Bethany School
Catchment Area, Reviews and Key Information

Due to Covid-19 we are currently unable to hold Open Mornings in their usual format. In their place, we are holding e-Open Mornings to provide prospective families with an opportunity to hear about how Bethany can provide the ideal environment for their child’s journey through secondary education.

Our greatest aim is to enable each of our pupils to realise their potential in every area that they study, flourishing in those subjects where their talents shine brightest and carrying with them a genuine love of learning.

We create a challenging and supportive learning environment, and small class sizes are fundamental to our success. We generally have fewer 18 pupils in any class, allowing our teachers to target and develop the abilities of each individual, offering support and guidance as they work through our broad and balanced curriculum together.

Through dynamic and differentiated teaching, we aim to instil in our pupils key skills, both from a learning and a social perspective, that are so vital for exam success and life beyond School.

Bethany’s Learning Support department enjoys an international reputation for its success in giving specialist help to dyslexic pupils within our mainstream school, and the school has been CReSTeD registered since 1994.  In addition, for those pupils who may benefit from it, we also offer English as an Additional Language (EAL) support. 

Bethany STEM pupils have reached the finals for the Big Bang national competition. Throughout November, over 70 judges from the field of STEM have been reviewing projects and helping to select the winners who will be attending the Finals. Our first ever Year 12 pupils, Ben Scott and Aaron Monk’s STEM project ‘Independent mobility for disabled users’, has been successful and the students have been invited to attend The Big Bang Competition Finals 2020.

The Finals will take place at the NEC in Birmingham on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th March 2020. At the Finals, the finalists’ project is judged by leading experts, and the pupils will also take part in exciting STEM activities and possibly come away with a fantastic prize!

The project was an enormous scale of reverse engineering and modification. In this modern world, we take a lot for granted, such as the car or motorbike. People who have lost the ability to walk cannot drive or ride any to go where they want. They would have to use public transport or friends to get around. This makes them less independent. The STEM pupils decided that should change.

“Motorbikes are very close to our hearts, and we know what it feels like not being able to jump on a motorcycle and head off into the sunset. This motorcycle would allow those who have lost the ability to use their legs/ or limited use to get on their bike and ride off into the sunset” remarked Aaron.
Most motorcycles are made with high seating positions which for someone with limited or no use of their legs would be very unreasonable and not realistic to put them on and ride, so with this in mind the pupils set out to build a low, stable bike making it as eco-friendly as possible.

“We also had to bear in mind that the bike would have to be light and have a very low centre of gravity, so we had to get the weight low down. This would help the user with limited or no use of their legs to feel stable on the bike. Moreover, hopefully, the low centre of gravity would give the bike the right amount of natural stability. To help make it safe, we added stabilisers”, said Ben.

The pupils started off using a written off Honda CBF 125, which is very reliable and a stable bike. This motorcycle had been in an accident and was written off, so they bought it for spares and repairs. It took some days to strip the bike down for its engine wheels, suspension and swinging arms as these were the most expensive parts. The bike so far had only cost £250. The team decided that if they made the seat too low, the rider would not feel comfortable on the bike at all, and if too high, they would feel unstable. So, they made a seating height of 40cm, which feels very comfortable.

The STEM finalists learnt and applied the following skills to make the bike: (1) horizontal ban saw, (2) MiG welder, (3) filing, (4) sanding/scotching, (5) priming/painting, (6) fabricating, (7) milling, and (8) lathing. STEM teaches pupils life skills and congratulations to Ben and Aaron for being Bethany’s STEM ambassadors this academic year.

This year was a year like no other but the resilient Year 11 pupils at Bethany did not allow this to negatively impact their academic focus and have attained outstanding GCSE results. The pupils achieved highly due to their sustained diligence, and the excellent guidance and support of the teaching staff.

This is particularly laudable given the disruption that they have experienced since March. Bethany’s focus on community and continuous emphasis on personal growth and development has once again reaped a rich dividend. This was exemplified by the record number of grade 9’s achieved by the pupils this year. In addition, English retained its 100% pass rate and not to be outdone, Mathematics mirrored this achievement. Bethany’s broad curriculum, which allows pupils to concentre on their strengths, was also evident in this exceptional set of results. A third of the pupils who studied Design Technology achieved grade 9, half the pupils who sat English Literature obtained the top two grades, while three quarters of the Artists secured grades 7 or higher. 

Top of the class this year is Max Brown, from Cranbrook, who achieved a grade 9 in every subject.  He is closely followed by Dan Akowe (Dagenham), Ruqaiyah Jarviton (Maidstone), Harry Ip (Northampton) and Sebastian Smith (Maidstone) who all achieved top grades across the board.

Headmaster Francie Healy says: “Our exceptionally talented and dedicated staff have superbly guided the committed Year 11 pupils through these troubled waters. I am incredibly proud of every single pupil. The results obtained are both outstanding and well deserved. Last year Bethany was judged to be in the top 0.5% of schools nationally with regard to progress at A level, and therefore our pupils are well placed to secure stunning A level successes in two years’ time”.