Wednesday 8th December
Due to a burst water main, school is closed to pupils today.
Form time and lessons are on Teams.
Examination Certificates – Summer 2021
Summer 2021 examination certificates will be available for collection from school Monday 13th December – Wednesday 15th December between 3.00 pm and 4.00 pm.
Certificates being collected on behalf of a student will require a letter of permission and some form of identification.
Certificates will be kept in school until 31st December 2022 and then destroyed.
Replacement certificates are not available only statement of results and these can only be obtained from the exam boards. Current costs per statement.
- AQA – £43.00
- OCR – £50.50
- Pearson – £47.00
- WJEC – £30.00
Children in Need Fundraiser
Our House Captains, Anna, Ashley, Hollie and Sanghveer, led on the fundraising for Children in Need.
They organised two competitions: ‘Guess the Teddy’s Name’ and ‘Guess How Many Sweets in the Jar’, as well as selling bags of sweets to pupils and staff.
Mr Lawrence, Mr Murphy, Mr Brennan and Mr Cooke battled it out on the dance floor showing off their best moves including a handstand, the worm and pirouetting! Forfeits they faced were having their legs waxed and getting pie-faced!
We raised an impressive total of £524.97.
Competition winners: Florence 7C1 (teddy bear) and Hassan 7M2 (jar of sweets).
Lord Mayor’s Quiz
Lord Mayor’s Quiz – Thursday 25th November 2021
The Lord Mayor’s Sixth Form Mega Quiz returned on Thursday 25th November. This year, we were delighted the event could go ahead in person at the magnificent Great Hall of the University of Birmingham. A group of 6 of our brightest quizzers in Year 12 faced fierce competition from other local Sixth Formers, but represented the school admirably, finishing 15th. This annual event raises money for the Lord Mayor’s Charity Appeal and Barr Beacon School was proud to have taken apart once again.
Quiz Team: Makara M, Shivani P, Poppy H, Daniel H, Dilraaj K and Mazin E.
Cadets Go Gliding
At 7:15 on a cold Sunday morning, 9 Cadets embarked on and adventure to Tern Hill airfield and 632 Volunteer Gliding School (VGS).
The mission: To learn about the function and effect of flight controls in a glider, and put them into practice. All looked good until we hit a fog bank on the A41, which stayed with us until Tern Hill. On arrival, the Cadets were put through a training session on fitting the parachute and exiting the Glider in an emergency. Once completed, the Cadets received a briefing on the effects of the Elevators, Ailerons and Rudder on an aircraft.
Training complete we waited, and waited, and waited for the mist to clear. As 11:00 drew near we were invited to attend an impromptu parade with the VGS to support the Cenotaph parade for Remembrance Day. At the end of the parade, and as if by magic, the fog became mist and then disappeared.
Once on the airfield, the Cadets were shown around a glider, including how to attach the tow cable and support the glider on launching. Soon the Cadets were in full flow, launching and recovering the Gliders as each started their trip to the stars (well 1000 feet at least). By 3:00pm, all was looking good for all Cadets to fly when we were told that a wind at 400 feet meant that we needed to reverse our launch direction. So, with all hands to deck, 1 caravan, 2 winches, 1 minibus, 3 gliders and a tractor were all relocated on the airfield ready to restart operations. At this point, a sudden downturn in temperature caused flying to cease, as it caused the canopies on the gliders to mist up in a similar way to cars on a cold morning – the key difference being that the gliders don’t have windscreen wipers or heating. The effect was that 2 Cadets didn’t fly. Undaunted, plans were immediately made to return these Cadets at a later date to get their flights.
Once all the kit had been recovered to the hanger, the Cadets who had flown were then presented with their blue wings as a symbol of their progress on the aviation training package.
The military and poetry have a long history going back thousands of years, through to the famous poets of the First World War and right up to modern engagements. It is therefore very fitting that Sgt. Bew was inspired to pen these lines which tell the story of the day…
A Glider’s Tale
Twas the 14th November
And not a sound to be heard
‘Cept 9 young Cadets
Who sought to be birds.
For today was the day
That they hoped to fly
Up in the air in a glider to distances so high
Mother Nature reminded us, that she is the boss
For a ground mist descended, we are at a loss.
Fear not said the pilots, learn how flight is done.
Then cometh the hour, the mists came undone
And gliders went soaring
And Cadets had much fun.
Connecting the cables and running the wing,
Recovering an overshoot,
They took part in everything.
One by one, they went soaring
High into the sky.
“It’s like a rollercoaster”,
I heard Cadets cry.
Mother Nature again descended
Her hand once again,
And with two fledglings left,
She decried: this must end.
So two must return, in a week or few
And venture the mist and stand in the dew.
For they will once again
Hear “take up slack” and “all out”, those most shouted words
And go hurtling skywards
In those plastic birds
And see earth from a height and other great things.
And also to earn those precious blue wings.
Aldridge Service of Remembrance
On Sunday 14th November 2021, our Head Girl Abbie and Head Boy Jack proudly represented the school at Aldridge Remembrance Service. They joined in the parade (led by the Band of Squadron 425 Air Training Corps and the Royal British Legion) before laying a wreath, on behalf of Barr Beacon School, at the War Memorial.
Learning how you revise best in each subject
By Maisie Amos, Deputy Head Girl
Recently, I have read many comments saying schools teach you what to learn but not necessarily how to learn. Barr Beacon does offer advice, especially during assemblies and PSHE lessons, to help guide revision but you do need to spend time working out what applies to you best and how your brain absorbs information. This may be different for different subjects.
I am currently studying Biology, Chemistry and Maths, so 3 science based subjects. Biology requires the memorising of a lot of facts in a short period of time and applying them to the world we live in. Maths requires practice and repetition of processes and formulas so you ‘get it right’ every time. Chemistry is by far my hardest subject. I am the kind of person who likes to understand new concepts straight away and then memorise the facts afterwards. However with chemistry you need to memorise the facts ‘for now’ and then you will have a better understanding of them as you cover more content and the more practice you do.
Steps to Success
- Mind map the different ways to revise. This can be through your own research, through this blog, YouTube videos or Instagram pages, from study accounts or even searching on google or google scholar and writing down a few tips.
- Try out all of the techniques on learning different bits of information. If you are doing your GCSEs, maybe try one technique for one lesson in each subject. If you are in Year 12, you can try this by recapping content from GCSE that you need to know. For Year 13, you will probably already know how to revise for your A-Levels by reflecting on the Year 12 mocks. However, if you still would like to test them before delving into lots of work this year, maybe try with the content you struggled with in the mocks.
- Once you have tried the techniques, ensure that you test them out against your memory. Do a few exam questions and see which ones have ‘stuck’ in your brain the best. Try to think of the ways you would prefer to revise for each individual subject.
- Create a revision timetable and stick to it. I use Numbers, which is the Apple version of Excel, to create mine. Make sure it is realistic – it is probably not the best idea to be revising until 4am in the morning! You also need to make sure that you are leaving some buffer time.
Examples of Revision Techniques you could use
These are examples of what I do:-
- After every lesson, I use a website called Notion to create myself questions and I transform every line of information written in my notes into a question. I then attempt to answer the question without looking at my notes. I then link this page into my calendar one day after the lesson, three days after the lesson, one week after, two weeks after, one month, two months and three months. On these days, I have to go back to the page of questions I made and I answer them and do a question from the textbook or Integral (Maths). Also on the day of the lesson, I do a Seneca lesson (for Biology and Chemistry) or the tests on integral (for Maths). On my Notion page, I make a cue card on the questions that I found most difficult and file this in my folder. In addition to this, I complete any homework I am set in the lesson.
Summary
- Mind maps
- Spaced repetition (the retrieval practice I do with Notion)
- Past Paper Questions (make sure you mark them)
- Recapping lessons
- Whiteboard pens- write it out again and again until it sticks
- Cue cards
- Talking through processes out loud
- Convert words to pictures
- Memory Spots
- Stacking
- Use rhymes
- Use mnemonics
- Pictorial Storage
Revision Timetables – my advice
- Create a grid with columns Monday to Sunday at the top and the times you are going to revise along the bottom.
- Block out any times where you cannot revise (e.g. eating, exercise, travelling home, clubs).
- Think about how much time you want to spend revising content for each lesson (hint: 2 hours per subject per week is probably about right for GCSE but not enough for A levels).
- Choose which days you are taking a break from revision. You could label one of these days as a buffer day where you can catch up on other work that you have not managed to do.
- Choose how long each period of revision will be before you take a break (20 minutes revision followed by a 5-minute break or 1-hour revision followed by a 15-minute break).
- Slot in the times you are going to revise, stating the subject (for A levels this should be at least 5 hours per subject per week).
- Every Sunday, print off your timetable and annotate it, stating what you will be doing in each study session for the following week or (copy the document you made and edit it each week).
- Remember to be flexible with your time. If you cannot revise one night, move those study sessions to your buffer day.
- If you are having trouble finding a way of revising all the content until your final exam, use the app Adapt to structure the topics you will revise each day. This will also help you to structure a revision timetable.
Useful Links
Other Websites that could help:
Non-Fiction November
Get involved in our 30-day non-fiction reading challenge!
Every day in November, we want Barr Beacon students to read a non-fiction text. The challenge calendar is below, and the rules are as follows:
- Complete every non-fiction challenge for a guaranteed prize!
- Complete 5+ non-fiction challenges to be entered into a prize draw
- All participants receive praise points and house points
- The form group with the most participants will receive a stack of magazines to enjoy together
- You can complete the challenges solo, with a friend, in form time – it’s up to you! Everyone needs to do the reading and complete the journal to qualify
- Hand your completed journal in to your form tutor or email a digital copy to readingchallenge@barrbeaconschool.co.uk to receive house points and your prize
- Deadline: December 13th 2021
- Day 1 – 26 Climate Activists – National Geographic
- Day 2 – Johnson apologises after minister who uses wheelchair denied entry to Cop26 venue – The Guardian
- Day 5 – How can baking improve wellbeing? – Happiful
- Day 7 – Doctor Who: Could regeneration really be possible? – Science Focus
- Day 8 – Letter from Birmingham Jail
- Day 11 – I traced my surname through enslaved people in Jamaica to a grand house in Scotland 9 – inews
- Day 13 – Extract from Anne Frank’s diary
- Day 16 – Extract from Adam Kay’s book
- Day 17 – Extract from ‘Becoming’
- Day 28 – Freedom or Death speech
RAF Cadets go Green, then Brown
Over the weekend, 39 Cadets took the opportunity to learn some basic military skills. These included looking after yourself in an outdoor environment, communication in a tactical environment, formations and tactical movement. The days were challenging as it rained during the two days, causing a small stream to form and meander across the training environment, generating the potential for the ultimate mud bath. This however did not deter the cadets, as they threw themselves (some quite literally) into the activities.
Looking after yourself in an outdoor environment. This included packing your rucksack, looking after your equipment and personal hygiene.
Communication in a tactical environment. This involves using hand signals to pass messages between people.
Formations. How groups of people move in a tactical environment.
Individual Tactical movement. How to move across terrain whilst trying to avoid detection.
Halloween came early!
The day culminated with a stalk where half the cadets used the skills they had learnt over the day to try to get as close to an observation post as they could without being seen. This involved moving as stealthily as possible through the terrain.
Can you see them?
Careers Fair 2021
In October, we were delighted to bring back our popular Careers Fair. Having resorted to a virtual platform during the pandemic, we were pleased to get things back to normal, with our annual event welcoming a large array of providers. All of our pupils met and spoke to a range of education and training providers, both local and national, with employers such as Collins Aerospace, HMRC, West Midlands Police, the RAF and the Army; many local colleges; numerous training providers offering apprenticeships and traineeships; and a large collection of universities from all over the country. Pupils were able to see the many options available to them after Year 11 or 13.
During the day, pupils also joined virtual breakout sessions in classrooms, with topics covering how to choose university courses, advice on choosing GCSE options and University vs Apprenticeships.
It was wonderful to allow our pupils to once again have the opportunity to meet these provers face to face and ask all the crucial questions they have about their futures.
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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
