals to the dry ones, and it began fizzing like crazy. Quickly, we spooned the mixture into the moulds. After being given my two sweets, me and my group left however, with hindsight, I think that perhaps we ought to have added the dry ingredients to the wet ones, not the other way round. Hopefully this batch still turn out well – I will find out next week!
By Joshua D (2H)
Tech Club
Personally, I regard Tech Club as the best club ever, and I have chosen it for this week’s Club of the Week. It is just like Design Engineering, but with much more emphasis on the practicality and fun instead of the learning about ‘metal types’ and making PowerPoints. In Tech Club we get to design based off of an example and make it ourselves (sometimes aided by the handy laser cutter). So far we have made self-recharging night lights (with circuitry solder by ourselves), laser etched designs on acrylic and right now we’re making a desk decoration, with wire supporting laser-cut acrylic shapes. Tech Club improves design skill and making skills, it is very fun. I would highly recommend going to it.
By Peter L (2F)
Geography Club
This Wednesday I went to Geography Club and learnt interesting facts and had a great time. This week we did an extremely difficult Geography quiz on the UK, we got into groups trying to attempt each answer. I learnt lots of new facts from Geography Club that I never would have known before. It was interesting and funny watching some of educated guesses people made for a few answers. This was a brilliant experience and I will definitely be coming back. For those who have not been to Geography Club I would highly recommend attending at G67 Wednesday at 12:35pm.
By Danyal P (2J)
SPECIAL SHOUTOUTS
We love to hear about what you have been getting up to outside of school and to celebrate your successes in the Second Year Blog! Please do send any information about any of your achievements through to Mrs Whitwam. v.whitwam@hamptonschool.org.uk
QUIZ OF THE WEEK
Well done to everyone who had a go at last week’s quiz. Big shout out to Form 2J and 2W with the most entries. Merits go to:
2J: Siddhant S, Shishir V, David W, Henry S, Devan D, Danyal P, Josh B
2L: Macsen B, Alexander A, Rajvir S, Armaan V, Konrad G
2W: Vayun J, Anthony S, Brooklyn N, Dean B, Leon Y, Siyun P, Isaac d Q
2B: Joe B, Ekam R, Jiashan L, Pierce B, Devam K
2H: James G, Joshua D-L, Joshua L, Manilo C, Matthew K, Lucas T
2F: Oscar F, Oscar S, Ben J, Daniel S, Aiden F, Eeston Z
2P: Oliver Y
Take a look at this week’s questions – have a go yourself or challenge people at home and see if they know the answer. Points for the Interform Competition will be awarded to the form with the most entries over the term.
This week’s quiz questions come to us from Joshua A (2J). Why don’t you have a go and enter your answers here.
Here are the answers from last week’s quiz:
- How many countries still have Shilling as currency? Bonus point: Which countries? Four – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Somalia
- What is the name of the biggest technology company in South Korea? Samsung
- What is the name given to Indian food cooked over charcoal in a clay oven? Tandoori
- What is the circumference of the Earth? 40,075 km
- Dump, floater, and wipe are terms used in which team sport? Volleyball
