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Beyond Bedales connects students with fashion and design professionals

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A&D

By Cheryl Osborne, Head of Careers Education and Guidance

Last Friday, we carried out our first virtual Beyond Bedales Careers event, covering the fashion and design industries. We are so lucky to have amazing alumni and parents who are willing to give up their time to talk to Bedalians about their career paths and offer advice to our students about how to maximise their chances of a successful career in their chosen field.

The students spent an hour and a half listening to and engaging with our guests; Zoe Berman (OB), who is a founding director of UK based design group Studio Berman; Juliette Bigley (OB), who had an interesting career path to her life now as a sculptor, before which she had been a musician and worked in healthcare; Matthew Shave (OB), an acclaimed photographer of 25 years whose lucky break came when he submitted his portfolio to a prestigious magazine; Alexander Bond (OB) and Fraser Park (current parent), both of whom work for The Business of Fashion (BoF) and discussed the alternative roles within the fashion world. Alexander discussed his role as a project manager, and Fraser, who is the Chief Financial Officer, wanted to persuade the students that even the most creative people need to understand how to make money in the ultra-competitive world of fashion and design.

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Virtual Badley Day – all on Teams, most off screens

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By Phil Tattersall-King, Deputy Head (Co-curricular)

On Wednesday we held a Badley Day with a difference – our very first virtual Badley Day. Although we couldn’t be together as we usually would on Badley Day, students and staff took part in a range of activities, mostly away from their screens, coming together to share their progress on Microsoft Teams throughout the day.

It was a packed day with lots on offer – from a Chain Reaction activity, a Virtual Escape Room and Creative Lego, to Gardening, Running (with the distances achieved going towards our #SyriatoSteep fundraiser – see story above), a wildlife inspired Scavenger Hunt, Cooking, Creative Writing and Journaling. Georgie Nugent’s Living Lockdown video project, which aims to create a record of everything Bedalians have, also kicked off on Badley Day and we’ll share the finished video with you when it is ready. Continue reading →

#SyriatoSteep – We’ve arrived!

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SyriatoSteeplrg

By Rob Reynolds, Director of External Relations

Thank you so much to all who joined in our #SyriatoSteep challenge in this final week before the half term break. We have been overwhelmed by the support and energy out there. All contributions helped us head closer to the target – we thought covering the 4,066 km distance from Idlib to Bedales in a week would be a big challenge, but with your help, we had it nailed on Wednesday. Today is our final day and we have already surpassed 6,000 kms.

At time of writing, £5,029 (including Gift Aid) has been raised for the Rural Refugee Network and John Badley Foundation, two charities helping transform the lives of people who face severe challenges, and many of whom are in extremely vulnerable situations. Thank you to those who have already generously supported. To mark our successful endeavour, we are suggesting a ‘victory lap’ and final push on the fundraising, so do please consider re-living your favourite run/walk/cycle, and send a photo to share with others (to fundraising@bedales.org.uk). And if you haven’t got round to donating, there is still time to do so here. Listen to brief videos about the two charities here: RRN; JBF.

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Design challenge to improve the DCR for upcoming Badley Day

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DCR-Batcave

By Ana Simmons, Senior Day Houseparent and Teacher of Ceramics

With another Badley Day on the horizon, thoughts have turned back to the last one and all that we achieved back in September. There’s something incredibly rewarding by the way in which everyone chips in together to improve and enhance areas of the school as well as the way in which the work done on the day lives on for years for others to enjoy.

In the Day House we were exceptionally proud of the facelift we gave to our ‘Batcave’ or quiet room. Under the close supervision of Chloe, the Art Technician, students from all years spent the day covering the walls with a mural inspired by shapes and lines found around the Bedales estate. It became a collective masterpiece and makes the once dingy space now a fresh and vibrant place for people to escape to.

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Global Perspectives take centre stage

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By Abi Wharton, Head of Global Awareness

What a year to introduce the Pre-U in Global Perspectives and Research to Bedales! This is a course that allows students to explore any global issue using what is termed as the critical path – deconstruction, reconstruction, reflection and communication of any particular perspective.

Over the past year, we have explored topics as wide ranging as ownership of the Elgin marbles to the perceived role of the US as a global policeman. We allow our own views, or reconstruction of an argument, to be built on other perspectives, understanding the need to explore a whole raft of ideas influenced by cultural, economic, religious and ethical concerns to name but a view. The students have communicated their ideas in exciting and innovative ways, being at the forefront of remote learning by giving their assessed presentations on Microsoft Teams before the Easter holidays.

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At home and abroad… with some egg on our faces

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Egg

By Peter Thackrey, Head of Boarding

Since half term, the Houseparent teams have been hosting online ‘At Homes’ with our students. It has been lovely to catch up with people and hear how they are doing either locally, further afield in the UK or abroad. As ever, these forums of discussion are re-energising for us as Houseparents, and it has been great to get the students together in a social context. The students also found it helpful hearing from their peers as to how they are managing life in lockdown. We look forward to more virtual At Homes, although we would much rather be meeting face-to-face at Bedales.

To give you a flavour of what has been happening at my At Homes this week, I showed the boys in my house how to make poached eggs live – this was my first attempt too! I was delighted that some of the boys joined in at the same time, poaching eggs in their own kitchen. We all had moments of great triumph as we cut into a poached egg and out flowed delicious yellow yolk. We all had moments of disaster as eggs split, yolks went too hard and one even ended up on a laptop! I suggested poached eggs go well with haggis or avocado, or of course, Eggs Benedict… that will be for next week!

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Creative scenes inspired by Gothic literature

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Block 4 English students have been busy this week creating scenes inspired by 19th century Gothic Literature classics.

Students were asked to prepare a short Gothic film, either presenting a scene from something they have read in texts such as The Hound of the Baskervilles and Wuthering Heights, or alternatively, create a scene of their own.

They were also given the option of creating a scene in other ways – such as this painting by Fabiola Paterno Castello di San Giuliano.

See more examples of the students’ work below.

Kipp Bryan

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How effective are travel restrictions in stopping the spread of COVID-19?

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By Yaya Caird, 6.2

Right now, more than 90% of the world’s population are living under travel restrictions. These restrictions have heavily affected people’s lives financially, socially and mentally.

So, is the travel ban actually effective in stopping, or at least reducing the spread of COVID-19?

Travel bans range from restricting movement within the country or travelling internationally.

When the severity of COVID-19 was first globally known after its first death on the 10th of January, there were already 41 clinically confirmed conditions reported.

By the 22nd of January there was 571 confirmed cases and 17 deaths reported, with cases already reported in other countries (such as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and the United States, shown in the image below)

Yaya 1

At 2am the next day, the Wuhan authorities issued a notice of the travel ban that would be set at 10am. However, before 10:00 an estimated 300,000 people had left Wuhan – this figure was fuelled by the wishes of the population to be with their families for the Chinese New Year happening 2 days later. Within a day after this lockdown was set, 24 other cities in the vicinity of Wuhan also went into lockdown.

Although the travel ban didn’t manage to contain all people within the city, it definitely played a very important role in decreasing the rate of the spread drastically.

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Community Lockdown Cookbook project

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Bedales-Cook-Book

By Charlotte Harding, Houseparent (Steephurst)

Stories of family meals, cooking from scratch, the challenge to use up the dry goods lurking in our cupboards and shared time spent cooking and chatting seem to be a recurring theme of many of our catch-ups with students. The same is going on in our own households within the staff community at Bedales; from inventive games of cooking different world cuisines each week, to embracing the idea of batch cooking to make the best use of giant tins of tomatoes from Matt Pott’s community shop. The desire to stay connected and acknowledge some of the shifts in our daily experiences feels important at this time and we hope that some of the mealtimes in your households might form part of a Bedales Lockdown Cookbook to raise money for charity.

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Celebrating International Dance Day

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By Liz Wood, Head of Dance

Students across all year groups explored the world of Dance through different creative ways last Wednesday in celebration of International Dance Day and they are still going. Issy Robinson from Block 3 researched the Kukri dance, a traditional Nepalese dance that the Gurkhas perform. Rowena Le Poer Trench has been looking at the healthy eating of a dancer, particularly following advice from Canadian fitness coach/dancer Maddie Lymburner, Rowena has made a short film which shows a particular smoothie that is recommended. Imogen Wright watched the online performance of Dust by Akram Khan, whilst Charlotte Land – along with her sisters Izzy and Phoebe – explored counterbalance shapes, and Hannah Mazas created a short film at the dinner table with her brothers Elio and Josh.

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