It’s been a fabulous week of (mostly!) wonderful weather and some fantastic performances and plenty of fun in tennis and cricket home and away.

The sound of bat on ball was all around for much of the week, with super special high fives going to our girls who won every class in the Severnside cricket tournament which took place on Wednesday.  Huge congratulations to the U9, U10, U11, 1st and 2nd girls’ cricket teams!

On to the weekend, and here’s to a great day of cricket for our more than 20 teams taking part in matches against Pinewood tomorrow, and very good luck to our U11A and 1st XI boys playing at The Downs in Malvern on Sunday – the 1st XI team defending their title after their 2018 win.

In tennis just one of the highlights was when our U10 girls’ team took the winning spot at the Severnside tennis tournament at Dean Close on Monday having been down on match points earlier in the game.  Well done to Lauren and Jemima in Year 5.  Meanwhile the U13 and the U11 teams came in an admirable fourth and fifth respectively, whilst the boys were battling away back home here on the courts to come runners-up for the U11s, with the U13 boys coming third.

Could you answer questions about the UK’s birds, insects and trees?  How about identifying red campion flowers or a Roman snail shell?  Our Year 6  team of Eliza, Amory, Honor and Esme had to do just that last week when they represented Beaudesert in the Stroud area semi-final for the Gloucester Wildlife Trust Schools Quiz.  Up against Gastrells and Chalford Hill Primary School, the team did really well and came in a cracking second place to the very knowledgeable Chalford Hill team.  Well done to the team.  Mrs Waters looks forward to helping prepare a new team for the challenge next year!

Meanwhile, Year 4 Ecology students have been getting up close and personal with the school’s resident reptiles.  When checking our brilliant reptiles mat they found a regular supply of slow worms, including this adult female.   We have also confirmed that there are grass snakes in the grounds, but they are quicker to slip away than our wonderful legless lizard slow worm friends, so no photos of them on this occasion.  Looking ahead, the new pond should also be a great habitat for these species as it matures.

An inspirational adventure to Africa for the Reception W atmospheric class assembly this morning in front of an attentive audience.

The children have been learning about Africa as part of their ‘On Safari’ topic and using the book ‘Handa’s Hen’ by Eileen Browne, which is set in Kenya and tells a tale of a young girl who lives in a Masai village, formed the basis for their assembly.  The children having enjoyed reading this in class, retold the story using the Talk for Write method (by Pie Corbett) to help them prepare.  First they made a story map to help them learn the story.  Next they learnt actions to help them remember the different parts in order to be able to retell the story in front of an audience.  They had a lot of lines to remember, and did very well indeed to remember them all!  They also regaled their spectators with a song to the timeless tune of ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ which helped them sequence the story.  Well done Reception W!

The summer term has such a lovely feel to it.  All the boarders are outside as much as possible, for as long as possible, enjoying the grounds and facilities.

Talking of facilities, of course the outdoor pool completely comes into its own come in the summer term, and this Monday saw the Year 4 boarders become the first children in the whole school to enjoy it this school year – and boy did they enjoy it!  Not to be in any way outdone, the Year 8s also took to the water and christened the 10m ‘aquaslide’ on Wednesday night amidst much hilarity.   This new toy happened to fit extremely well on the banks and is clearly set to be a hugely popular activity.  In both instances, the water temperature was at least a tiny bit fresh, but the noise level reflected the happiest of evenings!  Thankfully, the warm showers of the boarding house were very gratefully received afterwards.

Elsewhere, on Tuesday the Year 5s and 7s joined together for a huge game of ‘Virus’ in the sunlit grounds.  On Thursday night, the girls of Year 6 were very keen indeed to once more make iPad movies, whilst at the same time sports sessions with some of the other children took place down in the nets and on the astro.

Since the latest edition of the Buzz, we have had just our second Friday of the term which included another impressive line-up of activities, including fun in the ICT room, the nets, or the amazing cello recital in the Performing Arts Centre.  Some of the Year 8 girls however knew exactly what they were going to do before even being asked!   There was only one thing for it;  to pop up to the Laytons’ flat and do some baking!  Not long after that it was time for rice krispie marshmallow cakes in front of a great movie.  Easy!  And the perfect end to another fun-filled, action-packed week in the boarding house.

If there are any children who wish to get some nights in before the year is done, please do get in touch as the Boarding House would love to have them in!

On Thursday, four of our scholars were lucky enough to spend the day at Bath University and take part in the Salters’ Festival of Chemistry.  They worked as a team to complete two Chemistry challenges, each of which lasted a couple of hours.  Under the expert guidance of the university lecturers the children were able to work in the undergraduate laboratories – an experience they clearly relished!   They had many methods to follow and much analysis to do before submitting their report sheets, and were also treated to a ‘Chemical Magic’ demonstration. Well done to Flora, Will, Flora and Jessica who all performed extremely well and worked hard throughout the day.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again”.  This oft-repeated saying formed the focus of this week’s form assembly.  The children used examples of famous people through history to explore the themes of persistence and resilience.  They performed their own sketches incorporating public speaking and performance through some highly engaging mini plays.

Last Saturday, we welcomed seven schools to our fields when we hosted a superb and sunny Severnside athletics afternoon spanning more than 100 different events.  The event involved 84 Beaudesert athletes from Years 4 to 8, the whole of the Beaudesert teaching team, and a supportive crowd of friends and family on the sidelines.  Well done to the children taking part and thank you to all of the grown-ups who helped make it such a smooth and fun celebration of all things athletics.

Next up was the inter schools athletics at Monkton Combe School on Tuesday.  Thirty-four children from Years 4, 5 and 6 did brilliantly, collecting many individual wins throughout the course of the afternoon.  Overall the team actually did even better than they may have known, for the news came in afterwards that, due to a technological glitch, Beaudesert had been crowned third when in fact they had come in an even better second!

We had an amazing array of entries for our Science Week competition, for which a big thank you to the children who entered, and of course to the parents whose cameras and phones may or may not have been commandeered in the process! After much deliberation in the Science department, the results were announced in assembly this morning.  So, without further ado, the winners are…

Year 3 – Sophie with her night photo of a roe deer

Year 4  – Miya for her photo of an incredible fossil ammonite that she found herself, and Caspar with his close-up of some stinging nettles

Year 5  – Hector for his ferns image

Year 6 – Savanna with her study of a crocus

Year 8  Mathilde for her tea refinery shot

Our brass players enjoyed a ‘Prep Schools Brass Day’ at Clifton College on Thursday.  The pupils learnt and performed an arrangement of ‘Happy’ by Pharrell, whilst in ensembles they composed music inspired by different emotions.  They also spent some time listening to the brass teachers perform and explain about the history of different brass instruments, and pupils were given the opportunity to perform solos in a workshop.

Well done, to all of our brass players for their enthusiastic participation in this fun day out.

This week we have been lucky enough to enjoy two lunchtime concerts.  On Monday some of Mr Harris’ pupils performed a wide range of guitar music from pop songs to classical to flamenco.  Three of our bands also performed;  ‘Five-sided dice’, ‘Blue Moonlight’ and ‘The Secret’.

Mr Coldrick’s pupils gave a percussion concert today.  As ever, it was so encouraging to see pupils of all ages perform with such confidence.  Many congratulations to all the performers and thank you to Mr Harris and Mr Coldrick for supporting and inspiring the children.  As ever, do take a look at our Twitter page for photos, films and more!   Here is the link @BeaudesertMusic

For those of us who were lucky enough to come last Friday evening, we were delighted by the technical showmanship and sheer volume of work performed by Louis Mander and Patrick Johnson, in the cello and piano recital.  The duo performed a range of repertoire exploring the ‘art of transcription’ whereby composers take works and rearrange them for cello and piano. The second half of the concert featured Patrick on the cello performing unaccompanied cello repertoire from around the world. Who knew that the cello was such a versatile instrument?   It’s wonderful to share our Performing Arts Centre with the local community and to host these exciting recitals.  Our next recital will be on Tuesday, 24th September.  More information will follow, but for now, do keep the date free in your diaries.

Funded in 2018 by Health Education England (HEE), HappyMaps is a website for parents and carers which provides reliable and up-to-date advice and resources relating to children’s emotional health.   In recognition of the fact that mental health problems in children are increasing, the website was created to address the fact that resources for parents are available but not always easy to find.  Here’s the link in case you’d like to take a look HappyMaps – website for parents and carers