School Life and Awards
The school's music department has appeared on Blue Peter. and has received recognition from the British Naturalists’ Association for ecological work at Mill Meadows. The school is active in local public speaking competitions. and has organised a trip to Argentina in order to do community work. A magazine, run and published in the school library under the title of Reviewz Books, reviewed new and classic fiction and has had interviews with authors such as Stephen Fry, Sheila Norton, Iain Banks and Sharon Osbourne. The magazine was edited by Barnaby Walter (founder editor), Rebecca Bedding (deputy editor) and Frankie Burt (co-editor). It was merged in 2008 with the Speak Up website initiative which now features reviews, articles and blog posts from current and past Billericay School students. It can be found at www.billericayschool.net/speakup
FOBS or Friends of Billericay School is a charity which raises money for the school. Most of their income comes from various evening events, usually with singers or comedians, and the '200 Club', a monthly prize draw. The latest funding drive was used to fund the school receiving 'maths and computing college' status, and the organisation has recently raised enough funds to purchase a new school minibus.
The schools council is called Backchat. The house captains form a group known as Student Voice.These two groups debate with both students and the Head to work towards a better life within the school.
The school awards a number of prizes to exceptional students each year:
- James Dorrington Award - The James Dorrington Award for Sport is an annual award given to a student who has excelled at sport in the past academic year. The award is named after a former student James Dorrington student who died on the 1 January 2002 following the diagnosis of a brain tumour.
- Jack Barren Award - The Jack Barren Award is given to a pupil for outstanding contribution to the life of the school. The prize was first awarded in 2000 and is named after a former govonor of the school who served for thirty-nine years.
Read more about this topic: The Billericay School
Famous quotes containing the words school life and, school and/or life:
“After school days are over, the girls ... find no natural connection between their school life and the new one on which they enter, and are apt to be aimless, if not listless, needing external stimulus, and finding it only prepared for them, it may be, in some form of social excitement. ...girls after leaving school need intellectual interests, well regulated and not encroaching on home duties.”
—Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards (1842–1911)
“And so they have left us feeling tired and old.
They never cared for school anyway.
And they have left us with the things pinned on the bulletin board.
And the night, the endless, muggy night that is invading our school.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new,—and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
‘Neath every one a friend.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)