26th May 2023

Whole School Photograph

On Monday, we welcomed Bentley Photographic to Beaudesert Park, as they took our annual whole school photograph.

As you can imagine, this is an organisational feat for the photographers, staff and the children, but with the sun shining, the morning went smoothly. You can watch a timelapse of the children and staff being directed onto the staging below.

Year 3 Play

Yesterday, we enjoyed a fantastic performance of ‘The Dream Catcher’ by Anthony James. ‘The Dream Catcher’ is a fusion of spoken word, music and dance, which tells a fictional story from the life and beliefs of the North American Plains Indians. It provides an insight into the spiritual world of the indigenous people of North America, who the children have learnt about in the classroom this term.

The young thespians did a wonderful job at retelling the story of Autumn and Spring Rain, and their journey to meet the Great Bear.

Super Severnside Athletics

Last Friday afternoon, we hosted the 37th annual Severnside Athletics competition on our Playing Fields. With 9 schools in attendance and over 400 children taking part, it was a fantastic afternoon of athletic challenge. Children competed in a variety of events, looking to gain valuable points for their team. As ever, we were on the lookout for Severnside records to be broken; some which have stood for decades. Sam in Year 5 broke the vortex record, throwing over 50m, beating the last record set in 2013 of 44m.

We are very pleased to say that Beaudesert finished top in the points table, with Dean Close second, Cheltenham College third and Clifton College fourth.

We now look forward to our eagerly anticipated Sports Days towards the end of term.

Class Assembly

4B led our Prep School assembly this week. They were inspired by a copy of the 2011 Guinness World Records in their classroom, which, as they pointed out, was older than them! They spoke about some of the strangest world records, and some record breakers of our own at Beaudesert Park. They also had a go at breaking a few world records in the classroom…

They finished their assembly by reminding the children that all of us could be record breakers.

Guitar Concert

Yesterday, we enjoyed a wonderful variety of guitar performances from Mr Jones’ pupils, ranging from funk, classical guitar, rock and pop, to ukulele. It was great to hear what the children had learned in their music lessons and celebrate their progress together.

IAPS Cricket Tournament

In the IAPS paired 8s competition at Taunton, our U11 boys performed well throughout the day, winning three matches against BGS, Queen’s Taunton (the hosts), and Dean Close St John’s, but losing the last match narrowly by three runs to RGS Worcester (who won all of their games).

They boys showed excellent spirit throughout, and it was particularly pleasing to see the boys fight so hard in the last game, after struggling to post a good total against a side that seemed to have 8 talented bowlers. To have taken wickets and come so close showed they had a truly competitive spirit. Their game developed in the field, where they learnt not to risk unnecessary overthrows, but to think carefully about when to return the ball at speed.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable day, played in the right spirit.

Pre-Prep Report

We enjoyed welcoming children from the Prep School to deliver an assembly this week to launch our Bus Buddy initiative. Dedicated members of Years 6 and 7 from each bus route came to introduce themselves to the Pre-Prep children, and shared information about why travelling on the bus is great fun along with a bit of background on each of our drivers. They will learn each Pre-Prep bus child’s name, and be their first port of call if they need any help and support during their daily travel. We hope more children will take the bus in future, as part of our Eco-school development, and know that our Bus Buddies will be a great support along the way.

In Nursery, we have been excited to start learning letter sounds this term. The teachers have been so impressed by how well we are remembering the sounds and the corresponding Cued Articulation actions. Many of us are able to blend the sounds to read simple words, and some of us even had a go at building words ourselves, listening carefully for the beginning, middle and last sounds and then finding the correct letters. We feel very grown up using the whiteboards, and have been practising forming the letters we have learnt correctly.

In Reception, as part of our Maths learning, we have been exploring shapes, focussing on composing and decomposing squares. We made Piere Mondrian inspired stained glass pictures, and have loved watching the sun shining through the colours. We have also explored textiles in Peru made by alpaca wool, and have begun weaving our own fabric, using colourful wool.

In Year 1, we have continued our Maths topic on fractions, where we have been understanding a quarter as a quantity, first by using manipulatives and then answering calculations. We have also finished our Starry Night paintings and asked astronauts some space-related questions.

In Year 2 Literacy, we wrote some wonderful recipes for friendship. Ingredients included ten buckets of joy, a handful of honesty, a double dash of love, a bowl of goodness and occasionally a pinch of cheekiness! We have been doing data handling and statistics in Maths, making tally charts, pictograms and block diagrams and enjoyed finding out what our friends’ favourite foods are.

The sunshine has made for a wonderful week of outside learning including for Summer Games Club, who chalked hopscotches in the Courtyard. In Forest School, we have been cooking bread snakes, exploring bird calls and enjoying pond dipping too! In Archery, some of our Year 2 children were given medal for their brilliant progress over this half of term.

Anna Packman, Head of Pre-Prep

Maths Raps for National Numeracy Day

Last week was National Numeracy Day, and Years 5 and 6 celebrated this with some cross curricular numeracy fun. Inspired by Harry Baker, a mathematical poet, our Year 5s created a maths related story poem, whilst the Year 6 harnessed their inner ‘hip hop skills’ to create numeracy themed rap songs.

Rock and Pop Day at Stowe School

The Year 8 Bands, ‘The Rockets’, ‘Witness 99’ and ‘Jonesy & The Nighthowlers’ had the most inspirational Rock and Pop Day at Stowe. As mentioned in last week’s Buzz, we have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of their song mixes, recorded in Stowe’s professional standard studio.



Many congratulations to Year 8… You sound amazing!

Dean Close Fixtures

With the sun shining, all our children competed in sport against Dean Close on Wednesday. The Year 7 and 8s had the choice between mixed cricket or tennis, and Years 4 to 6 played mixed cricket. As ever, there were some great team and individual performances across the board. A very well compiled 50 from Barney helped the U11As gain a very close win. Meanwhile, Iris’ 3 wickets and Louis’ 80 runs helped the 2nd XI to a fine victory. We look forward to more fixtures after Half Term.

Boarding Buzz

Let the sun shine on!

A healthy amount of vitamin D has made sure that the children have been incredibly active throughout the boarding nights this week, and the beauty of the fine weather means that the children often come up with their own games and activities. It is great to see all year groups play with one another and truly make the most of our outdoor facilities. The summer boarding experience is really special here and you can see the joy on the children’s faces after their high energy experiences out in the grounds.

We also had the official opening of ‘Costa Del Beaudesert’ on Thursday, where some of our Year 6s and 7s had a lovely swim in our outdoor pool, for the first time in 2023! How did they describe it? “Chilly, but refreshing!”

Just a quick reminder, please bring in water bottles for children who are boarding. Having their own water bottle at night, after a high energy evening, makes the boarding experience much more comfortable.

Have a lovely Half Term,

Oli and Debbie Jones, Houseparents

Beaufort Inter-Schools Polo Cup

Beaufort Polo Club hosted their first Inter-Schools Polo Cup with 40 junior polo players taking part yesterday. The children were in mixed teams with other schools. Section 1 came out as a draw between the Maltesers and the Snickers, with Joey in Year 4 taking Most Valuable Player. Section 2 was a tough fought round with the Bountys coming out on top (Iris in Year 4 was MVP), and Section 3 was played on the HMA Tax No1 field, which saw 6 teams take to the field. Some tough competition saw Toffee Crisp come out as the winners, with 3 goals from Sholto in Year 8 securing him with MVP. Well done to all the children who took part.

Beaudesert Team Members

  • Snickers: Whitney, William, and Joey.
  • Maltesers: Cora, Isla and George.
  • Mars Bars: Pip.
  • Twirls: Chips, Tabitha, Belle and Bridget.
  • Bountys: Wilfred, Alice, Clemmie and Iris.
  • Kit Kat: Arabella.
  • Toffee Crisp: Harry, Sholto and Lola.
  • Rolo: Ivo.
  • Toblerone: Honor.
  • Dairy Milk: Rufus, Kaia and Annalisa.
  • Wispa: Bertie.

Mammal Tracking

In Ecology, Year 5 have been exploring the biodiversity of the grounds by carrying out different surveys. They have been putting out mammal tracking tunnels and baiting them with seeds and mealworms. The children have seen evidence of visitors in all of them, who left their inky footprints for the children to identify. Their surveys have confirmed mice, shrews and badgers are in the grounds.

Concordia Festival Masterclass

Huge well done to George in Year 7 who was invited to participate in a masterclass with cellist Ashok Klouda on stage recently, as part of the Carducci Festival at Parry’s Church in Highnam. He is one of four children who took part, and played Robots’ March by Gordon Jacob.