Bablakenews
Recognition for Bablake’s successes Georgia wins prestigious scholarship Congratulations to talented linguist Georgia Powell in the Lower Sixth who has won a prestigious German government scholarship (Internationales Preisträgerprogramm) to tour and study in Germany this summer. There was fierce competition this year with only eight places available, despite hundreds of applicants. She had to write an essay in German on the Olympic Games and the positive and negative impact they will have on London and Great Britain. Georgia also had to submit an A level essay and a reference from her German teacher. The programme provides a unique opportunity for pupils to get first-hand experience of German life and culture and improve their German language skills at the same time. Georgia will spend a month, all expenses paid, travelling around Germany visiting places such as Bonn, Berlin, Cologne and Munich. She will visit schools and undertake project work, as well as spending time living with a German family. On her return to the UK, she will share her experiences with primary pupils at St. Osburg’s, where she volunteers once a week teaching the pupils German. She will also talk to pupils learning German at Bablake. Look out for a full report of Georgia’s trip in the next issue of The Lion. For more details and to read the winning essay, visit www.ukgermanconnection.org/scholarships Daniel Cotton Congratulations to Daniel Cotton on being named winner of the 2012 British Computer Society-Coventry Branch-ChallengeIT Competition. Daniel’s design for Massey Ferguson’s Junior Football Club impressed judges from university Computer Science departments and major IT employers and he won the category for Mobile Phone App Design.
Engineering Education Scheme Assessment and Celebration Day After starting work on their design brief in October, the group finally showed off their hard work at the Midlands Area celebration day in Solihull. Working under the enthusiastic and encouraging guidance of their engineering mentors, Mauricio and Chris from sponsor company Arup, the group displayed a detailed model backed up by a comprehensive written report. The team of Lower Sixth pupils impressed judges with their confidence and a thorough understanding of technical details. Their solution showed how Network Rail could improve sustainability and also included a novel and attractive design for a new style of overhead gantry for the electrification of a viaduct in Manchester. The team also managed to win a quiz on the day to identify famous engineers and inventors from their photographs. Congratulations to all the team and link engineers for their hard work and persistence over the last two terms. Gold CREST awards were awarded to the team. Cicero competition In March, eight Sixth Form pupils travelled to Malvern for the annual Cicero competition. This is a competition which brings together students from all over the world in their study of Latin and Classical Civilisation. Latin students were asked to translate an unseen passage of Latin under examination conditions, whilst Classical Civilisation students had to answer a series of questions on the journey of Aeneas. All our pupils are to be highly commended for giving up a Saturday at a very busy time of year to answer examination questions. Particular congratulations go to Marlie Cummings, whose achievement in being placed fourth nationally of all the Lower Sixth Latin students, was outstanding.
Checkmate The Bablake chess teams have had another successful season. In the Coventry Chess League, the A team finished third with Daniel Rowlands leading the team; playing against international players, he scored a very credible 6.5 out of 12. George Esworthy had the best record, scoring 9.5; he also finished second in the League Lightning Tournament. Shell Former Rajen Parekh scored 8 and the rest of the team contributed well, with Matthew Rowlands and Jonathan Leong scoring 6 and Tom Hingston 5. In the B team, top scorers were Albert Jie with 5.5, Arun Nahar with 5 and Vikesh Puri with 4.5. Alongside George, Daniel Rowlands, Matthew Rowlands, Jonathan Leong, Harriet Rowlands and Tom Hingston also played in the Lightning Tournament. At the end of the season George Esworthy won the Rowlands Cup, beating Daniel Rowlands (winner of the event for the last two years) in the final.
Sam strikes gold... Congratulations to Sam Yang, who has won a Gold Award in the 2012 RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) International Chemistry Olympiad. This competition aims to identify the best Chemists in British schools and Sam scored very highly on a paper that covered topics as diverse as cholesterol-lowering pharmaceuticals, the causes of curly hair and a ‘nano’ car. Sam, who has kept UCAS offers to read Chemistry at Imperial College (London) and Durham University, is obviously delighted with his performance while Dr Patrick Knight, Head of Chemistry, said: ‘I have had the pleasure to teach a continual flow of superb Chemists over the last 15 years at Bablake but Sam deserves particular credit for being just the second pupil to have received this particular accolade.’ Sam follows in the footsteps of former pupil Hitesh Bansal who won this award in 2010.
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