We are delighted to announce that the National Citizenship Service has awarded us with Gold status because so many of our students signed up. As well as a plaque, we received a certificate from the Prime Minister.

The National Citizen Service is open to all 16 and 17-year-olds in England. It helps young people build skills for work and life, while they take on new challenges and meet new friends. They have a short time away from home and take part in a team project that will help their community.

Self-quizzing is a powerful strategy to get knowledge stuck in your long-term memory.  And it’s so simple to do! We use self-quizzing in lessons as well as setting it for homework. 

Watch our video to see a step-by-step guide of how to do it. 

• The sheet used in the video (European capital cities) – HERE
• Knowledge you have written down in your exercise book  
• Knowledge organisers you have been given by your teachers 
• The knowledge pages at the back of your planner, including: multiplication tables, commonly misspelt words, maths formulae, types of triangles, angles equations, parts of speech and world maps.

This is a selection of some of the Maths department’s favourite websites to help aid independent work and revision completed at home:

Maths Watch – https://vle.mathswatch.co.uk/vle/

Log onto the system using your unique login and password, once on the system to access questions click on ‘my progress’ at the top of the screen then click on the bar next to the topic you want to work on, if you have trouble with this pop and see your maths teacher. 

Maths Genie – http://www.mathsgenie.co.uk/gcse.html

The GCSE revision tab is particularly useful and has revision notes and model answers with questions along with questions for you to attempt and then also the solutions for these questions.

BBC Bitesize – https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/examspecs/z9p3mnb

This is the new version of BBC Bitesize which has been updated with the resources for the new specification, it has guided run through on techniques, video clips, activities and tests to complete. This covers all topics on the new GCSE specification.

Mr Barton Maths – http://www.mrbartonmaths.com/gcse.htm

This website gives you a while variety of resources from past exam papers (remember these are the old specification papers) to “walking and talking notes”, it also has revision notes on the majority of topics and includes a lot more, it is well worth a look around to see what is available!

Corbett Maths

This has questions and practice papers to access on the website along with videos on how to complete some of the practice papers. There is also a “5 a day section” which allows you to practice 5 different questions from 5 different topics for every day of the year. 

On Maths – http://onmaths.com/

Please remember the predicted paper is only what they think – there is no guarantee that these questions or topics will come up. The computer only awards marks for fully correct answers and not working out and the marks down the side may change for the real exams as they are only rough guides!

Don’t forget you also have access to maths workout numbers 1 to 8 on the system which can be accessed through the start menu -> maths then clicking on them, they are split into sections as follows :

1. Number work
2. Number work
3. Shape and space work
4. Shape and space work
5. Data handling work
6. Data handling work
7. Algebra work
8. Algebra work

Barr Beacon School pupils are celebrating an impressive set of GCSE results where there has been a fivefold increase in the number of pupils achieving a grade 9, the government’s new gold standard. 

Some of the high achievers who collected a string of 8 and 9 grades included 

R. Ghag with three grade 8s and five grade 9s. 

D. Kaler with four grade 8s and one grade 9

The results are a culmination of the hard work and focused revision of pupils during their careers at Barr Beacon School. We can’t wait to welcome back our hard-working pupils as sixth form students in September. It’s immensely satisfying to celebrate not only the pupils with the top grades but also those who have made the most progress in their time with us, and for many this success will only continue into the sixth form.

We are excited to announce that we have discovered a time capsule, which was buried on the school site in 1996.  

The contents of the capsule reveal what the curriculum was like in 1996. Items inside the treasure trove include photographs, textbooks and a floppy disk, which today’s students could barely recognise.

Our Senior Team was chosen to open the capsule. You can watch this, live as it happened, on this video:

We knew there was a time capsule buried on our site, but it was not until we received a photograph from a former teacher that we had any idea where it was located.  This could not come at a better time, with our anniversary celebrations right around the corner: Our school is sixty years old this year and we are having a special evening to commemorate this on Friday 12^th July. 

We are looking forward to having former pupils and teachers back on site.  Our initial allocation of five hundred tickets sold out rapidly but we have released some more because we know demand is still high.

Stay tuned to our website: Barr Beacon’s Senior Team will shortly be launching a competition to decide what to put in a new time capsule to represent 2019.

And if you recognise any of the students in the original photo (from 1996) – or maybe you are one of them yourself! – please get in touch so you can help us learn more about the time capsule.

Former Barr Beacon teacher Andrew Neenan has sent us these photographs from the late 1970s. The shots feature the school production of ‘Oh What a Lovely War!”, technology lessons, and several form tutor groups. If you were here in the ‘70s, do you recognise anyone?

Andrew Neenan shared his experiences of being a maths teacher at Barr Beacon for 27 years:

“I taught maths at the Beacon from 1973 to 2000 and worked alongside Mr Mills for most of that time, and also Ms Clayton. My particular interest and responsibility were applied maths (mechanics) at A level but I taught the whole age and ability range. I did a six-month maternity leave cover just after I left which took me to 2001 and followed with some supply sessions until 2004.

“From 2001 my main employment was at another school on a 0.7 timetable which I supplemented with some private tuition and exam marking. I retired in 2010 and continued exam marking A level mechanics for a few more years. Since then have been a man of leisure.

“I still meet up with a variety of ex-Barr Beacon staff for a meal. There was a remarkable sense of comradeship amongst the staff which continues when we meet up.”