MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

WELCOME TO THE ‘ENJOY’ EDITION OF BETTER TIMES!

Enjoy is, of course, the first of our core values and I strongly believe that enjoyment pervades every facet of education. We wish our children to enjoy coming to school, we understand that enjoyment is a key element of school life - and we know that happy learners are already well on the way to becoming successful learners.

Collaboration is also a key tenet of our schools’ improvement plans and began with our ‘green chicken’ launch in September last year. I am extremely proud of the very many collaborative projects which have been delivered already this year: as you will read in later pages, a shining example was our first ‘Securing 4’ event, which was held in the Trust Sixth Form with year 11 students from all of our schools, who spent a motivating and highly focussed day of activities with practitioners from across the BET.

Read, too, how our Sixth Form also hosted a student led day entitled simply, ‘Inspire’ which was organised and delivered by year 11 students from TPS. The project pitted teams of year 10 students from four BET schools against each other to present and debate, “What has been the most influential change in human history in the last 200 years?”. In a tense and testing final the team from Bohunt School Liphook (Weaponry) narrowly defeated a formidable team from Costello School (Plastic). Further to the spirit of collaboration - and this time on an international level – you can find in the back pages of this issue details of the trip taken in March by the Heads of TPS and Bohunt School Liphook, with our Director of Education. Together with local Primary school colleagues, the BET team spent a very full week in three Chinese cities visiting schools, judging debating competitions and even teaching lessons! I look forward to witnessing the development of these partnerships and the exchanges of our students with their Chinese peers.

We all understand what is meant by the saying, ‘it takes a village to raise a child,’ and it is easy to see the BET as the metaphor for village. I am reminded of another African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Again, this resonates with the essence of BET, some member schools might attain more highly on their own, or by cherry picking the best bits of BET but it is a certainty that all of our member schools and children will go further as we face the future together, united in our belief that education is more than just exam results and that learners only have one chance at secondary education.

At the time of writing it is apposite to sign off with a final poultry reference (pardon the pun) and hope that the green chickens delivered abundant chocolate eggs - and that you all enjoyed a restful Easter break.

Neil Strowger

CEO of BET