Students continue to shine at Beckfoot
It’s Black Friday and I am sitting in my office wondering what all the fuss is about. My inbox is flooded with all manner of offers for things I have little interest in or need. Regardless, I can’t help but look. It’s really annoying that I don’t have more discipline.
Our students are off school today though Beckfoot will seem to be no less busy as we prepare to welcome more than four hundred teachers and teaching assistants from our four trust secondary schools to our annual Trust Conference. The focus this year is on literacy and the plan for the day is really exciting with guest speakers, workshops and the chance to share best practice across our schools. A huge amount of planning has gone into the day and we hugely believe that this area of work has the potential to make a difference to the lives of all our students in the years ahead.
Speaking of changing lives, on Wednesday we collapsed the timetable for our Year 10 students so that they could get involved in our Humanities Wider Learning Day. It was a wonderful few hours where students got to learn more about themselves and others. The speakers came from far and wide and delivered sessions on Resilience, Sustainability, the world around us and lots more. For many the session delivered by Manfred, a survivor of the Holocaust, was incredibly inspiring and emotional. Our students were utterly brilliant throughout with all our guests commenting on what a pleasure it was to spend a day in their company. For me, that is special and I am very grateful to the Humanities team for leading the event and to our students for the manner in which they engaged and contributed to make the day an overwhelming success.
As many of you know, changing lives is important to us but we are also very interested in our students having the ability to think for themselves and, in doing so, consider the needs of others. We are very lucky at Beckfoot because so many of our young people do that every day within their friendship groups but also more widely. They care and this week was no different as our sixth form students invited the Anthony Nolan charity to come into Beckfoot and offer our older students the opportunity to join the stem cell register. This followed an assembly by Mr Sykes where he spoke about his experience of joining the register, being selected as a match and the lifesaving donation he gave. 68 pupils signed up meaning Beckfoot has now contributed over 120 potential lifesavers to the stem-cell register over the past two years. It is amazing and we should never take for granted those measures of just how self-actualised our students are and their ability to empathise and consider the needs of others before themselves.
Continuing the medical theme, we continue to challenge our students to think about careers in medicine. We are working with the group, Medical Mavericks, who came into school this week to showcase the opportunities that exist in the field of medicine. These sessions were fun and interactive where students were able to take blood from a fake arm, record their own ECG, try keyhole surgery, see inside their body with an ultrasound machine, take a picture of the inside of their eye and much more. Every student got their own medical observation sheet to fill in during the workshop. In the workshop students found out about careers in the NHS including the lesser-known careers such as biomedical science, healthcare science, medical engineering, medical physics, physiology, bioinformatics and many more. It was a great morning and the students loved the experience. For many it has stirred their interest in this area and that is all we ever want from these types of experiences for them.
In sport, our netball and table tennis teams continue to do incredible things. Last week our Year 10 netball girls won the Bradford tournament for only the second time in twenty years. We invited them into our staff briefing on Friday and they received a very loud and enthusiastic round of applause from their teachers for what they have achieved but also for the manner in which they did it. They are amazing young women who are the very finest roles models our school could ask for. They are Daisy, Alice, Ella, Arianna, Annie, Amy, Charlotte.
In Table tennis, our Year 8 boys won a very tough fixture in the first round of the English Schools competition and are through to the next round which will take place in December. They are also a very talented and dedicated group who we are very proud of. They are Jonah, Will, Harry and Usman.
Switching the focus, I am very excited to tell you about our sixth form debating team. On Friday evening they took part in the first heat of the ESU (English Speaking Union) Mace debate and were successful against a number of other schools in our region. They are now through to the next round of the competition in January. They were incredible. They spoke fluently, convincingly and put forward superb arguments so much so that I have advised the staff to consider any and all alternatives to arguments with any of those who took part! We also invited them into staff briefing so that their efforts could be shared and recognised by the staff who know them so well. On Tuesday this week they then followed up their performance by putting on a showcase for younger students which was breath taking and a wonderful experience for those students who will follow in their footsteps. We are very proud and grateful to each of them including Isa, Aldo, Izzy, Rosie, Halima, Ruby, Joseph and Lilia Malin. I am very grateful to Ms. Lowde who made all of this possible.
Yesterday we hosted a number of young leaders from across the north of England who wanted to spend a day with us learning about what we do here, how we operate as well as our vision and values for our work. They loved the school and our students. It was an incredible day and the opportunity to show off our community and our work is always special. We often need reminding from those with fresh eyes just how special Beckfoot is and yesterday was such an opportunity and I wanted to share that with you.
Finally, our staff and students are planning a weeklong set of fund raising events to raise money for children impacted by the events in the middle east. They have used this to channel their energies into doing something positive for children and I am so proud of them and the staff leading this for our school. Keep an eye out for their poster which is being printed as I write.
Thanks, as always, for your continued support for our school.
Take care.
Simon Wade, Headteacher
