Senior Department Notices and Reminders

World Book Day 2023

Thursday 2 March is World Book Day! We are celebrating this national event by transforming the Drawing Room and the Junior Hall into two huge bookshops provided by the Travelling Book Company. Pupils will have the chance to browse the books and make purchases.

As part of this national celebration of reading, each pupil will receive a £1 book token, redeemable against any book purchased on 2 March.

As in previous years, we invite all pupils and staff to dress up as their favourite character from a book, and we ask that £1 is donated to the World Book Day charity via this link

Please click here before Monday 20 February to complete the Google form confirming whether your child can participate in the book sale, their maximum spend amount and that you are happy for the cost of the book/books to be added to your account.

News from the Senior Department

Top Form 10X Challenge

National Storytelling Week – Year 6 Visit Woodlands

To celebrate National Storytelling Week, Year 6 pupils visited our Woodlands Nursery on Thursday morning. It was a heart-warming moment to watch senior pupils ‘buddying up’ with our Woodlanders to read stories, answer their questions and together work out which super hero they would be.

When Woodlands Nursery opened its doors eight years ago, some of our now Year 6 pupils were the first children to step foot through the door and start their Beechwood journey with Shirley. The pupils love having opportunities like this to return to where it all began, and the Woodlands Team thoroughly enjoy seeing how much their former pupils have learned and grown since their Woodlands days.

Top Form French

Top B2’s French lessons this week were a riot of colour and fun, as pupils dressed to impress – and to bring to life key areas of their Modern Foreign Languages curriculum. This half term has been all about different items of clothing, professions and descriptions, and pupils have become adept at using more complicated sentence constructions and more confident using advanced vocabulary. We are slightly less sure about their dress sense though…

Top Form Art

This week Top Form really enjoyed their session in the Art Department, they all started a collaborative graffiti wall art project. Watch this space, we will show you their finished work of art in the coming weeks.

Year 7 English – Performing Shakespeare

Year 7 have worked exceptionally hard this half–term learning their Performing Shakespeare monologues, and it was amazing to see so many great performances in Tuesday’s school final! Congratulations to the 2 acts who will represent Beechwood at the regional final!

Senior Department Podcast Club

This week, our Senior Department Podcast Club had the pleasure of interviewing Mrs Cussans. Questions were varied and challenging, and covered important topics such as breakfast cereal, rugby and dogs as well as more important topics of the difference between school governance and headship. The finished podcast will be published shortly – Watch this space….

From the Senior Department Library

The Tiger who Sleeps under my Chair by Hannah Foley

1884. Emma Linden dreams of following in the footsteps of the famous fossil-hunter, Mary Anning on the Jurassic Coast. But Emma’s world begins to spiral when her brother James becomes obsessed with a glassy-eyed tiger at the museum.

2023. Rosie Linden is found having been missing for four days and four nights, no one believes her when she says she has turned into a tiger. On her path to recovery, and with her friend Jude, Rosia uncovers family secrets buried like layer upon layer of rock.

Together they must sift the past to find the truth and heal the present. An immersive tale spanning both contemporary and Victorian times from Kelpies Prize winner Hannah Foley. It is a bold, brave story of friendship, discovery and mental well-being, which teaches readers empathy and acceptance.