home > news and current information > news > archive: 2002

News and Current Information

News Archive: 2002

October 2002

10 Oct: New Scholarships announced

Headmistress, Jayne Triffitt, announced today that St Mary’s School will be offering Academic, Music and All-Round scholarships from September 2003 to entrants at 11+ and 13+. Mrs Triffitt is keen to reward excellence and widen access to the school. St Mary’s is Cambridge’s only independent Catholic school for girls.

“Many parents would like their daughters to enjoy the benefits of a single-sex education and we would very much like every girl who wants to study at St Mary’s to be able to do so and this is why we are creating these scholarships for girls who can make a significant contribution to school life. We would particularly welcome applicants from state schools.”

2 Academic scholarships, 2 Music scholarships and 2 All-Round scholarships will be available at 11+ entry. 1 Academic scholarship, 1 Music scholarship and 1 All-Round scholarship will be available at 13+ entry.

Parents and their daughters are invited to apply before the school’s entrance examinations in January 2003. Further information is available from the school’s (tel: 01223 224126).

During the 80s and 90s over 140 students at St Mary’s were on assisted places. Mrs Triffitt said, “I regret the loss of the assisted places scheme as it enabled many girls who would not otherwise be able to do so to benefit from what we have to offer. We are using money that the school set aside to support the assisted places scheme. St Mary’s would like to endow more scholarships and we would welcome interest from individuals or companies who share our commitment to providing choice in education.”

September 2002

20 Sept: Web Site Updates

Details of this term’s extra-curricular activities are now online and the Alumnae area has been extended and updated.

16 Sept: Pastonians AGM

A very lively group of about 80 ‘old girls’ met at St Mary’s yesterday for the AGM. The meeting included a fascinating presentation by Carole Ryder, the school’s Marketing Manager and was followed by a delicious 3 course lunch, with wine, provided by the catering team. Sister Francesca delivered a most entertaining after-dinner speech, with some highly amusing tales — maybe we can persuade her to write her memoirs one day! The day was concluded with tours of the school, bringing back all those half-forgotten memories for several of those present. We look forward to seeing you all again next year!

6 Sept: Web Site Updates

Recently updated pages include our splendid GCSE and A Level examination results, our calendar for the Autumn Term and our charities report for 2001-2. This term’s extra-curricular programme will be added as soon as the last details have been finalised.

4 Sept: Oxbridge Candidates

We are delighted to announce that all of our Oxbridge candidates achieved the necessary grades in order to take up their places this autumn - a special well done to all of these girls!

July 2002

5 July: End of Term

The school term has now ended. There will be no further updates until the start of the new school year in September. The Autumn Term Calendar and list of Extra-Curricular Activities will be made available online in early September.

3 July: The Paper is Launched!

Several St Mary’s girls have been working as editors and reporters on The Paper, a lively tabloid newspaper written by and for young people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Isabella Redmond-Styles was a sub editor for the first edition, and Hannah Street and Natasha Pesaran are sub editors for the next issue, due in December. All our girls have done extremely well but we are particularly pleased to announce that Natalie Stops has been selected to be the overall editor for the next edition!

June 2002

28 June: Downloads Page

A downloads page has been added for your convenience. It includes links to browsers and a variety of useful browser plug-ins.

14 June: Examination Period

Sorry, there will not be much news this month - we are all busy with examinations.

May 2002

24 May: Search Page

The main search page has now been added.

18 May: Gold D of E

Six girls have recently achieved their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award: Katie Pelham, Milly Bowden, Katherine Blear, Laurel Bennett, Katie McCreary and Sarah Jackson. Many congratulations to these girls!

17 May: Search Facility

The Atomz search facility (search box) has now been customised so that it matches the design of the site. Please let the know if there are any problems with it.

10 May: Term Dates Update

Term dates and exeat weekends have now been posted for up until the end of the summer term 2003.

All pages on the site have been given a bit of a springclean this week and the print stylesheet has also been improved. For example, an especially useful feature if you print a page using Netscape 6 is that you will see full URLs in parentheses for all hyperlinks. Unfortunately, this particular feature is not supported by Internet Explorer 6 or Opera 6 - we will have to wait for version 7...

3 May: Web Site Updates

Most existing areas of the site have now been revised and updated. More new pages to come soon.

April 2002

29 Apr: Young Enterprise Success

Abstract, this year’s Young Enterprise Company, won three major awards at the Cambridge and District Area Finalists Awards this evening. Many congratulations to our girls on this outstanding success!:

•  Manufacturing Excellence
•  Young Businesswomen of the Year
•  Achiever of the Year: Emily Reid

15 Apr: Lourdes Update

So far we have raised over £3,200 (with money still coming in) - this is a record!

March 2002

27 Mar: Congratulations to our girls!

Several successes have been reported recently, including:

•  Youth Parliament Competition: the St Mary’s team came joint 3^rd in the South Region B heats. Well done to all the girls involved!
•  Duke of Edinburgh Scheme: 32 Bronze Awards, 5 Silver Awards and 7 Gold Awards have been achieved. Special congratulations go to Katie McCreary, Sarah Jackson, Millie Bowden, Laurel Bennett, Katie Pelham and Katherine Blear in the UVI and to Rosie Rogers in last year’s UVI on achieving their Gold Awards.
•  Laurel Bennett has been offered a place as a trombonist in the National Youth Music Theatre and will be touring Bath and Belfast over the summer.
•  Mathematical Challenge: Rosalind Brock is our first ever International Intermediate Mathematical Challenge qualifier - she will compete in May against students from all over the world! Three girls from Year 9, Emily Nutbourne (who won a Gold medal), Emily Hallinan and Rachel Waddington are European Kangaroo qualifiers. Two girls in the UVI, Kara Nelson and Jing Liu, took part in the British Mathematical Olympiad. This puts them in the top 1% of girls doing A Level Maths. Jing missed the next round by only one mark.
•  British Biology Olympiad: Katie McCreary and Emily Parker won Bronze Awards.
•  Cambridge Classical Association Reading Competition: our Year 8 team won the Latin Play section with Parva Paenula Purpurea (Little Red Riding Hood) against stiff competition from local schools.
•  Sophie and Helen Mather represented St Mary’s in the East Region British Schools Sports Acrobatics and came 10^th out of 25 schools.
•  Gokce Atamert achieved a Gold and a Bronze Medal in the Turkish National Swimming Championships.
•  Charlotte Holt represented Cambridge at the the recent Cambridgeshire County B Championships and achieved two Gold Medals and a Bronze Medal. Emily Cray also won a Gold Medal.

11 Mar: Lourdes Fundraising Fortnight

Lourdes fundraising fortnight begins today and we are aiming to raise over £3,000 - please help us by supporting as many events as you can! Donations can be sent directly to our Charities Organiser, Mrs M Jackson (a.k.a. Mrs Jackson-English), at St Mary’s School, Bateman Street, Cambridge CB2 1LY, UK. Thank you for your generosity!

08 Mar: Online Exhibition now open

Year 7 Shakespearean stories added.

06 Mar: Homer’s Odyssey - opens tonight!

This year’s Junior School Play is Homer’s Odyssey, a dramatic tale of gods, heroes and monsters. It will be performed from Wednesday 6th to Friday 8th March at 7.30 pm. Tickets are available from Mrs D’Armada at St Mary’s School.

03 Mar: New Web Site

The sixth form area has now been added, with 18 pages created so far.

February 2002

09 Feb: new pages created

Calendar and Head Girl and Senior Prefects pages created, together with a link to our original hot links.

08 Feb: web site updates

Updates to term dates, uniform pages and boarding area of the site.

05 Feb: ESU Competition Success

On 5th February 2002 three Year 11 girls, Emma Britton, Rosalind Brock and Sarah Heald, won the regional round of the English Speaking Union’s Public Speaking Competition. Speaking on the topic ‘Private donations to political parties is thinly concealed bribery’, they beat off fierce opposition from five other schools to secure a place in the next round. Having come second in the regional round of the Cambridge Union Debating Competition, Sarah and Rosalind were delighted to gain top spot in the ESU competition and are looking forward to preparing for the next round in early March.

01 Feb: Homer’s Odyssey - buy your tickets now!

This year’s Junior School Play is Homer’s Odyssey, a dramatic tale of gods, heroes and monsters. It will be performed from Wednesday 6th to Friday 8th March at 7.30 pm. Tickets are now available from Mrs D’Armada at St Mary’s School.

January 2002

18 Jan: Oxbridge Success!

The new headmistress of St Mary’s School, Cambridge, Jayne Triffitt, is delighted that 7 girls have been successful in their applications to Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Three post A level students have confirmed places and four pre A level students have conditional offers.

“This is a record for the school and we are delighted with the news. It is a tribute to the hard work of these girls and the excellent teaching they have received from our dedicated staff.”

The girls who have been successful are:

01 Jan: New Web Site

This site has recently been completely redesigned and restructured and we are now in the process of adding new content. Please bear with us as the site is redeveloped over the coming months. As new pages are added each week, they will be featured in this area of the site so, if you are one of our regular visitors, you may like to come here first.

Calling all current pupils, teachers, parent and governors:

Please keep the informed of any newsworthy items - thank you!