Maths Student of the Week

Naima 9R - For enthusiasm and dedication to any topic or activity that we cover in Maths, and for taking part in any extra Maths where possible. You are an excellent mathematician. Keep it up!

Visit to City St George’s university

To celebrate International Women's Day, 25 students from years 7 and 8 visited the Computing department at City St George’s University on March 5. The day focused on Artificial Intelligence, and students were given the opportunity to ask a panel of experts’ questions in the field. The panel was impressed by the thoughtful nature of the students' enquiries.

In the afternoon, the students participated in a hands-on session that explored how decision trees and probability are used to predict and calculate AI answers. The session focused on N-grams, which are continuous sequences of words or symbols (tokens) in a document. N-grams are a fundamental concept in data science and computer science and have a wide range of applications, including building machine learning models and AI.

All in all, students had a great day, made even better by the free snacks on offer!

 

Empowering Women by using Technology

In collaboration with UCL university, students have been researching and designing posters to celebrate how women have been empowered by technology.

Here are some examples of work students have produced:

These posters have been entered into a competition to win prizes and will be on display at UCL.

Ms Man

V&A National Schools Challenge

Incredibly, we had two teams in the final of the V&A National Schools Challenge, a prestigious award celebrating design and innovation skills in young people.

Students from around the country pitched their ideas to a panel of celebrity judges, including TV presenter Liam Charles, creative technologist Jude Pullen, Radio Host and TV presenter Angellica Bell, and V&A Director of Learning Helen Charman.

Both teams did extremely well pitching their concepts for a ‘Smart Pot’ helping young people with their cooking skills and Glow Cycle, a product to help cyclists navigate busy streets more safely.

Students also had the opportunity to take part in fun and engaging workshops and activities at the museum, including work with a ceramicist and recycling gurus ‘Are you Mad?’.

Team Glow Cycle came away with an award for Best Pitch, though what I’m most proud of and impressed with is how supportive and encouraging the students were of each other and the confidence they displayed in presenting really dynamic and engaging pitches to a large audience.

Our continued success in this competition has become quite remarkable with Tristram Hunt stating that CSG are always the ones to watch!!! 

Well done everyone that took part!

Ms Ronayne

Success for CSG Musicians

We are incredibly proud of the following Year 12 musicians who deserve all their glory!

• Jess, who has been invited to be the principal viola of the National Youth Orchestra.
• Dora, who won the 15-18 year old solo violinist class at the recent North London Festival of Music.
• Lilah, who has been accepted at Trinity Laban as a singer in their Junior department. 

The hard work that they have all had to put in to get to this point is truly inspiring!

Ms Segal

Channel Crossing 2025

I’m Eireann, a year 11 student at CSG. At the end of June, I will be attempting to swim the Channel as part of a relay team made up of four 16-17 year olds from Anaconda & Hackney Swimming Clubs.

We are attempting to raise funds for Cancer Research and the reason I have accepted this challenge is that I have a friend whose family has been affected by cancer, and I am swimming for them.

Swimming doesn’t scare me as I am a National swimmer who trains daily, and I play netball competitively for the local Cumberland team, so I consider myself fit enough. The challenge will be the cold water and swimming through smacks of jellyfish.

Please support us in whichever way you can by scanning the QR code - no donation is too small.

 

Stage Combat Workshops

This week saw the final meeting of the Drama and Stage Combat workshop group for Years 7, 8 and 9. We have been meeting all term on Wednesdays after school with the brilliant fight director Lydia Fitzwilliams to develop our skills in stage combat.

Students have encountered a huge range of stage combat moves and techniques, including falls, punches, kicks, hair-pulling, boxing, and fighting with weapons and found objects. All of this learning was brought to a fantastic close this week when students devised their own combat sequences using a complex series of moves that they have honed over the past months.

“I gained confidence and made new friends all while learning new skills. I felt it challenged me in a new way and I loved coming up with my own fights.” Delphia K.

“I loved the dragging and hair-pulling and learnt a lot of new things in stage combat! "I would love for this to happen again!” Lizzie P.

“I loved making our own routines in stage combat and not just copying ones made for us. I learnt lots of stage combat moves and how to work with others. I certainly gained confidence in falling because I was nervous about falling at first. This course exceeded my expectations, and I’d love to do something similar again.” Lila I.

"It was a really fun, great experience. Lydia Fitzwilliams was an amazing teacher, carefully steering us around difficult moves while making sure everyone was safe and had fun. I felt that there was a lot of freedom in our choreography and decision-making. I learnt a lot of professional moves and I would love to do something similar again.” Clara J.

The results were very impressive. Well done to the excellent students who participated, and many thanks to the wonderful Lydia for her calm and knowledgeable leadership.

Ms Cohen

Visit to The Brit School

On Thursday, 20 March, the Dance Company visited The Brit School, celebrating the Day of Dance.

Here are some comments from our Dance Ambassadors:

The Dance Company trip to the Brit School was incredible. We not only got to see the dance aspect, but we also saw the element of Musical Theatre that the school provides. It is a diverse school with many gifted students, and we were so delighted to partake in an experience like this. During the day, we did a dance workshop, and were taught by an alumni of the school. He encouraged us to go hard and perform our best and that is exactly what we did! We also had a Q&A session and performed for the students there! We loved going, and are excited about more trips like this in the future. Mia 9R

Our dance trip to The Brit School was fantastic! We started by taking a class with one of their teachers, who taught us amazing choreography and gave us tips to improve our dancing. It was really cool to learn in that environment with such a great teacher. After the class, we had a Q&A with the students, where we got to ask about their experiences at the school and what it’s like being a student there. We also got to watch a dress rehearsal for a musical theatre play, and it was incredible! The performers were so talented, and it was inspiring to see how hard they worked and all the effort put into their performance. We also got to perform our own dance in front of the students and teachers – it was a bit nerve-wracking, but also so much fun. It was such a great day, and we all came back feeling very inspired! Rijana 10T

It was such an amazing and inspiring experience for everyone!

Year 12 Art Trip To Amsterdam

Last week a group of Art, Photography and History of Art students went to Amsterdam to see the amazing art on offer in the city's many art galleries.

The first day was really busy. We dragged ourselves out of bed for breakfast at 7:30 (too early!) and went to the Van Gogh museum. It was amazing to see so many world-renowned works of art in one place, and to get a sense of Van Gogh’s techniques and his inspirations. I found it interesting that he was influenced by Japanese art, particularly traditional Japanese woodcuts. There was also an exhibition of Anselm Keifer’s work, showcasing his vast, textural canvases alongside works by Van Gogh, who was a big inspiration for Keifer.

The Anselm Keifer exhibition continued in the Stedelijk Museum, with more of his mixed media and sculptural works depicting war-torn landscapes. We then had time to explore the whole museum. In the basement there was a very interesting exhibition about the relationship between humans and wool, which was an unusual blend of art, science and history. We then walked through a picturesque part of Amsterdam and managed to get to Rembrandt House without Mr Aronsohn getting us lost. In the house we found a detailed re-creation of what it would have been like when Rembrabdt was living there. It turns out that Rembrandt was also influenced by Japanese art, as the Netherlands had a monopoly on trade with Asia, so a lot of Dutch artists would have been able to access Japanese objects and art.

The next day, we went to the Rijksmuseum, which owns over 1 million objects. We saw an extensive exhibition of American Photography and then saw some of the museum’s permanent collection, such as Rembrandt’s Night Watch, showcasing his mastery of light as a way of directing the viewer's gaze. We then walked to the Foam museum where there was a beautiful exhibition of photography by Diana Markhosian, depicting her reconnecting with her estranged father. The exhibition used photography, film and ephemera to weave together Markhosian and her father’s story. Upstairs there was a harrowing and impactful collection of Sakir Khader’s photography, depicting the effects of the war in Palestine, highlighting the lives of women whose sons had been killed by Israel. The main exhibition at Foam was a retrospective of Saul Leiter’s photography, who was a pioneer of colour photography. His work was less about its subjects, and more about the aesthetic and composition of the photographs. Reflections, partially obscured faces and strong pops of colour feature heavily in his work.

It was a really enjoyable and inspiring trip. Thank you to all the staff who made it happen!

Oh also, an honourable mention has to go to Albert Heijn, the greatest supermarket in the Netherlands, and possibly the world.

DofE Bronze and Silver

We've successfully completed the day's training for all students. They've been busy creating route cards and marking their routes on maps, which is a great step forward. They're currently working on meal planning and organising their equipment.

We are reaching out to see if any parents have lightweight camping equipment they'd be willing to donate. We're particularly interested in 2/3 person tents, serviceable down sleeping bags, sleeping mats, and 60+ litre rucksacks. If you have any items you'd like to pass along, we'd greatly appreciate them.

Lastly, please remember to check your ParentPay accounts to ensure payment for your daughter's expedition is complete.

The expedition dates are as follows:

Silver:
May 16-18 and June 12-15 

Bronze:
June 27-29

Mr Doyland