Tag Archives: Block 3

Block 3 Projects referendum – should we abolish the Royal Family?

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Two Block 3 Projects classes are acting as the two opposing campaign groups in a school-wide referendum next Thursday, 24 March, on the question of whether the Royal Family should be abolished. Here, both sides of the campaign have set out their arguments as they each appeal to students and staff to vote in their favour.  

Yes, Revoke the Royals
By Lolo Gaio, Wulfie Smith Pink and Anthony Harvey, Block 3
We are campaigning to remove the Royal Family and revoke the Queen’s power as Head of State. We believe that the monarchy is not needed in our democracy, as it is exactly the opposite of democracy; you are born into power, which means achieving or gaining power is based on who you are or who you know or which family you were born into, rather than what you know and what you have done. Here are a few arguments for removing the Royal Family.

One of the main criticisms against the Royal Family is their cost. The Royal Family’s lifestyle is just too expensive to maintain. Staffing costs, catering, hospitality, executive management and any ceremonial functions cost £85.9m of taxpayer’s money. That could be spent on things like education, housing, policing and countless other things.

Monarchs can also be unfit to be heads of state. They shouldn’t be chosen by birth to have huge responsibilities over a country; it seems unfair for someone who could be an incredibly good leader to not have the chance to become a head of state, instead to be replaced by someone who was born into the job, who could be absolutely terrible at it.

Yet, despite the fact that the Queen is Head of State, she has no legal powers. Instead, most of her privileges are exercised by ministers acting on behalf of the Queen, who can act without parliamentary approval. The Prime Minister abuses the Crown’s entitlement, and Parliament has no jurisdiction to take away or limit these rights because they themselves are derived from the monarchy’s privilege!

A well-rehearsed argument from the monarchist’s side is that the Queen brings in tourists and promotes Britain abroad. If the Royal Family bring in tourists to visit the royal palaces, they wouldn’t be demolished if the Monarchy was abolished! And in Versailles, the palaces of the long-gone monarchy receive six million visitors per year, put against Buckingham Palace, which is only open for ten weeks during the summer. Neighbouring Paris in general also receives 35 million visitors per year, against 20 million for London. The argument just doesn’t make sense.

These are a few of the things that we believe should happen if we win the referendum, and a few reasons why keeping the monarchy is a bad idea. If you feel that you agree with any of these arguments, you should vote to revoke the royals in the referendum on 24 March.

No, Save the Queen
By Ella Foster-Hill, Miles Farmer and Owen Griffiths, Block 3
In our campaign, we are arguing for the Royal Family to stay, and in this article, we will put across our points as to why we believe this is so important.

The first and probably most crucial argument is simply the huge amount of tourism from overseas that the Royal Family bring to the UK each year. In a report from The Guardian, it was reported that they bring in over £500m every year from overseas tourism alone. Not to mention the fact that they add an overall £1.2bn to the British economy every year!

Another great thing that the Royal Family bring is their charity work. Without them, some huge charities such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award and The Princes Trust wouldn’t exist at all. Two charities which both help so many young people all over the country today.

To take a look at the Queen specifically, she is such an important figure in this country. She is Head of the Commonwealth which makes such great strides towards global peace. In the UK, she provides a neutral status amongst politics in the largely divided government of today. She is the only person who can call a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss and even overrule decisions made by the government. She also provides hope and clarity to so many in all the small things she does – from her annual Christmas speech, to her messages of reassurance during the pandemic. And she is even on our currency! Getting rid of the Queen would be stripping us of a historic and greatly important figurehead of this country.

The Royal Family give us a sense of tradition but have also adapted to modern day society. We have no reason to dislike them or want them abolished. Support and enjoy the Royal Family because whether you think it or not, they do an awful lot for this country and the world around us.

‘Curtain raiser’ Dance workshop with Chhaya Collective

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By Liz Wood, Head of Dance

Block 3 and 4 Dance students took part in a two-day workshop with choreographer and director of Chhaya Collective, Kay Crook. Kay worked very intensely with the dancers, giving them the experience of what it might feel like to be in a professional dance company and the students rose to the challenge. They were then fortunate enough to perform the piece they had learned and created as part of the curtain raiser for Chhaya Collective’s performance in the Theatre last week. Here are some comments from the students who took part. 

By Phoebe Land, Block 3
This was such an interesting experience because we were introduced to lots of different styles of movement. In the first day we learnt the first phrase, which was choreographed around animals, and this was especially interesting for me, as I haven’t done a lot of proper dances with a storyline. Kay mixed the Block 4s with the Block 3s to create individual duets, with different parts of the music. Kay made sure everyone was happy with the movements and showed us how to execute them to make us look professional. Then on the second day, we learnt the next phrase which was the opening movement. This involved two different hand gestures, which were later used again in the Bharatanatyam by me, Biba, and Annabel. This was so fun, and everyone really enjoyed it! 

By Milly Trench, Block 4
Kay worked very well with us to create the curtain raiser for us to perform. We started off by doing an intense warm up which was a great taster on their style and how we were going to be dancing for the next two days. I thought this was great because it allowed us to warm up how the professional dancers do and experience a higher level of intensity. We were taught the movement but were given sections to work creatively in groups to add to the overall performance. We were also asked to choreograph duets with an animalistic style and a connection with your partner. 

By Biba Hardy, Block 4
Throughout the workshop we were given different creative tasks where we were able to use our own ideas in sections of the dance. One task that we were given was to make a duet – we were put into pairs and each pair was shown a video of other dancers doing a duet to gain inspiration from their piece KHAOS. Each one was slightly different and had different techniques that were used in the duets. None of them were the same, but all of them had some things in common, for example they were all quite animalistic and used a lot of eye contact between the two dancers. Once each pair had watched the dance that their duet would be inspired by, we all had some time to think of new moves and ideas, while also incorporating some of the moves from the sections of the dance that everyone had been taught in unison. Each pair had a section in the dance to perform their duet one at a time, so that everyone’s ideas could be seen.

By Sophie Lee, Block 3
Kay taught us about a side of dance I haven’t come across before. She lived in India for a while, so she taught us some dance moves from Indian culture. The Indian style she focused us on was Bharatanatyam and she taught us the unique hand movements. There were two main phrases she taught us and they were in her own style. She focused in on specific movements, making sure we all were making them very sharp and clean. She split us into two lines and showed us how to effectively be in sync with our line but also mirror the line opposite. By letting us choreograph a duet after a day of working with her, we found that we were all heavily influenced by the new dance moves we were introduced to, and with Kay’s help we made the duets in a different style than we normally would.

Block 3 adventure

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By Greg Clarke, Teacher of Maths and Block 3 Tutor

This year’s intake of Block 3 – plus their form tutors and Head of Transition Clive Burch – spent last week at Cobnor Activities Centre on Chichester Harbour in West Sussex. The week is designed to assimilate the students as they settle into Bedales, with camping, an expedition, and a range of outdoor pursuits – plus plenty of card games, snacking and UNO – helping everybody enjoy the bracing coastal air, reacquaint with old friends after the summer and find lots of new friends with whom to enjoy the next few years at Bedales.

At various times in the week every group enjoyed kayaking, canoeing and sailing around the bay in a Hawk, working as a team to launch their craft from the little jetty. We also built rafts to race one another in, crafted from wooden posts and plastic barrels lashed together with ropes knotted into bowlines and half-hitches. I’ll leave you to imagine how sturdy one or two of those rafts were.

For landlubbers there was archery with the instructor who had a keen interest in history, aeroball (think of vertical basketball on a trampoline inside a cage, if you can), and practice at all the camping skills necessary for the expedition: pitching a tent; lighting a stove; cooking pasta in a mess tin; bending tent pegs; and packing a rucksack.

The expedition was a tough two days’ worth of hiking along the South Downs Way, in what turned out to be glorious sunshine that lifted spirits, drained sunscreen supplies and provided vital vitamin D for sustained walking. On my night at the campsite at Cocking, folk from the RAF entertained us all with several flypasts and stunts in their Chinook, and I feasted upon a gourmet pasta pesto (topped with parmesan) prepared by a team of Block 3 chefs.

After a lot of fun, by Friday afternoon there ensued a frantic all-hands-on-deck clean up and pack up to leave Cobnor looking miraculously even tidier than when we arrived. A big well done to everybody for surviving the rollercoaster up-and-South-Downs experience that was Cobnor 2021.

See photos from the Block 3 induction trip to Cobnor here.

Sport update: District Athletics, Mountbatten Stadium

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By Mariela Walton, Teacher of PE & Sport

On 18 May, we took 18 of our Block 3 and 4 athletes down to the Mountbatten Stadium for the District Athletics event. In previous years we have taken 40 or 50 of our top athletes down to compete, but due to COVID restrictions, our numbers were limited meaning we took smaller teams and required all of our athletes to compete in multiple events.

Despite the rain in Petersfield the sun shone down on us in Portsmouth, and thanks to the excellent commitment displayed by our Bedales students, we managed to fill each event and get some exciting podium finishes!

Sage Bidwell cinched the win in the Inter Girls’ 200m, Greta Stillwell took first place in the Junior Girls’ Shot Put and Sol Arbib comfortably won the Inter Boys’ 1500m, with a time of just 4.55. First place finishes also went to Bruno Heggie, Louis Pattison, Sam Gibbon and Lola Mackay. Jago Levine qualified for the next round and will have the opportunity to compete at the Regional Athletics meet for Shot Put. He will be joined by Gordon Thistleton-Smith, who qualified with his 100m time.

After a successful day of events both of the Block 3 teams finished in fourth position of eight, which was a great effort. Our Block 4 boys team finished in second place out of nine, and our Block 4 Girls team took home the win, coming first out of seven teams. 

Intrepid Bedalians complete Bronze DofE Expedition 

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By Julia Bevan, Teacher of English and DofE Manager

Last weekend, the team from the approved activity provider Ridgeline Adventures returned to run a two-day Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Bronze Expedition from Bedales to the Queen Elizabeth Country Park.
 
On Saturday morning, 33 Block 3 students walked out of Bedales in five groups for the first leg of the expedition to Duncombe Farm, East Meon. Each group, supported by an assessor from Ridgeline Adventures, had planned a different route to East Meon, which is around 2.5 hours from Bedales in a straight-line distance.
 
Although each of the groups were required to pass the Seven Stars pub on the A272 as part of their journey, the different routes they followed varied their experiences, as one group – who found themselves lost en route, and were forced to backtrack to get back on course – can testify! There were other challenges, too, such as loose soles on one student’s walking boots, which she successfully repaired after improvising with some duct tape. With the first group arriving at Duncombe Farm at 3.30pm, and the last group arriving at 6.30pm, the first day proved that you don’t always need to travel far for an adventure.
 
After camping overnight in East Meon, early morning birdsong at 3.30am provided an unwelcome wake-up call on day two. However, despite the birds’ morning chorus, the start of the day was deferred until 5.30am, when one student decided it was time to start dismantling his tent ready for the second part of his journey – much to the exasperation of his campmates!
 
Once everyone was up for the day, the students continued onward on their expedition to the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, ploughing their energy into scaling Butser Hill from the North side. On reaching the top, groups were met by assessors for a debrief, before they triumphantly walked down to meet the school minibuses and parents in the Visitor Centre car park. “How long will it take us to get back to school?” a student asked me as we reached our destination, to which I replied it would take around 10 minutes. “We’ve only travelled 10 minutes?!” was his bewildered response.
 
Thank you to everyone who made the weekend a success – the enthusiastic Block 3 students, the exceptional team from Ridgeline Adventures, and accompanying Bedales staff Gordon Dale, Clive Burch and Paul Beauchamp. This weekend it is the turn of Block 4 & 5 students as they complete their Silver Practice Expedition, also with Ridgeline Adventures.

Preparing for expedition

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By Julia Bevan, Teacher of English and DofE Manager

Last weekend we were joined by Isaac Walker and his team from outdoor education provider Ridgeline Adventures, who ran a successful Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) training weekend in the sunshine for Bedales students undertaking their Bronze Award.
 
On Saturday, students took part in a range of team building activities at the Sam Banks Pavilion. Gordon Dale, Clive Burch, Paul Beauchamp and I were there to see Ridgeline lead the various sections, which saw the students put up tents in a fairly strong breeze, cooked lunch on Trangias, washed up (a skill that always needs perfecting!), discussed first aid scenarios, learnt to tie slings, planned the routes they will use on their Bronze qualifying weekend in three weeks’ time and learnt how to read maps of the local Hampshire countryside.
 
On Sunday, the students headed out for a walk in Steep Nature Reserve in five groups of five or six. An opportunity to explore the school’s picturesque surroundings (“I didn’t expect it to be so pretty,” were one student’s words; another said it was simply “stunning”), the day was also insightful. Students quickly learnt the importance of rucksacks rather than shoulder bags, and they stopped en route to explore first aid scenarios and navigate carefully. Group 4 particularly enjoyed meeting Magnus’ dogs on the Hangers!
 
The Block 3 students who took part in the weekend were attentive and enthusiastic throughout, and there were many memorable moments: Otto Scarlett’s delicious, and enormously popular pancakes; Dominic Rowell looking a little like a mummy as he wandered around covered in bandages after a fun first aid session; and Tilly Wall spontaneously commenting that their group leader from Ridgeline Adventures, Neil, was incredible and thanking him for a great day’s walk.
 
Thank you to everyone who made the weekend a success and I look forward to accompanying the students on an expedition very soon.

Getting creative for DofE Award

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By Julia Bevan, Teacher of English and DofE Manager

Despite the challenges they have faced due to COVID related restrictions, Bedalians have continued to impress with their efforts in completing the various sections of the Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Award.
 
For the Volunteering section of the Bronze Award, Block 3 student Florence Pohlschmidt helped out at her mother’s art school in London, tidying and reorganising the studio sculpture, etching and drawing rooms. Florence also volunteered at her former primary school, Heathbrook, in their wildlife garden, clearing, cleaning and reorganising the school’s greenhouse.
 
Inspired by a Wandsworth primary school who contacted her mother’s art school about the possibility of its students painting a rainbow mural to raise the pupils’ spirits after lockdown, Florence took the initiative to ask Heathbrook’s headteacher, Mr Ben Roberts, if she could continue to volunteer at the school by painting a large mural.
 
After Heathbrook gave her permission to paint a mural on the wall of an area known as ‘The Shed’, Florence decided – with the support of her art teacher – to produce a rainbow design in a nod to keyworkers, based on the work of artists Wassily Kandinsky and Sonia Delaunay.

The mural itself covers four 2.5 x 2.5 metre wall panels, which were prepared with two primers and a light blue base colour, before Florence scaled up her drawing and cut out templates for each section, drawing it on the wall in charcoal ready for painting. The process was supported by volunteers from Longbrook’s PTA.
 
Florence said: “I was so pleased to be able to offer to do this as part of my DofE Award, as it was also a way I could say thank you for everything my primary school has done for me. The final mural looks fantastic and I learnt so much from the project.”

Poetic composition with Ernest Hemingway

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By Lucy McIlwraith, Teacher of English

Block 3 have been studying Ernest Hemingway’s novella The Old Man and The Sea in their English composition lessons this term, which has led to all sorts of fishy descriptions and discoveries. Last week they tried a form of poetic composition which involves taking lines from the text and rearranging them to create a poem.

Everyone had called him The Champion
He always thought of the sea as la mar
The strange light the sun made on the water
He loved green turtles and hawksbill with their elegance and speed
He was happy feeling the gentle pulling and then he felt something hard and unbelievably heavy
He held the line against his back and watched its slant in the water
I love and respect you very much.
He is a great fish and i must convince him
They are our brothers and are like flying fish
I hate cramp. It is a treachery of one’s own body.​
‘I’ll kill him though, ‘Now is when I must prove it.’
– Nicky, Block 3

The Human Fish

Fish, I love you and respect you very much
You let the female fish always feed first.
You are good, play jokes and love one another
Take some rest fish
Chew it well and get all the juices

Fish, I love you and respect you very much
But through my treachery,
My big fish,
I will kill you dead before the day is over

It was the saddest thing I ever saw
The female made a wild and panic stricken fight.
Still, through my treachery,
I love you and respect you very much
– Jake, Block 3

La Mar

In the dark the old man could feel the morning coming,
The boat moved slowly through the dark water,
 He was sorry for the birds,
The small delicate dark terns,
Always flying and looking and never finding,
The birds have a harder life than we do – he thought,
Why did they make birds so delicate and fine,
When the ocean can be so cruel?
She is kind and very beautiful,
Yet,
She can be so cruel,
It comes so suddenly and such birds that fly,
Dipping and hunting,
Their small sad voices are made to delicately for la mar,
But – he thought,
She gives or withholds favours,
 And if she did wicked things,
It was because she could not help them,
– Shoshana, Block 3

This poetic composition exercise is something that you can do with any text and which produces a very wide variety of outcomes. I thought you might like to have a go yourself, maybe with your family, so here are some instructions:

  1. Choose a novel or short story that you love or know well to work with.
  2. Choose 10-15 phrases or short sentences and write them down. The tricky bit is to not think too much but to trust your instincts and choose lines that ‘speak’ to you. You could also experiment with choosing lines at random.
  3. The quotations you’ve chosen may well have some sort of shared theme. You could use the theme as the title of the poem or you might choose one of the lines to be the title.
  4. Re-arrange the quotes into some sort of order that makes most sense. Try not to think too hard but go with what feels right.
  5. You might need to leave out one or two of your original choices but try to include them all if you can.
  6. You might need to alter the grammar of some of your quotations slightly to help it make sense.
  7. Read it through again and again and make any alterations it needs each time.

I’ve also recorded creative writing sessions which anyone can use which can be found here: Description, Home, Poetry and Speech.

Volunteering for DofE

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By Julia Bevan, Teacher of English and DofE Manager

While we are in lockdown, it is trickier than usual for students to complete the Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Award, but I am pleased to see that so many of them remain committed to completing the various sections of the programme despite the circumstances we find ourselves in.

For the Volunteering section of the Bronze Award, Block 3 student Mo Griffiths wrote to West Wittering Estate to request permission to do some litter picking on West Wittering beach. They were very happy for Mo to litter pick at the beach and, as well as giving Mo a quick safety briefing before he set off, offered to lend him a litter picker. Mo wore gloves for the activity and chose to focus on picking up small pieces of plastic which don’t decompose and can stick around indefinitely, causing problems for marine ecosystems.

I look forward to seeing more students’ contributions to their DofE Award in the coming weeks.

Building resilience: practical strategies in wellbeing

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By Kirsten McLintock, Head of Wellbeing & PSHE

In Wellbeing, we are taking the opportunity during online learning to delve into the practical strategies that we should all have in order to cultivate a resilient spirit. Resilience is at the heart of wellbeing. Over the coming weeks, Blocks 3-5 will be focusing on practising the five pillars of resilience; fostering healthy emotional and mental health strategies for life; learning to manage the uncomfortable and struggles in life; mindfulness practice; and connection and support.

All five pillars of resilience are crucial, but in the coming weeks we will focus on developing self-awareness, self-care and mindfulness practice in our Wellbeing sessions. This week, Bedalians have produced a ‘Wellness Jar’ detailing the activities they are going to do on a daily and weekly basis (plus emergencies and treats) in order to be resilient, thus developing healthy emotional and mental health for life. Have a look at my Wellness Jar below. Students have been asked to share the contents of the Wellness Jar with their loved ones.

Additional strategies for fostering resilience discussed in our Wellbeing lessons have included the importance of keeping routines going – including 9-10 hours of sleep, meal times, exercise, play, cognitively stimulating activities, work and relaxation – so that days have rhythm and structure and are not spent inactive. Endless time without structure, meaning and purpose is unhealthy for the body and mind.

There are a number of resources available for parents and teenagers for mental/emotional health issues. Young Minds has a free helpline for parents (0808 802 5544, available 9.30am-4pm, Monday to Friday), as well as a useful website. Helpful information can also be found on the Royal College of Psychiatrists website. Young people can access support from helplines, text lines and online chat services at any time – Childline (0800 1111), Young Minds Crisis Messenger (text YM to 85258) and the Mix (0808 808 4994).