Commemorating 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz

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By Clare Jarmy, Head of Able, Gifted & Talented, Oxbridge, Academic Scholars & PRE

Following Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, Abi Wharton and I reflected on the Shoah – a Jewish term meaning ‘the destruction’, which has been given to the atrocities committed against Jews, and others, by the Nazi regime – at Jaw on Wednesday.

Holocaust Memorial Day is especially poignant this year, as it marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, the concentration camp in Poland where 1.1 million people were murdered by the Nazis.

At Jaw, we heard about Arnold Arnold (né Schmitz), a political and religious refugee and a German Jew, who came to Bedales during the 1930s on a full bursary after his family’s assets were seized. Interestingly, in his obituary, the claim was made that Bedales was – at that time – the only school that would consider accepting a Jewish student. We are not sure what, if anything, substantiates this – Eton’s Jewish Society has already celebrated a centenary, for example. Whether or not this claim is true, the perception that Bedales was unusual in having its doors open to Jewish students is an interesting one.

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Girls’ U15A Netball v St John’s College, Southsea, 20.01.2020

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By Mariela Walton, Teacher of Girls’ PE & Games

On Tuesday, the U15A team kicked off the netball season with a home match against St John’s College, Southsea. We started off with six players, but managed to hold the first few minutes to an even game; with the arrival of our seventh player, we took a comfortable lead, finishing the first quarter 11-5. In the second quarter, some excellent circle defending from Lula Goldring meant St John’s only got two goals, whilst we sailed ahead, thanks to the expert shooting and movement from Lally Arengo-Jones and Ellen Wilson. We finished the game with a 23-9 win and Millie Harris was awarded player of the match. A great game to start the season with, well done to all.

Remembering Bedales co-founder Oswald Powell

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By Matilda McMorrow, Librarian

“It is never good for the governed or for the government that injustice should be tolerated without protest,” began Oswald Powell in his letter to the Hants & Sussex News in 1913. At the time he was fighting alongside Winifred Powell in solidarity with all women, in a society that took women’s work, money and lives whilst refusing them the right to be seen as people. The Powells would protest this injustice for five more years before any UK women had voting rights. They confronted the tax authorities, took local action in Petersfield and international action at a Budapest conference, and of course, tried to model social change in their work at Bedales. This collaborative, action-driven spirit seems to have been at the heart of the man who co-founded Bedales, and certainly put life into the ideas of John Badley, whose name we might be more familiar with.

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Bringing Keats to life

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By Thomasina Rowntree, 6.2 and English Don

On the Eve of St Agnes – 20 January – 6.2 English Literature students were invited to Head of English David Anson’s house to listen to a reading of John Keats’ poem of the same name, which was inspired by the traditions and superstitions surrounding the date. St Agnes’ Day falls on 21 January.

Traditionally, girls wishing to learn who their partner would be, performed rituals on the Eve of St Agnes, hoping that their future lover would be revealed to them in a dream. Keats took this idea and created his poem, a fantastical tale which merges dreams and reality, ending with two lovers disappearing into the night. It links the ideas of the Gothic with Pagan rituals and witchcraft which surround St Agnes.

On the evening itself, we made our way down Church Road on a suitably frosty, starlit night, in keeping with the “bitter chill” described at the beginning of the poem. Greeted with a warming fire, we gathered round a feast, much like the one which Porphyro lays out in The Eve of St Agnes, to listen to the poem. There were “jellies soother than the creamy curd”, “lucent syrops”, “manna and dates”, served “on golden dishes and in baskets bright / Of wreathed silver”. Eating these delicacies while listening to the reading of the poem, we were transported into Keat’s imagined and magical world.

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New ‘Living with the Land’ course launching September 2020

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By Andrew Martin, Head of Outdoor Work, and Feline Charpentier, Teacher of Outdoor Work

From September 2020, students in 6.1 will be able to choose a new Outdoor Work (ODW) course as one of their sixth form options. ‘Living with the Land’ is a two-year course which will equip students with the practical skills to live lightly off the land, enabling them to look at the wider context for the issues surrounding the environment and our impact upon it. Living with the land around us means having a greater awareness of our environment, living with the seasons, trying to reduce our footprint and applying our new-found knowledge to other aspects of our lives and the community.

It is a natural progression from all aspects covered in the ODW BAC, however it goes into far greater depth and includes significant self-directed work, including a portfolio and a ‘major’ project in the final year. There is currently no clear pathway for a student wishing to take a more practical course at sixth form in environmental subjects. The closest comparable courses are Countryside Management, Food Skills, Sustainability or the planned Natural History GCSE. No courses combine traditional building, cooking and craft skills with aspects of ecology, sustainability and community.

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Business careers event for students – 31 January

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By Alex Beckmann, Alumni Liaison Manager

Following the successful industry focused careers event that took place in October, we are pleased to announce the next careers event for students is taking place on Friday 31 January, 5.40pm-7pm, in the Reading Room.

We currently have speakers from Google, McKinsey & Company, Technopolis Group and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development confirmed to share their various experiences and participate in a Q&A with students.

We are hoping to confirm additional speakers that work in Law and IT. If you are a parent working in either of those fields, and you would be happy to talk to the students, please email Alex at abeckmann@bedales.org.uk.

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Bedales joins Round Square international network of like-minded schools

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By Al McConville, Director of Learning and Innovation

We received the very good news this week that Bedales has been accepted into the Round Square organisation. Round Square is an international network of schools inspired by the educational philosophy of Kurt Hahn, who was a correspondent of John Badley, and who himself founded schools based on experiential learning principles.

The Bedales ethos has a great deal of resonance with the six ‘IDEALS’ of Round Square, which are Internationalism, Democracy, Environmentalism, Adventure, Leadership and Service, and we plan to use our membership of the network to learn from and teach other member schools about how to enact these ideals even more successfully than we (or they) currently do.

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Silver DofE practice walk – perspectives

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Last weekend, 56 Block 4 students took a walk in the countryside surrounding Bedales, initially guided by seven experienced members of the school’s Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) team. Here we share accounts of the trip from three students and one member of staff.

By Julia Bevan, Teacher of English

This was the first extended, practical opportunity for students to put into practice the basic navigation, pacing and map reading skills we’ve explored in our after-school sessions, and it also gave the students a chance to experience first-hand the importance of route cards, try out their kit and work as a team.

On Saturday morning, it looked as though we were going to get very wet in the afternoon, but in fact it was heavy wind and the onset of darkness that we had to contend with over Shoulder of Mutton in the nearby Ashford Hangers. The important business of putting participants into groups, and then reassembling the groups so that everyone was walking with at least one close friend, took some time. Once this was sorted, groups set off with a large rucksack containing emergency kit such as a high-vis jacket, head torch and tent, which they were instructed to take it in turns to carry.

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Sustainability Action Group update

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By Jamie Thorogood, Block 3

You may remember the news that Bedales had joined the TerraCycle scheme back in October, when Head of Geography Paul Turner made an appeal for waste items that can’t be placed in traditional recycling bins. Since then, we have been collecting plastic pens, bread bags, crisp packets, toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes to send off to be ‘TerraCycled’.

This week, the Sustainability Action Group emptied the crisp packet bin, and we ‘guesstimate’ we have sent off over 1000 crisp packets for recycling. Thanks to everyone who has brought in their hard-to-recycle waste so far. We are continuing to collect these items, so please do bring them in; the collection bins can be found between ICT and Geography, near Bedales Reception.

The Sustainability Action Group has also been considering the impact of vehicles on the environment. Sport utility vehicles (SUVs) were the second largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions from 2010 to 2018. They consume almost a quarter more fuel and emit more CO2 due to being bigger, heavier and having poor aerodynamics. If SUVs were a country, they’d be the sixth largest emitter of CO2. Around 40,000 people die prematurely in the UK every year due to poor air quality.

Bedales student stars in Petersfield Youth Theatre production

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

The connection between Petersfield Youth Theatre (PYT) and Bedales remains as strong as it always has been. Not only does Bedales help with provision of rehearsal space, there are always Bedales students and staff involved in the productions in some way.

In this year’s glorious production of C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Block 4 student Rowena le Poer Trench took on the role of Susan, one of the four children who stumble through the fur coats into a different world where animals talk and time works differently. Rowena carefully showed her character’s increasing awareness and wisdom as the plot developed, always being genuine and utterly engaged in the fiction.

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