Senior Department News

A special mention today to the Year 7 (and one Top Form) pupils who displayed a multitude of Beechwood values as they acted as Senior Department Ambassadors at last night’s Senior School Information Evening for Middle Department parents.

Will, Ana, Logan, Audrey, Felix and Millie ably demonstrated the values of Collaboration, Courage, Perseverance, Respect, Trust, and Leadership as they shared their experiences of the Senior Department, of boarding and of the 13+ entrance procedures for a wide variety of schools with our audience. There have been limited opportunities in the last two years for our pupils to speak at events such as this, and everyone agreed that they presented their thoughts with both eloquence and humour. Well done to you all.

Top Form French

Top A last week combined French, Music and Art in a lesson appreciating the works of French poets, artists and composers.

They have been studying French poetry and chose poems to translate for the Stephen Spender Competition, an annual competition for poetry in translation. They are now studying Impressionism and Post-Impressionism and listened to Debussy’s Arabesque as they chose their favourite paintings.

Mme Bliss

Year 6 Science

Year 6 Scientists have been getting more familiar with microscopes this week, making their own slides to view. They have also observed pre-prepared slides of a variety of interesting cells. This concludes their topic on cells and microscopes. Next, they will be moving onto another Biology topic, this time concentrating on the effect of exercise on the human body.

Maths Focus

Those of your who follow our Twitter account (@BWPmaths) will have seen our recent retweet of the Mathematical Association post regarding girls and A-Level Maths.

At Beechwood, we understand that maths can indeed be stereotyped as a ‘boys’ subject’ however, as a female mathematician and engineer myself, I cannot help but marvel at the fact that this needed to be said. In our Senior Department Maths lessons, we are constantly exposing our pupils, boys and girls alike, to the beauty and wonder of maths. And yes, this often involves “hard maths”. But so what? There’s nothing wrong with hard maths, in fact, persevering with more complex problems that require higher order thinking help us to develop a growth mindset and resilience.

So far, this week alone, our Senior Department girls have been involved in lessons on laws of indices, solving complex equations, simultaneous equations, and understanding the relationship between parallel lines and the angles created by a transversal. Later this time, our Year 6 girls (and boys!) will take part in mathematical investigations on Sierpinski’s triangle, writing in binary code, solving cipher problems and curve stitching.In the Senior Department, boys and girls worth together on their maths investigations and, quite rightly, regard one another as equals. We expect that this relationship will continue as they move onto their Senior Schools.

This image is on the door of my Maths classroom and is one we stand by in the Department. Let’s all keep reminding our young people, both boys and girls, how amazing they are at Maths (and everything else!)

Mrs Wright

Head of Mathematics

Summer Examination Timetable

Please click here to see the Summer 2022 School Exams Timetables

From the Senior Library

The Sky Over Rebecca by Matthew Fox

The Sky Over Rebecca won the Bath Children’s Novel Award for 2019, and has finally been published by Hodder. It is a breath-taking time travel debut set in Stockholm, following 10 year old only-child Kara and her friend Rebecca.

Kara first finds Rebecca when she finds a strange snow angel and a mysterious path of footprints in the snow. However it takes her a while to realise that Rebecca and her disabled brother Samuel are refugees from World War Two. Guided by the night sky, they are able to interact and become friends. Importantly, Kara is able to take food packages to them across time but it becomes clear that she needs to do more if she is ever going to truly help them.

The Sky Over Rebecca is a sensitive and thoughtful account of the Holocaust, weaving the Kara’s struggles with loneliness and bullying with the peril and trauma of war time. An extraordinary and moving book.

Head’s Commendations

Congratulations to the recipients of this week’s Head’s Commendations:

	Nurture	Engage	Inspire
Year 6	-	Isaac C, Max M, Ella B, Harry G, Benedict B, Ally M	-
Year 7	-	-	Joshua L, Reuben W, Sevi P, Eloise W
Top Form	-	-	-