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HIVE Southampton takes on record amount of teaching over Easter!

Posted by Sangeetha on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 6:56 am

Easter is always a busy time for the HIV Education (HIVE) team at the University of Southampton, but this year we have surpassed ourselves in teaching over 30 classes across six Hampshire schools in March: The Gregg School in Southampton, Westgate School in Winchester, King Edward VI School in Southampton, Milton Cross School in Portsmouth, Hounsdown School in Totton, and Swanmore School in Swanmore. Here’s a little bit more about what we got up to:


King Edwards


Three of our team: Kay, Stewart and Alex went to lead our final session of the year with the sixth form students of King Edward VI School in Southampton. Sixth form teaching is a fantastic opportunity for our student teachers to explore some of the more sensitive themes surround HIV/AIDS through the use of news articles such as ‘Should gay men be allowed to donate blood?’ and looking into the ethics of making HIV home testing kits available to the pubic. As ever, it is a delight to work with the pupils of King Edwards, who are always so eager to discuss their views and explore different sides to each argument.


Westgate

Once again, we were thrilled to be invited along to become part of Science Week – held in Westgate School, and our sessions with the pupils of Year 9 gave them the perfect opportunity to explore and understand some of the biology behind HIV infection. Teachers Aoife, Clemmie, Sophie, John, Nick, Stewart, Paddy, Kay, Hannah and Emily lead the pupils in ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire?’ to test the pupils knowledge, and finished off with a Science Experiment: the transmission practical – to demonstrate how HIV can spread rapidly in a community if individuals do not make sure to test for HIV at regular intervals. We were thrilled to get fantastic feedback from Head of Science – Vinay Sharma, who said “As always, your team  were very professional – they were so aware of how to deal with the different age groups that they were working with; they had a sensitivity to the questions that pupils were asking and dealt with them very well.” Thanks once again to the school for having us, and we look forward to returning again next year.


Milton Cross

Our Schools Coordinator Alex did us proud this year by arranging teaching sessions with yet another new school, Milton Cross in Portsmouth. Teachers Emily, Stewart and Hannah taught four consecutive lively classes of Year 10 students. With SIC’s goal of inspiring the next generation to act in mind, it was a privilege to be directly part of the education of these pupils, and hope that we challenged a number of their attitudes throughout the course of the morning. Spirits were certainly high, but it was a great feeling to be able to maintain the students attention, to again, great credit from their teachers. Feedback received was extremely positive, with one teacher describing the session as “An engaging talk providing information of how HIV can be contracted and it’s implications. Hopefully students will now be more open when discussing sex, HIV and other STIs.” Another said, “I felt the students enjoyed the session and are much better informed about HIV as a result.”

And finally…


Swanmore School


HIVE Southampton ends the year with a fantastic new school!

After successfully recruiting another new school, HIVE Southampton gathered a massive 10 teachers for the final teaching of the year at Swanmore College of Technology! A mix of new and old teachers contributed to what were described as “such interesting and professional sessions…” and were sincerely thanked for “the time and effort that went into doing them.”

The sessions consisted of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” teaching where we were surprised by the quality of answers by many of the students, followed by a thought-provoking UK based case study about a young girl who’s recently contracted HIV. Both teaching materials sparked interesting, and controversial conversation as well as covering key learning points regarding HIV/AIDS basics, transmission, prevention of sexual transmission, and progression of the disease

.

It was truly inspiring to work with such intelligent and inquisitive young people. Thank you Swanmore! We thoroughly enjoyed the day and look forward to teaching with you again soon!

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HIVE Southampton wins MEDSOC Charity of the Year!!

Posted by Sangeetha on Monday, March 5, 2012 at 11:15 am

HIVE Southampton is excited to announce they have won this year’s MEDSOC’s Charity of the Year! It was the first time the awards were held and it was incredibly exciting that HIVE Southampton were even nominated for a few different categories, but came away with one of the top awards, Charity of the year. A number of committee members were there on the night to except the award and we are all proud to except it and have our hard work recognised.

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Southampton does Blind Date…

Posted by Sangeetha on Monday, March 5, 2012 at 11:07 am

…Was there love in the air that night?

After the success of last year’s Blind Date, HIVE Southampton joint forces with Southampton Medsoc to match over 34 couples on this year’s blind date!! The night started in 3 different classy locations, where the couples met for the first time and moved onto various other locations around Bedford Place. Some were looking for love and others just a chance to mingle and everyone seemed happy with their dates for the night!

There was also a surprise performance from The Manband who serenaded 2 lucky girls on dates with members of the group.

The total money raised from the night was a fantastic £258.22!!!

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HIVE Southampton visits The Gregg School.

Posted by Sangeetha on Monday, February 27, 2012 at 7:03 pm

Our Spring Term teaching has gotten off to a great start with the Year 11 Group at The Gregg School in Southampton. Teachers Alex, Emily and Beth returned for the second of two sessions with the year group, in which we covered all the basics of HIV transmission, prevention of sexual transmission, and progression of the disease. We then did the transmission practical with the group – our science experiment designed to display just how quickly HIV can spread through a community.

It was a pleasure to work with such bright and inquisitive pupils, and we were really pleased to have the opportunity to work again with this school having taught there for the first time last year. We know we’ve had a good session, when students are able to recount without prompt the ‘fluids and doors’ of HIV transmission – and recall the ABC of sexual prevention. We hope to continue with subsequent year groups at The Gregg School, and carry on spreading knowledge of HIV round the schools of Southampton!
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HIVE Southampton puts on a double whammy of exciting fundraising events – raising over £1100 for SIC!

Posted by Sangeetha on Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 6:02 am

The end of last year was huge for HIVE Southampton with the massive task on putting on our first ever Charity Poker night and the return of the successful World AIDS Day Gig.
On Thursday the 17th of December suited, booted and dressed to ‘kill’ in shirts and cocktail dresses, students of Southampton flocked down to our very own Bellagio ‘Bar 2’ for a ‘Casino Royale’  inspired HIVE Charity Poker Evening. Chips at the ready, the atmosphere was buzzing with excitement and soon cries of ‘All in!” rang through the building and re-buyins were running high!
The final eight were transferred to the high-rollers table, where anxious and excited friends looked on as they battled amongst themselves for the fantastic prizes!  A delighted 1st year student Christian Grimes, ranked 2nd place to claim the illustrious  Jesters  gold cards, a worthy investment in his future at University we think! Nikesh  Patel  of  the  National  HIVE  committee deserves a special mention for his record  rebuyin’s tally, all for a good cause. The event was deemed a great success and managed to raise a very impressive £503!
The excitement did not stop there for HIVE Southampton, with the return of it’s World AIDS Day Gig just 2 weeks later on Thursday 1st December 2011. The venue was booked, the acts had rehearsed and over 150 tickets were sold; it promised to be another success and the night did not disappoint. A  fantastic line-up of up and coming acts were on show including some of our very own Medics, the Medics Choir, Bambi, Red House and some exciting new acts which are tipped to be huge, Lonely Joe Parker and Anja McCloskey plus many more.

With a night of fantastic music and raffle, the night managed to exceed our total from our previous event, making a combined total of over £1100. All money raised from these events has gone directly to SIC, and riding on their success we go into this year with a plan to raise even more money with our upcoming big events over the next few months.

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Kings’ School, Winchester: 11 classes in 1 month!!

Posted by Sangeetha on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 4:44 am

During November, HIVE Southampton welcomed
the challenge of teaching a grand total of 11
Science classes at Kings School in Winchester, over a two-week period.
Pupils were encouraged to think independently in deducing the fundamental differences between bacteria and viruses. They eagerly took to applying their knowledge through our teaching tool “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” learning
about HIV transmission and methods of prevention.
Through the transmission practical, pupils appreciated the asymptomatic nature of initial HIV infection, thus learning the importance of screening in developing countries, to prevent rapid population dissemination.
Many thanks to the pupils for offering a diverse and intuitive array of questions, and Kings School teachers for their invaluable support during lessons.
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Springfield School: Awareness Day

Posted by Sangeetha on Monday, November 21, 2011 at 12:59 pm

HIV Education (HIVE) Southampton had its first big secondary school teaching this week in Springfield School, Portsmouth. A new school for the HIVE crew this year, we joined a Year 9 tutor group as part of the school initiative ‘Make a Difference’ Day. HIVE Teachers Kate, Andy, Clemmie, Tom, Sophie, Kawther and Emily were thrilled to spend the whole day with the pupils, getting to know them, and getting them all excited about learning about HIV.

Teaching started with a lively ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ game that covered all the basics of HIV/AIDS in an accessible way for the year 9 students. We then held a range of activities, encouraging small group work to get pupils thinking about the effect of a diagnosis on the individual, how transmission occurs, and why the age group of 15-24 might be the highest risk age group for contracting HIV. We also spent time discussing the importance of NGOs such as SIC in fighting HIV as a global problem, and the role that education plays in this.

In the afternoon, pupils got creative, and made two giant HIV awareness ribbons to display the most memorable thing that they had learnt about HIV during the day. They then worked together to make a short presentation for the rest of their year group that was performed on the following Friday. This was fantastic – it was great to present to others things they had learnt during the day, and prepare to turn into teachers themselves! Coupled with an HIV version of ABC by the Jackson 5, we have no doubt that it went down spectacularly!

Feedback from teacher and pupil alike has been excellent; the HIVE teachers received a handmade thankyou card from a couple of pupils, and the supervising teacher summed up the session as “really great: interactive, fun and informative!” We very much hope to return to Springfield School in the future, and look forward to reading their pupil written blog of the event that will be published on the school website shortly!

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HIVE Southampton Cake Sale

Posted by Sangeetha on Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 8:30 am

Last Tuesday morning 1st, 2nd and 4th year medical students arrived at Southampton Hospital to find an array of cake to keep them going through the day’s lectures. From brownie to banana bread, cookie to cupcake, the HIV Education (HIVE) team were kept busy selling a multitude of baked goods all through the day, ultimately raising £215.64 for SIC!

This is our first fundraising event of many; throughout the year we will be holding one event each month for students across all the University, not to mention keeping up with our schools programme that takes HIV Education out into various secondary schools and sixth forms around Hampshire. Our recent bake sale was an ideal opportunity for medical students to talk to our new committee and find out exactly how they can get involved with HIV Education in Southampton: either locally in schools, by volunteering in Tanzania with SIC next year, or by helping out with the fundraising events we hold. Going on the success of the event, and the recent interest we have had from students in all years, we know this is set to be a very promising year indeed.

If you are a medical student currently studying in Southampton that would like to be involved with our schools programme, our biannual training evening is scheduled to be held on Tuesday 18th October. Please email us at hive@sichange.org.uk to reserve your place.

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