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About St Mary’s

Headmistress’s Letter: September 2004

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Welcome!

We have welcomed 120 new pupils to St Mary’s at the start of this term and we hope that their time at this school will be happy and successful. The overall roll of the school continues to increase and we are now close to 500 pupils. The boarding house is full again and we are welcoming girls from all over the world including Russia, China and Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, Mexico, Nigeria and Indonesia. I will be visiting Hong Kong in the week beginning October 4^th to meet parents and prospective parents.

We welcome 8 new members of staff to the school this September. During the summer holidays we were delighted when the Governors appointed Mr Lawrence Rao as Bursar. Lawrence has lived in and around Cambridge since his student days. Soon after university he set up his own IT company which he ran successfully for 15 years. Lawrence is married to Deborah and has three school age children. We are glad that our new Assistant Head, Mr Geoff Pollard, has arrived safely from Brazil with his wife, Teresa, and their two children. Geoff’s breadth of experience in school management will be of great benefit to us all. You may remember that Geoff was Head of the Senior School at the British School in Rio de Janeiro for six years.

We also welcome Mrs Emma Hall as Head of Mathematics, Mr Joe McWilliams as Head of Drama, Miss Claire Dagnan as Acting Head of Spanish, Mr Miguel Tatay to teach Spanish, Mr Paul Mallabone to teach RE and Mrs Sophie Leighton–Scott to teach geography. Several other staff take up new positions of responsibility this term. Mrs Helen Marmion has become the Head of Modern Languages and Miss Carolyn Cooksey takes over as School Librarian. Mrs Patricia Nicholson becomes the Examinations Officer assisted by Miss Aodain Fleming. Mrs Susan Brown (fresh from her success in the FINA World Masters Regatta in Germany) and Mr Richard Atkinson will be responsible for the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze and Silver Award Schemes.

Open Morning

Our Open Morning for prospective parents is being held on Saturday, October 16^th from 9.30am until 12 noon. We would be happy for parents to join us to look at the school and see all the activities that the girls will be participating in. We would ask that all girls from Year 7 to the U6^th should be available for that morning (with years 7 to 11 in full school uniform and the 6^th form in smart dress code) if they are asked by the staff to take part. If your daughter is unable to take part, please send a letter confirming this to her form tutor. Last year we had about 500 visitors and it was an extremely happy occasion.

Examinations

This year in the mailing we have included a more detailed breakdown of the fantastic examination results for GCSE, AS and A2 level. Although the grades are exciting in themselves, it is the delight on the faces of the individual girls on results’ days which is so heartening. The girls and staff deserve congratulations for these excellent results.

Publicity

During the normal course of affairs, photographs and video footage are taken of school activities. From time to time, such material is used in a range of school publications, on the web site and on a CD ROM. If you do not wish your daughter’s image to be used, please inform the School Secretary, in writing.

Better communication

I have been talking to the PTA Committee about ways to improve the communication between the school and parents. They have suggested that I give you the e–mail addresses of some senior staff and heads of year so that you can access them directly and quickly if you have a concern or query. These are as follows and are in the form of contactname@ followed by stmaryscambridge.co.uk:
Headmistress Jayne Triffitt: jtriffitt@
Deputy Head (responsible for the day to day organisation of the school, pastoral care and discipline) Alf Jackson: ajackson@
Bursar Lawrence Rao: bursar@
Head of Year 7 Miss Aodain Fleming: afleming@
Head of Year 8 Mrs Helen Jackson: hjackson@
Head of Year 9 Mrs Rosemary d’Armada: rdarmada@
Head of Year 10 Mrs Christine Klimaszewska: cklimaszewska@
Head of Year 11 Mrs Fiona Harding: fharding@
Head of Sixth Form Mr Roy Peachey: rpeachey@

Headmistress’s drop–in surgeries

I have also arranged two afternoon sessions when I will be available to see parents without an appointment, so please feel free to drop in if there is anything you wish to discuss. The dates are:
Monday 11 October and Monday 22 November from 3.30pm–5.00pm

School Nurse

We are looking for a School Nurse from 8.30am until 4.00pm from Monday to Friday. We would be grateful if this person would also take on some other duties at quieter times including the running of uniform sales. We would be happy for this job to be shared by two or more nurses. If you are interested, please could you apply in writing or by e–mail to me.

Prize Giving Speech 2004

For the benefit of new parents and those who were not able to attend Prizegiving in July, my speech reporting on the last academic year is included in this mailing [webmaster note: and is also online]. I hope you enjoy reading it!

With very best wishes to everyone for this new academic year.
Yours sincerely,

Jayne Triffitt
Headmistress