Another Young Enterprise Victory

Even by Bethany standards February has been an incredibly busy month but we end the month with excellent news. Tom Hutchings won the regional finals of the Young Enterprise County Speaking Competition, which took place at Bethany on 27th February. There were six finalists, all winners of their area heats (we reported on Tom's victory in the area heat earlier this month) and the subject of their speeches was "What impact will climate change have on Kent in the next ten years?"

Tom, a Year 12 pupil, spoke superbly against strong opposition. He is pictured here being presented with his award by Alex King, MBE, the Kent Young Enterprise Chairman. He now goes on to deliver his speech at the Institute of Directors (Kent) annual dinner at Canterbury Cathedral on Thursday, 15th March.

Tom spoke on behalf of his company, Vertigo, with which he will also be competing in the Regional Heat of the Company Competition (Ashford heat) which takes place on 13th March at Bethany.




A linguistic weekend in Lille

AS French linguists enjoyed an intense but thoroughly entertaining long weekend in Lille. The main purpose of the trip was for the girls to improve their language skills and they were placed with families known to their teacher. They spent a good deal of time with their host families and enjoyed chatting over typically long lunches and dinners.

The girls had time to explore the city and took part in a treasure hunt and an orientation game.  They visited the Musee d’Art et d’Industrie in the beautiful converted art deco swimming pool of Roubaix, as well as Lille’s colourful market.   They also found time for a little shopping, a film, a karaoke evening and a dinner party to round off a busy weekend.  Dr Ducoulombier hopes that this will be the first of many Bethany visits to her home city!

Food Technology Visit

 No, there isn't a leak in our new Food Technology department. These Year 12 pupils, along with Mrs Wood, bravely donned these stunning outfits when they visited Rhokett Ltd in Cranbrook on 23rd February. Rhokett Ltd is a food manufacturing company which specialises in Patisserie products and the company prides itself in the use of hand finishing techniques and top quality ingredients. The Year 12 pupils were looking at operations, systems which help to control and monitor quality, storage and quality control, product development and marketing, all of which form part of their syllabus.


Art Tour to Florence

Altough the group made the mistake of flying to Italy on the one day of the year when Stansted was brought to a complete standstill by snow (and the return flight from Pisa was also cancelled which meant a group sleepover on the airport councourse!), more significant reasons helped to make this trip a truly memorable one!

A full itinerary saw 30 A/S and A2 artists brave the heights of the Duomo, haggle for goods in San Lorenzo market and visit the Uffizi Gallery (Boticelli's Birth of Venus), The Galleria dell Accademia (Michelangelo's "David"), The Convent of San Marco (Frescoes by Fra Angelico), The Pitti Palace
and Boboli Gardens and the Field of Miracles (The leaning tower of Pisa).

There was even time for the rugby fans in the group to watch England beat Italy in the Six Nations, although care was taken not to celebrate too vociferously!

 

 

Italian stocks of pizza, pasta and ice cream were severely dented during the five day trip and the enthusiasm and appreciation for everything the group saw made the trip a pleasure for everyone involved.

Milllennium Volunteers Dinner


Shortly before half-term the Milennium Volunteers annual dinner took place. All those present had completed two hundred hours of community service, mainly house or school duties.

 

 

Clean Sweep for Bethany at Young Enterprise
Public Speaking Competition

The area heat of the Young Enterprise Public Speaking competition took place at Cranbrook School on 6th February. Congratulations to the two participants from Bethany who came first and second. Tom Hutchings from the Young Enterprise Company "Vertigo" won first place, with Elfriede Kormawa representing "Avail" in second place. Their speeches were entitled: "What impact will climate change have on Kent in the next ten years". Mr Khan, pictured on the left, who runs the Young Enterprise scheme at Bethany, was delighted with both pupils' performance and is looking forward to the County final in which Tom will compete, which will take place at Bethany on 27th February.


Fantastic Oz!

What do you need for a successful school production?
One determined Director.  One committed Musical Director.
The patient and unending help of at least 35 members of staff -to help with music, set, props, lighting, sound, visuals, costumes etc, etc.
 
Then you need a cast of almost 50 pupils prepared to give time, effort, energy and show real strength of character in the midst of the chaos of rehearsals.  You then need more pupils to help out backstage with stage management and sound.  Lines need to be learned, dance routines mastered and songs fine tuned. Time to add the orchestra and a choir.


After weeks of after school and weekend rehearsals the next requirement is an enthusiastic and appreciate audience and we were fortunate enough to have one of these at each of the four performances. Not a single ticket was unsold.

Mrs Kirk, the School's Head of Drama was delighted with the end result. "I always say this, but I really mean it, the pupils go from strength to stength every year and this year the standard of dancing, singing and acting was outstanding and just goes to show how much the Arts at Bethany are progressing All involved should be very proud of their achievements".

Mr Keeling, the Head of Music, said that musically, this had been the most challenging production to date. "Nine deeply talented musicians have worked hard to do justice to the score. Soloists, choir members and musicians have spent many hours rehearsing and the standard of instrumental and vocal performance has once again risen to new heights".

More pictures of the show will be added soon and for those of you not fortunate enough to have seen the production, a DVD will be available in due course.

This really was a WHOLE School journey to the wonderful land of Oz!


We welcome our Taiwanese Exchange Students

We were delighted to welcome our Taiwanese exchange students to Bethany last week. Wendy Hung and Annie Lu are pupils at the Zhongshan School in Taipei and Cherry Chen attends the Lishan School, also in Taipei. They are with us for ten days staying with their hosts, Stephanie Cameron, Vicky Fields and Beth Bowler, all of whom will be travelling out to Taipei in October for a return visit.



They have been kept busy so far with visits to Canterbury and Leeds Castle, attending lessons, helping out at both the School production and the Open Morning, making presentations on Taiwan to our pupils. They are certainly enjoying their time here and their favourite food so far is ..... trifle!