A group of our Year 11 pupils visited Newnham College Cambridge to learn more about the university and take a tour of the campus. Pupils gained advice from current students, practiced new revision techniques and discovered the importance of super-curricular activities in making a competitive application to the top universities in the country. They even enjoyed a special lunch in the college ‘buttery’ to round off an informative day.
Congratulations to J. Astley, E. Devaney, K. Lobban, F. Jones, and, yet again, A. Hussain for achieving Pupil of the Week! These pupils consistently go above and beyond to demonstrate our Beacon values, setting a great example for everyone.
A big well done also to J. Evelyn, A. Goody, and F. Edmunds on receiving their Bronze Badge award for earning over 100 praise points! Your hard work and dedication have truly paid off.
I am extremely proud of all our pupils this week. Let’s keep up the momentum as we continue closing the gap on Bredon and Malvern!
Barr Beacon School has a long history of working with the National Citizens Service to give our pupils access to an amazing opportunity to boost their CVs.
NCS offer fantastic summer residential experiences for 15-17 year olds, where pupils can get out into the world with their friends, take part in new challenges and build new skills. By taking part in teambuilding activities and a charity project, our pupils have boosted their confidence and independence whilst giving back to their local community.
Pupils at Barr Beacon School have been taking part in NCS for many years, and we consistently have very large numbers of pupils who sign up. This year we are proud to have achieved Bronze Champion School status. Across the whole of Walsall, Barr Beacon School was the state school with the highest number of pupils signing up to take part.
It is wonderful to see Barr Beacon School pupils being so open to new experiences and embodying our Beacon Values which enable our pupils to be compassionate, community-minded individuals who contribute positively to our society.
Students at Barr Beacon School had a real treat today. Multi-millionaire property developer Ste Hamilton visited Barr Beacon School to share his secrets of success. After an inspirational talk about what it takes to go from living on the poverty line to owning multiple Lamborghinis, and an insight into the world of property development, Ste handed over the floor to our pupils. 3 lucky but well deserving pupils won prizes for bravely volunteering to speak to the audience about their ambitions or sell a product. Well done to K. Young, G. Mwase and K. Bynoe for persuading the audience to vote for you. Every single one of the brave volunteers who came up to the stage went away with renewed self-confidence and should be extremely proud of themselves.
Barr Beacon School’s Annual Careers Fair is a staple and heavily anticipated event in our careers calendar. Every pupil has access each year, having the chance to learn about their future career pathways from employers, apprenticeship providers, training providers and universities.
This year we welcomed some new guests to help our pupils explore more pathways; these included Barhale, The Department for Work and Pensions, EQUANS, The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and Transport for West Midlands Skills Academy. Our university reps came from both local options that are popular amongst our students, such as University of Birmingham and Aston University, but we were also delighted to welcome representatives from as far afield as Falmouth University, Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Sheffield. Our local colleges helped our Key Stage 4 pupils explore their further education choices, and we had strong representation for creative career pathways from Access Creative and BOA. Even our pupils with an interest in Football had access to information from the University Campus of Football Business. Finally, some of our pupils choose to progress to Training Providers, to help them on their way to apprenticeships, with In-Comm Training showcasing the engineering and business pathways on offer.
The smooth running of the event was only possible due to the hard work and support of our Sixth Form Charity and Events Managers, who helped to greet our guests, support our younger pupils to engage with the event and serve lunch.
We look forward to welcoming more guests next year.
Pupil of the week in Clent house this week goes to: Year 7 - D. Minshull 7C3 - 15 PP Year 7 - N. Willey 7C3- 15 PP Year 8 - S. Abdul Gani 8C2 - 12 PP Year 9 - T. Baker 9C2 - 10 PP Year 10 - A. Goody 10C1 - 20 PP Year 11 - A. Hussain 11C1 - 27 PP A huge well done to all pupils! They are going above and beyond for Clent house and Mr Bullock is extremely proud of their hard work in lessons. Praise points are awarded through pupils demonstrating our Beacon values so it is wonderful to see so many Clent pupils demonstrating these values on a day to day basis. A special mention to A. Hussain 11C1 who is the first pupil at Barr Beacon School to be awarded his bronze badge for achieving 100 Praise Points. You can see him proudly wearing the badge in this picture.
Last weekend, the Cadets from across the Trust came together at Barr Beacon School to practice their Leadership Skills. Working collaboratively, they completed challenges while their skills were formally assessed.
Thursday 28th November 2024 - 6:00pm - 8:00pm
We are delighted to share the news that one of our former students has successfully completed her PhD with the University of Birmingham.
Sandeep, now known as Dr Sandeep Shirgill, completed her A level studies with us in the summer of 2015. She achieved a fantastic set of results: three A* grades in Mathematics, Further Mathematics and Physics as well as a grade A in AS level Psychology.
Her next steps took her to the University of Birmingham where she studied Theoretical Physics and Applied Mathematics. She graduated in 2019, achieving an MSci with First Class Honours. She continued her studies with the university and embarked upon a PhD titled ‘Unravelling the Effect of Metal Ions from Bioactive Glasses on Wound Associated Biofilms.’ In simpler terms this translates to Mathematical Biology! Sandeep’s research focused on developing a system of differential equations to predict the behaviours of biofilm constituents.
Huge congratulations to Dr Shirgill – we are exceptionally proud of her and all that she has achieved since leaving school.
We are looking forward to welcoming Sandeep back as our guest speaker at our annual awards evening in November.
As a part of our commitment to reading in Barr Beacon School, we encouraged our year 7 pupils to fill in an application form for BBC’s Blue Peter Book badge. The Book badge was designed by one of the UK’s best-known illustrators, Sir Quentin Blake; who you might know from bringing to life characters such as Roald Dahl's BFG and Matilda.
In the application form, pupils had to tell us about a book they have read and what they think about it, what other books and authors they have enjoyed reading and why; and they had to draw an illustration of a character or a scene from a book.
We collected 135 forms over the first 3 weeks of September and we sent them to BBC. Due to extremely high volume of applications BBC receives every month, it may take 8-12 weeks for the badges to be delivered to children’s home addresses. Thank you to all pupils who participated and we hope you’ll wear your brand-new badge proudly!
Barr Beacon School
Old Hall Lane
Aldridge, Walsall
West Midlands
WS9 0RF
T: 0121 366 6600
postbox@barrbeaconschool.co.uk
Monday - Thursday: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm
Friday: 8:00 am - 3:30 pm
