This week’s 7LR form assembly examined individuality and looked at how we can use our own talents to work collectively and collaboratively as teams.  The children enjoyed sharing old and current photographs of themselves with the assembly audience, and visualising themselves as pieces of different jigsaws which represent different elements of their lives.

Well done to all of our U11 boys for both hosting and playing well during our U11 rugby festival here on the fields on Wednesday.   Ten teams played boys from a clutch of other schools including Cheltenham College, The Elms and Tockington.

The previous weekend, every child in Year 5 upwards, and a number of Year 4 children as well, competed in hockey or rugby at a Dean Close block fixture.   Another superb day of sport and learning.

The orchestra had a fantastic day at Downe House as they ‘dived’ into the musical depths for the ‘Under the Sea’ orchestral day!  Performing music composed by Dr Alexander, Head of Composition at Downe House, the music included ‘Land Ahoy’ and ‘Under the Sea’ from The Little Mermaid.

Well done to all of our musicians who learnt and performed all of the music on the day, alongside 250 musicians from 18 different prep swchools. A special mention to Evie Jones who was awarded Dr Exon’s Director of Music Musician of the Day prize, for the second year running!

To listen to some of the concert, head to https://twitter.com/@beaudesertmusic

Our series of lunchtime concerts commenced on Tuesday, with some fantastic performances from our pianists.  The concert featured many of our pianists, some of whom have just started piano and others who have been playing for a number of years.  All of the pupils took to the stage with confidence and a smile.

We hope that the new Beaudesert music calendars will be helpful for planning additional concerts this term.

Our next lunchtime concert will feature performances by pupils of Mrs Turner and Miss Cubbin, and will be on Thursday 18^th October, at 1.15pm in the Performing Arts Centre.

Rehearsals for Year 8’s Bugsby Malone end of term play are in full swing.  Here are a few photos from yesterday’s session.

The astro, the playing fields and the air itself have been full of the sight and sounds of hockey being played recently.

Last week the U9 girls played a host of players from other schools during our very own Beaudesert U9 hockey festival.  The girls were impeccably behaved and played some fabulous hockey.  It was good to have so many parents on the sidelines watching the matches and enjoying the autumn sunshine as well.  Then this Saturday the U9 girls are off to Dean Close for their first Severnside tournament, while the two U8 teams are Clifton-bound for their U8 hockey festival.

Today our U11A team has been competing in the IAPS regional hockey finals at Cheltenham College.   Watch this space for an update next week!

This week 2A brought their topic and literacy to life during a captivating class assembly.  Following their visit to the local Stroudwater Canal the class spoke about how canals were built and then performed a chapter from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.    Each child had learnt their lines brilliantly and spoke loudly and clearly in front of a rapt audience, having worked hard during the week to really get into their characters and to practise their version of the Messing About on the River  song.   Well done 2A!

Somewhere between 10 and 20% of people in the UK are dyslexic, and with October being the month in which Dyslexia Awareness Week falls, our Learning Support team thought parents might be interested in learning more.  The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) fairly recently launched www.dyslex.io – a really user-friendly source of resources and also information about what dyslexia is, the challenges AND the positives, and what it means to different people.

Although there is often the assumption that dyslexia may just affect reading and writing skills, it’s actually about information processing;  dyslexic people may have difficulty processing and remembering information they see and hear.  This can affect learning and the acquisition of literacy skills.
Dyslexia can also impact on other areas such as memory and organisational skills, but it is no indication of intelligence, and many dyslexic people show particular strengths in areas such as reasoning, as well as in visual and creative fields. Many dyslexics become successful entrepreneurs, engineers and architects, or excel in the arts.

Here is a useful animation from the Nessy website:

https://www.nessy.com/uk/parents/dyslexia-information/10-facts-every-parent-needs-know/

Stallholders and organisers have been super busy in the run-up to tomorrow, and the performing arts centre and marquee on the croquet lawn are now positively resplendent with tempting things galore in readiness for this year’s Autumn Fair.

This year proceeds will be split between three charities – Hop Skip and Jump, Footsteps and Riding for the Disabled. And with the fair having raised more than £90,000 for charity since it launched, in this, its 15th year, hopes are high that we might break the £100,000 barrier!

Do come along if you can. Entry is free for under 16s and £3 each for the rest of us.

Anthony Horowitz is a prolific writer of more than 40 books including the highly successful Alex Rider teen spy series.  He is also one of the many famous faces appearing at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival, and the Year 6 children (many of them already big fans) were delighted to be able to take a trip to see him and hear him speak about his inspiration and his next book.

This week has seen a slight change in the boarding house! We have introduced an additional, new common room for the boarders to enjoy some downtime. The new common room, is within the Houseparent’s flat and although our children Sid and Agi will be using it as their playroom during the day, by night, it becomes a relaxing TV room for the older children. With the introduction of a new TV, it has meant that ‘The Snug’ has become a fun games room, where the children are not only free to chill and chat, but they can play on the Wii, table football, snooker, table tennis or board games without disturbing anyone.

The fun evening activities continue to keep the boarders busy. Football has featured twice this week. On Tuesday, where the Year 7s and Year 5s took each other on in a fun, well fought match. But to top this… Friday Night Football has returned! The new teams made the most of the good weather by starting this term’s competition on the astro – no doubt, the sports hall will be far more appealing this week!  We have really enjoyed hosting the Year 4s and the Year 6s in our home and thankfully Mrs Layton knows how to help them have fun baking their own cookies!

If you are interested to know more about the goings on in the boarding house and if your child or children are expressing an interest in coming in, please do get in touch with us: Houseparents@bps.school or Matron@bps.school

This week the children in Nursery began an exciting new topic, namely ‘Traditional Tales’.   Focusing on the story of The Little Red Hen, the children learnt and discussed the importance of being kind and helpful towards friends.  The story’s protagonist took on an extra dimension when Baxter’s mummy very kindly brought some real life little red hens into Nursery for the children to see!

Inspired by the moral tale, the children went on to learn about how wheat grows.   Then in art they painted their own pictures of the Little Red Hen in her wheat field, using forks to help create the effect of the wheat grains.  They also had a go at grinding wheat to make flour and, just like the Little Red Hen, baking some bread.  Luckily, unlike in the story, everyone at Nursery helped, and so everyone was able to enjoy some of the delicious bread.

The Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA for short) is one of the three charities which will benefit from this weekend’s Autumn Fair, and on Monday we had a visit from Philippa Hammond who told us more about the charity and the people it helps.   Her talk was illustrated with many photographs showing people of all ages from eight to 80 benefitting from being near horses and ponies.   Amongst other things, we learnt that not all of the visitors ride;   some just go and enjoy spending time with the animals.   Philippa also took the time to tell us a little about how the charity provides its services, explaining that it relies on a lot of staff to run its centres.  Many of these people are volunteers, but the charity is still expensive to run, and so the funds raised by the fair will be very gratefully received.

7JLB staged an especially amusing form assembly last week.  With ‘The Gift of Laughter’ the chosen theme, the audience was invited to have a good giggle whilst learning a little about some of the lesser known benefits of laughter.  They learnt that laughing enhances physical and mental health in many ways including by reducing stress and increasing muscle tone.  They were also treated to a YouTube clip called ‘Happiness starts with a smile’.   Now a social media big hitter, the clip is based on a social experiment which explores how incredibly contagious laughter can be. It was originally a Coca Cola advert.

The National Schools Symphony Orchestra (NSSO) now have applications open for their courses in the summer holidays 2019.  The organisation has three different orchestras, for different levels of musicians, with the senior orchestra being of the same level as the National Youth Orchestra.  The YNSSO is open to children who are Grade 3 standard and above, with places offered after a successful audition.  Last year, Savanna and Evie attended the course.  Here are a couple of their comments:

“It was our first time on Young NSSO at Malvern College, and we really enjoyed it.  We met lots of new friends and did loads of fun activities. We played music such as Pink Panther and the theme from The Muppets, and the string section performed a Spanish tango, while the woodwind and brass did Watermelon Man.”

“The start of the week was not easy, as we didn’t know anyone else, but we soon settled in.  It helped us to gain valuable skills such as group playing and confidence when on stage, as well as sight-reading and teamwork.  Overall, it was a gigantic success and a really fun week”!

If you are interested in auditioning for NSSO, please view their website https://www.nsso.org/  and contact Mrs Saunders (r.saunders@bps.school)