Dear Parents, Although the floods came and went, to borrow a well- known phrase, we all kept calm and carried on with resilience and good humour. As things hopefully have returned to normal, it would be good to capture some of that spirit and carry it forward into the traditional Christmas season. | December 2012 | HEADMASTER’S LETTER A year 9 class, taking learning outside of the classroom and enjoying an English lesson by the flood water - vocabulary such as flotsam and jetsam learned and used by all! Flood myths have been around probably since man first started oral traditions. The most well known in Western culture is the story of Noah’s flood from the Bible but there are many other stories. Although all the flood myths vary, sometimes to large degrees, many of them have some thread of commonality. Often these stories are told about one human character or one human family. Animals are involved in many of these stories and there is almost always a moral, with the flood coming only after the human race has committed some wrong doing. (What has Gloucestershire done??). In the end we may never know why flood myths are so prevalent across time and civilizations. Perhaps it stems from our ancient knowledge that natural disaster is our worst enemy in life and not other people?
Transcript
Dear Parents,
Although the floods came and went, to borrow a well-known phrase, we all kept calm and carried on with resilience and good humour. As things hopefully have returned to normal, it would be good to capture some of that spirit and carry it forward into the traditional Christmas season.
| December 2012 |
HEADMASTER’S
LETTER
A year 9 class, taking learning outside of the classroom and enjoying an English lesson by the flood water -
vocabulary such as flotsam and jetsam learned and used by all!
Flood myths have been around probably since man first started oral traditions. The most well known in Western culture is the story of Noah’s flood from the Bible but there are many other stories. Although all the flood myths vary, sometimes to large degrees, many of them have some thread of commonality. Often these stories are told about one human character or one human family. Animals are involved in many of these stories and there is almost always a moral, with the flood coming only after the human race has committed some wrong doing. (What has Gloucestershire done??). In the end we may never know why flood myths are so prevalent across time and civilizations. Perhaps it stems from our ancient knowledge that natural disaster is our worst enemy in life and not other people?
Floods New Gym Facility Hockey Tour Christmas Craft Fair Carol Service Team Success Cadet Force
pupils of the Junior School who have already enjoyed riding or learning to ride on them. Balance bikes are particularly good for dyspraxic children and the hope is that fun in the playground will stimulate improvement in balance and coordination for our youngest pupils. We are very grateful for these.
I do hope that you all enjoyed our end of term Carol Service in Tewkesbury Abbey and I was delighted that on this occasion it was enlivened by a performance from our recently formed School Choir. This now meets regularly, composed of pupils and staff under the guidance of Mr and Mrs Ferrari and membership is growing steadily. I am hopeful that this will
become a regular feature of school performances in the future.
Other welcome news this term includes the continued rise in the achievements of our shooting team.
There were further successes in the Schools’ Challenge Winter series which involves five competitions from September to December. James Lewis and Dillon Mente both won the Junior High Gun class, and with their parents won the Parent and Child class. Oscar Bates was one of the Senior High Gun winners and James Lewis was one of the overall Champion of Champions.
Great success and well done to the whole team!
On the topic of shooting, but by no means the sole consideration, I am keen to launch a contingent of a Combined Cadet Force at Bredon School and have been in preliminary talks with Malvern College with the intention of joining their contingent initially from next September 2013. During the next couple of terms cadet officers from Malvern will be visiting the school and meeting with staff and pupils. Being able to participate in the CCF here should appeal to many of our pupils who enjoy outdoor activities and who may be interested in further careers in the armed forces. I will keep you posted as to the progress of our negotiations.
Certainly we adopted the old motto of “carry on regardless” here at Bredon in what has been a busy term.
Luckily the floods did not get to our new gym facility which opened its doors at the beginning of term and is proving very popular with both boys and girls in PE time and in the evenings for our senior boarders.
Perhaps they are already trying to get into shape for our proposed hockey tour to Barbados which takes place next October.
This is an ambitious tour which provides a very exciting opportunity for our students to not only play hockey in unflooded foreign fields but learn about the culture and lifestyle in another country. I do hope that parents and pupils will warm to this invitation and that the tour will build momentum as the months progress.
After thinking that we had finished with inspections for the time being, we had a visit from an inspection team from the much maligned United Kingdom Border Agency last week looking into our procedures for admitting foreign students from outside the EU. I am pleased to say that this went well and no problems were identified.
The Parents’ Association have also been busy behind the scenes organising another very successful Christmas Craft Fair in the Sports Hall in the middle of November.
With 30 stall holders and a further 5 stalls being run by the Sixth Form Enterprise group, there was something for everyone. It drew good crowds of pupils, parents, staff and the general public who were keen to do some early Christmas shopping or just to sit and have a cup of tea and a chat.
The BSPA were also kind enough to donate 4 balance bikes to
Flooding at Bredon School. Balance bikes kindly donated by BSPA.Carol Service in Tewkesbury Abbey. Above: Head Girl Lois Gower and Head Boy Ivo Richli both gave readings.
Also included with my letter are the details of the forthcoming Malvern Hills Charity Walk next term.
As already indicated we are keen to make this an annual event after the success of last year and the significant amount of money raised by the pupils. Hopefully we will see you there again to walk
with the children in yet another challenge!!
Finally I am delighted to announce that I have been invited to sit on the Pre-Registration Committee of CReSTeD, the Council for the Registration of Schools Teaching Dyslexic Pupils. CReSTeD is a charity set up to help parents and those who advise them choose schools for children with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD)
of which the main difficulty is dyslexia. The Council includes representatives from a wide area of Dyslexia (SpLD) provision including Dyslexia Action, the British Dyslexia Association and schools. Membership on this committee shows wider recognition of Bredon School as being at the forefront of SEN teaching and I look forward to taking up my role in the New Year.
