Hills news April 2020

Hills Road Performing Arts students take centre stage See page 6

Computational Thinking Challenge finalist.

Not goodbye, but good luck. See page 8

Hills news

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See page 5

A termly round-up from Hills Road Sixth Form College.

April 2020 www.hillsroad.ac.uk

Esports champions

Hills students are the British Esports Championships League of Legends season winners.

Like football, hockey or netball, League of Legends has the challenges and rewards of any other team game; players have to work towards a common objective.

DAVE WRIGHT See page 5

Hills annual charity run goes virtual In honour of our 11th annual charity run, the College invited students, staff and friends of the College to take part in a virtual 5K run to mark what would have been the whole College Bubble Run!

This year, the annual run was in aid of STARS Children’s Bereavement Services and Thrombosis UK, and in memory of two members of staff who sadly passed away last year.

Continued on page 3

Shannon runs for England Year 13 student Shannon Flockhart represented England at a cross country race in Belgium. See page 7

Also inside: Find out who is on the new Student Council. See page 2 ›› Ski course. See Page 3 ›› Big Bang Competition winners. See page 4 ›› Sports news. See page 7 ››

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AT A GLANCE

Hills embraces online learning

It is, without doubt, one of the most challenging years the College and its wider community has ever faced and we have nothing but admiration and pride for our students and staff who have worked tirelessly to adapt to online learning.

Before the lockdown started, every student was surveyed to ensure they had the relevant hardware at home and were able to access the College’s vital online learning environment. Where necessary, resources were also given to students to make sure everyone

studying at the College could continue to learn through Hills Online.

From Monday 23 March, students and staff embarked on lessons delivered using Microsoft Teams which has proved to be a great success. Students and teachers alike are developing new ways of learning together and the collaboration and sharing of ideas has been remarkable.

Alex Gosling Vice Chair

Abbie Law Secretary

Finlay Low Treasurer

Tilda Kime Charities

Joe Pinner Welfare, Equality & Diversity

If you have not yet explored our online resources please visit www.hillsroad.ac.uk/hills-online.

Mini Moos come to Hills Road!

Hills students were given the opportunity to decorate their very own Mini Moo, called Vegan Geometry!

‘Cows About Cambridge’ is a free public art trail of individually designed Cow

Anna Wallis Chair

sculptures; Mini Moos are designed by young people from the area. You can follow our Mini Moo’s journey by searching #cowsaboutcambridge.

Violet Littlewood Societies

Yana Rachova Social Events

Adam Irvine-Legge Environment

Noah Telford-Reed Communications & Social Media

Student Council 2020 Student Council elections saw over 25 candidates come forward to be elected.

After significant campaigning, the College is delighted to welcome its new Council members and we look foward to seeing their manefesto pledges taking effect around the College.

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Connect with us at @HillsRoadNews

Students visit the Ziller Valley, Austria

in brief Thanks to Annelies Mortier, a senior Kavli Institute Fellow in Exoplanets at the University of Cambridge for her fascinating talk on Exoplanets; planets outside the solar system!

Hills Library assistant and author of Seven Days of You and The Summer of Us, Cecilia Vinesse, spoke about her path to publication and the things she wished she’d known about as an aspiring writer.

Hills annual Progression Week took place from 11-14 February.

The event is designed to inspire Year 12s about their future career plans. Over 45 speakers visited the College across four days to talk about their career paths. Professions included healthcare and medicine, technology and coding, marketing, advertising, law and property. The event also welcomed former students to speak about their experiences.

Students and staff travelled to the Ziller Valley in Austria for the annual ski course during the February half term holiday. The course caters for all

abilities and provides a great way for students to make new friends at the College. The group had a superb trip and gained many new skills from the experience.

Cover story continued With students and staff alike studying and teaching remotely, a virtual run was the perfect way to bring the College community together, to have fun and to share experiences digitally while raising money for two extremely good causes.

Participants were invited to take part by whichever means they wanted to from running, walking and cycling to any other method at their disposal, and they did not disappoint!

The virtual countdown started runners off at 12.30pm on Friday 27 March. To prove they had lasted the distance, participants uploaded selfies, videos and images of their routes to the Microsoft Teams Virtual 5K run page.

Participants included runners, walkers, skateboarders and cyclists plus students, staff, kids and dogs.

We would like to thank everyone who took part, including the team that organised the event and for the generous supporters who sponsored runners and donated money; £1,198 has been raised so far.

We would also like to say a big thank you to Arm who sponsored the event; the run wouldn’t have been possible without their support.

£1,198 raised for charity so far

The College celebrated World Religion Day on 20 January with a vibrant display that showcased how each of the different faiths, followed by Hills’ students, support peace and why they are relevant in today’s society.

“I think the World Religion Day event was a fantastic initiative as it allowed for intra and inter-faith dialogue which is much needed in today’s secular society.

KHIDR, YEAR 13 STUDENT

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COMPETITIONS

Big Bang competition special prize category winners Huge congratulations to Max Hurlstone, Aly Champion, Arnav Koshy, Arunav Bagla, Annie Noonari and Sanjeet Chatterjee for being awarded the Sainsbury Wellcome Special Prize in the Big Bang Competition 2020 which recognises and rewards young people’s achievements in all areas of STEM. Having already gained an Innovation Award for the ‘Smart Glove’, these exceptional students have gone on to win this prestigious competition.

The project brief began as a challenge to solve an engineering problem through the collaboration of ideas between a team of sixth form students and a local engineering company. The team worked with engineers from Arm to develop a pressure sensing glove to help physiotherapists diagnose hand injuries.

Linguistic Olympiads Can you translate a fifth century BCE Idalion tablet in the Cypriot dialect of Ancient Greek? Or sentences of Chintan or a Sino-Tibetan language currently spoken by about 5,000 people in Nepal?

What about interpreting Iñapari - a critically endangered language that is spoken on the border of Peru, Bolivia and Brazil?

This intensive challenge was relished by 32 outstanding Hills Road linguists who achieved some amazing results! 10 students won bronze awards and Szilvi Rosental won a silver award. Well done to all of our students who bravely took part.

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Connect with us at @HillsRoadNews

George Wood finalist in Computational Thinking Challenge Talented student George Wood was invited to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford on 8 February as a finalist in a UK-wide competition – The UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge.

Reaching the final of the Elite (16–18) age group is an impressive achievement, as 7,085 students entered the first round for this age group. George was among the top 52 highest achieving students invited to the final round in his age group, and was presented with his finalist’s certificate at a prize-giving ceremony at Hertford College.

The UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge, supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, is designed to get students excited about computing and computational thinking. It is a problem-solving contest with questions inspired by topics in computer science. In the first round, held in their own schools, students have to try to solve as many problems as possible in the allotted time. The highest scoring students from the four oldest age groups (Elite, Seniors, Intermediate, and Juniors) were then invited to the Department of Computer Science at Oxford.

Hills Esports team success Congratulations to the Hills Road Esports team who have made it through to the British Esports Championships, which will be covered by professional commentators and esports personalities from the NUEL (National Universities Esports League) live online from 3pm on 26 April https://www.twitch.tv/britishesports In September 2019, 16 Year 12 students started playing Esports as part of their Enrichment programme and three months later, the Hills Road team ‘Cretn’ were runners up in the British Esports League of Legends Winter Championships and now they have made it through to the finals.

Esports, League of Legends, is a multiplayer online battle arena video game where two teams of five champions face off to destroy each other’s bases.

The Hills team plays against other groups from all over the country.

“I was really excited that Esports was available as an Enrichment at Hills. So far, it has really inspired me to improve my gameplay and the experience has definitely helped me to build on my team skills. I really enjoy being part of the Hills Esports team.”

PETER, WHO PLAYS SPENGELOID

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PERFORMANCES December and January saw two outstanding productions in the College’s Robinson Theatre: One Man, Two Guv’nors and Measure for Measure.

RICHARD FREDMAN

A comic masterpiece Having just made a welcome return to the teaching staff at Hills, Lydia Aers directed Richard Bean’s hilarious ‘One Man, Two Guv’nors’ with our new Year 12s giving her production a seasonal theme. Sullivan Bishop took on the role of the chipper cockney clown Francis

Henshall whose hunger leads to him serving a dinner to two ‘guvnors’ simultaneously. What could go wrong – apart from everything – and the talented cast made sure that it did, with great timing and some brilliant slapstick.

Music performances In February, the Music department hosted the annual Singers’ Concert in the Colin Hill Recital Room. This saw 17 students showcasing their vocal talents. Special thanks must go to all participants, the accompanist Marion Caldwell and the singing tutors Ruth Applin, Julia Caddick and Helen Groves for what was a wonderful evening.

Bard-meets-Black Mirror By contrast, Richard Fredman’s Year 13 show in January tackled the ongoing concerns of the #metoo movement with a radical updating of Shakespeare’s ‘Measure for Measure’.

The production relocated the play to a dystopian future where the dark arts

of surveillance were conjured up in a brave new world of live-feed video and where central character Angelo bore an uncanny resemblance to a certain Dominic Cummings; shabbily dressed and self-professed maverick adviser to 10 Downing Street.

The department also hosted two informal concerts held at lunchtimes in the Recital Room. The first was an informal acoustic concert featuring instrumental soloists and duets. This was followed by a vibrant and enjoyable Live@Lunch which featured studentled bands with full tech set up. The brass ensemble, directed by Freddie Ball, exhibited their individual and collective brilliance.

SPORTS NEWS 7

Shannon represents England in cross country Shannon Flockhart has had an amazing season representing the Hills Road cross country team and also in individual performances.

Shannon won a bronze at the South of England Championships and she won the U20 race in the Lotto Cup in Belgium whilst competing for England.

Mixed hockey team wins league The Hills Road mixed hockey team are the league winners for 2019-2020 season having won all six of their league games. Captained by Abigail Halliday and Will Jones, the team produced incredible scores that included 18-0, 13-0, 13-2 and only conceded three goals across the whole season.

Rugby league champions The Hills Road men’s first team captained by George Paul won the AoC Sport East Rugby Union League One winning four out of their six games inclusive of scores 53-0 and 50-33. The second team with games to still be played finished second in the AoC Sport East Rugby Union League Two winning five out of the seven games played.

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For more info about Enrichment activities visit www.hillsroad.ac.uk

Not goodbye, but good luck

On 20 March 2020, the College said a very fond farewell to its students, as for many Year 13s it could be their last time as a student on the campus.

During these uncertain times, it felt only right to give these exceptional young people a sense of celebration for their extraordinary hard work, their amazing achievements and for their continued determination to succeed.

With emotions running high, the Principal Jo Trump said: “With every good wish to all our students. Not goodbye, but good luck, take the greatest of care. Be brave, be careful, be kind and we’re all with you online from Monday 23 March”.