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TRADITIONAL VALUES | CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION

NEWSletter 20 May – Week 5

SUMMER TERM 2016

PAGE 1 TRADITIONAL VALUES | CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION

NEWS from the Headmaster

I was invited back to Eton College this week, with severalmembers of Beacon staff, to visit the Tony Little Centre forInnovation and Research in Learning (CIRL). CIRL is an excitingnew concept, designed to develop Eton’s expertise in teachingand learning. The centre has been carefully designed to behighly flexible and allow experimentation with new ideas andconcepts. As an example, all the tables and many of the wallsare essentially whiteboards which can be written upon,encouraging creativity and collaboration. CIRL allows experimentation with innovations in education and Eton isworking with Harvard to measure the results, enabling them to retain the most effective new methods. The researchfindings will be shared with other schools, universities and research bodies around the world.

I am keen to explore ways in which we can incorporate new ways of teaching and learning at The Beacon too. We willbe working together with the leading senior schools in the country to share best practice and the latest techniques andinnovations. This will enable us to keep The Beacon pushing forward and ensure we continue to give our boys the bestpossible start to their education.

NEWS from Pre-Prep


One of the delights of teaching small boys is the random nature of their intellectual curiosity. This week I have beenasked why was Hitler such a bad man? Why was the chicken curry spicy? And a boy in Reception asked if I had a sixpack. Mrs Mancinelli clearly needs to do some work on spatial awareness with her group. Mrs Arundel-Weedonorganised a superb 1940’s day which all the boys thoroughly enjoyed. They looked very smart in their evacuee costumesand learned a great deal about life in the war years. Several mums discovered their inner Vera Lynn and dressed up verysmartly too. Many thanks to everyone who helped out. Next week is relatively calm as we move towards half term whichmeans anything could happen. Have a great weekend everybody.

Richard Haley, Head of Pre-Prep


The Beacon BallThank you so much to everyone who supported the Beacon Ball last Fridaynight. Over 240 parents and teachers enjoyed a fun evening at Chartridgewith lots of fizz, great food and dancing. We were entertained by IPop,who performed a brilliant set, and then parents and teachers alike enjoyedthe disco. There were queues all evening for the photo booth and karaoke!

Special thanks to both Kiran and Nonny for organising the event and to ourmany helpers and raffle donors. Over £5000 was raised.

Camp Night: Saturday June 18thCamp Night is our next big event, and will be held this yearon Saturday June 18th so please reserve the date.

Tickets going on sale soon!

Swim Club: Summer 2016The BPS will be running The Beacon Swim Club again thisSummer in afternoons from July 18th - August 26th.

Tickets will be going on sale after half-term.

Sports Day VolunteersFinally, we are looking for volunteers to organise and runrefreshment stalls for the various sports days. If you are able to volunteer, please let us or your classreps know.

Many thanks everyone,

Fiona Mayhew and Nonny Steel – Co-Chairs, Beacon Parents’ Society [email protected]

Parents’ Society NEWS

games food singing camp fire3pm Saturday 18th Junethrough until 10am Sunday 19th June

A D V E N T U R E

CAMP NIGHT 2016

The B

ea c o n Pa r e n t s ’ Soc i et y


The results are back from the final maths competition that we participate in during the year. This is the JuniorMathematics Challenge which is aimed at Year 8 students in the UK. In this competition the boys answer 25 multiplechoice questions in one hour.

The top 40% of students nationally receive a gold, silver or bronze certificate. These are in the ratio of 1:2:3. Roughlythe top 1000 students are invited back to participate in the Junior Mathematical Olympiad. The next few thousand areinvited back to sit the Junior Kangaroo Paper. This will include two of our boys this year, Jay Roopra and Thomas Way.

The following boys have been awarded a gold certificate:

Rishi Pandya, Jay Roopra, Tom Way, Harlan Marr-Johnson, Oliver Okhuijsen, Mate Mahmoud.

Jack Chesney, Harry West, Benjamin Smart, Rahul Gill, Alexander Jones, Oliver Rylance and Paul D' Souza have beenawarded a silver certificate.

Nic Blagg, Jugaad Singh, Nazar Gamil, Harry Petrie, Rahul Bhima, Oliver Avis, Finley Hepden-Dyer, Jack Shawyer,William Shurrock, Charlie Hobley, Thomas Creighton and David Justus have been awarded a bronze certificate.

Congratulations to all these boys!

Here are a few questions if you would like to try them.Jackie Gibson, Head of Mathematics

Maths NEWS

In a group of 48 children, theratio of boys to girls is 3:5.

How many boys must join thegroup to make the ratio of boys togirls 5:3.

Three boxes contain apples, pears or both.

Each box has the same number of pieces of fruit.The first box contains all twelve of the applesand one-ninth of the pears.

How many pieces of fruit are there in each box?

Answer:a) 48 b) 40 c) 32 d) 24 e) 8

Answer:a) 14 b) 16 c) 18 d) 20 e) 36


LAMDA Examination Results - Spring 2016Acting Grade 4 - Combined Emile Belgrave Distinction Felix Maintzer DistinctionActing Grade 4 - Duo Luca Tartaglia-Baker Merit Felipé Herrera MeritActing Grade 5 - Solo Rahul Bhima MeritActing Grade 4 - Solo Mark Krutikov-Korsmik DistinctionMiming Grade 5 - Solo Arjan Bhui DistinctionActing Grade 4 - Solo Nazar Gamil MeritActing Grade 5 - Solo George Warburton MeritActing Grade 2 - Solo Leo Wilson MeritActing Grade 3 - Group Alistair Begg Merit Harry Ludlam Merit Amar Bawa Merit Theo Schulten MeritActing Grade 4 - Solo Giles Wilson DistinctionActing Grade 4 - Combined Luca Knight Distinction Oliver Letts DistinctionActing Grade 3 - Group Dominic Villegas-Osler Merit Edward O'Doherty Merit Maxi Maintzer Merit Manvir Bawa Merit Alastair White MeritActing Grade 5 - Solo Max Taylor DistinctionActing Grade 3 - Duo Oliver Rylance Merit Maxwell Conway MeritActing Grade 4 - Solo Rishi Pandya DistinctionSpeaking Verse and Prose Grade 4 Max Wilson MeritActing Grade 4 - Combined Tim Hayes Distinction Oliver Okhuijsen DistinctionActing Grade 4 - Duo Archie Keith Distinction Aaryan Solanki DistinctionActing Grade 4 - Solo Thomas Blackmore MeritActing Grade 5 - Solo Max Garrood DistinctionActing Grade 4 - Combined Lucas Batty Distinction Finley Hepden-Dyer DistinctionActing Grade 4 - Combined Harry Petrie Distinction Aaron McNeille DistinctionActing Grade 2 - Group Zacharia Khan Distinction William Jones Distinction Alberto Harbottle Distinction Maxim Michau Distinction Charlie Berens DistinctionActing Grade 3 - Combined Alexander Thompson Distinction Owen Rogers MeritActing Grade 2 - Group Alistair Jenkins Distinction Oliver Hancocks Distinction Robert Dancer DistinctionSpeaking Verse and Prose Grade 3 Thomas Hales DistinctionActing Grade 2 - Solo Fergus Topham DistinctionActing Grade 2 - Duo Marco Filippetto Distinction Ross Tobin DistinctionActing Grade 2 - Solo Charlie Clark MeritActing Grade 4 - Solo Johan Stewart MeritActing Grade 2 - Solo Caspar Collier-Moore DistinctionDevising Drama Grade 4 - Group Archie Tatum Distinction Charlie Hobley Distinction Matthew Jones Distinction Sebastian Phillips Distinction Thomas Berens DistinctionActing Grade 3 - Duo Paul D'Souza Distinction Jay Roopra Distinction

Congratulations to them all!

And, congratulations to…Joshua Allen Grade 1 Guitar MERIT

Zac Haydon Grade 1 Guitar MERIT

James Barber Grade 1 Guitar MERIT

Robert Aneke Grade 1 Guitar DISTINCTION

Nicholas Smythe Grade 2 Oboe Level 1 Award

Oscar Mabon Grade 3 Piano

Paul D'Souza Grade 5 Piano

for passing their recent music exams. Their nameswill be added in the form of leaves to the beautiful‘musical tree’ painted for the Music Department byMr Pearson.

Lower School ConcertDue to unforeseen circumstances we need toreschedule the Lower School Concert which appearsin the school calendar next week on Wednesday 25May.

This concert will now take place in the week afterhalf term on Wednesday 8 June. It will be in TheSpinney Theatre starting at 5pm. Refreshments willbe served from 4.40pm in the concourse.

Morning RehearsalsNext week the following ensembles will NOT berehearsing in the mornings due to school examstaking place:

Beaconetti, Big Band, Wind Band, Orchestra andFanfare Brass.

Beacon Voices WILL take place for Years 5 & 6 butnot for Years 7 & 8.

Liz Van Tromp, Director of Music

Performing Arts NEWS


Sports NEWS

Player of the week : Harry PHarry scored 58 not out for the 1st XI against Dr Challoner’s. It was a captain’s inningswhere he paced his innings to perfection to make sure that The Beacon won a thrillinggame of 20/20 cricket.

Teams of the week : U11 and U13 Tennis Teams Our Beacon tennis teams performed superbly atthe Radley Prep School Tennis Tournament lastSunday to retain both the U11 and U13 trophies.

Two Beacon teams contested the U11 final andcould not be separated on games. Joshua Hooles and Alistair Begg won a veryclose match against Tom Chapman and Charlie Berens to decide the U11competition after Joe Harding and Oliver Pemberton narrowly lost to theexcellent pairing of Fraser Creighton and Harry Shawyer. It was fantastic to seetennis played to such a high level.

In the U13 competition, The Beacon again performed brilliantly. ThomasCreighton and Jack Shawyer did not lose a game all day. Nicholas Blagg andOliver Okhuijsen played some fine tennis whilst George Wilson and JugaadSingh made a great contribution and were a very effective doubles team. Well done to all the boys! Steve Winter

CRICKET MATCH REPORT : 1st XI v Dr Challoner’sMatch wonThe 1st XI played Dr Challoner’s 1st XI on Monday - a true test of how good a team we are. Dr Challoner’s had 4 ex-Beaconians playing - Theo Weatherall, Luke Brown, Yajur Krishnamurthy and Matthew McKinley. It is a strangesituation wanting to beat boys you have once taught! The Beacon won the toss and invited the opposition to bat first.After 5 overs we were wondering if it was the right decision as they were 34 for 0. Theo Weatherall was smashing theball to all areas of the ground. He was the main wicket we needed to get back us into the game. The pitch was goingto take some spin so Harry Petrie brought on his spinners to see if we could get Theo out. Sebastian Phillips thenbowled the perfect leg break which enticed Weatherall into an attacking shot. The ball pitched and spun and found theoutside edge of his bat. Nic Blagg took a brilliant catch behind the stumps as the ball took a big deflection – anextremely hard catch to make, whilst standing up to the stumps. I even shouted at square leg umpire in the excitement(poor form) knowing the value of the wicket and the thought that we were back in the game. Weatherall departed for35 off 30 balls in what was a superb innings of some very hard hitting. Thomas Creighton came on and bowledbrilliantly at the death with figures of 3 overs, 2 for 16 and the innings closed with DCGS 128 for 7 off their 20 overs.

We talked in the changing room about how we were going to be positive and if need be, we would lose this matchwith everyone batting all out, as we were going to keep up with the chase from the start and score at 6 runs per over.After the first 2 overs we were 5 for no wicket - so that talk went well! We then accelerated and after 6 overs we were32 for 2, with a run rate that was increasing gradually. At this point Archie Palmer and Harry Petrie were at the creaseand going well with Palmer playing shots to all areas of the ground. Then on the tenth over Harry chipped a ball tomid-off for an easy catch, Archie was looking for a single and the fielder dropped the ball. With Palmer out of hiscrease the fielder threw the stumps down to run Palmer out and put Dr Challoner’s well and truly in the driving seat.Palmer went for 30 and the score was 52 for 3. It was now left to Harry to try and see if he could bat to the end, withthe rest of his team mates, to see if we could get close to their score. We needed 77 off 10 overs. Thomas Hortop andThomas Creighton came and went and left The Beacon 94 for 5 with four overs to go, as Robert Worthington strode tothe crease. The last time we were in a run chase like this was when Worthington saw the team home in Grenada, so Iwas hoping it would be the same again. Both Petrie and Worthington set about the attack and actually saw us homewith an over to spare! Harry Petrie finished on 58 not out off 46 balls and Robert Worthington on 13 not out off 9 ballsto win a thrilling game. David Robinson


Sports NEWS

The Beacon Athletics Squad are a runaway success!Many congratulations to all the boys involved in the Merchant Taylors’ Athletics Competition yesterday. The officialresults have not come through yet but The Beacon emerged victorious with notable victories as follows:

• The Year 7 relay team of Tim Hayes,Sebastian Phillips, Tom Bough and Jack Shawyer stormed to victory in their race

Special congratulations must go to William Mayhew who ran a superb personal best of 2 minutes 37 seconds to comesecond in the Year 6 800m (which in most other competitions would have been enough to win!) In a similar vein,James Stewart ran a tremendous time of 13.81 seconds in the Year 5 100m only to be caught on the line.

Well done to all the boys who took part. Steve Winter

• Archie Keith in the Year 6 javelin

• William Mayhew in the Year 6 long jump

• Jack Chesney in the Year 8 javelin

• Oscar Mabon in the Year 6 high jump

• Thomas Creighton in the Year 7/8 1500m

• Henry Ryland in the Year 4 800m

• Sam Royce in the Year 4 long jump

• Finley Hepden-Dyer in the Year 8 800m

• Tom Bough won the Year 7 100m

• Bailey Cameron in the Year 6 1500m

• Ollie Bloore in the Year 5 long jump

• Fraser Creighton in the Year 5 javelin

• Kieran Patel in the Year 4 high jump

• Thomas Redmond in the Year 5 800m

Also in the NEWS

Chess News

All the Beacon Chess Teams faced very strong competition and playedwell in Bristol last weekend at the Semi-Finals of the National PrimarySchools Chess Championship. This was the first major event for anumber of the boys and they all really enjoyed the chess and theatmosphere. Many thanks to the team managers appointed for theevent, Chess Master Rob Willmoth supported the U9A team with Chessparents Rupa Agnihotri for U9B and Alistair Conner for the U11 team.

The U9A team came 4th out of 30 teams with 17 points and just missedqualifying for the final by a point. They had a perfect score after the first2 rounds having won all their games, however, they were unable tosecure a point in the final round and so just missed out on qualifying. The winning team had 19.5 points with 2 teamstied in second on 18 points.

The U9B team came 24th on 10 points. After a very tough first round they scored 2.5 in both the second and thirdrounds, 2 in the fourth and 3 in the fifth.

The U11 team came 32nd out of 34 teams on 8.5 points. In the first round they scored 2 followed by a very toughsecond round. Then 1.5 in the third, 1 in the fourth and finished with a flourish scoring 4 in the final round.

Well done to all the boys involved:-U11: Bailey Cameron; Robert Dancer; Mackenzie Cameron; Aaryan Solanki; Henry Keen; Dilavar Gill.U9A: Rory Conner; Lucas Barnett-Harris; Aaryan Agnihotri; Arran Dhanda; Akaash Agnihotri; Conor Ford.U9B: Donnacha Doyle; James Branigan; Conrad Sammars; Ishan Das; Sam Pearson; Amaar Soomro.

Match report by Arran Dhanda (4P)

My dad woke me up at 5.15 in the morning to have breakfast. I had a quick wash and put on my school uniform andthen got in the car. My mum had put a blanket and pillow in the car for me so I could go to sleep for a little while. Iwoke up at 7.30 as we got near Bristol. At 8.00 we were at the Bristol Grammar School trying to find the classroomthat we were going to spend the day in. Soon, the rest of the boys started arriving.

Chess Master Mr Willmoth gave us some coaching before our first matches at 9.30. All three teams had very toughmatches all day and everyone played really well.

The U9A team won all 5 of the first two rounds matches. We were in first position! But the matches were gettingharder now as we had to play the team in second place every time.

In the third round we scored 4 points and the fourth round we scored 3 points, so we were still in first place in the finalround. But now we were against Westminster A who were the strongest team. They were too strong for us andknocked us down to fourth place. One more point and the U9A team would have qualified for the finals!

I think we were all a little bit disappointed at the end. But before we started I didn’t think we would get anywhere nearthe top! I think all the teams should be very proud of getting into the semi-final and we will be ready next year to beatthem all! We are looking forward to getting our medals and certificates at school.


The Beacon Master Cook Competition gets off to a ‘cracking’ start!

Four boys from Years 6, 7 and 8 were selected to compete in the first heat ofThe Beacon Master Cook on Monday this week. All came up with some superideas for the ‘Best Beacon Breakfast’ involving a number of eggs and a varietyof fruit. The judging was tough as there was little to choose between thedelicious offerings but the 2 boys going through to the next round are JackHodgson and William Shurrock. Well done to all four competitors whoproduced some super dishes. The next heat will involve boys from Years 4 and5 and will take place next Monday 23 May. Kate Morris


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Important DATES for your diary

PHOTO OF THE WEEK : “What do you mean, bad light stopped play?”

DATE TIME EVENT

Monday 23 May 4.00 pm Master Cook Heat 2

4.30 pm Year 5 Residential Trip Parent Information Meeting

Tuesday 24 May 7.00 pm Talking Teens Workshop for Parents Years 3-8

Thursday 26 May Year 4 Outdoor Education Day

4.30 pm Year 6 Residential Trip Parent Information Meeting

Friday 27 May Year 3 Outdoor Education Day

Half Term: Monday 30 May to Friday 3 June

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