Tag Archives: Powell Day

Powell Day – ‘Work of Each for Weal of All’ in practice

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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:

Downland wildlife on the Powell Day walk

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By Mary Shotter, Biology Technician

The wooded slopes and rolling hills of the South Downs are a very special landscape and provide a habitat for a wide and interesting variety of species, so Powell Day provided a perfect opportunity to see them at their best in the early spring sunshine.

Not far from the start point in the Queen Elizabeth Country Park, as we climbed gradually along a valley between War and Holt Downs, the browns and greens of the landscape were punctuated by a large patch of bright yellow coltsfoot, one of a few plants with the unusual habit of flowering before any leaves emerge. It is the leaves from which its name derives – when they do eventually unfurl in April they are large and hoof shaped.

Along the track were also patches of Juniper, the berries of which are used for flavouring gin. Once common, it is now a rare sight, due to habitat loss.

The colourful bracket fungus, turkeytails, covered piles of logs besides the chalky tracks. Further along between Buriton and Ditcham, at Coulters Dean, the path turned off the South Downs Way and past a field and grassy bank which was dotted with huge mounds of yellow meadow ant nests. Each one will house between 8,000 and 40,000 ants, feeding their larvae on the roots of Downland plants such as wild thyme. From here the track wound uphill through beech woodland, carpeted with wild garlic, the smell of which became obvious as it was crushed beneath our feet.

On the open grassland of Ditcham Park, skylarks were singing, hovering effortlessly, high above the ground, then parachuting down onto the fields, before ascending again. A lone red admiral butterfly flew past – most red admirals are migratory but a few like this one, will have hibernated and emerged into the early spring warmth in search of nectar. In the more open landscape around Chalton, buzzards and a lone red kite flew overhead, watching as we re-entered the Queen Elizabeth Park and after three hours made our way past yew and pine trees down to the finish.

Walking from Syria to Steep to support refugees

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By Abi Wharton, Head of Global Perspectives, Geography and Politics

On Tuesday 8 March, the Bedales community will be off timetable for our termly community day – this term being Powell Day. It feels particularly important that we spend this day as a community after the tribulations of recent years – coming together to raise awareness and vital funds for those that continue to need support.

We are very excited to give you more information about our collective initiative to walk, as a school, the distance from Northern Syria to Steep in a single day (roughly 4500km). In tutor and year groups, Bedales students and staff will be walking a 10km route around Queen Elizabeth Country Park to raise sponsorship for the Rural Refugee Network, our charity partner. We are encouraging all tutor groups to raise at least £250 in sponsorship but encouraging some healthy competition by awarding prizes to both the tutor group and year group that raise the most in sponsorship!

Students will be able to give family and friends a URL allowing you to donate directly to their team via Give Penny, our chosen fundraising platform. We really hope you will be able to contribute to this worthwhile cause where both you and the students will be able to see exactly where these vital funds go. We would also be delighted if parents would like to participate on the walk itself.

I am also delighted that Gulwali Passarlay, a dear friend of the school who delivered the Global Awareness Lecture in 2017 will be joining us for the day to speak to the students and join us on the walk. Gulwali’s story is inspiring. It includes a 12-month odyssey across Europe to escape war-torn Afghanistan, arrival in the UK and graduation from one of the UK’s top universities. Gulwali Passarlay is a speaker, activist and former refugee who arrived in Britain in 2007, aged just 12, after being separated from his brother during his travels. His best-selling book, The Lightless Sky, is an account of his lone travels as a child including a 50-hour sea crossing in cramped quarters with more than 100 other refugees. At the time of the lecture, I said: “Gulwali’s resilience, determination and humour is a lesson to us all. He has faced unimaginable hardship and had his childhood taken away. Despite this, he bears no grudges, and has instead dedicated his life to raising awareness and improving the lives of millions of people around the world.” I think this message remains important as we look forward to 8 March – and I have certainly quoted the above when students have been a little reluctant about walking 10km!