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Heron Summer 2022

Our latest newsletter can be found here: Heron Summer 2022

BASSINGBOURN VILLAGE COLLEGE PITCH FOR THE PRIZE – AND WIN! On Thursday 23rd June, five Year 8 students from Bassingbourn Village College took part in Astra Zeneca's Pitch for the Prize competition as part of the Cambridgeshire County Day and snatched the top prize against two other formidable teams from Linton Village College and Melbourn Village College. The winning team named Allergy Alert, had already won top place as part of a Year 8 Enterprise Day held at school in February with the idea of a portable allergy sensor.  The sensor would be designed to allow the user to eat out with confidence as it could alert the wearer to any potential allergens within food or on surfaces.  Allergy Alert was picked as the winner of the Enterprise Day in a Dragon’s Den style presentation in front of 6 members of the local business community having won against 5 other teams from the year. The members of Allergy Alert were very excited to be told they would be pitching their idea to representatives from Astra Zeneca in the Entrepreneurship Marquee at Cambridgeshire County Day.  All three teams had three minutes to present their idea in front of an audience of 100 people including Astra Zeneca, Deloitte and members of the general public.  The winning idea was then chosen by everyone in the audience with a vote. Team Allergy Alert received a bundle of goodies including £50 Amazon vouchers from Deloitte as well as a lunch at Lucy Cavendish College and a private tour of the…

Open Mornings July 2022

We are delighted to be offering Year 6 students and parents the opportunity to take a tour around our school and explore the wealth of opportunities available at Bassingbourn Village College. Dates currently on offer are: Monday 4th July 9.15-10.30 Wednesday 6th July 11.20-12.30 Wednesday 13th July 9.15-10.30 If you would like to book a space on one of these dates please call 01763 242344.

Interactive Theatre

We were so lucky to be joined after Easter by TIC Box Production to deliver its powerful production “Boy” to our Year 7s & Year 9s. This interactive theatre was part of a whole day experience as part of our new anti bullying iniative within Bassingbourn Village College.  As well as students watching “Boy” and exploring and discussing its themes, students split into groups and took part in workshops to develop ideas for our new anti-bullying charter. All the ideas developed over the course of these two days will be shared with the whole school to agree together our new charter.

Anti-Bullying Ambassadors at BVC

We are very excited that our new Anti-Bullying Ambassador training has taken place.  This 12 month scheme is being delivered by The Diana Award and its team will work with our ambassadors over the course of the ongoing months to develop meaningful change to create a safer, kinder school community for us all.  We are incredibly proud of our Anti-Bullying Ambassadors who made successful applications to lead on this project and we look forward to updating you with the changes we will be making over the coming months.    

Anglian Learning crowned winners at National Awards

East Anglian multi-academy trust, Anglian Learning, has been crowned the joint winner of the “Outstanding governance in a multi-academy trust” award at the National Governance Association’s (NGA) Outstanding Governance Awards 2021. The biennial awards recognise the contributions of governors, trustees and governance professionals to the education of children and young people.  The winners of the awards were unveiled at a celebratory event on Thursday 9th September at the House of Commons, attended by representatives from nominated schools and trusts. Jonathan Culpin, CEO of Anglian Learning, said; I could not be prouder of our fantastic governance team.  Despite a challenging year in education they have maintained exceptional standards, consistently pushing boundaries of what governance can and should be.  This is a phenomenal achievement for our Trust and I am extremely grateful to all those who have volunteered their time to make Anglian Learning the Trust it is today – this award is for you.” Claire Lawton, Chair of Trustees at Anglian Learning, continued; “On behalf of all trustees, governors and governance professionals across the Trust, I would like to thank the NGA for this award, recognising our passion and determination for outstanding governance.  My thanks goes to all of our governance leaders for their contribution to our success in achieving this award, reflecting as it does the commitment and professionalism of all who lead and support our schools. We are incredibly proud of Anglian Learning and look forward to continuing to develop our practice each year to ensure we can continue to excite, inspire and empower…

Visit to St. Peters & St. Paul’s Church

Our Year 11 Religious Studies students recently had the opportunity to visit to St. Peters and St. Paul's Church in Bassingbourn.  As part of the visit they listened to an enlightened talk from Nick Jones and Rev. Amanda O'Neill about the importance of worship and what Church actually means for Christians.

Classical Conversations

Our Year 10 and Year 11 Latin students were very fortunate to receive a visit recently from Dr Holmes-Henderson from Oxford University to answer questions about aspects of Roman life. The students discussed Roman punishments, weddings and the role of women at this time. Students learnt about the different punishments, including how criminals were ‘immured’ a practise were the person was quite literally ‘built’ into a wall; how that during wedding processions, a sieve would be carried to distract evil spirits – apparently they would be counting the holes in the sieve rather than causing trouble to the procession! Dr Holmes-Henderson also took the students through her research on whether studying Latin is influential in cognitive development. It was a visit thoroughly enjoyed by our students and Dr Holmes-Henderson has promised to come back next year.

The history of BVC

Bassingbourn Village College was delighted to be included in The Cambridgeshire Village Colleges Heritage Project delivered by Viva Arts and Community Group. This project garnered personal stories from village colleges across the country, exploring the impact our village colleges had on communities they became a part of.  But did you know that village colleges were a thoroughly Cambridgeshire invention inspired by the poverty within the country almost a century ago? The Village College concept was developed by Henry Morris, who became Secretary of Education for Cambridgeshire in 1922.  At this time there were no separate secondary schools in rural areas and as result children of all ages were taught together in their village schoolhouse, often in one classroom by one teacher.  Morris was determined to change the education across Cambridgeshire.  In 1924 he published his Village College Memorandum that set out how things could be improved by the Village College concept. Morris’ vision was that the village colleges would be schools and community facilities at the same time. They would become focal points in their villages where people of all ages came to learn, to mix, to be entertained and even get babies weighed. Henry Morris didn’t just create village colleges that were big schools – he created community education. Bassingbourn Village College is extremely proud of its history and this project was wonderful to be a part of – did you know we had a school song?  The film created is definitely worth a watch: https://cambsvc.org.uk/film/

Bassingbourn’s Virtual Trek to Colombo

As part of our drive to encourage our students to be physically active during the current lockdown we are inviting all students to take part in a sponsored walk/run/cycle. The event will run between Monday 8th February and Sunday 21st February to allow students to participate over half term and we would like the students to be active each day, recording how far they have travelled. We have a current goal to cover a collective distance of around 7000 miles, which equates to approximately a mile a day for student over the fortnight. We feel that this is a realistic minimum target for all students but would be delighted if they were able to do more. To allow the students to see how far they have walked collectively, we have chosen a destination of Colombo in Sri Lanka, which is approximately 7000 miles away, and will update our progress each day. This event is part of our intercollege competition programme and students will earn points for their college with each mile travelled. Your child will know which college they are in as they complete the weekly quiz in these colleges and will also find the information on their Google Classroom dashboard. We would like the students to upload their distances to Google Classrooms at the end of each day so that we can have a running total of miles covered. We will be updating our website and social media each day to show the progress being made along our virtual trek and how the different…

Bassingbourn Village College

South End, Bassingbourn, Royston, Hertfordshire, SG8 5NJ

01763 242344

office@bassingbournvc.org
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