Bishop Bell School
Encyclopedia
The Bishop Bell School is a voluntary aided coeducational secondary, Church of England
11–16 school situated on the south coast of England in Eastbourne
. The school has Specialist Mathematics and Computing College
status.
The school offers a post-16 (6th form) college and has an on-site nursery (3–5 years old).
which cost £800,000 in 2004, replacing an outdoor metal bridge which had been deemed impractical.
There have been several ecclesiastical visits from Bishops and members of the Christian faith. The school has had visits from the Quicken Trust, a Christian organisation which works with people in Kabubu, Africa. Bishop Bell has also had much cooperation with Schlenker Secondary school from Freetown
, Sierra Leone, within which it helped to implement an IT center in March 2008. It was visited by Heather Mills McCartney
in 2005 concerning global education targets. The Global Awareness Group has been visited by Nigel Waterson MP
.
subjects which are taken from Year 9 to Year 11. This is a change from the previous academic year (2007–2008) in which the school started GCSEs at Year 10, with pupils deciding their subject choices the year before.
The school educates all of its pupils in Citizenship and Personal, Social and Health Education. English, Mathematics and Science, the core subjects, are taught to all students throughout the entirety of the pupils' education at the school. The arts and foreign languages are optional as GCSEs in the upper school.
Once every term (of which there are 6 in an academic year) there is an 'Academic Development Day' in which the school is divided up to partake in single subjects for the entire day. This time may be used to plan school trips, or sports days, or to complete coursework in the upper school.
English Language and English Literature
(Compulsory);
Mathematics
(Compulsory);
Statistics;
Biology
, Chemistry
and Physics
(Triple science, optional);
Double science (Two GCSEs);
Art (Optional);
Music (Optional);
Drama (Optional);
History (Optional);
Geography
(Optional);
Information Communication Technology (Short course compulsory);
Physical Education
(Short course compulsory);
Religious Studies
(Short course compulsory);
French;
Spanish.
The group has visited London with Nigel Waterson MP.
The group was active in the 'Send my friend to school' and 'Send my friend a teacher' campaigns. With the school they wrote to Dr. Angela Merkel
, German chancellor and chair of the G8 2007.
, churches and cathedrals in both Strasbourg
and Paris in France, and has submitted performances for various events in the Congress Theatre
. The music department annually holds a Summer Concert, held at the school, wherein partake many performers from the department. The band plays, and many solo singers and instrumentalists have performed at this concert.
The music department has a handbell
team, which accompanied the choir's trip one year to Paris. They have also performed at St. Andrew's Church, Eastbourne. The school has a steel drum group.
With East Sussex Music Service, the school offers tutoring in various musical instruments, to teach pupils during school time. As this service is outside the school, it is charged for.
Teams from Bishop Bell have reached the National Finals in basketball several times over the last few years.
(2006), The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew (2007), Grease
(2008), and Christmas Carol
(2008). The productions have commonly taken place around Easter with two performances each from two casts. The productions have included help from the music, drama and dance departments, with the art department helping to design the set and pupils enlisted to organise and run props, sound and lighting.
s. The registration system is all computer-based. The Bishop Bell Café promotes healthy eating and has vending machines.
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
11–16 school situated on the south coast of England in Eastbourne
Eastbourne
Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...
. The school has Specialist Mathematics and Computing College
Mathematics and Computing College
Mathematics and Computing Colleges were introduced in England in 2002 as part of the Government's Specialist Schools Programme which was designed to raise standards in secondary education. Specialist schools focus specifically on their chosen specialism but must also meet the requirements of the...
status.
The school offers a post-16 (6th form) college and has an on-site nursery (3–5 years old).
Mission statement
This school aims, within the Christian ethos of our foundation, recognising each person's supreme value and working in active partnership with parents, church and community: to provide high quality education based on Christian care; to promote innovative excellence in Mathematics and Computing; to develop everyone's potential academically, socially and spiritually; and to equip all for citizenship in our technological society.
History
Formerly Bedewell School on Whitley Road, Eastbourne, (the town's Fire Station now stands on the old site) it was reopened in its current location in Priory Road in 1958 by the eponymous Bishop Bell, of whom there is an honorary painting within the school. The old site was commemorated with the addition of a Science and Technology building across the road from the main site, which is named Bedewell. The two sites are joined by a skywalkSkyway
In an urban setting, a skyway, catwalk, sky bridge, or skywalk is a type of pedway consisting of an enclosed or covered bridge between two buildings. This protects pedestrians from the weather. These skyways are usually owned by businesses, and are therefore not public spaces...
which cost £800,000 in 2004, replacing an outdoor metal bridge which had been deemed impractical.
There have been several ecclesiastical visits from Bishops and members of the Christian faith. The school has had visits from the Quicken Trust, a Christian organisation which works with people in Kabubu, Africa. Bishop Bell has also had much cooperation with Schlenker Secondary school from Freetown
Freetown
Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of...
, Sierra Leone, within which it helped to implement an IT center in March 2008. It was visited by Heather Mills McCartney
Heather Mills McCartney
Heather Anne Mills is a former model, an English charity campaigner and the ex-wife of musician Sir Paul McCartney. During their marriage she was known as Heather Mills McCartney....
in 2005 concerning global education targets. The Global Awareness Group has been visited by Nigel Waterson MP
Nigel Waterson
Nigel Christopher Waterson is a politician in the United Kingdom. He was Conservative Party member of Parliament for Eastbourne until the 2010 election. He was first elected in 1992...
.
Future
Bishop Bell plans to build a Sports Hall on the school field, and is in the process of raising the required £4 million.Acclaim
The school is relatively famous both within the county and regionally for having undergone a great improvement from when it was taken over by headmaster Mr. Terry Boatwright in 1995. This is evident in the vast increase in pupils achieving 5 A*-C grade GCSEs, which had risen for eleven consecutive years. The current level is well above the national average for comprehensive schools. This has been attributed to the Headmaster, Mr. Terry Boatwright..Uniform
The uniform consists of a black blazer bearing the Bishop Bell mitre, a tie also bearing the mitre, to be worn with a white shirt and black trousers or skirt. The school is strict that the pupils wear black shoes with no high heels or trainers, except, of course, during physically active subjects, in which trainers are permitted. Instead of the blazer, shirt and tie combination, Year 11 is allowed to wear a specified colour of polo shirt, with a matching sweatshirt available. Small studs are permitted, and discreet make-up is allowed for Year 10 and 11. The staff has no strict uniform code, though the male staff are expected to wear a shirt and tie.Curriculum
The school educates students from Year 7 through to Year 11, after which they may continue their education within limited Post-16 positions in ICT and the school nursery. The school offers pupils a range of voluntary and compulsory GCSEGeneral Certificate of Secondary Education
The General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is equivalent to a Level 2 and Level 1 in Key Skills...
subjects which are taken from Year 9 to Year 11. This is a change from the previous academic year (2007–2008) in which the school started GCSEs at Year 10, with pupils deciding their subject choices the year before.
The school educates all of its pupils in Citizenship and Personal, Social and Health Education. English, Mathematics and Science, the core subjects, are taught to all students throughout the entirety of the pupils' education at the school. The arts and foreign languages are optional as GCSEs in the upper school.
School day
The regular day comprises five one-hour periods, with breaks at 11.15 and 1.40. Mondays are shorter than the rest by twenty minutes to allow for pupil mentoring meetings at the end of the day.Once every term (of which there are 6 in an academic year) there is an 'Academic Development Day' in which the school is divided up to partake in single subjects for the entire day. This time may be used to plan school trips, or sports days, or to complete coursework in the upper school.
GCSEs
The school offers the following GCSEs:English Language and English Literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
(Compulsory);
Mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
(Compulsory);
Statistics;
Biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, Chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
(Triple science, optional);
Double science (Two GCSEs);
Art (Optional);
Music (Optional);
Drama (Optional);
History (Optional);
Geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
(Optional);
Information Communication Technology (Short course compulsory);
Physical Education
Physical education
Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
(Short course compulsory);
Religious Studies
Religious studies
Religious studies is the academic field of multi-disciplinary, secular study of religious beliefs, behaviors, and institutions. It describes, compares, interprets, and explains religion, emphasizing systematic, historically based, and cross-cultural perspectives.While theology attempts to...
(Short course compulsory);
French;
Spanish.
Extracurricular: Societies and Clubs
There have been many clubs and societies within Bishop Bell school, the details of which follow:School council
Bishop Bell has a school council composed of members representing each year, who collaborate with members of each tutor group. The council has helped to secure vending machines, water dispensers, improve staff-pupil relations and generally provide the staff and the senior management with information regarding the pupils' viewpoints.Global Awareness group
This group has been active in many areas of modern ethical concern, including fairtrade goods and global education, for example the 'Send my friend to school' campaign and the subsequent 'My friend needs a teacher' campaign. The group is trying to make the school a 'fairtrade school' by enforcing self-governed criteria intended to encourage fairtrade use within the school as well as encouraging the community by example.The group has visited London with Nigel Waterson MP.
The group was active in the 'Send my friend to school' and 'Send my friend a teacher' campaigns. With the school they wrote to Dr. Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel is the current Chancellor of Germany . Merkel, elected to the Bundestag from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 2000, and chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary coalition from 2002 to 2005.From 2005 to 2009 she led a...
, German chancellor and chair of the G8 2007.
Music Department
The music department has been a part of a wide variety of clubs. The choir has performed in the Royal Albert HallRoyal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
, churches and cathedrals in both Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
and Paris in France, and has submitted performances for various events in the Congress Theatre
Congress Theatre (Eastbourne)
The Congress Theatre is a Grade II* listed, purpose built, modern theatre and conference venue with a seating capacity of 1,689, located in the town of Eastbourne, in the coastal region of East Sussex...
. The music department annually holds a Summer Concert, held at the school, wherein partake many performers from the department. The band plays, and many solo singers and instrumentalists have performed at this concert.
The music department has a handbell
Handbell
A handbell is a bell designed to be rung by hand. To ring a handbell, a ringer grasps the bell by its slightly flexible handle — traditionally made of leather, but often now made of plastic — and moves the wrist to make the hinged clapper inside the bell strike...
team, which accompanied the choir's trip one year to Paris. They have also performed at St. Andrew's Church, Eastbourne. The school has a steel drum group.
With East Sussex Music Service, the school offers tutoring in various musical instruments, to teach pupils during school time. As this service is outside the school, it is charged for.
Sports Clubs and Teams
Fencing, football, girls' football, basketball, table tennis and rugby. The school has been active in all of these sports.Teams from Bishop Bell have reached the National Finals in basketball several times over the last few years.
Drama Productions
The drama department, since 2006 and the employment of a drama teacher, Mrs. K. Farrier, has annually produced either a play or a musical. These have been Bugsy MaloneBugsy Malone
Bugsy Malone is a 1976 musical film, very loosely based on events in New York City in the Prohibition era, specifically the exploits of gangsters like Al Capone and Bugs Moran, as dramatized in cinema...
(2006), The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew (2007), Grease
Grease (musical)
Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School , follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love,...
(2008), and Christmas Carol
Christmas carol
A Christmas carol is a carol whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas or the winter season in general and which are traditionally sung in the period before Christmas.-History:...
(2008). The productions have commonly taken place around Easter with two performances each from two casts. The productions have included help from the music, drama and dance departments, with the art department helping to design the set and pupils enlisted to organise and run props, sound and lighting.
Other Clubs
Other clubs include a Philosophy club, revision classes to cater for most of the GCSE subjects, Science club, and a chess club.Facilities
A gymnasium, a library with Learning Support Center, dance room, sound-proofed music rooms, Internet Café, 30 classrooms, hall with stage and wings, science laboratories with equipment, several computer rooms. Each classroom is equipped with Interactive whiteboardInteractive whiteboard
An interactive whiteboard , is a large interactive display that connects to a computer and projector. A projector projects the computer's desktop onto the board's surface where users control the computer using a pen, finger, stylus, or other device...
s. The registration system is all computer-based. The Bishop Bell Café promotes healthy eating and has vending machines.