It has been a fantastic week of sporting endeavor with the Pre-prep and Prep sports days managing to avoid the very changeable weather and go ahead without a hitch. They were genuinely superb events, and I am grateful to the countless parents that have passed on praise and support of these important school activities that I think were better than ever this year! I draw this conclusion for a number of reasons and our whole community played their part. The standard of athletic performance was first class, with 13 school records being broken this year. As Mr Jones told the children today during our medal presentation assembly, this just goes to show the progress our children are making in their sporting ability and reflects what we are seeing in the games programme too. The level of competitiveness was another contributing factor in the quality of the day and the record breaking, it was very evident that our children wanted to win, and they tried their hardest to do so. Of course, not every child wanted or expected to win and for some taking part in the events at all is not always their favourite moment. But they competed and contributed regardless, and I felt the balance of performance and participation was spot on! Play to win but lose with a grin, has long been a favourite motto of mine and we saw this everywhere on Tuesday. The staff led the events and their groups with energy, enthusiasm, and the right balance of motivation and encouragement. They knew what each child needed to give their best and I felt so proud to see the levels of care and pupil awareness.
Finally, I think the 2026 sports days across the whole school from Nursery to Year 6 had the best support ever. It was fantastic to see so many people cheering the children on and once again, setting the standard to our children on what sportsmanship should look like. Encouragement and respect for every competitor, thank you!
For the first time we held a showcase afternoon where the Year 6 children got the chance to share some exciting work they have been carrying out as part of their Leaver Programme. Designed to encapsulate the learner powers each child was tasked with creating a project. Mr Ayling had this to say on what the children have been doing.
“Year 6 created a project of their choice, and the range of topics was brilliant and diverse, including Astrology, Formula 1, Business and Fashion! They produced PowerPoint presentations, honing their research, organisation and editing skills, before using their learning to predict the future of their chosen topic.
These presentations were then transformed into displays to showcase their work to the rest of the school and Year 6 parents. The children were encouraged to create exciting, museum-style exhibits with physical or interactive elements. These included Lego models, graphs, animations, music and homemade fashion items, which brought their ideas to life.
Throughout the project, the children developed and demonstrated a wide range of life skills, building on their understanding of the learner powers. At its heart, this was an opportunity to learn independently and in depth, and they truly excelled. We heard them confidently discussing and explaining topics such as carbon capture and how it is being used to tackle climate change, injection moulding and how this technology transformed toy manufacturing, and business studies, including how innovation helps businesses become successful…
We are all incredibly proud of Year 6!”
As part of this programme the children have also been working on a collaborative project to bring our learner powers to life in the shape of an amazing book. We received the proof copy today and look forward to sharing this with the community in the coming days. These projects offer a wonderful opportunity for the children to demonstrate their skills and talents and I am very grateful to the staff who helped lead and set up the showcase. Thank you Mr Ayling, Mrs Dziedziela, Miss Perry and Mr Tunnell for their hard work.
All told it has been a good week for celebrating our children and the achievements and progress they make in all aspects of school life. We are delighted to be able to share with you today our academic performance data for this year which we are immensely proud of. It celebrates the journey of each of our children, and emphasizes the impact our approach and curriculum delivery has in helping every child make progress during their time at BPS. I am very grateful to all our staff who should take great pride in all they do for the children and helping them reach their potential.
Finally, I would like to say an enormous thank you to the BPSA for a wonderful Summer Fair last Sunday. It was a tremendous event with another incredible turnout of support, which was enjoyed by all. Thank you to everyone who gave up so much time and effort in bringing the day together, we are very lucky.
I wish you all a wonderful weekend.
Jon Chesworth
Headteacher
