On Thursday, November 23^rd, we welcomed back our former Year 11 cohort for their Year 12 Presentation Evening. The evening was dedicated to celebrating the outstanding achievements of the year group, and we were delighted to have Mrs. Taggart back after her recent knee operation. She didn't want to miss bidding farewell to her students one last time.

The event started with a presentation from Miss Hearle, who warmly welcomed parents and students, extending congratulations on their GCSE successes. This was followed by the recognition of subject honourable mentions and award winners, which was a fantastic opportunity to applaud students who showcased exceptional attitudes and achieved outstanding results in each subject.

As tradition dictates, the halfway point featured performances from our current students. Year 10 student Bernice delivered a beautiful piano rendition of 'Clair de Lune' by C. Debussy, while Year 11 student Talia performed 'Close Every Door' from Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat.

The evening continued with the presentation of the whole school awards, celebrating achievements across the entire school. Following tradition, the Year 12 cohort lined up one final time in their tutor groups to collect their official exam results from Miss Hearle which was an emotional and proud moment for students, parents, and teachers alike.

Mrs. Taggart then addressed her year group one last time, reminiscing about their five-year journey and sharing her 'Top Taggart Tips.' Her speech, coupled with her endearing obsession with Take That, provided a brilliant conclusion to the evening.

As the event concluded, it was heart-warming to see the Year 12 cohort approach their teachers, sharing stories of their new adventures, and personally expressing gratitude for their dedicated work.

Special thanks go to Mrs Briggs, Mrs. Hine, Mrs. Goodwill, Mrs. Wallis and the Year 11 senior student leaders for organising and running the event. We also extend our gratitude to all parents for their attendance, and we hope they enjoyed the Year 12 celebrations.

At Henry Beaufort School, we take pride in this Year 12 group and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavours and look forward to hearing about their future successes.

The day started with Year 8s working in groups to design a helicopter to fulfil a specific set of requirements regarding weight, budget, mileage and passenger count. Their teamwork skills shone as they looked through different components and decided which would be the most appropriate for their combat helicopter with all-weather capability. Students then had the opportunity to prepare a helicopter for take off using VR technology. During the day they also had a talk from Leonardo staff about ‘What is an engineer?’, explored the Apache helicopter and built a Lynx engine – some building it in record time! A really interesting day enjoyed by all!

Mrs Chalke took a select group of Year 11 students on the Maths Departments annual trip to St Swithun’s in Winchester for the ‘Maths Inspiration Show’.  Guest speakers talked about how maths was used in their daily jobs.  We heard from a statistician who talked about misleading data and proved that having a bacon sandwich every day was not as lethal as smoking 25 cigarettes a day (despite what the papers may say!).  We heard from the design engineer responsible for impressive buildings such as The Millenium Dome and Wembley Stadium.  His job also allowed him to find more efficient and environmentally friendly ways to use concrete in construction.  Finally, we heard from an Oxford University Professor/ active environmentalist who mapped where our plastic pollution ended up in our seas to ensure clean up operations were targeted in the right areas.  

Plenty of food for thought for our Year 11’s to get their teeth into!  All the students were impeccably well-behaved, and many said they really enjoyed all the different guest speakers on offer.

On Wednesday 8^th November, the school had the first Cultural Capital of the year. Cultural Capital days are an opportunity for The Henry Beaufort School to ensure that all students have access to enriching activities that can broaden students’ horizons and provide students with skills that they can use in the future.  

Year 7

Students in Year 7 spent the day with the MFL department celebrating the European Day of Languages, which takes place on 26^th September across Europe.  Year 7 arrived at school in a range of costumes that reflected other cultures, countries and traditions.  We then started the day with an assembly on reasons why we learn a language and then a croissant kindly provided by the bistro.  The bistro also provided a range of snacks and meals from other countries that students could purchase at break and lunchtime.  Following the assembly, students worked on a rotation of various activities relating to language and culture.  These included further work and discussion on the importance of languages, a taster session in Mandarin Chinese, a session on sports from another culture and Spanish festivals.  We had a very successful day and students embraced each session with a positive and enthusiastic approach!  Well done Year 7!

Year 8

The Year 8 students were immersed in a day of art, drama, music and photography all based around puppetry. 

Students took part in a workshop based around Balinese Gamelan, delivered by Hampshire Music Service, then went on to do some art and create Balinese-style shadow puppets. In photography, the students learnt about photoshoots and created some amazing photos using miniature props. Finally, in drama, the students participated in a workshop on puppetry and theatre, delivered by The Mayflower Theatre, and they created some incredible puppets that came to life!

As the year 8 students left, one said “today has been fantastic!’.  All the Year 8 students really embraced this fun and exciting day and there was a real buzz around Team Athens. 

Year 9

On their first Cultural Capital day of the academic year, Year 9 students were taken to the city of Portsmouth with the school’s Humanities team to explore three different locations relating to Geography, History and Religious Education. Students created sketches of Gunwharf Quays, looking at how the site has repurposed older buildings alongside the newer development. Students then headed to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard to take in the sights of HMS Victory, the Apprenticeship Museum and Boat building within the dockyard itself. Finally, students attended a session with the Rev. Emma Andersen at St.George’s Church, where they learnt about the History of the church building and Christianity in modern day. Well Done Year 9 on a fantastic trip and especially coping with the rainy weather all day!

Year 10

All Year 10 students received sessions delivered by staff and students at Winchester University and were able to get an insight into what university life if like. They had sessions about post 16 and post 18 options, future planning, being a student, finance and budgeting and skills sessions. In the afternoon, all of Year 10 went to Winchester University for a tour of the campus and had the opportunity to attend a lecture for 15 minutes. We are very grateful to Winchester University for this wonderful opportunity they have provided for our year 10 cohort.

On Friday 20^th October, Henry Beaufort launched a new event: The Year 8 Options Fair. All of Year 8 got to visit stands representing 18 different option subjects that can be taken at GCSE, in order to ask questions about these different curriculum areas. At each stand were curriculum ambassadors from Year 9 and Year 10 who already study that subject, and had been chosen because they are positive representatives for that curriculum area. 

Year 8 gained a lot of information from this event about the courses offered, proportion of written exam, whether there is a coursework element, and how difficult other students found it to study. They also had the chance to write down any questions they had about the study of that subject so that the head of department could address these before Straw Poll 2 in January 2024.

We very much hope that it enables Year 8 to make some great choices!

Thanks to Mrs Goodwill and Miss Andrews-Oakes for organising the event. 

Miss Shelton

Deputy Headteacher

Year 11 GCSE RE classes were invited to visit two different Mosques, with one following Shi’a beliefs and the other following Sunni beliefs. This trip was extremely beneficial for revision towards the November mocks, and it provided a detailed insight into the Muslim community. They were able to ask lots of questions about the religion as a whole and delve into their personal beliefs. One of our students had the opportunity to dress up in traditional Hajj (pilgrimage) clothing and another took part in Wudu (the cleaning ritual before prayer). We looked around both Mosques and were lucky enough to be able to observe afternoon prayer. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience which helped us to gain a deeper level of understanding of the Muslim culture and expand our knowledge of diversity and inclusivity. We would like to thank the Abu Bakr Mosque and the Al Mahdi Centre for such an eye-opening and enjoyable trip.

On the 4th December, our Year 10 GCSE Drama students welcomed Primary school visitors to perform a pantomime for them.

You engaged your audience brilliantly and everyone had a great time!

Well done Year 10!

In a lively celebration at The Henry Beaufort School, the Year 7 Disco not only set the dance floor ablaze but also successfully raised funds for the Year 11 Leavers Ball. The traditional event, where year groups rally behind each other with the hope of receiving similar support in the future, marked a memorable evening for the Year 7 students. Organised by Miss McMahon and a group of Year 11 Student Leaders, the event not only met but surpassed its fundraising goal, showcasing the school community support. This success ensures that the upcoming Year 11 Leavers Ball will receive the support it needs, thanks to the spirited efforts of the younger students.

A big thank you to each year groups Head and Assistant Head of Year for their support on the night.

How could you survive if you crash landed on a desert island?

This is the question that students from Weeke Primary School were trying to answer when they visited us earlier this term. The Year 5 students visited us over two afternoons in September to undertake some laboratory techniques that they were unable to do in their normal school environment. During these particular sessions, the students were able to perform their own distillation experiments, using spirit burners to produce pure water from mixtures of ink and salty water.

The students worked really well and by the end of the sessions were able to apply their knowledge to some ‘real life’ scenarios. I also had the privilege of visiting some Year 4 students at Weeke Primary to deliver some introductory sessions to their new topic of ‘Sound’. The students enjoyed a very noisy session using the tuning forks and making their own straw oboes. These sessions were delivered as part of our Primary Outreach programme and similar sessions with Primary Schools within our local community will continue throughout the academic year. 

Mrs Harris

Science teacher

The House System has been launched, and it’s been a fantastically competitive term with students collecting house points and as we come to the end of the Autumn term, we are delighted to give an update. 

In the first half-term, points were assigned by stamp totals and Warsaw came away as winners. For this term, House Points have included a wide range of different competitions and elements, which include: 

• Stamp totals
• Attendance
• PE and Languages Cultural Capital Day Competition
• Autumn Creative Writing Competition
• Science Star of the Month per lab
• Humanities Star Student Award
• PE Star Student Award
• Tutor Time Monthly quiz. 

As a school community, we wanted to ensure all members of our community are a part of the House Community, so all members of the support staff are now part of a house and look forward to representing their house by wearing their House Colour at whole school events in the future.  

We are also excited to announce the launch of House Captains. This includes a Year 7 and a Year 10 student for each house who will represent their House as their House Captain for this academic year. These students have been decided within House areas and are great role models for other students in their house and committed to representing their house and all want to get their hands and colour on the new House Cup.

The points are all currently being calculated and will be presented in the Whole School Assembly on the final day of this year. The winning house will be awarded the new House Cup which will have their house colour attached and this will be displayed at reception.

Our Christmas Extravaganza took place on Tuesday 12^th December and was performed for over 300 guests. The evening saw up to nearly 200 students come together with a mixture of Music, Dance, Gymnastics and Drama and featured some incredible solos from Year 11 students. 

A special thank you to all the staff and students who were involved. We are incredibly proud of all of you as it was a truly great evening.

Browse the website to find out how to begin your exciting new career in teaching or to find out more about training at The Henry Beaufort School please contact andy.applin@staff.beaufort.hants.sch.uk

Thank you for your support. Together we have successfully navigated our first term in Arbor. We hope that you are enjoying the parent platform this year, which allows you to keep track of your child’s attendance, behaviour and progress in real time. 

As with all new systems, we are now beginning to embed key processes and deal with quirks in the system too. For example, students who are placed in intervention or on a school trip don’t automatically update the AM/PM registration. Thank you to those diligent parents for spotting these and making school aware, so we can refine our systems. One of these is the updating of the ‘Parent Permissions’ which were automatically set up when we moved to Arbor, and we are refining them to meet our needs moving forward. 

In the autumn term, we began to send out our Progress Reports to you through the portal and saving paper by avoiding printing them. Year 8 had these available online in November, and we will be sending Years 7 and 10 before the end of term. 

One thing Arbor cannot do as yet is Online Progress Evenings for parents, so we are sticking with our previous system for that and information has been sent out separately.

As you will be aware, midway through this term, we had to change the way the school collects the running stamp totals for the year and this will be collated for you to see on your child’s progress report. Please do continue to check their planner for their weekly stamp collection, as this is an invaluable tool for praise, recognition and motivation. As we move into 2024, we are hoping to bring more of the positive behaviour process into Arbor too. 

We are in the process of identifying opportunities for examinations, Statement of Entries and final exam timetables for the Year 11 students. Further information on this will be shared with those parents in due course.

If you have any feedback, questions or concerns about Arbor, please share them here: arbor@beaufort.hants.sch.uk

For parent information and award-winning online safety guides on the latest apps, games, devices and risks, please use the following link:

https://nationalcollege.com/categories/online-safety

To view our Safeguarding Newsletters, please click here.

A Personal Introduction from Neil Robinson, Parent Governor

Hello, Henry Beaufort School community! I'm Mr. Neil Robinson, a parent governor at our esteemed school, and the father of three wonderful children – Beatrice, Matty, and Isla – who are students here. My connection to our school is deeply personal and profoundly professional.

Professional and Educational Background

In my professional life, I'm engaged in cybersecurity and risk management, currently working with Virgin Money. My career, spanning various leadership roles in significant financial institutions, has been a journey of constant learning and adapting. I hold a Master of Science in Enterprise Risk Management from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham, which have been pivotal in shaping my career.

A Lifelong Love for Learning

My love for learning is a thread that runs through every aspect of my life. I've always believed that education is the cornerstone of individual success and societal progress. It's this passion for continuous learning and growth that I bring to my role as a parent governor. I'm committed to fostering an environment where this love for learning is nurtured and celebrated, and where students are encouraged to continually expand their horizons.

Upholding School Values: Pride, Happiness, and Ambition

The school values of Pride, Happiness, and Ambition resonate deeply with me:

Pride in one's achievements and work is something I've valued throughout my career. It's crucial in nurturing a sense of responsibility and striving for excellence.

Happiness is fundamental for personal and academic development. A joyful and supportive school environment is essential for instilling a lifelong love for learning.

Ambition drives us to achieve our goals and make a meaningful impact. In students, fostering ambition is key to inspiring them to envision and work towards a bright future.

Vision for the Future

As a parent governor, my vision for Henry Beaufort School is to create a secure, nurturing, and innovative learning environment. I am passionate about using my professional skills and personal insights to ensure our school remains a forward-thinking space where every student, including my own children, can thrive. Together, we can make our school a place where the values of Pride, Happiness, and Ambition are intertwined with a deep appreciation for the transformative power of education.

Professional and Educational Background

In my professional life, I'm engaged in cybersecurity and risk management, currently working with Virgin Money. My career, spanning various leadership roles in financial institutions, has been a journey of constant learning and adapting. I hold a Master of Science in Enterprise Risk Management from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham, which have been pivotal in shaping my career.