Community Days | Bedales Blog

Hedge planting on Steep Common, building bat boxes to support bat conservation, designing illustrations for biodiversity boards to be installed on the Bedales estate and forging metal reinforcements for trenches in Ukraine are just some of the projects students and staff at Bedales Senior worked on together for Bedales’ Spring term community day, Powell Day, on Monday.

Powell Day, named after Bedales co-founder Oswald Powell, is one of three community days held throughout the year which celebrate key figures in the founding of the school and the current Bedales community with a ‘whole school effort’. The concept of a whole school effort was introduced in 1986 when Bedalians worked together to excavate and landscape the pond alongside the Sotherington Barn and it remains a key feature of community days, when students and staff practise the school motto – ‘Work of Each for Weal of All’ – by collaborating on a range of projects for the greater good.

On Monday, projects included cutting back and improving the area around the lake and Theatre, maintaining footpaths (including the footpath constructed on Badley Day 2018 which connects Dunhurst to the A3 footbridge), hedge planting both on-site and at Steep Common, and completing botanical studies for biodiversity boards to be installed around the estate. In the Sotherington Barn, students worked with visiting blacksmith Lucille Scott to forge 55 ‘log dogs’ which will be transported to Ukraine at the end of the month to reinforce trenches.

Old Bedalian Emma Cusworth, Director of Communications at the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, returned to Bedales to talk to students about carbon offsetting, and students also heard from Nik Knight and Carolyn Hargreaves from the Hampshire Bat Group about the conservation of bats. In the Design workshop, students constructed over 50 bat boxes to support conservation. Ten were donated to the Hampshire Bat Group for sale on their charity stands and others will be installed around the Bedales estate to further increase the healthy bat population. Twenty bat boxes will also be available to buy at Bedales Reception for £25 each on a first come, first served basis.

A media team of students captured and edited footage throughout the day and shared a video with students and staff at an assembly which celebrated the achievements of the day.

See more photos from Powell Day below:

On Thursday, students and staff came together for Garrett Day, our Summer term community day named after Amy Garrett Badley, one of the key figures in the founding of the school. Amy was a suffragist and the cousin of Millicent Garrett Fawcett and was, we believe, instrumental in ensuring the school was co-educational when almost no other public schools were. United by the theme of a freedom to learn, we created a day of learning away from conventional classroom structures, giving everyone the opportunity to discover and create something new and to enjoy the freedom and liberty we all have to learn in our school.

Activities included writing and recording (suitably edgy) protest music (and accompanying music videos, which you can watch here), building a Blooklet, creating art with chemical indicators, exploring historical events in poetry, investigating and designing an individual fitness programme, animating Newton’s Three Laws, producing art inspired by the outdoors and even creating a new language.

Students in Kirsten McLintock’s group was joined by visiting author Winnie Mi Li, who came to discuss gender-based violence and feminist activism, in honour of Amy Garrett Badley herself. Students were fascinated by Winnie’s own story which can be viewed in her TED talk here, whilst learning how to create characters and write a collective poem. Winnie’s new book, Complicit, is published this week.

The day culminated in an exhibition in the Library, coordinated by Head of Design Alex McNaughton, which showcased everyone’s creative efforts. The exhibition will also be available to view on Parents’ Day to allow parents to share in the students’ achievements. Thank you to everyone who made the day a success.

See more photos from the day below.