Bethy attended both Cotherstone Pre-school and Cotherstone Primary School for the duration of her primary education. In our small village school, all children have a role to play. The school looms large in their young lives and they each add to its history and contribute to its collective life as part of the village community.
 
Bethy made a significant contribution to the life of Cotherstone School. She was self-contained, thoughtful, creative, kind and fair. Bethy was a child who was deeply loved and cherished by family and friends. She had a solid core of self-confidence and a maturity of outlook that is rare in a young person; a generous nature, combined with polite respectfulness, an occasional cheeky grin, and a self-assuredness. In spite of her maturity, Bethy was guileless and fun-loving; sometimes difficult for a child who, through illness, has had insight into the adult world. She was never under pressure to grow up fast to look after herself. She never showed any sense of doubt that she was loved and cared for and entirely treasured. 
 
Bethy was kind and thoughtful; a private person but very loyal to her friends and one of the gang. A team player, she had the strength to lead but not dominate. Her approach to team-work was ‘we have been given a task – we will get on and do it,’ and with Bethy on the team, it was more than likely the job would get done. She was confident in expressing her talents in dance or gymnastics and did not seek the limelight but was always ready and happy to step up and take part. This could be in a lead role, such as in school plays like Hansel and Gretel in year 3, where she was ‘Gretel 1’ – kindly giving some of her lines to other pupils who felt they didn’t have enough.  Bethy’s excitement at having a title role was more a reflection of her being able to be ‘in the story,’ as stories were her absolute passion, rather than being front and centre-stage. Bethy will be very much remembered as a person with her nose in a book and her head full of stories. She would often need reminding that reading time was finished and it was time to put that book away!
 
Bethy was extremely playful, and she loved doing stuff outdoors – she loved nature and all animals; especially butterflies. If it rained, and the worms had unwisely made their way on to the playground before school in the morning, Bethy would ask Dr Jellis to remove them so they wouldn’t get trampled once the football began. In a letter she wrote to Dr Jellis, Bethy said that her love of poems came from action poems she did in Reception that made her feel giddy and happy. She loved to listen to stories being read aloud, whether in class or assembly. She would listen intently, lost in the imaginary worlds created.  In winter, she loved to play in the snow, in the playground and on the field, challenging herself to build the tallest snow-pipe next to the window in Class 2. In summer, she would be on the field mixing potions and trading pinecones with other ‘bases’ in one long hunter-gatherer saga. During the Year 6 leaving party water-fight, she was a ruthless assassin against her teacher, Mr Batchelor!
 
Bethy’s creativity was expressed through art and music. On occasions, she would ask to be allowed to stay in and practise the piano at breaktime, and she loved to make things – such as painted stones in an art lesson, or a fairy-tale shoebox scene in DT. She would concentrate intensely, totally absorbed in these activities, and she loved to make precious little gifts for friends and family.  
 
Bethy knew who she was and what she thought, but she didn’t feel the need to make others agree with her or impose her views on anyone else; she was always respectful of others’ rights to speak and be heard, never pushing herself forward at others’ expense.  She stood her ground when necessary, at times preferring to keep her own company, with a book, rather than join in with a game that wasn’t right for her -  or when she just preferred to read her book because she loved books! If she had something important to her that she wanted to discuss with Dr Jellis, she would pop into her office for a chat – such as the time at the beginning of year 3 when she decided she wanted to be known from now on as Elizabeth, and the time later on when she decided to revert to Bethy again.  She was very proud of her family, her big brother Ben and Mum and Dad. She was able to express her feelings with deep emotion and sincerity. There was never a sense that she was trying to impress. She was very honest and factual about her cancer – she was not frightened to talk about it but never ‘used it’ as a way to get attention or as a reason for not doing something she didn’t want to. Her resilience was inspirational; her joy in life delightful.
 
Bethy leaves a huge hole in the heart of our school community. She was a wonderful human being who embodied qualities we should all aspire to: kindness, honesty, joy, love and commitment to fairness. We are privileged to have shared these precious years with her and she will never be forgotten.