Bellemoor School | Southampton

for all their hard work this half term, especially in supporting the additional after school and holiday work with Year 11. Mr Taylor and Mrs Christie were even in for revision sessions on a Sunday with about 50 Year 11s. I was also very proud of the professionalism of the NUT members who did not strike and allowed the school to function as normal.

 

Thanks to Mr Roberts and the boys who performed at Wordsworth’s summer fair. Well done to the rock band ‘Of the Above’ (Tom James, Tommy Hearne and David Rice) and to the Bellemoor Street Drummers (Tom James, Tommy Hearne, Luke Pickett, Michael Clark, Ashley Henbrey, Luke Thaxter, Jake Docherty and Ben Doswell) for giving up their free time to support the community and help forge links with our cluster schools.

 

21 boys from years 9 and 10 enjoyed a successful D of E training weekend and had a few hilarious stories to tell by the end of it! They participated in many activities including map and compass training, day hikes (or days getting lost depending which group they were in!), incident hikes, ready steady cook, first aid and emergency procedures. All the boys did really well and some will be ready to undertake the practice expedition as early as July this year. 

 

On 20^th May Miss Izard took 10 students to the Guildhall to see a performance of Shay Cullen’s ‘Once We Had a Dream’, a play about child trafficking in the Philippines, something that is kept hidden and very much denied. It was very moving and thought provoking and involved all mediums of performance, drama, dance and music. The boys enjoyed it and came away with a greater understanding of the atrocities that go on with children of their own age in the Philippines.

 

Mrs Doherty, together with 3 undergraduates, took 7a1 to the University of Southampton for an international writing conference.  This was the culmination of several weeks of hard work for the writing project the boys had been working on during lessons. The students had an opportunity to read their creative poems and short stories to a full lecture theatre which, despite a few nerves, they did brilliantly. The quality of work produced by 7a1 was outstanding in terms of innovation and craftsmanship, and it was a real confidence boost for these boys to recognise that their work was as good as, if not better, than that of older students from other schools in Southampton and Winchester.

 

The new prefects went for a team building day with the army at Thorney Island on Thursday 22^nd May. On a very hot day our young men worked their way around a number of challenges and then finished the day by ‘challenging’ their own fears on the obstacle course. They worked superbly together and as always were a read credit to us.

 

On the Tuesday before half term a professional photographer came into school to take pictures for our new prospectus. We invited in some Year 6 girls from Shirley Junior (Sammi, Jessica, Charlie, Hannah, Sophie and Jo) and Hollybrook (Isobel) to model our new school uniform along with Rohit Ghai, David Wateridge, Jack Ayers, Charlie Dunn, Elliott Dadds and Ben Parker from our Years 7 and 8. The children had a very busy morning, having their photos taken in Art, ICT, Music, PE, Science and the library. The girls especially enjoyed new experiences such as the Indian tabla drums, javelin throwing and Mr Burnett’s fire, water and gas experiment! Thanks to Mrs Kelly for organising the session.

 

Congratulations to our sports teams for another successful season. The Years 7, 8 and 9 football teams all won their respective leagues this year. Our Year 7 cross country team finished with bronze medals in the league, the Year 8 and 9 team finished with silver medals and the Year 10 and 11 team with gold medals. Jutiar Hasan Hamid from Year 10 excelled by finishing as the top runner in Southampton!

 

to our new associate professional, Ruth James, who starts this week.

 

The Shirley Cluster of schools PTAs have booked a performance of Happy’s Circus to take place on our site on Thursday 10^th July at 6 pm. The circus includes clowns, magical illusions, daring aerialists and speciality acts by international artistes and there will also be pre-circus entertainment with a variety of stalls organised by the schools from 5 pm. Circus tickets costing £5 each are available now from our finance office and each of our cluster of schools (Shirley Junior and Infant, Hollybrook Junior and Infant, Wordsworth Infant and Great Oaks Special Schools) but hurry, as we expect to sell out fast!

 

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