PwC visited the school to talk to our Year 12 students who are interested in pursuing apprenticeships. PwC offer a range of School Leaver Apprenticeships and Flying Start Degree Apprenticeships programmes. Representatives from the company spoke about their own experience of working for PwC and gave tips to succeed with their competitive application process.
CALLING ALL BARR BEACON SCHOOL ALUMNI
If you’re a former student of Barr Beacon School, we want to hear from you!
Your experiences since leaving could help to motivate and inspire our current students to feel more confident in making decisions about their future. We’d love you to join our Alumni Network and stay connected with the school.
We’ve partnered with the national education charity Future First, who specialise in helping schools like ours to stay connected with their former students.
You can choose how and when you help – perhaps you can act as a career and education role model, provide work experience or become a mentor in person or online.
To sign up, just follow this link and fill in the online form – we promise it will only take a couple of minutes
https://www.futurefirsthub.org.uk/register/barr-beacon-school
We look forward to hearing from you.
Year 12 Business and Media students took part in a PR workshop, run by WPR Agency.
After learning about what working in PR involves, and its differences to advertising, students were set a task. They put together an pitch for a new restaurant in the Bullring, encompassing media coverage, social content, influencer engagement and events. Our visiting speaker was very impressed with the innovative ideas from each group and praised students for their creativity and excellent team work when formulating ideas.
Students said they enjoyed the chance to ‘have a go’ at a real career and valued having the chance to work in a team. They were interested to share their ideas and hear what the other groups had created, and one student even said “I didn’t realise before, but I am actually more creative than I thought.”
On Tuesday 23rd of January, 50 pupils from the Matrix Academy Trust travelled from Gatwick Airport for a trip to Rome with the Turing Scheme. The Turing Scheme is a government initiative that fully funds a range of international opportunities for young people to go abroad and experience different cultures around the globe. Pupils who participate in this scheme are selected via criteria provided by the Department for Education.
After a smooth journey and arriving at our hostel, we made a swift departure to our first activity. Our group of 55 tackled the metro for the first time and walked our way to “Aroma Ostia” where our host school met us for an Italian cooking masterclass. During this class, our Chef taught us how to make pasta from scratch, along with the art of producing “carbonara” sauce, a dish that was born in Italy.
Throughout the week our mornings consisted of a rotation between groups, some taking themselves back to ancient Rome by visiting the Colosseum, some visited Castel Sant’Angelo which was commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum, and some visiting our Italian partner school learning about various aspects of their culture including music, literature, fashion and food. One group even took part in an inclusion workshop raising awareness of disabilities.
After lunch, our pupils came back together and started their week by being trained as true gladiators at the gladiator school. This included a fitness assault course, practicing and testing a variety of fighting techniques before our Empress (Ms Callanan) would decide their fate. Pupils also opened their mind into the “museum of dreamers” experiencing an adult-size ball pit, various illusions and not to mention beating their fears (literally). Our afternoon of imagination delved deeper into Vigamus where pupils were led on journey of time on the evolution of video games. Our sightseeing continued when strolling down the Spanish Steps to the renowned Trevi Fountain before dining in a local restaurant.
Our final few days were spent zipping through the trees of Rome at Eurpark High Ropes. It was incredible to see the number of pupils who overcame their fears and pushed through their limits to reach new heights before we caught the train to the shores of Ostia, where some pupils even dipped their toes in the sea! Mount Vesuvius was our next destination, with a 20 minute hike up to the viewpoint at the top of the volcano and a further 5 minutes to the crater. Pupils were in awe of the beauty of the bay of Naples, before seeing the steam being produced out of the dormant volcano. Having learnt about the history of Vesuvius, our next stop was the Herculaneum, a UNESCO heritage site which was covered in volcanic ash and rediscovered during excavations in the mid 18th century.
We couldn’t have left Rome before visiting the Stadio Olimpico, home to football clubs Roma and Lazio, and currently hosting the six nations! Following this, we took a trip abroad whilst abroad by visiting the Vatican City, the world’s smallest country! This tour included a visit to the Sistine Chapel, famous for papal ceremonies and used by the sacred college of cardinals.
Our week in Italy was spent experiencing various aspects of culture, encountering many new experiences and bringing more of our students together to create stronger connections.
Our pupils share their thoughts:
“The trip to italy was really great. I am very happy to have had the chance to go on a trip like this for free and have made so many friends in the process. I liked the rooms at the hostel, and how stress-free you guys made everything by everything being so organised and how there was a diverse range of things to do. The metro and bus rides were good, and got less busy due to good planning. Some things that we did that I thought I wouldn’t enjoy I turned out liking such as the school visit. The children there were lovely and despite the struggle communicating with some words, it was fun talking to them about what their life is like and comparing ours together. The museum of dreamers was my favourite because it was unlike anything I have ever done before. It was a unique experience which helped me with insight and keeping an open mind. I liked seeing the sights such as the colosseum, the Herculaneum and museums like the Vatican, gaming and the dream one. I liked the Vatican and the castle a lot because it was nice to see religious artefacts and art that I have always wanted to see. Thank you for the opportunity and choosing a great city like Rome.” – Alfie
“This trip to Italy was amazing, I’m so thankful I’ve had the opportunity to go to such a great place and it being free! Thanks to Ms Callanan, Mr Kendall, Mr Aspinall, Ms Thomson, and Ms Thompson. This week has been really fun and I haven’t felt this happy in ages! 10/10″ – Dylan
“My favourite part of the Rome trip was probably day three, when we went to the Colosseum. After that we went to the Museum of Dreamers as well as the Video Game Museum. We got to try local foods such as carbonara and actual Italian pizza! I also loved the day that we did the high ropes since I have a fear of heights and I overcame it a bit! In the end it was really fun! I made new friends from schools like Bloxwich and Dame Elizabeth Cadbury. On the coach rides we sang along to songs together. Overall the trip really improved my confidence.”
Today, 210 cadets & staff from our schools visited the National Memorial Arboretum as part of their historical and social enrichment package within the Combined Cadet Force.
Thank fully the weather was clear and all of our cadets enjoyed learning about the various monuments situated around the grounds.
We would like to thank members of the Wales & West CCF Test Team for supporting the visit, and the staff of the National Memorial Arboretum for hosting such a large group of us.
M. Neale, 10M1, was the first recipient of the silver badge for praise and received his badge and certificate in last week’s house assembly. M. Neale constantly applies himself to all aspects of school life both in and beyond the classroom. His hard work, excellent work ethic and community spirit make him a role model of excellence.
We congratulate him on his achievements and look forward to seeing him strive towards the gold award.
To find out more about the rewards and opportunities at Barr Beacon School, please follow this link: https://bit.ly/475SlWn
Our Reading Challenge 2024, has commenced this week in the Barr Beacon iCentre. 15 Year 12 pupils, acting as reading mentors to 15 Year 7 pupils, have enjoyed reading ‘Journey Back to Freedom’ by Catherine Johnson. Working together to build reading confidence and a love for reading, our Year 12s have taken a lead in engaging our Year 7s in their reading. In this picture, Reading Challenge mentor Z. Barkat is showing her mentee images of where the book is set to help him to picture the scene and immerse himself in his reading!
National Apprenticeship Week is taking place from Monday 5th to Sunday 11th February. There are lots of events taking place online for pupils and parents/carers to explore. Please take a look at the booklet below for more information.
This week pupils have had assemblies about Holocaust Memorial Day: they have been reminded of the events of the holocaust and genocide of the Jewish people in World War Two. However, sadly that is not the last genocide that the world has seen. The assembly touched on genocides since then in Rawanda, Darfur and Cambodia, amongst others.
These messages were explored in terms of this year’s theme: the fragility of freedom. Pupils considered the seriousness of how our Beacon Values link to protection of our fragile freedoms every day. That living in a world where everyone is equal to others and never discriminates is essential to ensure such atrocities never happen again.
J Coley and J Donoghue – Head Students
27th January marks the day that Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp, was liberated in 1945. On this day, annually, we as a community come together to learn about those who fell victim to the Nazi persecution and take action to create a safer future, preventing mass genocide.
Why is it important?
Remembering, discussing and learning about the Holocaust is important to raise awareness about contemporary forms of antisemitism, xenophobia and hatred. It mirrors the danger of prejudice and extremist movements, whilst helping to promote human rights. Being able to tackle this can help to build societies more resilient to varying forms of extremism.
What happened during the holocaust?
Many of us know the history of the Holocaust, where approximately 6 million Jews and at least 5 million prisoners of war, Romany, Jehovah’s Witness, homosexuals and many other victims were persecuted. However, to deepen our understanding it is important to look at stories of individuals who survived this genocide.
David Bayer was Born on September 7th, 1922, in Kozienice Poland. David was part of the Manes family, who owned a successful shoe factory in Poland. On September 9th the Nazis captured Poland, but David and his family hid in forests, where they successfully avoided them. When the family returned, they found their possessions were destroyed, including their Passover dishes (which is a Jewish festival that celebrates the liberation of slaves in Egypt). Furthermore, when the Nazis seized Polish Jewish businesses, David was forced into the Kozienice ghetto, where he worked as a houseboy and a translator for gestapo policy in 1942. After this he was then sent to the Treblinka Killing Centre, where the rest of his family were killed – however David was smuggled back to Kozienice to clean up the rest of Ghetto. He was then sent to one of the largest concentration camps (with a death toll of an estimated 1.1 million), Auschwitz Birkenau, to work in the highly dangerous Jaworzno Coal mines. In January 1945, he escaped into a forest near the sub camp of Blechhammer, and was found by Soviet Soldiers, weighing just 70lbs at the age of 23.
This is one of few examples of people who survived during the Holocaust and emphasises the extreme persecutions that these groups were subjected to. To find out more information regarding the Holocaust Memorial Day, click the links below:
https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-survivors/volunteers/david-bayer
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
