Bedales John Badley celebration reaches out to local community

Bedales John Badley celebration reaches out to local community

29/09/2011

Bedales students spent a packed weekend of ambitious activities and volunteering including gardening, cleaning and painting for a local school and a charity project to celebrate the founding of their school. The programme exemplified the school’s motto ‘Work of Each for Weal of All’, introduced by the founder John Badley.

On Saturday, students from mixed year groups helped Bidbury Park Junior School in Bedhampton with a landscaping project to encourage outdoor learning. They helped install railway sleepers to create flowerbeds and plant up the school's garden. 

On Sunday, the students travelled to Littlehampton to help with homeless charity Stonepillow’s young people’s project, which provides a hostel for young unaccompanied asylum seekers and older looked-after children leaving care aged 16 – 18. The students helped transform the hostel’s garden, and clean and paint rooms to provide a better environment for the young residents. Stonepillow’s Project Manager said, “It was a great example of a joint community effort to produce excellent outcomes. We hope this kind of project will break barriers for young people from all different backgrounds to learn from one another and to grow into caring & responsible citizens in the future. ”

At Bedales over the same weekend, students, staff and parents took part in Badley’s other tradition of the ‘Whole School Effort’ by planting 20,000 bulbs in the school’s orchard. Directors from the National Youth Theatre came to the school to help students produce a folk promenade performance with storytelling and music; sixth formers worked together to construct an outdoor amphitheatre; and a digital archive was created which included recording every person present at the Badley Celebration reciting a line from the poem A Song of Myself by Badley’s favourite poet Walt Whitman.

At Dunhurst, Bedales Junior School, pupils, staff and parents helped to plant a peace garden using crocus bulbs to spell out the word peace. They also helped to paint the modern languages department and build a trellis and plant climbers around the building as well as help with apple-picking, hop-picking and the pruning of hedgerows around the estate. The day was finished with a traditional walk to the Poet’s Stone (Ashford Hangers) followed by a picnic in the school grounds.

At Dunannie, Bedales Pre-preparatory school, pupils and parents got involved in a recycling fashion show and worked together to create outfits out of discarded buttons, ribbon and material. The pupils then gave special names for the outfits that were read out by Head of Dunannie Jo Webbern as the pupils paraded down the catwalk. The outfits had original names, such as ‘Victor the Alien, ‘Aqua Surprise, ‘Ruched Ribbon’, ‘African Princess’ and ‘King Edward the Dragon Slayer’. In addition the Dunannie community took part in planting, pavement painting and the creation of woven willow stars to decorate the school.

Keith Budge, Headmaster Bedales Schools says: “This year we built on our strong traditions and branched out into new areas. I am most impressed with how much can be achieved over one weekend when the Bedales community comes together in such a variety of ways that makes not just the school community stronger but helps others elsewhere so tangibly too.”

The Badley Celebration weekend is an important tradition in the school’s calendar when members of the community come together every September to celebrate and remember John Badley who founded Bedales in 1893. Last year, the school launched a new 100% bursary scheme ‘the John Badley Foundation’ to provide a Bedales education for talented children who would not normally be able to afford an independent education. Following significant fundraising, the school welcomed the first Badley Foundation scholar this term and is now seeking more candidates. For information on applying for a John Badley Foundation bursary please contact the Registrar, Janie Jarman on (01730) 711733 or email jjarman@bedales.org.uk.

View photos taken by Bedales students Lucy Hewett and Ellie Catton (Bl 4) at the Badley weekend.

View photos taken of the activities at Dunhurst's Badley weekend.

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