Head Master’s Final Assembly

Welcome, boys, to the final assembly for one of the most extraordinary terms in the school’s history – not to mention the country’s history. I do hope that you are proud of what you are about to hear; you really should be. You have faced all sorts of challenges, physical and mental, and yet have shown spirit, resilience and a determination to keep going with as much energy as possible and as mutually supportively as possible. Despite what some might think, you have learned a lot; and in time you will look back upon this period as one of immense achievement. Well done to you all.

So, to start with some (significantly interrupted!) sport…

SPORT

Hockey

A hockey term cut short by the pandemic, resulted in only seven hockey sessions for the boys. Every session has been full of endeavour, enthusiasm and quality play. Boys have played competitive inter-squad fixtures, house matches for U14s (won jointly by St Cuthbert’s and Crescent) and have trained with next year’s season in mind. The Upper Sixth have demonstrated exactly the values expected from Bedford School sport. Despite having the chance of competitive matches removed, they never complained and instead organised and coached their own sessions, played well-fought games in great spirits and ensured every single person was included and able to have a good experience. 

Alfie Willcocks, Freddie Stock and James Worker deserve special mention for planning and leading warm-ups and sessions. Whilst it was not the end any of the group imagined, we can all be proud of the way the boys turned these three weeks into an opportunity, instead of lamenting their loss.

Hockey Honours Caps are awarded to:

• James Worker
• Freddie Stock
• Finlay Cummings
• Alfie Wilcocks

 Major Sports Colours for Hockey are awarded to:

• Elliot Potter
• Archie Walsh

 Minor Colours for Hockey are awarded to:

• Sam Garrett
• Phil Hughes
• Yaamin Mohammed
• Felix Lange
• Joe Needham
• Will Sayer
• Charlie Thompson
• Hasnain Zaidi

 Major Sports Colours for Rowing were awarded to:

• Will Garner

Minor Sports Colours for Squash were awarded to:

• Ed Mathew-Jones

Fives

It has been fantastic to have boys back on the courts and playing year group tournaments. Winners at the time of recording: Toby L’Estrange (Removes) and Arav Kirtane (Fifth Form).

Remote Sport

In keeping with our philosophy, the message that the PE and games department has consistently given is that all boys should have some form of exercise as part of their daily routine. The nature and suitability of this exercise will have varied depending on the individual and individual circumstances, as well as government and National Governing Body guidelines. However, the programme and competitions that were devised were to try and engage as many boys as possible, as well as give some structure to each week!

Boys were encouraged to get involved with the House Activity competition, by recording all activity sessions on the Strava app, with points being awarded for every session posted. The number of activities posted grew as the term progressed and regularly surpassed 300 in total each week. The final results can be seen below – Congratulations to Bromham on an impressive victory.

Every week through this period, an ‘athlete of the week’ award was given to the boy with the ‘best’ contribution in each year group. This culminated in the ‘athlete of the term’ award. A huge well done to these boys.

Well done to all the boys who have got involved with this remote and somewhat distant way of taking part in sport and physical activity.

Well done, too, to the 30 or 40 overseas boys who have lived here and taken part in regular sporting sessions all term – they have done so with a smile on their faces and a commitment to good health – and to the similar number (and similar attitude) of the children of key workers, who have enjoyed their exercise on site, too.

Music

The music department has been very busy this spring term, and we have been delighted that instrumental and singing lessons have continued throughout the lockdown period. Online recorded performances were posted on the school social media platforms throughout lockdown, including a weekly concert series and a number of recordings from the Chapel Choir. It has been very good to see the boys back in school for the last few weeks, and we look forward to making music together in the year group bubbles. Advance notice to boys that we will be running the Instrumental Music Competitions next term, so get practising over the holidays!

As an example of what the department has been up to, here is a remarkable recording of choral evensong by the Chapel Choir, compiled across this term. Every single individual voice on this has been recorded separately during the spring term and then balanced and mixed together to create the final outcome – over 250 individual tracks recorded by boys from Y7 to the Upper Sixth in the Chapel Choir. Quite an undertaking! The link is here. 

The full music lockdown playlist can be accessed here. 

Drama

Bedford School’s Academic Drama Society has continued to flourish even through the lockdown. Dylan Swain, our president, has continued to support the society and we regularly get 20 members attend each week. Dylan writes: 

The Society kicked off an unanticipated online spring term with a talk by Oscar Easterbrook, who gave a talk on cinema through the ages and how it changed theatre; it was an inspired and academic lecture from such a young member, and this was followed by a talk by Louis Cooke, another Remove drama scholar. Will Roberts joined us the next week for a talk on podcasts, recommending a number of podcast-based radio dramas and giving the boys advice on how they might start their own podcast. The next week saw a talk from Josh Cooke on Musical Theatre. After returning from half term break, Upper Sixth Form student and Drama scholar, Rowan Bascetta-Pollitt, shared his wisdom as he recounted his experiences in National Youth Theatre and student drama. As March began, our first external speaker joined us, as former Speech and Drama teacher Dani Boughey returned for a monologue-writing workshop that had the boys thinking about how they build character through different media. OB and ex-president of the Drama Society George Robertson then joined us for a talk on Katie Mitchell, discussing her feminist theatre and intense character work. Finally, boys interested in using their drama skills in future careers were offered the perspective of Kristina Goodwin, a barrister and former drama A-Level student, who gave an insight into how her dramatic education helped with her work in the legal field.

Drama Society this term has been brimming with student enthusiasm and a consistent attendance, it is encouraging to see the continued involvement from so many students, and we can only hope that we will be back in the theatre with cake and sandwiches as soon as we are able!

In addition, Ms Bassaly gave a wonderful lecture on Greek theatre and its history, and a thank-you must go to Drama scholars Will Roberts, Louis Cooke, Rowan Bascetta-Pollitt, Oscar Easterbrook and Josh Cooke for their lectures. All boys engaged their audience and provoked some thoughtful discussion.

LAMDA students have performed their monologues to camera and the highlights film will be released soon on social media.

Art

For the only Gilbert Lloyd lecture of the term, we were delighted to welcome Frances Spalding, an art historian, critic and biographer with a specialism in 20th century British Art. In her lecture ‘John Piper – the Making of his Vision’, Frances effortlessly led us through Piper’s diverse and long career contextualising the historical background for the work he produced and at the same time encouraging us to think carefully about the aesthetic qualities of the individual pieces of work we were looking at. For those boys doing art who were watching, it was a brilliant demonstration of just how to look at and analyse an artwork, something they all find challenging. Piper’s career included stage design most famously for operas by Benjamin Britten, stained glass, illustration, prints as well as writing. Having postponed this lecture in September in the hope that we would be able to host the lecture ‘live’ at school, we were extremely grateful to Frances for providing an excellent and memorable online alternative.

Always a highlight of the creative arts calendar is the judging of the Detweiler Art prize and this year it was done by digital submissions. We were delighted that former Director of Art and the current staff-elected Governor, Rob Campbell, agreed to be this year’s judge, with entries on the theme of Gods and Goddesses. The 2D First prize went to Simeon Gay (Upper Sixth) for his powerful portrait of George Floyd, and the 3D First Prize went to David Chan (Upper Sixth) for his haunting and sculptural dress.

It has been a busy term for both the Art and Architecture Societies. The term got underway with Henry Flatt (Lower Sixth) talking about Zaha Hadid and her journey to become one of the most important architects of all time for the Architecture Society. Henry spoke eloquently about the characteristics and qualities of Hadid’s work and what it is about them that so appeals to him as an aspiring architect. In the same week for the Art Society in January, cartoonist James Mellor talked about his training and career. James’ illustrations have featured in Private Eye, The Sunday Telegraph, and the Design Thinkers Academy. He is a member of the UK Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation and his cartoons have been exhibited at the London Cartoon Show (2019), the Herne Bay Cartoon Festival (2019) and Art 4 Africa (2018). In 2015, he live cartooned the Monte Carlo or Bust Rally for Lloyds of London. James is the author/illustrator of Drawn From History, Brexit: A Drawn out Process, Great Entrepreneurs From History and is the Honorary Historian to The Company of Entrepreneurs. It was fascinating to hear about James’ passion for James Gilray in particular, and why he considers cartoonists and satirists to be so important in society today. Later in January, Andy Wong and Boris Song (Upper Sixth) very kindly agreed to talk to the Lower Sixth about their experience of being interviewed at Cambridge. The same week, Freddie Peacock (Upper Sixth) talked about his experience as the first art scholar to progress all the way through the school and how he has found the experience. It was also an opportunity to explain how he has decided on the next stage of his creative journey and why he has chosen to apply to the art courses he has selected. For the art scholars in other year groups, this was an interesting and enlightening talk.

The Art department’s contribution to the ongoing Lockdown Film Club was the film Final Portrait (2017). Focusing on the artist Giacometti, the film is a portrait of a genius, and of a friendship between two men who are utterly different, yet increasingly bonded through a single, ever-evolving act of creativity. It is a film which shines a light on the artistic process itself, by turns exhilarating, exasperating and bewildering, questioning whether the gift of a great artist is a blessing or a curse. Following on from Lockdown Film Club’s showing of Final Portrait, Mr Croker looked at Giacometti’s working process and why he is considered such a significant 20th century artist.

At the end of January, Trent Abraham (OB), who is currently studying Illustration at Syracuse University in America, talked about his experience so far, showing examples of the work he is currently doing. Trent took us through some of the projects he has been working on while explaining the set-up in the course and where he sees his work going and his potential future career path. This talk was a reminder that boys have lots of options when they consider life after school and that the USA could be an exciting possibility.

Peter Osborne (OB 1963-68) graduated in Ireland then worked in France for some years before joining Christie’s auction house to develop an overseas Contemporary Art dealing business. He set up galleries all over the world and then joined Harlech Fine Art which acquired the company from Christie’s. He ran several UK and overseas galleries and, in 1994, bought the business from Harlech. His gallery Osborne Samuel is one of London’s best known, specialising in British modern and contemporary art and the work of Henry Moore and Lynn Chadwick, in particular. Peter talked about a selection of works from the gallery and some paintings, sculpture and installations by contemporary artists in his personal collection. Peter referred to David Bomberg, Ivon Hitchens, Lynn Chadwick, Henry Moore, Marc Quinn and William Kentridge recounting some of the extraordinary stories about how he came across some of the works.

Opera singer and BBC broadcaster Peter Brathwaite talked about his project recreating Black portraits through history, a challenge originally set by the Getty Museum during the first lockdown. He has recreated a portrait every day and is now up to number 90; the recreations are artworks in themselves. Peter wanted to remind people that Black subjects do exist in portraiture and that their stories deserve to be told. Peter explained how researching his own family history had motivated him to want to find out more about the very few black figures represented in portraits of the past. This was a fascinating and thought-provoking talk.

After leaving Bedford School in 2007, Matteo Mastrandrea studied architecture at St John’s College, Cambridge from 2007 to 2010. He then spent four years making films, completing a Masters in Philosophy at St Anne’s College, Oxford while also working as an architectural assistant in London. He then went to the Royal College of Art in 2014 to complete his Architecture studies, where he has been teaching since 2016 and working for Es Devlin designing stages for popstars and theatres. For this talk, Matty explained how his career has progressed and developed starting with the paintings he was doing in his very last year at school. As he explained, his interest in film, architecture and literature have all informed what he does and it was a reminder that any creative experience is not wasted and can inform work that you do subsequently. What was obvious was just how much he is currently enjoying the work he is doing designing stage sets and when asked he chose the stage set for the opera Carmen at the Bergen Festival as a particular favourite. This was a fascinating and engaging talk.

For the last Art Society talk of the term, Charlie McCutcheon (Lower Sixth) addressed the important and controversial issue ‘Should former colonising nations return artefacts to their places of origin?’ In his articulate and well-considered presentation, Charlie considered the argument from both sides of the debate which encouraged all those listening to make up their own minds.

Some other academic updates

The Current Affairs Society

The Current Affairs Society, re-founded in January by Sami Haroon, has already met five times this term with topics as diverse as ‘Britain’s place in the world post-Brexit’ and ‘COVID-19 and its impact on the developing world’ and presentations from Sami Haroon, Orlando Williams, Oscar Calvert and Harry Hine. An organising committee has been formed (Sami Haroon, James Cutler, Oscar Calvert and now joined by Kieran Gilmour, Charlie Mumford and Harry Hine) and there is a regular turnout of between 12 and 17 boys, with 34 attendees at a discussion on India/China relations with Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor of the Economist.

 Chemistry Olympiad Results

This was carried out in January under lockdown restrictions, so well done to the boys who undertook a challenging two-hour Chemistry paper.

Gold

• Harry Dowrick
• Harilaos Karavaggelis
• George Winder

Silver

• Alexander Linney
• Daniel Lumley-Wood
• Rowan Bascetta-Pollitt
• Jamie Norris
• Owen Chean
• Stephen Simmons
• Florio Eriksen
• Hugh Halsey
• Alex Christey
• Hugo Mathew
• Vivaan Singh

Bronze

• Sam Dicks
• Agastya Mishra

Senior Physics Challenge

During lockdown in March, the Physics department ran the British Physics Olympiad Senior Physics Challenge and we had 32 Lower Sixth Physics students step up to the challenge. The competition is an opportunity for students to stretch their problem-solving skills and apply fundamental physical principles to novel situations and is designed to assess and challenge students’ ability to work at a high level.

All boys received certificates to recognise their efforts, but particular mention goes to Reuben Glenville and Alex Aellen who received gold certificates. These are awarded to students with scores in the top 15% of the 5,300 students that took part in the competition from nearly 400 schools: a fantastic achievement.  In addition, the following boys gained silver certificates:

• Peter Moore
• Sebastian Peacock
• James Deardon
• Dell Kang
• Will Turner
• Jonah Whiteman
• Ciaran Kilbane
• Anish Katechia
• Maxwell Martin
• Marcus Chien

Computer Science

On Saturday 20 March, two teams of boys entered the Lockheed Martin 2021 CyberQuest competition. Sixty teams from schools around the world competed against each other to find cyber security flaws in different systems through a series of tasks including ‘Hack the Box’-style challenges, stenography, social engineering and analysis of packet capture logs.

The Sixth Form team consisted of German Nikolishin, Hasnain Zaidi, Tony Zhang, Alex Aellen and James Moffat.

The GCSE team consisted of Siddarth Prabhu, Frederik Simmen, Shawn Shen and Callum Ward.

This was the first time Bedford School has entered this competition and we were delighted that the Sixth Form team came second in the UK – missing out on first place by just one point! In the overall standings against the 60 teams across the US and UK, they ranked 12th, which is an amazing achievement for their first attempt.

Cyber Security is a hugely up-and-coming industry with applications and opportunities worldwide in so many different fields. If you think about it on the most fundamental level, without experts in this field, the modern technological world as we know it would simply not operate so we are very proud of what the boys have achieved and the opportunity it opens up for them in the future.

Public Speaking

News from this week… Giles Halsey, Toby L’Estrange (both Remove) and Will Roberts (Fifth Form) competed in the regional final of the ESU Churchill Public Speaking Competition. All three did extremely well; Toby was named Best Chair, whilst Will won the Best Questioner award. They embodied that ability to look anyone in the eye, make them feel welcome and deliver thoughtful contributions that we are looking for in all our boys. Giles also did a great job in a strong field of speakers; his analysis of the arms trade was incisive, and he answered the questions put to him particularly well. We think the next round is the national Grand Final.

HM Commendations

Well done to the following boys:

Eric Breslin (Fourth Form) for superb curiosity in Music, History and English, producing (respectively) a recorded graphical score, an animated blitzkrieg task, and a scholarly essay on Shakespeare’s portrayal of the French and English courts in Henry V.

Ed Wade (Fourth Form) for his brilliantly researched presentation to the Classical Society about the arrival of the Syracusia in Egypt and Archimedes’ inventions.

Jack Harte (Remove) for his excellent independent practical demonstration of total reflection of internal laser light in water, and subsequent evaluation.

Alex Ying (Remove) for consistently producing exceptional artwork across the term, including in response to his creative writing.

Sam Blewitt (Fifth Form) for outstanding endeavour in Mathematics, completing every task in Hegarty Maths to 100%.

Cyrus Goddard (Fifth Form) for outstanding progress across his studies, receiving plaudits from every one of his subjects.

Sami Haroon (Lower Sixth) for a wonderful lecture on Immanuel Kant, displaying an in-depth and nuanced understanding of some challenging philosophical concepts.

Alex Aellen (Lower Sixth) for achieving a distinction in the Elite category of the Oxford University Computing Challenge.

Societies generally!

The list of societies who have continued to meet during this lockdown period since January is pretty remarkable and deserves scrutiny; well done to all who contributed. The societies were:

• Art Society
• Aviation Society
• Chemistry Society
• Chess Society
• Chinese Society
• Classical Society
• Critical Thinking Class
• Current Affairs Society
• Debating Society
• Drama Society
• Film Studies Society
• Geography Society
• German & Philosophy Society
• Ivy House Award
• Law Society
• Lockdown Film Club
• Lockdown Lit
• Medical Society
• Physics and Engineering Society
• Pythagoreans
• Record Club
• Spanish Society
• Tech Society
• Theology & Philosophy Society 

CCF

Lockdown through the major part of the term has meant most CCF training has been remote. Whilst this has been very ably run by our Senior NCOs, there are aspects that are impossible to learn online, so it has been great to be able to return to face-to-face training in the last weeks of the term. We were finally able to welcome our new Fourth Form recruits to the Corps, where they showed very impressive levels of turnout and enthusiasm.

Rifle Club

The short period of shooting permitted to us this term has really only allowed the boys to reacquaint themselves with shooting and blow away the cobwebs. Despite a three-month hiatus, many boys shot very impressive cards and are looking forward to getting back into competition next term. COVID-permitting, we also look to recruit our new Fourth Form shooters next term.

Cups

House Hockey

Remove Form Photography Competition

Winner: Barnaby Williams (Joy) – The photo of the robin brings me joy because it represents Christmas which is a happy time. I also love the definition in the feathers. 

Winner: Kevin Xu (new Life) – This photo was taken in a pitch inside a university. The pandemic almost vanished in China and people were able to gather around with full of joy. The photo shows boys having fun from taking free kicks and speaks of us leaving lockdowns behind and looking to the future.

Winner: Joshua Addo (Hope) – This is a picture of me and my friends on a bike ride a few weekends ago riding in the countryside.

Highly commended for their entries were Rahul Thakrar, Kevin Xu and Giles Halsey.

Charities and Community Engagement

This term we have raised over £2,200 for Red Nose Day and The Captain Tom Foundation, and many boys came up with innovative ways to raise money for charities of their choice during lockdown.

Individual houses have been running quizzes with boys and parents to raise money for a variety of charities and have adapted well to the challenges of remote fund raising. Next term we will be collecting unused devices to donate to refugees in the local area. Please have a look over Easter and bring any unused laptops, tablets and phones to the Bell Room in the first week back. Movember has recently sent three trophies to the school – one each for Henry Warren and Gurkaran Johal who raised over £8,000 between them and were in the top three individual school fundraisers, and one for everyone for the highest UK school total of £25,000. We look forward to many more charity and community-based activities in the summer term. 

HM Scarves

The first recipient has been described as one of his teachers as “an all-round superstar, who brings an unrestrained enthusiasm to all that he does and is kind and generous to all whom he meets.” He sets a fantastic example academically, not only doing four A-Levels himself, but showing almost endless generosity with his time towards others; by sharing his research and demonstrating what focussed work can bring, he has also raised expectations in his class, as others can see what can be achieved with consistent effort and application of feedback.

An active member of the Biology Society, he has given talks on:

• Developments in plant research at Rothamstead Plant Research Laboratories, in which he related the work experience which he self-organised during his Lower Sixth holidays
• Electroreception: How sharks hunt and catch prey. He repeated this talk for the Prep School year 7s and year 8s
• G-Protein Coupled receptors: Finding the key to medical treatments

He was short-listed for the Talalay Science presentation competition, and took part in a whole day ‘Youth Summit’ run by the Royal Institution.

He is a perfect model of all the school values; as such, has been Deputy Head of House and Music Captain, roles always completed with care for others, calm efficiency and a smile on his face. Indeed, he has been fully involved in the musical life of the school since he arrived in the Fourth Form. A singer and a brass player, he is a member of Chapel Choir, the Brass Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra. He has been a great example to his peers and to the younger boys and, in the words of the Director of Music, “is one of the unsung heroes of the Music Department”.

Very well done to a terrific young man, Hugh Halsey.

The next winner is also a wonderful young man, who has made the very most of his time at Bedford School. He is quiet and unassuming, and by nature would steer clear of the limelight, but he has, in his own understated way, worked through some challenges along the way and achieved great things here. He has worked to a high standard, achieving all 7-9 grades at GCSE; he enjoys setting himself a challenge and taught himself to play the violin and then joined the second orchestra (even though this was something he found very hard). He loves languages and, although he dropped French at the end of the Lower Sixth, he used his knowledge of the language and that of coding to produce his EPQ artifact, which was a website that aided in the learning of languages. During the first lockdown he also taught himself Japanese.

He has a superbly focussed, analytical mind which is great at problem-solving, and over the last two years has blossomed, putting in hours of additional work with Computer Sciences projects. He took part in the Reply Challenge coding competition, the CyberQuest hacking competition and he will undoubtedly be a key player in the upcoming CodeQuest programming competition. He came into Computer Science with very limited coding experience at the start of the Lower Sixth and simply absorbs information. His final project was a review of the efficiencies of different searching algorithms. To most people this probably sounds dull, but think of this next time you do a Google search: How do the servers at Google actually search that many webpages in a fraction of a second? It takes years of dedicated research and work to get the searching algorithms and hardware to get those levels of efficiency.

I am thrilled to award a Head Master’s scarf to Hasnain Zaidi.

The last of this term’s winners has been exceptional in his time in the art department. He has participated in every available opportunity the department has offered. He has hardly missed a single art history lesson in the last two years (whenever he has been unable to attend the 4.30-6.00pm session he has attended the later 7.00-8.30pm Zoom session) and his willingness to participate and join in discussions has been much appreciated and noted. When we hosted a drawing weekend course in February 2020 with Dr Glenn Sujo, he was exemplary in looking after and hosting all the visiting delegates; the Head of Art was overwhelmed by positive comments from many of them about how impressed they were by his maturity, care and warmth. He has attended every life drawing session, which he has found particularly challenging; as someone who finds observational drawing difficult, he has not shied away from things that are difficult which again shows an impressive maturity. His work ethic has been exemplary.

However, it is not for art that this person, unusually, wins a scarf. I do not usually award a scarf to the Head of School, as that boy has his own reward, but this year has been like no other. Andy Wong has been a leader since his Prep School days in Eagle House, but this year has required something extraordinary. Quite simply, he leads by example. He has strong morals, he stands up for them, and he always sets the finest of examples; he would never ask anybody to do what he would not do himself; and he would always expect of himself the high standards that he expects of others.  In a year where leadership has not been straightforward, Andy has led with conviction, compassion, humility and clarity.  He has also been here, at school, throughout, a long way from home, totally dedicated to others, without favourites or enemies. He has been simply immense. Well done, Andy; and whilst there are still a few cold days left this year, I hope you can enjoy the scarf.

Staff

There must be a very special mention for the staff this term. The teachers have not just settled back into remote learning but taken it to another level. Their dedication has been superb. And then, of course, all staff have worked onsite, selflessly and doggedly, as well as inspiringly, in the midst of a pandemic. The last three weeks have been wonderful; but also-nerve wracking in many ways. And one must also remember the many staff who worked onsite when the pandemic was at its worst in January, to look after boys from overseas, often in their own homes, and children of key workers. It has been a magnificent team effort, well supported by all of you boys, and I am going to give you just a minute of two in your own classrooms now, not to cheer (COVID-unfriendly!), but to clap, smile and nod a silent thank-you to the teacher in front of you!

I wish you all a restful and productive break.

James Hodgson
Head Master

PS while you are here….

I would also like to mention an extraordinary lockdown for the Old Bedfordian Club. The Director of the Bedford School Association, Mr Hugh Maltby, writes the following:

If anything, our engagement has gone up rather than down during the pandemic through our thoughtful use of technology – I strongly suspect that we have reached over 2,500 members of the community, including pupils, in the last year. (Number of attendees in brackets below)

Eagle Connect has grown to over 1,500 global members. The platform provides a safe place to focus and develop business connections, with over 80% of members offering help and support in areas like CV writing, mentorship, answering industry questions and general career advice. [1,500]

With the cessation of A-Level exams last summer, we offered an online Career and Professional Skills Course to the Upper Sixth. Held over a five-week period, the sessions provided valuable insight into a myriad of different careers representing a varied selection of industries. Pupils and 20 guest speakers joined the calls from around the globe, making it an international experience.  [Upper Sixth + speakers = 140]

Today’s job market is more competitive than ever and looking for work can be a daunting prospect. Our December Careers Course aimed at young alumni addressed practical skills such as the art of networking, creating the perfect CV and preparing for that all important interview. [50 OBs + multiple views of the recordings]

Our Annual Careers Fair, now in its 15th year, normally attracts a broad range of career topics for young members of the school community to explore. This year, we went virtual. Our aim was to ensure that participants still had the opportunity to explore a variety of career options. The fair was open to schools from across Bedford Borough and had over 1,200 bookings from participants across the 56 sessions – making it our largest ever Careers Fair! With 28 careers represented, from Lawyers and Doctors to Engineers, Investment Bankers and Scientific Researchers, and many more, horizons were broadened.   [300 pupils + 58 contributors]

Our nine Interactive Online Talks across a varied list of topics attracted large audiences including the Eagle Arms, which had over 300 guests. [500+ multiple views of the recordings]

Our first ever ‘Wellbeing Week’ attracted over 170 members of the community taking part in a series of different events including yoga, mental and physical wellbeing and our first ‘cook-along’.   [170]