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About St Mary’s

Headmistress’s Letter: 5 July 2006

Dear Parents,

We are reaching the end of a very exciting year at St Mary’s and we are all looking forward to the summer holidays.

Prizegiving

Thank you to the parents who supported our Prizegiving yesterday on an almost unbearably hot afternoon. I was delighted with how well the girls behaved and how smart they looked. We enjoyed hearing Dr Hoti’s talk on inter–faith issues and seeing so many girls receive prizes. Sarah Stuart played her violin beautifully and we loved hearing the African songs sung by the joint choirs of Cantore and Allegro. We wish Allegro well on their tour of Barcelona next week.

Trips

Five lucky girls in Year 7 are going on a three week South African Exchange with Miss Fleming next week. 23 sixth formers and six staff are undertaking an 80km Gold D of E expedition to the Lake District during the holiday. Also a group of sixth formers will be travelling to Lourdes in the last week of the holidays to assist the sick and disabled.

Goodbye to...

At this time of the year we say goodbye to several members of staff and this year in particular we have three significant retirements. I would like to include my tributes to those staff from my speech yesterday. (The full speech can be found on the web site for those parents who were not able to attend.)

We know for certain that there will never be another Quintus Benziger. Quintus retires after 22 years of dedicated service as Director of Music. His enthusiasm, commitment and sheer musicality dominates his personality and he has loved the school very dearly — just as we have loved him. He is not only memorable for his music: his classic performances as Mr Muscle (complete with string vest), as Superman and as Elizabeth Bennett in 6th form revue have gone down in St Mary’s history. Next year, he will take his talents into primary schools and will remain with us as a peripatetic piano teacher. Quintus, we wish you the happiest and longest and busiest of retirements.

Today we also say goodbye and thank you to some other very significant members of staff in our school community. First, we pay tribute to the outstanding contribution of Hilary Goy to St Mary’s for 33 years. Hilary has been a member of the Senior Management Team since its inception, the Head of Classics and Careers since the late seventies, a leading light in Young Enterprise and in staff development. There is little that has happened at St Mary’s in which Hilary has not had a hand. Her passion for her subject has remained with her throughout her career and her dedication to the pupils and the staff is legendary. We are sorry that she is not able to be with us today but we send our best wishes to her for a happy retirement.

Year 11 produced badges at the end of this year and if you looked closely you saw that they said it all — Mrs Harding rocks. Mrs Harding’s contribution to the school as Head of Year 11 for the last 8 years has been recognised and valued by the students, parents, staff and certainly by me. She has been quite simply a wonderful head of year. Her care of the girls and her ability to say the right thing in any difficult situation has been marvellous for us all. She has also taught geography with a passion for the last seventeen years, both in the classroom and on the many fieldtrips.

Carole Ryder left us in March to join her husband in the USA after 17 years of service to the School both as an English teacher and more recently as a full time Marketing Director. She worked tirelessly to market the school and much of the recent upturn in our fortunes, particularly in boarding, is down to her imagination and excellent relationships with many professionals throughout the world not least the team at the Cambridge Evening News.

Carole Hartley leaves us after 6 years as the Matron in boarding. Her experience, warmth and calm have helped many girls a long way from home. We wish her well as she takes up her new position as Matron at Oakham School.

Janet Gibbs, a member of the kitchen staff, leaves us after 17 years of cooking excellent meals for us. She is particularly appreciated for her baking and we will miss her splendid cakes and puddings. We wish her well in her retirement.

YiRu Hall came to us as a new music teacher four years ago. A hugely talented singer, her enthusiasm, liveliness and tenacious approach have inspired the girls and she now runs two very successful choirs — Cantore and Allegro — as well as a lively Jazz Band. We wish her well as she becomes the Head of Academic Music at Portsmouth Grammar School.

We also say goodbye and thank you to several members of staff who have been with us for a short time. Thank you to Joe McWilliams for his enthusiastic leadership of the drama department, to Christopher Thompson who has taught history, to Dolores Gutierrez who has taught Spanish for two terms, to Sian Reid and Yvonne McPartland who have taught Business Studies, to Rebecca Rist who has taught Latin and to Sue Ward who has been a Nurse with us for us for two days a week. We also say a big thank you to Lawrence Rao after two years with us — a talented, innovative and energetic Bursar who has made a profound difference to the premises, the management and the finances of the school. We congratulate him on his promotion to Bursar at Alleyn’s School in London.

We have recently appointed Mr Duncan Askew as our new Bursar. Duncan was previously an Area Director for Barclays Bank. We hope that he will be very happy with us.

We also say goodbye to two of the staff from St Mary’s College — our International Study Centre, first to David Ball who has been our Director of Studies for the last five years and has given dedicated service to St Mary’s and to all of his students. We also say thank you and goodbye to Claire Buxton who has worked part–time at the College for the last two years and to Zoreh Jahedi, who has been the College Administrator for over 3 years. St Mary’s College will close down this term and the building will be taken over by the Junior School. However, the EFL teaching for our international students will continue on the main site and Valerie Bevan will take responsibility for this important area.

End of Term Events

We all enjoyed Sports Day on 24 June at the University Sports Ground and we congratulate Brookside House who won the House Cup and Tania Cheung who won the Hope Gilbert Cup for the best individual performance. Last week we had a lovely musical evening to say farewell to Mrs Hall and Mr Benziger. There were lots of great individual performances but the highlight of the evening was the sung tribute to Mr Benziger written by Dr Goddard to the music of the Geographical Fugue. The girls will get the benefit of this performance in our last assembly on Friday.

Examination Fees

Change to examination fees: The tuition fees at St Mary’s include the public examination entry fees for the students (this is not true in all independent schools). Because of the tendency for girls to resit several modules at AS level, we have decided that the School will pay for all the first entries in the AS level modules and for one resit per subject. We have had to make this change due to the very high cost of the examination entries and to be as fair as possible to all students.

School Nurse

We are looking for a qualified nurse (with up–to–date registration) to join our School Nurses team for 2 days a week from September. If you are interested in applying for this position please will you ring or e–mail the School Office for an application form as soon as possible.

Thank you so much to all the parents for the support and encouragement I receive from you day by day during the year. I hope you all enjoy a happy and restful summer.

Yours sincerely,

Jayne Triffitt
Headmistress