Sports Day 2013

DSMS Sports Day 2013 Results | Infographics

On Tuesday 18th June 2013 it was the biggest sporting event since the Olympics at DSMS. It was Sports Day where pupils of all age, gender and academic skill were joined together to compete for their houses. The day saw over half a dozen school records being smashed. The enthusiasm and determination from almost every student whether they were competing or just supporting their peers was amazing. The weather reflected the attitudes on the day and because of this the day was a huge success. The Wyvern was there to report on the event. You can find the official video and pictures below.

Austria Trip 2013

From 22nd to the 29th March 2013, 15 eager and enthusiastic DSMS pupils went on a skiing trip to Austria. The trip departed at 7AM on Friday 22nd where the pupils prepared for a 28 hour coach journey. Just before arriving in Dover, the group were joined by some Welsh students whom were also going skiing in Austria. Despite England's loss to Wales in the 6 Nations the parties still had dinner together on an evening, they skied together and they did joint activities on an evening.

Anyway, after watching numerous films, including Batman, and a ferry journey across the English channel, the group including 5 teachers arrived in Neukirchen in Austria.

(Below, the town where we were skiing, the hotel is the yellow house shape)

View Austria 2013 Trip in a larger map

On Sunday 24th the Skiers started their first skiing lessons, they were split into 3 groups - a group of people who had been skiing before, a group who were first time skiers and a group in between them of people who weren't pro skiers however weren't beginners either.

Each day after dinner on an evening the teachers awarded a skier of the day which was one person out of every group who had excelled during that day. There was also a 'wally of the day' award which usually went to someone who had done something absolutely idiotic such as dropping their drink over themselves by accident.

The DSMS Skiers 2013

One of the outstanding views (above)

One thing which everyone found amazing was how pretty the Alps were and the scenery around where they were skiing. Unfortunately, most of it went unappreciated most of the time because everyone was concentrating so much on the skiing.

Evening activities included swimming, a quiz and spending time in the hotel's games room where pupils could play things such as pool and table tennis.

By the end of the week, almost everyone who went on the trip could ski, some of them were even going down red and black slopes (which were steep and bumpy!)

The group departed for Darlington at 6PM on Thursday 28th March. Everyone was extremely worn out after an intense 5 days of skiing. Luckily, they now have the Easter holidays to relax.

Read a stream of Tweets from the trip here: http://sfy.co/jH3e


Find out more about the Austria 2013 trip in Episode 11 of the Wyvern TV and Issue 15 of the Wyvern (both coming soon).

F1: Australian Grand Prix

A soaked Mercedes car in the first qualifying session 

Qualifying on Saturday 16th March was so wet that after the first session it was postponed for the morning before the race. Despite the track still being damp, most drivers still posted a decent qualifying time on the Wet tires. McLaren's Sergio Perez took a risk as he tried setting a lap in the intermediate tires however this didn't pay off and he started the race in 15th. Like most of last season, Vettel dominated the qualifying session starting in front of his team mate Webber, then Hamilton, Massa and Alonso.

The track was almost dry by the time of the race where due to a technical problem Nico Hulkenberg failed to start the race. Felipe Massa got off to an amazing start jumping from 4th to 2nd however after the first corner Vettel had maintained his position in first. It was a clean start to the race with no crashes or contact.

The 2013 Formula One Drivers

Experts calculated most cars will go in for a pit stop 3 times over the 58 laps they drive. Vettel pitted at the end of lap 7 meaning that Massa could take the lead however this lasted one lap before Massa and his team mate Alonso pitted. When Alonso came out he was just in front of Maldonado who seemed distracted as he went wide and onto the grass in the first corner.

After the first 10 laps you could see which cars were going to be strong during this race; Jenson Button's team McLaren didn't look like they were having a good race because their car didn't seem to be fast in corners or in straights. As expected though, RedBull were on the ball with some amazing driving from Sebastian Vettel. Two dark horses seemed to be Lewis Hamilton's new team, Mercedes and Kimi Raikkonen's team, Lotus. On lap 15, Hamilton was coming 7th and Raikkonen was coming 5th.

Adrian Sutil who took a break from Formula 1 in 2012 after assaulting someone in a nightclub in China, has returned to the sport this year and he is racing for Force India.
After his pit stop on lap 21 he was coming 6th which was extremely good since he hadn't raced in a year.

Once Sutil pitted from 1st, the race for Pole position was on. Massa, Raikkonen and Rosberg were leading the race however the main action was behind where Vettel was making his way back up the field.

The first crash was on lap 25 when Maldonado slipped on the grass and ended up beaching himself just after the first corner. This caused the yellow flag to be waved (which meant that DRS was also disabled).

A repeat of some of the practices happened to Nico Rosberg as he failed to finish because of a mechanical problem in the car. He elegantly pulled up on lap 27 where he angrily got out of the Mercedes car. By lap 30 the yellow flag had stopped and the intense race was back on. Hamilton, in the same car to Rosberg, was surprisingly still racing strong and challenging the likes of Alonso.

On lap 32 their was an eminence fight for 2nd position where Alonso, Vettel, Sutil and Massa were contending to follow the race leader, Raikkonen.
There was less than a second between them all.
These racers were only split up when they started taking their 2nd pit stop.

On lap 42, Daniel Riccardo retired from the race because his exhaust system cracked and burnt a hole in his body work. Other Australian driver, Mark Webber was coming 8th at this point although he was slowly making his way back up to the podium positions.

10 laps before the end and Raikkonen was still leading the race however Alonso was catching up with him quickly. Behind them, Sutil and Hamilton were fighting for 5th position and after numerous attempts, Hamilton's driving skill meant that he took 5th position on lap 52.

Only a few laps before the end of the race you could see how determined and quick Fernando Alonso was; he almost crashed into the back of a Caterham car he was about to out lap. Unfortunately though, the gap was still 10.2 seconds on lap 57 and he had no chance of taking victory of, racing legend, Kimi Raikkonen.

In the past many people would agree that Lotus cars only won races by luck however their win today was definitely not luck. Over the Winter break, Lotus has successfully produced an extremely fast F1 car which should hopefully win a lot more races in the many months to come. It is the first time a Lotus has ever won in Australia and nobody deserved it more than 33 year-old Kimi Raikkonen who returned to the sport last year after a 3 year break from the sport.

Raikkonen started 7th and amazingly made up 6 places until he reached Pole and then he maintained his position there.

Formula 1 2013 Cars

Over the last 2 weeks almost all of the 22 cars for the 2013 Formula 1 season were announced. The main announcements of the week were from McLaren and RedBull.
McLaren's new car is exactly the same to last years version apart from a slight change to the back wing - which all manufacturers have done to comply with the new 2013 rules (below). The new RedBull car has slightly different paintwork however apart from that, it is basically the same as last year.

2013 Rule changed (from Formula 1 website)

1) Weight - Due to changes in their structure, Pirelli's 2013 tyres are around 2kg heavier per set than in 2012, hence the car's minimum weight limit has been increased by the same amount, from 640 to 642kg. As a consequence, the weight-distribution requirement has also been revised to minimum figures of 292kg:343kg front to rear, leaving teams 7kg to play with.

Pictures via Sky Sports

2) Stepped noses - To mask the step in the car's nose (thought unattractive by many), teams are now allowed to place a non-structural 'vanity panel' over this area, the shape of which is strictly controlled by the regulations.

3) Front wing tests - To prevent them flexing, front wings now face a tougher deflection test, with a 1,000N (100kg) load applied at two different points on both the longitudinal and transverse axes. The amount the wing may deflect has been reduced from 20mm to 10mm.

4) Load and crash tests - More severe load tests for the roll structure have been introduced and the crash test requirements modified.

5) Survival cell - The side load test for the survival cell is more severe too, and it must be applied to all chassis produced by a team, rather than to a single example.

6) DRS - active 'double DRS' systems - Where the DRS activation mechanism is utilised for other purposes - are no longer allowed (only passive solutions are now considered legal). Also, DRS usage is now limited to the DRS zones in all sessions (previously it could be used anywhere during free practice and qualifying).

Originally posted: 4/2/2013

Autumn Internationals

Well after a good series of autumn internationals, we finally got to see how the Northern hemisphere stood in the world currently. There were a few highs but mostly lows. One of the main things of the series, was the amount of bans that were handed out to the Southern Hemisphere teams! The series started out with a convincing win over Fiji for England and they showed a lot of youthful promise an they were the best they have been for a few years… however then came the the test of Australia and with the pressure, brought a very poor performance from England and they looked as though they had never seen a rugby ball before! The final score was 20-14 to Australia with the only try from England coming from Manu Tuillangi (debatable whether it should have been given). Next came the huge challenge of a South Africa side that were unbeaten in their series so far and they were looking to dominate at Twickenham. The match was close and an England win looked very plausible. But then came a shocking decision from the captain Chris Robshaw where he decided to go for the 3 points rather than the corner and then this decision led to England losing by one point, however they were getting much better! Finally brought the unbeaten New Zealand and a huge challenge. England performed outstandingly and there were stand-out performances from Manu Tuillangi, Joe Launchbury and Tom Wood. England then went on to have a convincing win of 38-21 but it should have been more.
By James Allison

Originally posted: 10/12/2012 

Sebastian Vettel wins 2012 F1 World Championship

Sebastian Vettel talking to the world's
 press about his victory

The 2012 Formula 1 season was concluded today in Brazil today and although Jenson Button won the race, Sebastian Vettel won the season.

It was an extremely exciting and competitive race, however Lewis Hamilton did not finish the race as he crashed out towards the end. There were 5 car retirements in all and there had been lots of skidding and small mistakes thanks to the wet weather.
Fernando Alonso finished second in the championship and, returning driver, Kimi Raikkonen finished 3rd. Brazil was Michael Schumacher's last race before his second retirement from the sport and it was Lewis Hamilton's last race before he moves teams from McLaren to Mercedes.

Originally posted: 25/11/2012

Sports Day 2012

In every race the winner got 4 points, 2nd got 3 points, 3rd got 2 points and last got 1 points. If a competitor doesn't turn up then they get no points.

The Ruby Rattlesnakes won!!

Ruby Rattlesnakes - 336

Emerald Eagles - 277

Topaz Tigers - 271

Sapphire Sharks - 247


Originally posted: 20/9/2012