Beverley Acres Public School

Beverley Acres Public School is a French immersion elementary public school in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada, in the York Region District School Board.

The school initially offered grade 1 to 8, but experienced a large growth in enrollment from September 2005 to December 2007, and so a temporary location was added across the street. The existing school building accommodated grades 1 to 3 and the temporary location grades 4 to 8. Subsequently, Michaëlle Jean Public School was built to take grades 1 to 3, and Beverley Acres retained grades 4 to 8.^[2]

Beverley Acres Public School is a feeder school for Langstaff Secondary School (West of Bayview Ave) and Thornlea Secondary School (East of Bayview Ave).^[2]

In 2007, Beverley Acres Public School celebrated 50 years of education with BBQ and a rehearsal of all the after school plans, including the musical "The Music Man" which was performed by the grade 7 and 8 students of the school.

History and facilities

Beverley Acres Public School was constructed in 1956 and officially opened in 1957. In 1992, the school was renovated and additions were placed on the original building. Currently, the school has a soccer field, baseball diamond, four basketball hoops and many tarmac games including four square and tetherball. A play structure was built in 1998. Since 1998, seven to eight trees have been planted each year to bring more than 60 trees today on the school grounds.^[2]

Today, Beverley Acres is a one-story school with an enrollment amount of over 600 students and more than 30 staff members. The school has approximately 30 classrooms and a spacious library, with plenty of lighting.

BAPS On Broadway

On June 9, 2014, Beverley Acres performed BAPS on Broadway 3: Dancing through the decades, the largest production in its history. The show was written, organized, performed and rehearsed from the beginning of the 2013–2014 school year and was performed at the nearby Richmond Hill Centre for The Performing Arts. The show was performed twice over the course of the day: Once in the afternoon at 2:00, and once at night, at 7:00. Both shows were sold out, and the total attendance for the shows two performances was over 1200 people. The show featured 440 Beverley Acres students, making over 100% of all students in the school had roles in the show. The play was an original musical, taking its premise at the fictional "Beverley Acres High School". The plot involved the evolution of society and music over time. The show took place over five decades, the 2100s to the 2300s, and featured a Grade-8 soloist acting as a prominent musical figure in that decade. The show's only constant character, and pseudo master of ceremony, was the fictional "Lick Shark", played by Grade-8 student Ethan Shapiro. The show's decade-specific solo artists included the Andrew Sisters (played by Natalie Lung, Megan Chee-A-Tow, and Michelle Liu), Elvis Presley (Luke Buckberrough), and The Beatles (Jakob Robertson, Calvin Basi, Jesse Basi and Hayden Godfrey). But everyone knows Jonah Godfrey helped the band and arranged everything with Mme Eberlin. The show was the largest production in BAPS's history, and a sequel, simply titled Blue and Black, is in production and will be performed in May or June 2015. The Beverley Acres music department, headed by Diane Eberlin, is in negotiations to initiate the production of Dancing Through the Decades 2. As of December 2014, there were no rehearsals underway for an upcoming production. The school has said the reasons for no production ranged from personnel to time issues. The major reason was not having a concrete house band, as the school had lost their long-time house band of Calvin Basi, Jesse Basi, and Hayden Godfrey to graduation to high school in the summer of 2014. During BAPS On Broadway 3, the three musicians played a major role in the musical direction of the show's music. They played in the background for over a dozen of the show's songs, and the school stated that their absence had led to the range of music that they could perform slimmer and simpler. As of January 2015, sparse musical rehearsals were put in place to put together a musical production in the summer. In February 2015, news was leaked that the school would indeed be putting on a musical production in the summer of 2015. The musical, a simple production, would be an adaptation of Mary Poppins, performed almost exclusively by Grade 7 and 8 students.

In 2016, Beverley Acres Public School presented another musical production adapted from the Disney film, "Beauty and the Beast". Auditions took place mid-January, and by the end of February rehearsals and practices had already begun to take place. Belle was played by grade 8 student Alexia Perri, and the Beast was played by grade 8 Tyler Loi. Apart from including all the original characters in the show, the directors added in some new ones, which included Viola (Aleksia Penek), Mme. Mop (Jenniffer Meng), Tasse (Nadja Marjanovic), Mme. Lesel and Miss Peppermill (Rachel Sugin and Sarah Cheung), the Physique brothers (Gordon Duan, Samuel Bagel-Learner, Zachary Wald, Nick Rajae), mother Florette Chouette (Ema Chirac), and much more. The show lasted about two and a half hours long. The plot of the musical was widely based on its original, with a few teaser scenes added. In the musical, the inventor's fair is also presented, in which the father, Maurice, had not been able to attend in the original movie. Songs such as "Hello" (Adele), "I Dreamed A Dream" (Anne Hathaway), "Beauty And A Beat" (Justin Bieber), and "Come On, Vogue" (Madonna) were presented and adjusted according to the musical's plot. The grand majority of costumes and props were created by the set design and props committee, with whom worked very hard in doing so. Beauty and the Beast was presented on Wednesday, May 11 and Thursday, May 12, 2016 at Beverley Acres Public School. The Band on Broadway, in which the bands play before the show and during the intermission, was performed first by the Grade 8 band and then the Grade 7 Band. Teachers who contributed into the play included Melissa Doucas, Andrea Pimenta, Clara Lee, Athena Bruno, Susan Linley, and Diane Eberlin. Assistant directors were Rachel Lin and Ema Chirac; however, Chirac dropped out in order to play the role of Florette.

Notable alumni

• Alexandre Lyssov, multi-medalist Youth Olympian in fencing^[3]
• Nathalie Bendavid - national Canadian girls rugby team.

References

External links

• Official web site