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About St Mary’s

Headmistress’s Prizegiving Speech 5^th July 2005

Mrs Wilkinson, Anna Hemmings, guardians, governors, members of the CJ community, Pastonians, parents, staff and girls.

39 out of the last 56 years. There are three headmistresses of St Mary’s here today and that’s the total number of years we span together. It is a privilege to welcome Sister Christina to St Mary’s again, together with Sister Christopher who became head here in 1949. The school would not be the place it is today without the skill and devotion they gave: I am personally very grateful for the support they still give through their encouragement, love and prayers.

There’s not much that hasn’t changed out of all recognition since the 1940s. But ask past pupils and staff and they all agree that there is something about St Mary’s that is special and has remained always the same. At three different events last week — the sports day, the PTA BBQ and the year 6 Induction day — I was told the same thing: “What a great atmosphere — I like coming here!” Here is what another visitor wrote: “I should like to say what a joy it is to come to your school; the cheerful atmosphere strikes one immediately and also the courtesy and friendliness of the staff and pupils.” And that’s from a visitor who wrote to the head in 1947. In our recent parent survey, the factor rated most highly was the friendliness of the pupils. What is it about this place that makes it ‘a joy to come to school’ here? It is an atmosphere and an ethos handed down from one generation to another, from older girls to younger girls, from staff to girls and from long serving staff to new staff. Picture the scene last Wednesday in the parlour when we were celebrating Sr Christopher’s 70th Jubilee as a nun. As the photographer framed his shot, Sr Christopher took hold of my hand. A symbol of the passing on of love and care from one generation to the next that makes St Mary’s a unique and joyful place.

This year we were delighted that St Mary’s School was back where we belong — in the pages of the Good Schools’ Guide. We were also pleased to read that we were the only school to feature in the ‘Sunday Times list of best companies to work for in the Eastern region’. Though quite what this tells us about St Mary’s I’m not sure. According to the Cambridge Evening News, the survey showed that the best employers in the region included ‘a convent school for girls’ [by which they mean St Mary’s], two law firms and a sex shop.

So let’s stick to the Good Schools’ Guide. ‘Stunning across the board’, they said when reviewing our examination results. And once again they have been outstanding. A was the most common grade at GCSE, AS and A2 level. At A2 and AS, 99% of the grades were passes and at A2, eight girls achieved 3 As or more. 61% of grades at AS were at A or B and 67% at A2. 98% of all the GCSE grades were at A* to C and 61% A* and A. A special well done to the 13 girls who achieved only A and A* grades and to Tinnie Chau, Emily Hallinan, Lucy Johnstone and Catherine Molony who achieved 11 A*s. Congratulations to all our girls on this wonderful record of success. Thank you also to our staff for their inspiration, encouragement and hard work with every single examination candidate.

In January we were pleased to report success in Oxford and Cambridge entrance. Three girls achieved offers. Mary Boyle has an offer at Oxford to read German and Claire Hickling to read Chemistry. Lin Shao has an offer to read Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Other upper sixth leavers have offers of places at Bristol, Nottingham, Warwick, Leeds, Cardiff, Imperial College, Bath and Exeter and many more.

In November last year, the boarding house of the School was inspected by the Commission for Social Care Inspection. Their findings were impressive. We were examined on 52 care standards. We exceeded expectations in three standards, including the provision of a wide range of weekend activities for boarders and their health care. We were also complimented on the harmonious atmosphere and the respectful relationships between students. Well done to all the boarding staff for their contributions to this success!

In the week of the Live 8 concert and the G8 summit, we are thinking of the poor. St Mary’s girls have always been wonderfully generous in raising money for charity and this year we raised a record £16,316. Our Annual Fun Run alone raised £7,200 — enough to persuade me to brave all those parental cameras and videos, to be dolled up in heavy make up, pink boots and a blonde wig and to turn out as Barbie. Thank heavens I was accompanied by the Bursar, thinly disguised as Action Man. Some of the money raised in this year’s fun run went to support Sr Christopher’s work in Zimbabwe, where she is now helping children affected by Aids. She first took up her work there when reaching an age many people start to think about retiring. That was 33 years ago.

We also raised over £3,000 in our Lourdes fund–raising fortnight. This year 10R devised and sold two sets of Staff Top Trumps Cards. They rated us for homework load, fashion factor, fear factor, enthusiasm and seniority. I was warmed to find out that my enthusiasm was rated at 99/100, along with Mr Benziger’s. Sylvia (our catering manager) had a fear factor at 83 which trumped most of the teachers and her seniority was rated higher than the deputy heads! Compare this with Fr Tony with a fear factor of 0. With Top Trump cards, who needs the new staff appraisal scheme?

The staff at St Mary’s have organised a breathtaking 101 visits this year! The Jazz Band performed on the Fantasyland Stage at Disneyland Paris. The trips include a watersports holiday this summer in Italy, Christmas markets in Germany, a hockey tour in Holland, a biology trip to investigate jungle biodiversity in Honduras and to dive the coral reef (lucky them); a classics trip to Greece and many, many more. Thank you to staff for giving up their time to organise and attend these trips often in holidays, weekends and after school.

The music of Cantore has thrilled us since it began in 2001. Cantore is a choir that welcomes any singers without audition and has grown to 80, meeting after school on Friday evenings. Cantore was the brain child of Aodain Fleming, otherwise our fantastic head of year 7 and RE teacher. Miss Fleming will be stepping down as conductor at the end of this week and we offer our heartfelt thanks to her for this wonderful initiative, for her commitment over the last 4 years and for the many, many moments of inspiration that Cantore have brought us. We look forward to the Cantore Concert on Thursday evening at OLEM at 8.00pm. We are delighted that Miss Chiam has agreed to conduct Cantore from September.

Mrs Watling, Mr Benziger and Miss Chiam trained and inspired a large cast of girls for the musical Oliver! For three nights we were enthralled by the music and acting of many stars, led by Emily Shercliff as a vulnerable and haunting Oliver, Rewin Heung as Fagin with a very spectacular nose and wonderful movement, Gokce Atamert as an impressive Bill Sykes and a raunchy performance as Nancy by Laura Corfield.

Nine girls from St Mary’s were presented with Arts Council Arts Awards at a ceremony at the Junction in Cambridge in March. This is a new award and St Mary’s was the only independent school to be chosen to take part in the pilot scheme. Our girls offered skills as diverse as journalism, dance, drama and music. Many thanks to Mrs Watling and Miss Chiam for making this initiative such a success.

Return for a moment to the Good Schools’ Guide. Look at the comment on our Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. “Outstanding D of E, the best we have ever (and we mean ever) come across: Mega mega wow factor. For any school this would be impressive, for an inner city girls’ school, this is incredible.” This year we have an astounding 31 girls in the Sixth Form participating in the Gold Award Scheme, 26 girls participating in the Silver and 48 in the Bronze Award. Our thanks and congratulations to Fleur Spore, Susan Brown and Richard Atkinson who lead the girls in their endeavour helped by many other staff and parent volunteers.

Our association with the Pastonians strengthens every year. We have enjoyed two large reunions this year. In addition, in April, 20 of the girls who took their O levels in 1955 came back for a 50th anniversary reunion. That’s two thirds of the original year, an amazing testimony to their love for this school. Congratulations go to another Pastonian, Sr Pat Robb of the CJ community, who was presented with a Pax Christi Peace Award on June 18 this year in recognition of her work with survivors of the Rwandan genocide.

In January we were sad to hear of the death of another old girl, Rebecca Wilks, who died from cancer at the age of just 20. Her parents requested that her thanksgiving service should be held at St Mary’s because she had been so happy here. It was a privilege and an honour to celebrate Rebecca’s life in the school chapel.

BBC’s Look East was here in March to celebrate the work of our piano teacher, Agnes Heron. There was a concert, flowers, cake, presentations, and no wonder. Agnes, still going strong at 87, teaches 20 pupils at St Mary’s and a further 75 pupils at home. She also manages the 54 stairs up to the music rooms. She is another wonderful face of St Mary’s that never seems to change.

This year we say adios and gratias agimus to Miguel Tatay and Maria Christina Contrino who have worked part–time in the Spanish and Classics departments. We thank them for their hard work and commitment and wish them well for the future. We say thank you to Julia Oldham for her commitment to the English department for the last two terms. Julia suffered the rare fate of being taught chemistry by me when she was young. We say goodbye to Clive Bond, our deputy catering manager, who leaves us at the end of this week. We have enjoyed his food, especially the cakes and bread (he is a Master Baker) and his calm and kindly presence in our dining room. Thank you too to Bev Stoye and Hazel Harris who stepped in help us at short notice this term.

We say goodbye to our patient and long suffering accountant Ian Chamberlain who retires after six years of service under three Bursars. His accounts were always impeccable and his gentle sense of humour and kindness were appreciated by us all on the first floor of the Elms.

We say goodbye to Jenny Mathers who has taught Mathematics and ICT here for 14 years as well as helping the Staff Committee, playing sax in the jazz band and running the dog show. Jenny is an exceptional mathematician, a kind and caring form tutor and teacher as well as a wonderful colleague. Thank you, Jenny, for your enthusiasm, immense hard work and the love that you have given to all of us at St Mary’s.

We say goodbye to Mary Schofield as she leaves her beloved history teaching behind after 18 years of service to us. She has helped part–time this year after retiring as deputy head last year. We thank her for the love of history, especially medieval history, that she has passed on to so many young historians.

This year Joan Jeans steps down as Head of Art after 30 years of devoted service to the School. In May, we enjoyed a wonderful exhibition of work by 39 GCSE Art pupils which spoke volumes for the enthusiasm for Art that Joan has encouraged here. Joan’s gentle manner and artistic creativity has inspired generations of young artists. We are glad that she will continue part–time when the new Head of Art starts in September. We thank her sincerely for all that she has given to the school.

We offer our good wishes to YiRu Chiam on her marriage to David Hall in the summer holidays. We congratulate Liz Hurles, Daniel Bennett, Joe McWilliams and Asnat Doza on the birth of their baby boys this year.

At a school like St Mary’s there are so many people to thank. The teaching staff and members of the senior management team work so hard and give so much support to each other, to the girls and to me each year. The governors under their chair Denise Wilkinson, the CJ community, Shirley Charters and the Pastonians, Marian Pesaran and the PTA Committee, Deirdre O’Sullivan and everyone at St Catherine’s, Fr Tony as our lovely chaplain — we are so grateful to you all for your kindness and thoughtful generosity. A big thank you to all the staff who support us in admin, catering, cleaning, marketing, site management, IT and science and for the crucial roles you play in the School’s success. A special thank you to Alf, my deputy, for the rock solid support you have given me this year and huge workload you have taken on recently. Thank you also to the girls for your ready enthusiasm for all that goes on here and to the parents for entrusting your daughters to us and working with us to educate them.

The Good Schools’ Guide’s final comment on St Mary’s was short and to the point. ‘School,’ it said, ‘on a roll’. Seems to me that we’ve been on a roll for a good deal of the last 56 years and no doubt much longer than that. It is as much ‘a joy to come to school’ now as it was in 1947. The challenge now is to keep on rolling. Not just rolling but snowballing, growing and growing around the core of treasures and values we have inherited from the generations that have been here before. We are doing some hard thinking. We had two inspections last year and a further one this. We have had the parents’ survey and a stack of exhilarating ideas presented by the architects whom we commissioned to undertake a space audit of our site. I will be setting up parents’ focus groups to look at improvements in the short term and I want parents also to contribute to strategic discussions about our medium and long term future. Please help us, tell us what you think and keep our School rolling towards an even more successful future.

As for me, events of the last two years have kept me too often chained to my desk. Next year I shall be able to spend more time in the corridors, in the labs and in the classrooms. That is simply to follow the footsteps of Sr Christopher and Sr Christina and of the many, many staff and students who have been here before. Long may it be a joy to come to school at St Mary’s.

Mrs Jayne Triffitt MA (Oxon) Headmistress