A visit to Eton on Tuesday where, along with colleagues from three other prep schools, the Head Simon Henderson outlined his plans for the school over the coming years. Always great to visit Eton with its history, quirks and traditions mixing seamlessly with its forward-thinking approach to education and innovation. Simon was keen to reinforce that Eton is not just for the academically elite, however, my tour guide, ex Beacon boy Alexey Ardakov (2021) told me he was doing four A Levels and was off that afternoon for his Choral Scholarship Exam to Cambridge where he had an offer to read Maths, and that the two other ex-Beacon boys from his year were also holding offers to Cambridge. If that wasn’t impressive, one of the House Masters that joined us for lunch sought me out to say “You’re Head of The Beacon? You must tell colleagues that Thomas Ruan (2025) has only started Spanish this year and came top of the entire cohort – very impressive!” Eton is an amazing school but I’d like to think that a Beacon education had a more than significant part to play in all four of those boys’ successes…colleagues at Eton certainly agreed.
And it’s not just about academics at The Beacon if this week’s Year 4 ‘Jungle Book’ is anything to go by. The production values of a play for 8/9 year olds was of a level I have never seen before – that really was as good as it gets. I love all the year groups of course, but I have said many times when watching this cohort that we have been so excited with the performing arts potential of what is such a characterful mix of boys. For their first major production, this group delivered as we thought they could; this was really a case of over-promising and over-delivering. I have to give all compliments to Mr Manley Gavich for pulling the whole thing together and engaging the boys in such complex yet highly effective choreography and dramatic techniques. Watching him work in rehearsals this week was a delight and whilst his lack of panic made me panic, it was only ever clear confidence in what he knew would be such a great show. Well done, Mr Gavich and well done, our brilliant Year 4 boys.
Nick Baker