Bedales > What We are Doing

Ben Shaw, Head of Design at Bedales, writes on 3 July:

I use my time away from Bedales training for and competing in triathlons. This summer in no exception, and I will be competing in France next week in the World long distance championships and also in the IRONMAN UK triathlon at Sherborne Castle in Dorset on the 19 th August. I am ashamed to say in 10 years of competing I have never taken part for charity – until this year!

During the Ironman event I will be:

Swimming 3.8km in a lake– that’s 190 lengths of the Bedales pool or from school to Petersfield market square and back.

Then

Cycling 112miles (180km) – that is from school to Birmingham as the crow flies

Then

Running 26.2miles (42km) - a marathon

For more, see http://iron.ironmanuk.com/

I’m not as fit (or a young!) as I would like to be for this event and I will be spending the summer getting as fit as I can. I expect it will take me around 10hours to complete the course. That is a long time to be seen in Lycra so it would be great to know that I am doing it for a good cause and someone will be benefiting from my silliness!

Please pledge or donate using this link to go to my justgiving.com website.

Thanks for any support you can give – every little helps!

Have a great summer break,

Ben

Eckersley Lecture - Brain Power

Our brain is one of the most complex organs, with incalculable power, whose functionality we are only just beginning to understand. Yet, as Professor Michael O’Shea pointed out last week, “it is the brain itself thinking these thoughts – if it isn’t the most complex machine in the universe, it’s certainly the most conceited!”

Professor O’Shea, Director of the Sussex Centre for Neurosciences at Sussex University, was giving the 41st Eckersley science lecture at Bedales school on “The brain – the final frontier?”

He began by mentioning the various regions of the brain, how the pseudo-science of phrenology has, as a fortunate spin-off, some interesting parallels with hard science. The unfortunate American, Phineas Gage, who accidentally blew a large metal spike through his head, provided the first evidence that emotions were based in the pre-frontal cortex. Poor Mr Gage, although he survived, was never the same again: even his friends did not recognise him.

Professor O’Shea demonstrated some fascinating audio and visual illusions to show how the brain can provide missing information yet subtract visual information when instructed to do so. Dancing gorillas, missed by everybody, and the conversion of dah dah dah into bah bah bah simply by having the extra cue of lip reading, to name just two. Most fascinating to the audience however was the weird rotating Charlie Chaplin mask: knowing the inside was concave prevented nobody from seeing a fully convex face rotating in the opposite direction!

The lecture was unforgettable – magical and utterly engaging – and ended with many questions taken from a large audience of Bedales students and staff, parents and members of the public. As always, other schools and colleges were invited to the Eckersley Lecture and this year’s audience included groups of students and staff from Alton College, Southdowns College, Churcher’s College and Portsmouth High School.

“You know” said Professor O’Shea afterwards, as he observed Venus hanging high in the night sky, “the milky way is over 100,000 light years across and contains billions of stars, yet the human brain contains more nerve cells than there are stars in the galaxy…”

Double win for Bedales netball

Bedales netball teams have won two tournaments in a fortnight. The Under-15s
came top of 12 sides in the South East Hampshire Versatility Netball tournament at Portsmouth Grammar School, winning their matches against Mayville, Portsmouth High, Horndean, Oaklands and Hayling.

Bedales scored over 40 goals and only conceded three in the preliminary rounds. They faced Wykeham House in the semi-final. It was a toughly fought match but Bedales picked up their game and began to dominate in the second half. They then went on to beat home team Portsmouth Grammar in the final 8-2 to win the tournament in convincing style.

The tournament called for all-round skill, requiring every player in a team to rotate positions after every game, so that they played all positions – but then this is a versatile team altogether. Last summer they won the South East Hampshire Rounders tournament.

The team were Daisy Wetherill (captain), Gabriella Goring, Ella Clayton-Bell, Isabella Ward, Charlotte Knowles, Harriet Adams, Lucinda Adams, Gabby Morris, Rianna Hemmings.

Their success was matched two weeks later by the Bedales Under-16 team in an area tournament. Once again they had to win all their games in their group, holding off stiff competition from Portsmouth Grammar in particular. They played exceptionally well and conceded very few goals. In the final they beat Bohunt School. Kitty Rice captained the team.

Biology Field Trip

Biology field trip based at Medina Valley Centre, near Newport, Isle of Wight. The trip was.was part of A2 Biology course (Salters Nuffield course) and focussed on the distribution analysis and ecology of living things on rocky shores, saltmarshes and streams.

Union Dance Workshop

Members of Union Dance Company led a dance workshop, introducing students to moves that were later demonstrated by the full company during a performance in the Olivier Theatre on 26 September.

Generosity set in stone (well, brick, actually)

During the summer the final piece of landscaping around the new Orchard Building was put in place – the Bedalian brick wall.

Current and former students, parents and friends of the school who contributed to the cost of the new building through the ‘Buy a Brick’ campaign are commemorated in engraved bricks set into the face of the wall. Altogether, 176 benefactors are recorded.

The wall is the perfect spot for sitting and relaxing on a warm day and is already on the itinerary for visitors who are reliving their memories of the school.

Coracles

The annual coracle race took place on the lake at the end of the summer term.

The craft – tarred cloth over a wooden lath frame – are made by the students, who then have to put the quality of their work to the test. This year’s winner raised a controversy equal to the most hotly contested Wimbledon line call: can a coracle have pointed ends, or does that turn it into a boat?

The answer was soon forgotten as those craft that had not sunk of their own accord were helped on their way, and all the combatants ended up in the water. What started as a race finished as a rout.

All-night bake, June 2006

Bedales students bake bread in the wood-fired ovens every Thursday in term – getting up at 6.00am to do so.

But the baking for Parents’ Day is different. So many loaves are needed that it turns into an all-night event, ending with breakfast and barbecued toast in the chill of the dawn.

Hundreds of loaves are baked and sold, including Bedales’ own sugar bomb – a large white loaf with a whole Mars bar baked in the middle of it.

Global fashion statement

What the rich world wears, the poor world makes: fashion is a business that affects resources and people across the globe. Dani Trew thinks we should be more aware of its implications.

The 14-year-old student at Bedales School has created a ‘fashion statement’ on the global reach of the fashion industry that has attracted national attention.

Instead of writing a conventional essay for her Geography studies, Dani has presented her findings as a couture creation: a bodice and long train, with appliquéd panels of text and fashion illustrations: a ‘fashion statement’ in every sense of the word.

Dani said, “It was trainers that started me thinking. We buy them, and when they go out of fashion we just throw them away. We don’t care – and the manufacturers don’t care, as long as they can get them made cheaply enough. We should think more about the waste of resources, and about the people who make the things we wear.”

Two national organisations have expressed interest in using Dani’s work in their educational resources, bringing it to the attention of a wider audience, even an international audience: Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC), which promote international issues and sustainable development, and Labour Behind the Label, a campaign that supports garment workers' efforts worldwide to improve their working conditions.  Dani’s creation will be exhibited at the RISC centre in Reading, where it will be seen by visiting school groups.

Dave Richards of RISC judged the investigative projects of Bedales students who had completed their first year of Geography in the senior school. He said, “Dani Trew’s piece stood out for several reasons. It not only summarised the issue of sweated labour in the clothing industry in a clear and balanced way, but also presented the arguments in an attention-grabbing style. It is very advanced work for her age – I thought at first it was a project for AS-level. The dress was the perfect medium to communicate serious issues accessibly and effectively. There’s a future for her campaigning for trade justice!”

Dani added, “A lot of American factories have already closed because it’s cheaper to make trainers and clothes overseas. A sewing-machine operator in Bangladesh only earns £10 a month – that’s the minimum wage – but as soon as the manufacturers find somewhere cheaper, those jobs will go as well.

“I’m hoping my ‘fashion statement’ will make people think more about what they buy.”

Bedales explorers’ explosive expedition

The newly formed Bedales Sixth-form Explorers Society made its inaugural expedition to the volcanoes of Sicily.

The group was lucky to see Mount Etna on one of the ten days in the year when it is not shrouded in cloud. A four-wheel-drive vehicle took them to within 600 vertical metres of the summit, and they then hiked across snow, ash, cinder and lava to the edge of Europe’s largest active volcano. The experience was literally breathtaking, what with altitude sickness and low oxygen levels at more than 3000 metres above ground level.

Etna was impressive, but it was overshadowed by Stromboli, Europe’s only continuously erupting volcano. The difficult hike up the steep slopes brought the group to the lip of the most recent crater just as the sun set. They spent around an hour witnessing spectacular volcanic explosions, seemingly just in front of them. Some of these eruptions threw pyroclastic bombs (molten rock) into the air over 200 metres high, accompanied by thunderous noises.

10 March 2006
Tangled Feet Workshop and Performance

Tangled Feet is a young company, with a strong commitment to developing physical theatre, full of powerful visual imagery. Two company members held a workshop last week for twenty Bedales Dance and Theatre Studies students the day they performed their new work “Lost Property” at the Bedales Olivier Theatre.  During the two hour session, students explored how one goes about creating physical theatre. Students Jamie Bower and Richard Cliff enjoyed themselves immensely. “It was an incredibly useful workshop for what we are doing at the moment both in Dance and Theatre Studies. It really made me consider relationships with the people I am working with”. (Jamie) “It’s amazing how it crosses the boundary between theatre and dance—all the activities link in together and give a different prospective on the work”. (Richard)

The students who took part in the workshop also attended that evening’s packed performance. “Lost Property” won five-star reviews at the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe and a Best Ensemble nomination for The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence and the evening’s performance lived up to expectation. Afterwards, students took the opportunity to attend an informal post-show chat with cast members.

6 March 2006
YOUTH DANCE PLATFORM PERFORMANCE SUCCESS

For the past nine years, the Bedales Dance department has hosted its Youth Dance Platform in conjunction with other schools and organisations in Hampshire.  This year was no exception and the event, held on Sunday 26 February, saw seven dance groups representing both schools and community organisations.  Regulars included Hampshire Youth Dance, Loose Moose Theatre Arts and Anne Blumlein School of Dance.

Dancers from Bedales and Dunhurst performed a piece entitled Secrets and Lies, inspired by the workshop on performance given by ACE Dance & Music at Bedales last term. Hampshire Youth Dance Company brought a substantial new work entitled Queue Jumpers and were joined this year by another county company, the Basingstoke-based NoCo, which focuses on Street Jazz and Hip-Hop. The Anne Blumlein School of Dance, who have performed every year since the Youth Dance Platform’s inception, entertained the audience with several pieces of varying styles, the boys’ dance being a house favourite. Once again, Loose Moose Theatre Arts impressed everyone with their professionalism and skilful choreography. The return of Churcher’s College was a warm welcome to this year’s programme.

The Youth Dance Platform gives different schools and community organisations a unique opportunity to come together and interact in an educational rather than a competitive environment.  When the event was organised nine years ago, several of the regular participant organisations were newly formed.  Some of the original students who have performed throughout this time have now gone on to dance training and careers, helped in part by their involvement in this event.

Jo Alldridge, teacher in charge of Dance at Bedales and one of the event organisers, has enjoyed watching this event grow over the years, “What was nice about this year was the number of boys and girls involved and the high standard of the choreography and performance. There were over 100 students involved from all of the different groups and once again the evening was a complete sell out.”

23rd February 2006
Geographers learn of mankind's almost certain annihilation

6i geographers made the perilous, icy trip to the Varley Theatre, Peter Symonds College Winchester last Thursday evening to hear Bill Maquire talk on the various probabilities of the human species being all but wiped out, within our lifetime, by natural phenomena.

The highest probability of a global geophysical event of catastrophic proportions was from a tsunami resulting from a massive land slide. The most likely place for this would be in the Canary Islands with a probability of 3:1 in our lifetime. This, however, is unlikely to lead to anything more than about 20% of the World's population being killed. The least likely way mentioned was being destroyed by giant meteors, more than 1 km in diameter. The probability for this was around 7286:1 in our lifetime. Supervolcanoes, resulting in calderas (giant holes in the ground), were similarly unlikely in our lifetime but also potentially threaten the extinction of mankind. 70,000 years ago one such volcanic eruption nearly caused our extinction. Only a very few thousand human beings were left on the planet; from whom all people today (all c. 7 billion of us) are descended.

Professor McGuire discussed some of our possible survival strategies, some of which, such as moving meteors off their trajectory with a Reliant Robin;, seemed rather fanciful. It has to be said that overall the talk, whilst fascinating, was rather depressing; but judge for yourself, the library should soon have a copy of the book (cover below).

Freddie Greene, Jess Sutcliffe and Colin Prowse

2nd December 2005
School record first ever win

Millions of calories were burned off in 90 minutes of intense brain activity in the Geography Block on Friday evening as the long standing traditional staff versus school chess match was rekindled. Due to being unable to field a full team of 6 at the start, the staff conceded one game and were playing catch-up chess all match, never once getting their noses in front and eventually going down to the school team, for the first time in this player’s memory, by a score of 6½ to 5½. Due to time constraints some games required adjudication but none were contested. The school was most ably led by George Hay who beat Peter Coates and fought a magnificent rear-guard action to post a win against Colin Prowse. The final scores were:

7th November 2005
Ace Dance and Music hold workshop at Bedales School                                                           

Ace Dance and Music held a workshop last week for Bedales students the day before they performed professionally at the Bedales Olivier Theatre.  The educational dance teachers worked with over forty Dunhurst and Bedales students in two workshops throughout the day.  Dunhurst students and Bedales students all worked on the repertoire from ‘Real’.  The company used a fusion of African, Caribbean and contemporary dance and music, both in the workshop and in their performance.  This is the first time Ace has visited Petersfield and Bedales.

“The kids really enjoyed it.  It was challenging but exciting.  The students got a great deal out of the experience and both Dunhurst and  Bedales students are going to use the material to choreograph and perform  work for their community Youth Dance Platform next term”.
Photo:  Ace dancers working with Bedales students

DAY OUT IN PURBECK  

The rain held off long enough for us to undertake a detailed survey of the coastal dunes at Studland, inspect the flood risks in the river Swan drainage basin, dig a soil pit in gley, glimpse a Portland rendzina and closely inspect the colourful horizons of a podzol. All this and fish and chips on Swanage promenade in one day trip from school – it could only be an AS geography field trip.

Use of a Suunto clinometer to determine beach and dune morphology

Looking back to the beach from a dune “blowout” 

12 October 2005
BEDALES GIRLS MAKE HAMPSHIRE COUNTY TRAINING

Two Bedales girls were selected in September to attend Hampshire County training in hockey. Alex Wyld and Poppy Wetherill were selected from a day of annual trials open to all schools in Hampshire. If they do well in the training, they could be selected for the South East Hampshire Hockey squad and play in county matches throughout the year.

Alex Wyld, whose family live in Petersfield, is an excellent hitter of the ball and was selected for a defensive position.

Poppy Wetherill, also from Petersfield, was selected for an attacking position and is able to use her pace well on the wing.

29 September 2005
BEDALES GOES BACK TO ITS ROOTS WITH ALL-IN-WEEKEND

The weather was kind to Bedales School as it held its inaugural Badley weekend on 1-2 October; it was an all-in-weekend to bring the Bedales community together to celebrate and progress the vision and values of the school’s founder John Badley and to continue his tradition of “Work of each for weal of all”.  This vision was founded on the idea that an education should cater for the head, hand and heart.  The school has a long tradition of involving its students in building projects and working to enhance their environment.

Bedales focussed on landscaping and developing the green areas around the new Teaching and Administration building.  Students worked alongside staff turfing, top-soiling, planting trees and grass seed, building a pergola, preparing flower beds and reinstating paths. 

Activities for Dunhurst students and staff included apple pressing, the creation of a Beehive plaque for the building’s front entrance and the maintenance of areas around the school, including the Adventure Playground and the Goblin Car Race Track.  All Old Dunhurstians were invited back to participate in the day’s activities and many took part in the activities.  Dunannie held several events which our families were able to enjoy. The children planted a thousand bulbs in the Dunannie orchard and then followed an environmental Scavenger Hunt around the school grounds, collecting treasure as they went. Enthusiastic murmurs could also be heard coming from the library as parents, as well as the children, were caught up in the excitement of making colourful woven panels. These will be joined together to create a woven hanging for the Bedales Reading Room. Such was the eagerness that some fathers could be seen leaving school with their unfinished weaving tucked under their arms. Many parents have commented on how great it was to be able to share quality family time in the company of friends, doing something creative.

Saturday evening was the first Badley Open Jaw which took the form of a ‘question time-style’ debate, centred on a panel comprising educators and others interested in education, including some former students.  The topic is a broad one: What are schools for?   The evening elicited good discussion about educational vision, a subject dear to Badley’s heart, with his view that “The getting of knowledge, and the getting of delight in it, are the ends of a child’s education”.

The weekend’s projects continued on the Sunday for all three schools and culminated in a simple communal picnic lunch in the Orchard for people from all three of the Bedales Schools.  Apples from the orchard were transformed by Dunannie families into fruity sculptures and delicious sticky apple tarts which were enjoyed by everyone at the community lunch. Keith Budge, Bedales Head, commented:  “Our first Badley weekend comes at a good time for the school with our magnificent new building now open and provides an excellent opportunity for a productive, communal whole school effort in the best John Badley tradition”.

8 September 2005
BEDALES FOOTBALLERS GO TO SPAIN

Bedales school football team sent 16 players to Valencia Football Club in Spain for an intensive week of coaching during the last week of the holidays. The trip also included attending the first game of the season between Valencia and Real Betis at the impressive Misstella Stadium.

The group, made up of 15-17 year olds, were being coached at the La Liga club’s training ground and were rubbing shoulders with some of Spain’s and the world’s finest players. The boys had four hours coaching a day and played two games against Spanish and English opposition. The highlight of the week was having Serbian national player Miroslav Djukic (bottom photo) join in with the boy’s training. He played in Euro 2000 and two Champion League finals for Valencia.

The Bedales students managed to get shirts signed by players such as Patrick Kluivert, Pablo Aimar and Santiago Cañizares (top photo) during the week. It was an excellent experience and one that the Bedales footballers will not forget.

26 August 2005
BEDALES GCSE RESULTS

GCSE students at Bedales were celebrating their results this week. The number of A*s increased significantly from last year’s 20.4% to 26.5% this year; 82% of grades were A*-B. All students gained at least 5 A*-C grades.

Of the 82 GCSE candidates, twelve gained A or A* grades exclusively and twenty-two students gained 5 or more A* grades. The average student gained just over 9 GCSE subjects.

Keith Budge, Bedales Head: “These are very good results: the rise in the number of A*s given is an especially heartening feature. Many congratulations to students and staff alike on such an impressive achievement.”

19 August 2005
BEDALES A-LEVEL RESULTS

Bedales School students were celebrating their A-level results this week. More than 25% of A-level students received 3As or better; 42% of all grades were As, an increase of 10% from last year; and 69.3% of all grades were A or B. The pass rate for A-level exams was 100%. A- and AS-level exams were taken in 25 subjects this year.

Keith Budge, Bedales Head, commented on the results this year: “We are really pleased with these results, which reflect the hard work of teachers and students alike.”

Most of those students applying to colleges and universities this year were accepted into their first choice, including seven who gained Oxbridge places.

July 2005
Bedales LAMBA Acting Exam Results

The results for Bedales' first ever set of LAMDA exams were all senior level exams with 6 ordinary level passes, 3 Merits and 3 Distinctions at Bronze level and 1 Merit and 2 Distinctions at Silver medal level.