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Headteacher

Bullers Bulletin May 2017

As I write students in Y11, 12 and 13 are

sitting the first of their external examinations.

Practicals have already taken place and

coursework and controlled assessment marks

have been submitted. We wish them well for

the weeks ahead. I know colleagues are

continuing to focus their efforts on identifying

and addressing those areas students are

unsure of and I urge the students to build on

this in their revision efforts. There is still time

to secure further improvements—particularly

as the taught elements of courses end.

I am delighted to be able to confirm our Head

Student team for 2017-18. Hannah McLellan

and Louis Goddard-Glen will be our Head

Students, with Orla Carlin, Anna Togun and

Marvin Duenger as their Deputies. At the

same time I wish to express my gratitude to

the outgoing team from this year. Grace

Anyiam, Callum Fowler as Head Students, and

their deputies Charlotte Storey, Papa Obeng,

and Joshua Fielding. We have been blessed

with exceptional young leaders—both in the

post holders and this year’s candidates. I look

forward to working with the new team over

the months to come.

It has been a pleasure putting this bulletin

together as the different articles reflect so

many of the students’ activities and

achievements outside of the classroom. I look

forward in the final half term to sharing with

you more of these. They not only underpin

and strengthen students’ classroom learning

but also broader, important qualities such as

team work, resilience and flexibility. They are

lucky to have such a committed staff who go

to such lengths to plan and organise a range

of opportunities.

Ben Greene

Knowing that we got into the final we were all

super happy - we had worked so hard to get

there. As a team, never having won against

them before, we knew that to beat Charles

Darwin we would have to work harder than

any other match before. During the match we

were on top, dominating Darwin but not

finding the finishing touch. It finished 0-0.

Extra time was a hard battle. Darwin got a free

kick and scored in the top corner— they had

the upper hand now and soon scored again.

The final whistle went and whilst disappointed

we we had played well.

Ellie Dolby Yr 8

We were all so excited that we got to the

final. We were all prepared and worked

hard to get there. The match started and we

were the better team the whole match even

though no goals were scored. As it was 0-0 it

went to extra time, 5 minutes each way—

where they scored 1 in each half. The final

whistle blew with an ending score of 2-0 to

Charles Darwin. We were devastated but

proud of our achievement in getting to the

final and playing such a hard and close

fought match.

Summer Roberts Yr 8

Under 13’s Bromley Cup Final

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Bullers Wood School Bullers Bulletin

In March, the Geography Department organised their annual Kew Gardens trip with increasing amounts of students applying to go on it. Normally, there’s only one trip with around 60 students but this year, so many students applied that two trips had to be organised!

Kew Gardens, home to over 30,000 different plants, consists of 4 grade I listed buildings and 36 grade II listed buildings. The site dates back to 1759, with the exotic gardens being founded in 1840. Kew has one of the largest herbariums in the world, and a collection of over 750,000 volumes all about different plants. The gardens employ over 750 staff and it even has its own police force, the Kew Constabulary, which has been around since 1847!

On the 13th and 27th of March, 96 students travelled via train and tube to Kew Gardens. The 300 acre grounds are filled with thousands of different types of plants and the warm, sunny weather made it perfect for a school trip like this one. The day started off with the panoramic view of the treetop walkway which was a height of 18 metres/59 foot. The walkway, surrounded by the winter trees, is 200 metres long and with such blue skies, there was a clear view of the surrounding London horizon. The stunning sight of the trees with the London skyline was an eye-opening start to the day!

After that, students and the accompanying staff headed over to the bee hive simulation building. The newly constructed building consists of 170,000 aluminium parts and 1000 LED lights. The multi award winning hive was built over a four month period and was finally completed in 2016. The simulation is supposed to show how big a bee is in comparative to its hive and with this 17 metre size, it correctly matches the scale. With interactive sound systems and a life like structure - this was a hit with many students.

After a quick lunch on the grass, students then made their way to the Palm House. Constructed in 1844, the Palm House has become one of the

most well-known attractions Kew has to offer containing plants originating from Australasia to South-America—including a reconstruction of a rainforest. Here students learnt about how different climates affect the vegetation, humidity, soil moisture and much more. We also had the opportunity to test out equipment such as light monitors and humidity measures. Students also got to learn about how different countries had different plants growing depending on what the biome was and what the soil, temperature, humidity etc was like. In addition to this, students later got to find out about certain popular and well known plants such as coffee and cocoa, and the issues faced with climate change and disease issues with low diversity. By Scarlett Bloomfield and Poppy Cann Yr 9

Year 9 Geography trip to Kew Gardens

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Bullers Wood School

Year 12 Geography trip to Swanage

On the week commencing 10th April, as part of our

Year 12 course, we travelled to Swanage to

complete data collection for our coursework,

which forms 20% of our final grade. The trip

consisted of a lot of hard work, however, we had a

great time. It was a beneficial experience to put

what we learnt in the classroom into context in the

real world. We were allowed the independence to

collect the data ourselves and came up with an

enquiry question that each of us as individuals

were interested in. Whether we chose the human

or physical side of the data collection, we had a

huge amount of support from the teachers that

accompanied us on the trip. Alongside all the hard

work, there was plenty of time to get to know our

classmates better and build on our pre-existing

relationships. On the final night, we went bowling

which was a great end to our trip! Swanage was

such a lovely place to visit and the views were

amazing - we all had a fantastic time. Throughout

the year, we have studied several topics and get

set relevant tasks that support our learning. The

fieldwork trip allowed us to build on this and it was

a vital experience which enabled us to widen our

geographical knowledge.

By Lois Hill, Sophia D'Souza and Megan Morris Yr

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On Thursday 4th May Bullers Wood under-16s football team travelled to Bromley Football Club as the underdogs, to meet Hayes in the Bromley Cup Final. Having been beaten several times by Hayes and yet to score a goal against them, the girls were up for the challenge and this was most evident right from the first whistle.

The girls were outstanding and put in 100% effort from start to finish, unfortunately at half time, despite playing well, we were 3-0 down. Nevertheless we went into the second half determined to defend firmly, absorb all the pressure and the waves of attack from Hayes and strive to create opportunities in attack.

Twenty minutes into the second half, Lauren Williams received the ball on the half way line, sprinting to the edge of the box which lead to a screamer rippling the net of the Hayes goal. Roars and cheers came from the Bullers Wood team and supporters as history was made by Williams scoring our first ever goal against Hayes! This left the girls with their heads up and the team’s spirit

shone through. The great passing from the midfield to the attackers, left the ball at Gracie Honey’s feet, she took this great opportunity and scored to make it 3-2. The girls were eager to make it 3-3 but we lost possession in midfield whilst we pressed for the equaliser; Hayes ran through, and scored making the final score 4-2.

I could not be any more proud of these girls, the commitment and determination they showed in the final was admiral. Miss Keen

Team — Orla Dorman, Gracie Honey, Rhianna Simmonds, Grace Rolph, Maddie Hornsby, Ellie Bracey, Tanisha Bend, Caitlin Prifti, Ellis Oulton, Kait Parga Turner, Keeley Sadgrove, Lauren Williams, Vicky Mann

Under 16s Cup Final

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Bullers Bulletin

Bullers Wood School

Craft Fayre and Open House Morning

Saturday 6th May saw Bullers Wood open its doors

to the public. With an opportunity to listen to talks

on the history of both Bullers Wood House and

Inglewood in particular, plus an adventure into the

woods to appreciate the bluebells. We had over

300 visitors and were able to reunite former

students who enjoyed reliving memories and

sharing with us their favourite haunts and some of

their naughtier moments!

Much laughter was heard throughout the day and

it was wonderful to see so many people explore

both the interiors of our premises as well as the

wonderful scenery that our location affords us.

We are particularly grateful to The Chislehurst

Society who had generously given a grant to help

restore some of our outdoor areas, making them

safe for students to enjoy. Their expertise in

history and archiving also came to the fore as they

led talks on the research they had carried out for

us concerning Inglewood.

A most enjoyable day that I’m sure will become an

annual event, thank you to all who worked so hard

to make it happen.

Mrs van Teutem

Hand Stencilled William Morris Ceiling

In March, the Geography department and students taking Geography GCSE went on a field trip on three different days to Reculver, near Herne Bay. The sun was shining and we learnt lots of information about the coast. We had previously been studying coastal management, coastal processes and coastal erosion so it was really nice to be able to actually see these features on the beach. For example, we timed how long it took an orange to move from one groyne to another. This demonstrated longshore drift, which was a difficult process to understand using diagrams in lessons. We visited two sites (one manged, the other unmanaged) and analysed the sediment size, completed a beach profile on each site and recorded this information in booklets. We also drew field sketches of the beach, recorded physical features and bi-polar analyses of management techniques. Back at school, we are working on writing up the results of our investigation. All these activities were enjoyable and will also be very beneficial for our GCSE because we will have to write about field trips in our final exam. It was not only a very informative day, we also thoroughly enjoyed spending time learning outside the classroom with peers and teachers.

Phoebe Osborne, Year 10

Year 10 GCSE Geography trip to Reculver

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Bullers Wood School

2017— The year of the Rooster, the year of

political upheaval in America, the year of the World

Alpine Ski championships... it was also the year of

Bullers Wood ski trip to Canada, Quebec. Bright

and early the whole cohort of spirited skiers

gathered at 7 a.m. to embark on the long haul to

Canada - obviously except for Jack, who arrived

forty minutes late. Lugging our suitcases across the

Atlantic Ocean, with a welcome pit stop at the

highly advanced Canadian McDonalds we arrived at

Chateau Mont –Sainte-Anne our lodgings for the

next 6 days. The rookies of the skiing world got

their first taste of the effort of hauling on

equipment. However, this was made worthwhile by

the enjoyment of flying down a mountain on their

own skis! Each day we spent four hours hitting the

slopes with our Canadian instructors, who

perfected our parallel turning and taught us how to

ski backwards and how to do ‘360s’. No broken

bones occurred—much to the teachers’ and Mrs

Sloane’s relief—who won the fashion stakes in a

fur hat and pink ski gear.

As for Après Ski, evening activities kept us

entertained. A highlight being the waterpark in

Quebec, where some braved the vertical drop slide.

We also enjoyed the quiz Mr Leonard designed,

where we learnt his favourite spice girl is Sporty

Spice! After 6 days of shooting down the slopes, we

headed off on the next stage of our trip. Much to

the disappointment of many of our students we

had to leave behind our rep Andy. Flying to

Toronto, we would spend a day and a half visiting

the trendy Hard Rock Café, shopping arcades, the

impressive Niagara Falls and the Skylon Tower and

a much awaited Outlet Store before the long

journey back to Bullers Wood.

By Amelia Smith Yr 11

Ski Trip to Canada

Congratulations to Hannah McLellan and Louis

Goddard-Glen who have been appointed Head

Students. Hannah and Louis will take over from the

current Head Students, Grace Anyiam and Callum

Fowler, after the half term holiday.

Hannah is studying A levels in Mathematics,

Further Mathematics, History and Spanish.

Louis is studying A levels in English Literature,

Philosophy, History and German.

They will be supported by three Deputies: Orla

Carlin, Marvin Duenger and Anna Togun.

These students will work together as a team (along

with a group of Senior Prefects to support students

throughout the school and represent the school at

various events throughout the year.

Mrs Mitchell

Head Girl and Boy