Academic

ICT

It has been good to have a normal year at school again. In the Autumn Term, we covered Office applications, and also e-Safety, and began to remind people about touch-typing, which in many cases was a little rusty. We also continued to encourage independent learning and thinking in Computing. Miss Barnes shared her enthusiasm and knowledge with Years 1 and 2 with great success in the ICT Suites in the Prep School.

During the Spring Term, we focused on Coding. Different year groups used a combination of programming applications. Year 8 enjoyed making a zombie game in Scratch, while Year 6 made a rocket game.

The Summer Term has been busy as always, and younger years have worked

e-Safety

As ever, this year has been another important one from an e-Safety point of view. There has been lots going on as we have made a return to normal school routines over the last 12 months. This year, we were thrilled to roll out the Chromebooks to children in Year 7, but with this came an added responsibility to ensure that our e-Safety programme was as polished as ever. Like in previous years, during lessons in both Pre-Prep and the Prep School, the children learnt about different ways to ensure they stay protected and safe in their online world. They have done this through a variety of different ways, using resources from Google’s Interland, ThinkUKnow or CEOP, as well as programmes such as Gooseberry Planet. Our message has remained the same, make sure you have a trusted adult to speak to if (and when) you make a mistake when you are online. We encourage responsible and safe use of the internet on all the different platforms that our children use, but know full well that mistakes may be made. It is important that children know what to do and how to handle them, and we have continued to emphasise this.

At the end of my piece in last year’s magazine, I mentioned that we looked forward to resuming our programme of guest speakers and experts who could come and educate us, and I am thrilled on their projects using a range of applications, which is a great chance to problem solve and use a selection of programs together. Years 7 and 8 have worked on Photoshop, Photopea and Wick Editor, while Year 6 have enjoyed using Sketchup, a 3D modelling program, and Pivot is popular among all years.

JG

to say that, slowly but surely, we have welcomed external speakers to speak to the children about the relevant issues that our young people have faced over the course of the year. In the Autumn Term, PC Mark Weedon, from the Gloucestershire Constabulary School Beat programme, came in to speak to the children of the Prep School about the dangers of online trolls, and in February, to celebrate Safer Internet Day, we had Alan Earl speak to other members of the Prep School about the issues we face around social media and fake news.

As ever, looking ahead to next year, we will continue to explore new avenues and themes, ensuring we keep up to date with any sites or apps that become relevant for our young people. As well as this, we shall seek support from external speakers to help with our delivery as we continue to cover such an important topic.

TL

Thinking like Mathematicians

Visualisation. Reduce the data sample. Look for a pattern. Substitute for the unknown. What’s the same…what is different? Think like Mathematicians. These are all problem solving strategies that our pupils become familiar with as they progress through the Maths curriculum here at Beaudesert.

Developing a mathematical mindset in the pupils is the focus in the Maths department at Beaudesert. We believe everyone can learn Maths to any level, and Maths is about depth, not speed. We teach children to become resilient problem solvers, and teach them to be able to deliver elegant mathematical solutions to problems. They learn that everyone gets stuck at some point and it is an honourable and positive state. The best preparation for the future is being stuck now. Children learn the value of marvellous mistakes; they are the golden nuggets of learning and moving forward. We link this to the latest brain research on how our brains grow, embracing the struggle and letting our synapses fire!

The process of preparing children to confidently tackle a GCSE paper, or similar form of assessment, involves developing their readiness to conjecture, hypothesis and problem solve. Maths is not about a series of random, disconnected facts… It is a beautiful pattern of interconnected pathways. It is true that there are core skills that a child must learn, but the shift away from formal regurgitation of facts to deeper problem solving, and the strengthening of subsequent transferrable skills, is welcomed in the GCSE focus and now the ISEB 13+ curriculum which precedes it. We teach using ‘Intelligent Practice’; spot what’s different, interrogate the reasons why that might be, and explain your reasoning.

Problem solving is a cornerstone of our Maths teaching here at Beaudesert, right from the start in the Pre-Prep. We teach the children to “have a think, have a go”, and teach them that we all see Maths differently, and to value and respect all the ideas put forward.

Our Year 3 and Year 4 children have challenged themselves with a new ‘First Maths Challenge’ run by the Primary Maths Challenge team – a super start to their career in Maths competitions.

Our Year 5 and Year 6 children put themselves in that exact position when they attended a Maths Challenge Day at Cheltenham College in the Spring Term. They were faced with a range of problem solving rounds, team and individual challenges, and worked against schools from nearby counties and London. It was agreed that we all had a great day and our brains certainly grew!

Our Year 7 and Year 8 pupils took part in the annual UKMT Junior Maths Challenge Competition. This year they won 8 Gold awards, 8 Silver awards and 8 Bronze awards. A total of 24 awards for 28 candidates, which was an amazing achievement.

Finally, all our pupils in Years 5 to 8 regularly take part in Gloucestershire Schools Maths Competitions via our online adaptive learning platform ‘Sumdog’. As I write this article, we are currently sitting in the top two spots on the leader board – go Beaudesert!

Remember, it is only a problem if you cannot do it straight away. Reflection on the problem is paramount. Do not let the unfamiliar intimidate you. Think like Mathematicians!

Learning Support

This year has seen us welcome and then say goodbye to Mrs Emma Holmes. Mrs Holmes took to the role of Learning Support teacher like a duck to water. She will be sorely missed. Mrs Layton has been in two places at once for the last term as she has taken on-board the responsibility of Learning Support in the Pre-Prep, after we said goodbye to Mrs Royston at the end of the Spring Term. It is a good thing Mrs Layton has the super powers to cope with being so busy. Talking of ‘superpowers’, this is how we celebrate learning differences, by helping our pupils to discover what they are good at, not necessarily an academic skill, and call that skill their ‘superpower’. Superpowers include model making, bird identification and creating imaginative stories.

Mrs Potter has been very creative with model making. Her ‘Forks and Corks’ creatures made learning the ‘or’ sound enjoyable and memorable. Our pupils have all been hands on with Play-Doh, ping pong balls, Wikki Stix, and many other resources to ensure that their learning is multi-sensory and fun. Hands on learning can also involve the use of technology. This year we introduced Widgit, a programme which uses easilyrecognised symbols to support written text. This has been particularly useful for creating science notes with technical vocabulary. When writing creatively, some pupils find dictating their ideas helps them with sentence structure. We use ‘talking tins’ and dictation apps on iPads for this. Some pupils are also using Office 365’s immersive reader function and dictation facilities, and we aim to make this more cross-curricular next year.

The Autumn Term saw us celebrating Dyslexia Awareness Week, with videos and PowerPoints watched by pupils in form time. Educating the wider school community to understand dyslexia and other learning differences is part of our role, and our coffee mornings in September and April this year gave parents the opportunity to share their experiences, and for us to share our expertise and resources. Make sure you do not miss the next one! HW

Design, Technology and Engineering

This year our Year 8 pupils had the opportunity to take part in a new project “BBC Micro:bit Robot Wars”.

Pupils have been learning to use computer code from an early age in the ICT room. This project was designed to demonstrate to the pupils the practical side of coding. The pupils learnt to program and download code onto a BBC Micro:bit circuit board. The written code makes the robots move and turn as instructed.

We used BBC Micro:bit circuit boards and the open source website https:// makecode.microbit.org/ to design and build the coding. Anyone can access the website and it even has an online simulator to make sure the code is working correctly before downloading it.

We used the School’s laser cutter to cut out a basic MDF chassis that the motors and controller would connect to. The pupils then had free choice of tools and materials, and used skills taught from Year 4 to design and build weapons and armour to protect their robot. Many children built ramps to flip over their opponents robots; however, the most successful weapon was an electric motor with spinning rotary weapon mounted to it. The pupils experimented with methods to protect their robots including making wheel guards and bumpers to deflect impacts. The final robots were highly decorated using Posca paint pens. In the Year 8’s final lesson at Beaudesert Park, we held our own “Robot Wars” competition. An arena was set up in the

EMILIE, YEAR 7, MOOD LAMP

LUX, YEAR 6, TIE-DYE T-SHIRT

DT Studio, the robots were lined up and the start buttons pushed. The robots cycled through the code and went about attacking the opposition robots and retreating.

In the resulting chaos, we saw robots falter, weapons fail and armour disintegrate. The noise from the pupils was deafening as they enthusiastically cheered their robots to victory and protested as they waned. We all thoroughly enjoyed the action-packed ending to a year-long team project.

I wish all of Year 8 pupils the best of luck, and hope they continue to be enthused and enjoy their Design, Technology and Engineering classes in their senior school.

LW

HARRY A W, YEAR 5, BAG FOR LIFE ARTHUR L, YEAR 4, BOAT PROJECT

RUPERT, YEAR 6, GLASS PROJECT CLOVER, YEAR 7, PILLOW PROJECT

BBC MICRO:BIT ROBOTS CECILIA R, YEAR 5, CAM TOY

Science

We have had another jam-packed year in the Science Department.

This year saw the re-introduction of the Year 4 Science Enrichment programme. For eight weeks of the Spring Term, the children were asked to carry out a fun activity or investigation at home each week and report on their findings. Those who were really committed and completed each activity were rewarded with a crystal growing kit to enjoy at home.

As usual, Jonathan’s Jungle Roadshow was back to accompany our Year 5 work on Adaptation. The children were enthralled by some of Jonathan’s creepie crawlie friends, including snakes, scorpions, and giant stick insects. You can visit his website for some close up pictures of his ‘extended family’, https:// jonathansjungleroadshow.co.uk/

Our older years enjoyed a World of Work Afternoon in February listening to three eminent speakers who work in the STEM industry. Sarah Ratcliffe spoke to the children about her work creating sustainable buildings, Tom Keith-Welsh talked about his work in BioPharma at GlaxoSmithKline, and Chris Drye introduced the children to his exciting work at Vertical Aerospace, and the different career opportunities appearing in the new industry of ‘urban air transport’. Later in the year, the Prep School children listened to an insightful talk by Mr and Mrs Skarda about the aquatic unmanned vehicles their engineering firm are designing for the military.

Years 6 and 7 took part in fantastic STEAM days this year. Our Year 6s made bath bombs and carried out bath bomb dissolving investigations, and our Year 7s took part in some biscuit dunking investigations to aid their product business plans.

Our Year 8 Common Entrance results were excellent and this is thanks to a brilliant team effort from the Science Department, the parents and our very hard working children.

We are looking forward to another hugely successful year with more experiments, learning and fun in September.

JLB