On Friday 5th July, Year 10 GCSE and Year 12 IB Design Technology students embarked on an exciting journey to the Business Design Centre in Islington for the annual New Designers Exhibition. This event showcased the innovative work of newly graduated degree students across a wide range of design disciplines, offering our students a unique opportunity to witness the cutting edge of design first hand. The show offered a glimpse into the future of design. What made the experience truly exceptional was the chance for our students to engage directly with these emerging designers. They eagerly asked questions about the designers' creative processes, from the initial concept to the final product, gaining valuable insights into the design journey. This immersive experience not only broadened our students' perspectives but also ignited their passion for design, providing them with fresh ideas and motivation for their own GCSE/IB coursework.

Mrs T Papp, Design Technology Department

The Exhibition Through Student Eyes

As part of our Year 10 DT trip, we went to the Business Design Centre in Islington to see the Designers’ Exhibition, where we got the opportunity to see many new and innovative products, and even talk to some of the designers. We are currently in the process of developing our NEA (Non-Examination Assessment), so this was also an opportunity to take inspiration from these designs and help us with creating our own.

One of the first pieces that we saw was a portable, flat-pack grill for camping, where we got to speak with the designer and discuss his design process; he told us about his research into existing, portable grills and his dislikes with them, his initial design ideas, and even the history of grills and BBQs. His process was very similar to what we are currently doing in our NEA, and our conversation helped give us some ideas and inspiration about what our own products could be, especially as, for some of us, our chosen theme for the NEA is ‘eating away from home’. We particularly liked how the bag was designed to keep the parts of the grill separate and clean, with a smooth, silicone-like material inside to prevent stains.

Another great design we saw was a camping bag. It was a good example of containers for our brief ‘Eating away from home’, and was very versatile. It could be collapsed into a small rucksack for things where you only need a packed lunch or something, or could be expanded to become a bag for larger things such as a sleeping bag or a tent. It was good to see that as a part of eating away from home counts as camping, and so allowed for some extra thought to that area.  

INCLUSIVE DESIGN

We also came across a design called Footer by Rebecca Brown, which is a sensory kit aimed at neurodivergent individuals to help reduce stress and anxiety. The designer sought to support people with stress, depression, autism, and ADHD by encouraging safe stimming behaviours. The sensory kit is customisable, can spin, and includes various sensory textures. It's also portable, allowing those with anxiety or stress to have something to fiddle with on the go, and really inspired us as another theme some people chose for our NEA was “Educational toys and games”, and helped us consider fidget toys as a possible design.

There were so many other amazing designs that we saw that couldn’t fit into this article, but overall, we all really enjoyed this experience, as we got the opportunity to see so many creative and unique designs to take inspiration from, and talked to a lot of aspiring designers who gave us some amazing advice for when we will also be designing our own products. It was really inspiring to see these designers talk about their creations with true passion for their work, and we would really like to visit another one of these exhibitions in our own time in the future.

Lucy, Alex, Elin & Jessica 

 

 

On Thursday of last week, Steven Varty, a past student at BGS, spoke to a large group of Year 12s about the opportunities of a career in finance and banking. He discussed his successes and challenges as an Executive Director at Santander and spoke about the benefits of this industry.

Since joining the bank, his role has progressed to becoming the Sector Head of Trade & Working Capital. This informative talk opened the eyes of many students, demonstrating how rewarding a career in banking can be. Personally, as someone who was already hoping to follow a similar career path, I found Steven’s talk extremely helpful and reassuring, as he was completely honest about his experiences and how his career has developed since leaving Bexley Grammar School. This was very exciting to hear as I am someone who will be making decisions to hopefully pursue my own career in banking in just under a year. Not only was Steven’s talk beneficial for those already interested in banking, but many of my friends and other students in the year are now considering this future. Despite this talk having a focus on finance, Steven shared his knowledge of the recruitment process, including interview and application advice, making everyone at the talk feel much more educated and confident to make an informed decision when it comes to applying in the future. 

Megan Butler, Year 12

On Wednesday, the MFL department at BGS hosted a language debate with the prompt, ‘AI is a dangerous new tool in education’. The debate was hugely successful with 4 schools attending, and 19 teams competing in 6 different languages; German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese. Over the past few weeks, we have had a number of sessions rehearsing our arguments, both for and against, practising debating techniques and preparing to go head-to-head with Beths, Dartford and Trinity.

We met with the other schools and began our debates by flipping a coin, determining who was ‘for’ and who was ‘against’. The atmosphere was very supportive, with audience members of friends and teachers, yet tense as the debates sometimes got incredibly heated.

Speaking for all those at BGS who participated, the experience was incredibly helpful to real world experiences, talking about current issues with native speakers and others who are in the same boat as us, learning languages. I found my Spanish improved immensely, just through the few weeks I spent preparing it, and it has given me a new drive to improve to a new level of its native speakers.

The event ran smoothly, and everyone was so supportive of each other, with students from different schools and languages talking and getting to know each other. I am super proud of our school for hosting the event and hope for years to come students participate in language events like this, not only to help with confidence for learners but also to deepen connections with other schools and other speakers.

Ella Curl, Year 12

Five representatives from this year's Young Enterprise team, Illumina, competed against other school teams in the East London Finals of the Company Programme competition on Monday 22nd April. Students travelled to the BNY Mellon offices in London where they showcased their company. Students had already completed a detailed business report for the competition and needed to set up a trade stand to demonstrate and give information on their product - multisensory candles. The judges interviewed the five representatives at their stand where students explained their inspiration to improve mental health and how they came up with such a fantastic idea. They were then taken off to a separate interview room where judges more formally questioned them on the Company Programme process, their finances, experiences and next steps. After that, the team were greeted by other members of the team and parents who had travelled to London to show their support. Finally, the team needed to give a presentation to everyone at the event. They were the last to present but soon had the audience participating in finding hidden leaflets stuck to the bottom of their chairs to demonstrate the sheer number of people affected by a mental health problem. They did an excellent job of keeping their cool throughout the day. The most prestigious award - Best Company - was given to Illumina! The team were commended on their performance in all aspects of the competition and judges felt that this was a high-quality, professional product that could be a real success in the future.

Well done to the representing students; Max Campbell, Evie Ngyuyen, Luke Winter, Jasreen Ghag and Ethan Abbate for their exceptional performances and hard work in the lead up to this event. They represent a large team who are also responsible for the ideas, acumen, marketing and production in the business. The team has been competently led by Max, who has shown tremendous resilience throughout the process, and we're glad that he was recognised for his diligence in this way. A big thank you to Max's parents, who have been pillars of support for the team, from turning their house into a candle production factory to driving heavy stock all over London for their various events to helping students improve their marketing skills - we are all very grateful.

Illumina is going on to compete in the next stage of the competition in May, and we wish them all the very best of luck. 

Mrs Harris, Head of Economics and Business

What is the challenge?

The Bexley Grammar School’s University challenge is a competition between our school and the other 3 grammar schools in the Bexley borough: Beths Grammar School for Boys, Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar school and Townley Grammar for Girls. It’s organised similarly to the real life University Challenge quiz show in which teams of 4 students and 1 substitute from universities around the UK battle to find the most intellectual team. As a team, you must be the first to answer a ‘starter question’ for 10 points before the other teams and if answered correctly, your whole team gets the opportunity to answer 3 separate 5 point questions that are loosely tied to the original starter question. After 50 starter questions, the team with the most points is the winner.

Starting in 2022, the Bexley version works very similarly, but instead of 1 team vs another, it’s a single best of 4 teams to find the winners. After Beths won the initial 2022 Challenge, our Year 13 team of Akeel, Harry, Daniel, Pamela and Ross won the 2023 edition, which left our team of Leo, Zoe, Anqui and Imogen and I to retain the title, which we did after a tight battle with Chis and Sid that lasted all the way to the final 3 starter questions.

The Selection Process

Over the last two months, many of us in Year 12 attended the in-school selection rounds hosted by our previous team and the Head of Sixth Form, Mr Martin, to find the best combination of us for the team. Each Monday after school we had fun and enjoyable questions taken from the actual quiz show fired at us to find our team. Every week was an enjoyable experience with a less formal attitude than the final, and we all enjoyed swapping round our teams to see who we paired with best until Monday 13th March, when we found out our team. After a brief discussion with Mr Martin, Zoe and I were chosen as captain and vice captain, with Anqui and Leo filling out the rest of the starting line up, with Imogen as our substitute.

The Final

On Wednesday 20th March the final came. Despite all the preparation and planning, my nerves still ran high, which was not helped by the fact that in the audience we had around 30 teachers, headmasters, parents and students from the various schools with special guests of the former Mayor and current Vice-Mayor of Bexley Nigel Betts along with former Prime minister Liz Truss, who had come to support her daughter on the Townley team. After an early lead by us, Chis & Sid took a massive lead of 75 points which us, Beths and Townley slowly picked away at for the first half. In the second half, we moved ahead of the pack, leading to us and Chis and Sid being neck & neck on 235 points with 3 questions to go.

“ I was very nervous at the start and for most of it, but as I answered more questions and got more into the rhythm of it, it got easier and less stressful. I enjoyed all the bits of it but particularly discussing answers to bonus questions with my teammates, as they did not fail to make me laugh. The intense fight for first between us and Chis and Sid made the whole experience even more thrilling as it was very close the whole time".

Zoe Handscombe, Vice Captain

I can confidently say that my heart rate hasn't been so high for so long, and it still continued to rise going into this ‘play-off-esque’ moment. So when I answered the 2nd to last question to confirm the win, I felt as if the heaviest weight in the world had been lifted off my chest. This led to the final question of “What East Asian art style was the late Akira Toriyama known for?” being a sort of victory lap after we answered correctly with ”Manga” and the follow-up questions were a great end to the competition with us jokingly answering Liz Truss as an answer to a question on Prime Minister’s ages. In the end, the results finished as:

1st: Bexley 285 points

2nd: Chis & Sid 235 points

3rd: Townley 180 points

4th: Beths 150 points

Zoe and I were presented with the trophy by the Vice-mayor. Afterwards, we were able to celebrate with Mr Gilmore, Mr Martin, last year's team and our friends and family before taking a quick picture with ex-Prime Minister Liz Truss to top off the night.

The Future

After the amazing help from last year's team, without which none of this would have been possible, Mr Martin has asked us to help choose next year's team, which we happily said yes to, but we also have had other ideas that we would like to make possible. These included a possible continuation of the in-school practices as a club run by the team and also the possibility of making a house event out of the challenge.

Once again, I’d like to thank everyone who was involved with the team from last year's winners for coaching us, Mr Martin for selecting us and trusting me to be captain, the wonderful team from the borough that ran the event and the many people that came to support us and their respective schools. Finally, I’d like to thank the rest of the team who made this a brilliant experience that I’d recommend to any and everyone who believes they have the ability.

 Ashton Seager, Year 12

The Biology in Action trip certainly provided a useful and insightful look into the multitudes of different careers and opportunities within the broad subject of biology.  A small group of us, all higher biology students, attended the trip to Emmanuel Hall in Westminster, along with a few other schools too. The centre looked amazing, with amazing speakers there too. Every lecture was around 45 minutes long, discussing various different uses of biology in everyday life and so many different career paths instead of the presumed doctor, dentist, or veterinarian that always comes to mind to a lot of people, including me, when a career in biology is mentioned. There were six lectures throughout the day, varying from exam tips to research expeditions, virology, and even methods of saving species from extinction, such as the Northern White Rhino, which was certainly unique and interesting. To me, the most interesting lecture was the one on virology, with the speaker sharing her role in science and even sharing her method of discovering a once unknown outbreak of plague around 4000 years ago, which certainly inspired me to perhaps follow a career in that sector of science. Overall, the trip opened my eyes to many unique and exciting opportunities for me in science and widened my knowledge of the subject of biology and the impact it has on our living world.

George Claydon, Year 12

Overall, the trip was a great day out in such a nice venue; it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to be able to listen to such experiences from experts in the field. A variety of compelling lectures were given, one on the awesome experiences in the Amazon Rainforest, major trauma centres around the UK, an emotive talk on the Northern White Rhinos, a talk from Miss Estruch and a talk from a PHD completed doctor on her experiences with researching infectious diseases from-thousand year old human remains. Constantly engaging talks allowed all the students to be attentive all of the time. The day was all in all very eye-opening and definitely pushed me more towards Biology as a whole.

Shishir Gautum, Year 12