Marsden Jazz Festival – October 2017

The HGS Soul Band started off the new term with another booking at the internationally renowned Marsden Jazz Festival. Performing within five weeks of the first half-term meant the band had to quickly dust off their instruments after the summer holiday and rehearse a programme ready for the festival. On top of this the band had some new members in key areas of the band.

The band played the Sunday lunchtime slot in the park bandstand. Luckily it was fine weather and there was a large audience gathered to hear the band. The band kicked off with Ray Charles’ ‘What I’d Say’ and followed it with the classic soul track ‘Gimme Some Lovin’, which included a fine debut vocal performance from our trombonist Michael Upham.

Performing a variety of soul, jazz, blues and pop tracks the band featured solos from David Brown, Alex Smith and some super sax solos from Georgina Moore. We performed pieces from our older repertoire of ‘Green Onions’, ‘I Heard it through the Grapevine’, ‘Mama Do’ and ‘Mercy’; newer pieces (for us) such as ‘Blues Machine’, ‘Monkey Man’, ‘Mustang Sally’ and ‘Don’t Know Why’; and two old HGS favourites of ‘I Feel Good’ and ‘Tequila’.

The band welcomed back a couple of last year’s members to play with us. Even though they are now starting their studies at University it was great to see them back helping out. Along with these ‘old timers’ it was great to welcome some new faces to the band – Sommer Berrington on keys and Rowan Lightfoot on trumpet. A particular well done goes to Gemma Hall who took full control of the drums this year and did a fantastic job keeping us all in time.

Not content with just debuting on trumpet, Rowan Lightfoot also took to the Microphone and sang a fantastic rendition of the song ‘My Girl’. Definitely one for the future!

After finishing with the classic ‘In the Midnight Hour’ the band completed their set and packed away in record time with another local band waiting to take the stage. Feedback from the audience, organisers and members of the next band on was excellent.

The department undertook a very busy schedule of events in December. These included a Christmas Showcase evening, the Carol Service, carolling with the Brass Group, performances at Prize Giving and a visiting orchestra performing for our year 8 pupils.

Our Christmas Showcase was again performed to a packed out Swann Hall. Performances were given by the Concert Band, Junior Choir, Senior Choir, Soul Band, String Group, Guitar Group, Percussion Group and Dance Club. In addition, there were four excellent drama performances written and performed by our very own Youth Theatre Group.

Our traditional carol service took place once again in the local St James Church. With welcoming carols played in the foyer by the HGS Brass Group the evening service started off in conventional manner with the first verse of Once in Royal David’s City performed solo by year 7 pupil Cerys Harrison. The traditional 9 lessons were read by a variety of students from all year groups and were interspersed with a variety of carols. Musical performances were given by the Senior Choir, Concert Band, Junior Choir, String Group and Guitar Group, as well as a jazz piano solo of While Shepherds Watched by year 13 student Ruth Jennings.

The Soul Band entertained our guests at Senior Prize Giving as they arrived at our new venue of Dewsbury Town Hall. Our singers excelled at performing in this wonderful venue, with vocals from Holly Ward, Rowan Lightfoot, Kirsty Gregory and Fiona Maynard. The 45 minute set included pieces such as Uptown Funk, Monkey Man, My Girl and Don’t Know Why. Michael Upham also joined Fiona in a rendition of Baby it’s Cold Outside. There were improvised saxophone solos from Georgina Moore and guest Matthew Rhodes (this year’s winner of the HunterArt prize). The band were then featured during the ceremony with a performance of Mercy. 

Later in the evening the audience were treated to something very special. Year 13 A level music student Megan Dransfield gave a solo rendition of Puccini’s aria O Mio Babbino Caro. This was a truly stunning performance that was rightly highly praised by staff, students and our visiting guests. Megan was accompanied by her singing teacher Mr Hall who then provided the background cocktail piano music at the drinks reception afterwards.

Not content with winding down to Christmas on the last day of term, we welcomed the ‘Musica’ Orchestra into school to perform for our year 8s. Performing a wide range of pieces, from Star Wars to Bohemian Rhapsody, the Orchestra entertained us all – whilst subtly introducing classical music and the instruments of the orchestra to our year 8 students. There was a conducting competition, hunt the Haribos event and some of our older students got the chance to perform with the orchestra.

Mr Hall is running a choir workshop between 10am and 12pm on Friday 16th February 2018 in the Music Room. The workshop will include developing warm ups and singing techniques plus a range of music to sing. All students are welcome.

Please sign in at the main reception on arrival.

Kirklees College would like to invite budding chefs from all surrounding schools to take part in The Young Chef of the Year 2018. Participants will have two hours to create four portions of a restaurant style plated dessert and sweet sauce.

Any year 9-11 students who are interested in taking part in this fantastic event should speak to their form tutor for more information.

The entry deadline is Tuesday 20th March 2018, however, we would like to have all interested students starting the process of applications by the Wednesday 7th March as they will have to develop their dish, cook and take a picture to go along side their entry.

Happy Cooking!!

On 20th November, me and eleven others competed in a economics competition in Hull. Firstly we had a lecture where we learnt about the online technology and economic theory we were going to use. It was useful to learn this new information which gave us a better insight into Economics which went above and beyond our A-level course. Also it gave us a feel of a university lecture and the content we learnt was part of Hull University’s Economics degree. Also being able to use our current knowledge and apply it to the online technology and real life data.

After this we were given a set of scenarios to solve where we had to use the information we were taught. The task given was based on two countries of your choice and trying to find the relationships between two economic variables such as unemployment and inflation and how closely linked they were in different countries. This was then assessed by the lecturer who ranked each team on how they well they performed these tasks. My team including Nikolos Sanadze, Tyler Webb and Amna Ali were awarded first place which earned the school a £1000 cheque.

Jack Bloxsome – Head Boy  – Year 13

The Friends of Heckmondwike are meeting @ 7pm on Wednesday 7th February at the school. All parents are invited to come along and share ideas for fundraising and how we can support the school.

Heckmondwike Grammar School is now on Twitter. Please follow us @heckgrammar and stay informed of all school news, information, successes and achievements.

Heckmondwike Grammar’s new sixth form base, to be named the ‘Jo Cox Centre’ in memory of their former Head Girl, was opened to academy students this week. Providing spacious accommodation alongside food of a very high quality, students are able to socialise downstairs; while upstairs, there are two different work-orientated venues that enable students to have a choice of learning environment depending on preference. The area is heavily equipped with charging points and WiFi to enable full access to all of the facilities needed to be able to both enjoy and engage fully in their studies.

Students’ first impressions of their new social and study space were very positive. Year 13 students Hollie and Lucy remarked on how “having our own space makes us feel more independent and prepares us for what we have to look forward to at university,” while Jack commented on the “great food” and “up to date design”, concluding that the new space is “definitely worth the wait!”.

Ross Oxby, Head of Sixth Form, had this to say: “We are very proud of this addition to our sixth form provision, which gives students the independence and freedom to develop socially and academically in a bespoke post-16 environment, while also retaining all the advantages of our outstanding teaching and facilities in the main school. The students clearly love it and are already making full use of the brand-new facilities and environment.”

While Nathan Bulley, Headteacher, also commented: “We are very fortunate that the DfE saw fit to invest in the outstanding education at Heckmondwike Grammar with over a million pounds of additional capital. This enables us to give our students what they deserve in terms of a purpose-designed venue where they can fully apply themselves in a context appropriate to the level of achievement that we and they aspire to.”

External hire opportunities include full service dining and a conference area able to comfortably accommodate 100 people. The centre is available at evenings and weekends: please contact the school if you are interested in taking advantage of this.