Dear all,

This week has been another whirlwind. 

Today I was delighted to show round Lucy Livings, the Deputy Director at the Regional Schools Commission. This is the body which was responsible for rebrokering Beaufort into the Greenshaw Learning Trust, and she was delighted with how far the school has come since then. She and her team visited the majority of lessons in the school and were hugely impressed with the focus shown by your children.

But I want to focus on the extra-curricular this week. Mr King has led some fantastic assemblies on how we are aiming to reduce our carbon footprint, and I particularly enjoyed hearing him talk about his aim to be a seagull-free zone! Your children have been brilliant in supporting with this, by helping us make sure the site is completely litter free. 

Today I launched our Black History Month celebration. The theme this year is "Proud to Be," with an aim of inspiring and sharing the pride people have in their heritage and culture, in their own way and in their own words. Over the next few weeks, we'll be having assemblies, reading short stories from a wide range of authors in DEAR time, and spending some time in lessons looking at the contributions to each subject which have too often been overlooked. I'm hugely looking forward to sharing and listening to some of these stories, as we continue to work towards being the most inclusive school we can be. I'll be telling you a bit more about what we've been up to in my newsletters over the course of this month.

I'm also incredibly excited that we've had such an excited response to our relaunch of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. As some of you might know, we've tried to get this up and running on previous occasions, but COVID has unfortunately meant that we were unable to organise any expeditions. Ms Austin delivered some brilliant assemblies to Years 9 and 10, and we've already had over 50 applications, which is hugely exciting. I'm very passionate about the Award, in which young people have to volunteer their time, learn a new skill, complete regular physical exercise and complete two expeditions where they are completely self-sufficient. I can't wait to see how everyone gets on. 

We have also introduced the Ten Tors challenge to students - we're hoping to take a team down to Dartmoor to compete this spring. Run by the British Army, teams of students compete to navigate across Dartmoor, covering 33 miles and camping out while carrying all of their kit. It's a fantastic challenge and one I know they'll rise to - particularly given some of our sporting successes this week! Particular congratulations to those who notched up wins in their first ever matches for HP, with the Year 8 rugby team beating Seven Vale 50-0, and the Year 7/8 Girls Football team beating Churchdown School 9-4.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Best wishes,

Mr Farmbrough

Headteacher