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12 Dec: Latest Sports News

Our Under 14 Hockey Team were semi–finalists in the Cambridgeshire County Tournament and our Under 13 Hockey Team were finalists in the Cambridge & District Tournament. Lauren Hilton–Taylor has been selected for the Under 12 County Hockey Squad.

The District Cross Country Championships were held on Thursday 29th November at Royston Heath. All of our girls ran very well. The Year 7 team was placed 5th overall out of 15 teams and the Year 8/9 team was placed 2nd overall. The following girls ran particularly well and have been selected to run in the County Cross Country Championship which will be held in January: Alice McWilliam (2nd in the Year 7 race) and, from the Year 8/9 race, Sarah Bibby (5th), Troi Baxter (10th), Anna McHugh (12th) and Stanzi Wilson (13th).

7 Dec: 6th Form Newsletter

Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Sixth Form newsletter is now online — read it! (.pdf 207 KB)

5 Dec: Parents’ Reading Group

Our first meeting of this academic year was held on 8th November, and we were glad to welcome some ‘new’ parents. We discussed Caroline Lawrence’s The Assassins of Rome, which is part of a series that has been very popular with the girls, and A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly, a winner of the Carnegie Medal. Read more... (.pdf 73KB)

We have fixed the date of our next meeting on Wednesday 24th January again at 7.30 in school. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible then.

4 Dec: Year 7 District Hockey Tournament

The Year 7 District Hockey Tournament was held on Thursday 23rd November. Our B team played very well and were placed joint second in the B team tournament. The A team played extremely well and beat 6 other schools to get into the final where they met the Perse. After extra time the score was still 0–0 and so it was decided that the teams should be declared joint winners. The team members were: Lauren Hilton–Taylor (Captain) Sophie Brown, Rebecca Bryant, Jessica Freedman, Alice McWilliam, Catherine Newman–Day, Victoria Stockbridge, Zara Walwyn and Ella Webb.

1 Dec: St Mary’s Debating Team wins ‘Rotary Youth Speaks’

A team from St Mary’s School has won the South Cambridge Rotary Youth Speaks debating competition, beating thirteen other schools to take the prize.

St Mary’s entered two teams for the competition, composed of pupils from Year 8 and 9. Both teams performed at a high level, with the St Mary’s A team, composed of Kitty Underwood, Lilah Howson–Smith and Katy Green, winning the competition and being invited to take part in the district level competition. The St Mary’s B team: Daisy Murray, Maeve Nicholson and Lily Freeman, also gave an exceptional performance and have been awarded St Mary’s Public Speaking prize.

Both teams debated diverse topics, with the A team arguing that reality TV shows are demeaning for audience and participants alike, while the B team discussed whether Father’s Day should be celebrated to the same extent and in the same way as Mothers’ Day.

The President of the Rotary Club, Mr Derrick Gibbs, accompanied by the event organiser Mr Geoffrey Datson, presented both the Rotary Club’s shield and the School’s cup in a special presentation held at St Mary’s. Helen Garrett, Head of English, who coaches the teams, said of the award: “I think the Rotary Youth Speaks competition offers an excellent opportunity for young people to develop their public speaking skills and to meet students from other schools; we are grateful to the Rotary Club for their interest and enthusiasm. I can’t really take any credit. The teams worked independently to a great extent.”

27 Nov: 2006 District Hockey Tournament Success

The Year 7 team are joint winners of the 2006 District hockey tournament. They beat 6 teams to get into the final, meeting The Perse. After full time and extra time, the score remained at 0–0 and it was decided that the teams would be joint winners. The Yr7 hockey team members are: Lauren Hilton–Tayler (Captain), Sophie Brown, Jessica Freedman, Ella Webb, Kitty Newman–Day, Alice McWilliam, Zara Walwyn, Becky Bryant (Goal Keeper) and Victoria Stockbridge.

16 Nov: Lizzy on the Catwalk!

Lizzy D in 10R took part in the Cambridge Catwalk fashion show, held in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Corn Exchange on Friday 10th November 2006. See Lizzy looking fantastic, strutting her stuff on the catwalk. Lizzy wore local designers’ gear for her turn on the catwalk, but unfortunately none of the models on the night were allowed to take their catwalk outfits home.

14 Nov: Latest Sports News

Inter–schools Show–jumping Competition: Congratulations to Lizzie Fuller, Chloe Mills, Molly Smith and Laura Toller who took 1st place!

Inter–Schools Dressage Competition: Tilly Becker, Lizzie Fuller, Becky Graves and Katharine Valori finished in 2nd place in the Junior class and Teresa Burnford, Hannah Frost, Hannah Giles, Sara Horrell, Claire McCarthey, Abigail Oliver and Molly Smith finished in 4th place in the Senior class.

County Netball Squads: Venetia Higgins has been selected for the Under 14 County Netball Squad and Lydia Allen, Charlotte Dexter and Kate McDonald have been selected for the Under 16 County Netball Squad.

County Hockey Squads: Megan Edwards and Venetia Higgins have been selected for the Under 14 County Hockey Squad and Alexa Smit has been selected for the Under 17 County Hockey Squad.

12 Oct: Fun Run Preparations

Calling all St Mary’s girls! You have just one week left in which to prepare your costume. This year’s theme is Famous Faces — who will you be?

21 Sept: Question Time!

The third St Mary’s School Question Time will be held on Thu 5 Oct at 7.30pm and you are warmly invited to attend. The panel will include Julie Spence (Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire), Professor Alan Macfarlane (Professor of Anthropological Science, Cambridge University), Fr John Kenrick (Member of the Blackfriars’ Community in Cambridge) and a Muslim Chaplain (TBC). Tickets are available from Mr Peachey and questions may be submitted in advance to Mr Peachey or on the night.

Julie Spence started her professional life as a teacher in 1977, but she began her police career at Avon and Somerset Police in 1978. Her early career involved general patrol in some of the most troubled areas of Bristol. Front line operational duty was interspersed with postings to community policing, CID, police training, force communications, family and child protection and the press office. In 1999 she was appointed Assistant Chief Constable in Thames Valley Police and held the Corporate Development portfolio. She took over the Territorial Policing Portfolio in January 2003. Mrs Spence joined Cambridgeshire Constabulary in April 2004 as Deputy Chief Constable and in June of 2005 took up the post of Acting Chief Constable.

Alan Macfarlane is a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge and Professor of Anthropological Science. As an anthropologist and historian he has worked on England, Nepal, Japan and China, and he has written books on a huge range of topics, from Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England to Marriage and Love in England. Recent books include The Riddle of the Modern World and Letters to Lily: On How the World Works. We hope that Letters to Lily (and the associated web site, letters2lily.com) will generate some of the evening’s questions. We can also highly recommend other web sites Professor Macfarlane is associated with: alanmacfarlane.com and digitalorient.org.

Rev Dr John Kenrick was formerly the Vicar general of the Dominican Order’s General Vicariate of Russia and the Ukraine. He is now Master of Novices of the English Dominicans, researches at St John’s College, Cambridge and teaches at Oxford. He was a member of our last two panels and says that he enjoyed the experiences!

20 Sept: Parents’ Reading Group

Our final meeting last (academic) year was held on 21st June. We discussed The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne and Beverley Naidoo’s The Other Side of Truth. In school we had the additional pleasure of meeting Beverley Naidoo when she came to spend a day with Year 9 to lead discussions and workshops on this book. We are aware that there are several parents who would like to have attended last year but were unable to because of the time of the meetings. There is some flexibility here, so please give your feedback to the letter in the mailing this week. Read more... (.pdf 80KB)

12 Sept: Term Dates and Extra–curricular Activities

Extra–curricular activities for the Autumn Term and Term Dates for 2006–8 have now been published on the site.

7 Sept: Athletics Success

At the end of the summer term our athletes competed at the annual Cambridge & District Secondary Schools Athletics Championships (Olympic Cup). In spite of the Year 10 team being depleted in numbers they finished in 4th place. However, it is with great pride that the PE Department can announce that the Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9 teams won their respective age groups. This is the first time that 3 out of the 4 teams have won the Championships!

24 Aug: GCSE Results

“We are all delighted with the GCSE results which are the best ever for St Mary’s School with an overall pass rate of 99%, 100% of girls achieving 5 or more passes at grades A*–C and 70% of all grades gained being A*/A. I am immensely proud of the girls who richly deserve these results. I would like to pay tribute to the outstanding teachers at St Mary’s who work very hard to ensure the success of the pupils. Special congratulations to Sarah Smart who achieved 12 A* grades and to Ella Burroughes, Natasha Pesaran and Katherine Tiller who achieved 11A* grades. In total, 32 out of 97 girls achieved straight A*/A grades.” Mrs Triffitt

21 Aug: A Level Results

“We were thrilled with our A Level results this year with 40% of all results being Grade A. Congratulations to the 8 girls out of 41 who achieved 3 Grade As or more. A special mention for the 13 students out of 15 who achieved Grade A in Mathematics. This year’s AS results were the best ever for St Mary’s with 56% of all results being Grade A. Special congratulations to Emma Oliver and Ling Zi Shi who achieved 5 Grade As. 13 girls achieved 4 Grade As or more with 23 out of 48 girls achieving 3 Grade As or more. These results are a tribute to our outstanding teachers and dedicated students at St Mary’s.” Mrs Triffitt

7 Jul: Prizegiving Speech

Mrs Triffitt’s Prizegiving Speech is now online: Prizegiving 2006.

6 Jul: Athletics success for Harriet Arbuckle

Harriet Arbuckle will be representing Cambridgeshire in the 800m race at the National Track & Field Athletics Championships this July for the 3rd consecutive year.

19 Jun: Athletics success for Marianne Oliver

Marianne Oliver (year 9) competed in King’s Lynn representing the Cambridge and Coleridge U15 Athletics Club. In the Under 15 age group, Marianne came 2nd in the High Jump and won the 100 metre sprint.

11 Jun: Add St Mary’s to your Address Book

The contact information on each page has now been marked up using the hCard microformat. If you click the hCard graphic (see below), the hCard will be automatically converted into a vCard that can be downloaded and saved into your address book.

1 Jun: School E–mail: new ‘bookmark’!

When you access your school e–mail at home, there are now 2 links available. These are linked to as webmail 1 and webmail 2 from the home page. Webmail 1 should be up–and–running most of the time but if it is ever out of action, then webmail 2 should ‘kick in’ and take over. The links for these are added below:
Webmail 1: https://217.155.235.154/exchange/
Webmail 2: https://81.187.250.85/exchange/

24 May: Recent Sporting Successes

Year 7 Netball District Tournament: The year 7 netball team competed at the district tournament and beat all the opposing teams to become this year’s District Champions. The ‘winning’ team consisted of: Becky Graves, Jenny Kent, Sophie Rawe, Georgie Snyder, Jasmine Beale, Emily Roberts, Sophie Flynn, Carmen Hodgkiss and the Captain, Troi Baxter.
Roy Burrell Award: Congratulations to the following year 11 students who have been awarded the prestigious Roy Burrell Award from the Cambridge Secondary Schools Association in recognition of their contribution to sport. Harriet Arbuckle: National Cross Country, Anglian Athletics and County Netball; Philippa Markley: County Netball, Hockey and Athletics; Charlotte Haines: County and Regional Swimming; Isabel Edmundson: National Equestrian; Charlotte Murray: National and County Dance; Ellie Herbert: County Hockey and Athletics: Caroline Haines: County Netball; Abi Erian: County Netball. A special mention for Harriet Arbuckle as she also received the runner–up award for the Sports Personality of the Year 2006.
County Swimming Championships: Charlotte Haines achieved 2 Bronze, 10 Silver and 5 Gold medals at the County Swimming Championships.
2006 Cambridgeshire County Championships: Tarryn Hodgkiss achieved both a Bronze and a Gold medal in the 200m Freestyle and 100m Individual Medley respectively at the 2006 Cambridgeshire County Championships.
CAU Inter Counties Cross–Country Championships: Harriet Arbuckle led the way for Cambridgeshire athletes at the CAU Inter Counties Cross–Country Championships in Nottingham. Harriet took part in the Under 17 women’s race, finishing 18th out of 249 runners with a time of 19mins 45secs.

20 May: Archery success for Kathryn Gilbert

Kathryn has recently been selected to train for the Great Britain Junior Archery Squad in preparation for the 2012 Olympics. What a superb achievement — well done, Kathryn!

25 Apr: Charities Update

During the Spring Term, we set ourselves the challenge of raising £2,000 to equip a farmyard in Africa. Natasha Pesaran and 11M spearheaded the campaign. Year 11 ran two huge cake stalls, 11M raffled a £50 hairdressing voucher, Mrs Anne Clark donated £100 from the sale of her delicious jams and chutneys. Finally, we have reached our target, thanks to the Boarders’ Concert, which raised over £230. It was a wonderful concert and a great joint St Mary’s effort which successfully achieved its aim.

25 Apr: Sister Gregory on Radio 4

Sister Gregory was interviewed recently on Woman’s Hour: “The Congregation of Jesus is the new name for an old order — the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The order was founded over 300 years ago by Mary Ward, a pioneer both of women’s education and of apostolic religious orders for women. Today, one of their main religious houses is the Bar Convent in York. Amongst the longest–serving of the nuns there is the order’s archivist, Sister Gregory. Clare Jenkins went to the Bar Convent to meet her.” Sister Gregory wrote A Will To Do Well: A History of St Mary’s School, Cambridge and was Headmistress at St Mary’s School Shaftesbury for many years.

25 Apr: School E–mail: update your ‘bookmark’!

For those of you who access your school e–mail from home, you need to be aware that the URL has changed. If you link to the webmail page via the school web site then there should be no problem but if you have saved it as a bookmark/favourite then you will need to update it to: https://213.123.178.37/exchange/.

24 Apr: Web Site Updates

This web site is now in the process of being completely re–organised and re–branded. If you experience any display problems, try refreshing your browser (CTRL + F5 usually does the trick). If problems persist, please contact the webmaster (webmaster followed by @ then stmaryscambridge.co.uk) — thank you!

20 Feb: St Mary’s and St Catherine’s Schools Join Together

Joint Statement from the Governors of St Mary’s School, Cambridge and the Directors of St Catherine’s Roman Catholic Preparatory School, Cambridge:

The Governors of St Mary’s School and the Directors of St Catherine’s School are delighted to announce that, with effect from 17 February 2006, St Mary’s School has taken on responsibility for St Catherine’s School. The new school will be known as St Mary’s Junior School. Mrs Deirdre O’Sullivan (the current Headmistress of St Catherine’s School) will be the Headmistress of St Mary’s Junior School with immediate effect.

In November 2005 St Mary’s announced plans to expand by opening its own junior school at 2 Brookside and at the same time St Catherine’s School also notified parents of its intention to move to Cherry Hinton Hall. Subsequent consultation meetings between the Directors and parents at St Catherine’s revealed that many parents were keen for the school to remain in its convenient location in the centre of Cambridge close to St Mary’s School. The Directors of St Catherine’s decided to meet with the Governors of St Mary’s School to discuss the possibility of the two schools joining together. St Catherine’s School was originally set up by a group of parents when St Mary’s closed its own Junior School in 1987 to provide more accommodation for the nuns of the IBVM order who founded St Mary’s.

The vision for the new St Mary’s Junior School is to offer a Catholic, caring school with the added benefits of sharing facilities and teachers with the Senior School. St Mary’s Junior School will be able to enhance the learning of certain specialist subjects such as languages, ICT, science, music, art and PE and to make the transition to the Senior School as seamless as possible.

Jayne Triffitt (Headmistress of St Mary’s School) said: “We will now be able to offer the benefits of a fully integrated school for girls aged from 4 to 18. The use of Numbers 1 and 2 Brookside will enable us to cater for the current St Catherine’s pupils together with new pupils. Since our announcement in November, we have been inundated with enquiries from interested parents who believe in the strong ethos and excellent education that St Mary’s offers. We will now have the huge benefits of the experience of a successful teaching staff and established community of pupils from St Catherine’s to take with us. I am particularly delighted that Deirdre O’Sullivan will be the Headmistress of the new school and I am looking forward to working with her to create a Junior School which builds on the strengths and traditions of both St Mary’s and St Catherine’s.”

Deirdre O’Sullivan (Headmistress of St Mary’s Junior School) said: “This is an exciting opportunity for St Catherine’s. St Catherine’s has, in recent years, reached full capacity on our current site. Our location in Bateman Street is clearly popular with parents and we are therefore delighted about the opportunity to join with St Mary’s. St Catherine’s has always enjoyed a very close relationship with St Mary’s and I am sure that the new school will be very successful.” Parents who are interested in the new Junior School are invited to attend Information Mornings which will be held at St Mary’s in March. If you wish to attend an Information Morning, please ring the Admissions Department on 01223 224126.

18 Jan: Sister Ursula RIP

Sister Ursula taught English at St Mary’s from 1954–1973 and returned as Librarian 1985–1995.

Words of Sister Gregory Kirkus CJ at the Requiem of Sister Ursula Murphy CJ, 16th January 2006:

“Time does not admit a full account of Sister Ursula’s life, nor an attempt to do justice to her gifted personality, so I will concentrate on two characteristics that were outstanding. She had an intense, almost fierce loyalty to places and persons. She was born in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and when the family returned to England Ursula, aged twelve, carried with her a jar of Rhodesian soil as a mark of her affection for the land of her birth. In later life she had a similar affection for Cambridge, but did not mark it in the same way. Her affection for people was even more intense. She was immensely proud of her older sister, Margaret, proud of her scholarship to Oxford, of the many best–selling cookery books she wrote under the name of Margaret Costa, and of the fashionable restaurant she ran in London’s West End. She had many, many friends and would brook no criticism of them and yet, paradoxically, we could never get anything quite right because — and this is the second characteristic — she was a perfectionist, a perfectionist with all the sensitivity of an artist. And so, for example, if we bought curtains that we thought went prodigiously well with the carpet, Sister Ursula would be sure to say that they should have been a little brighter, or a shade bluer, or that a touch of green should have been introduced into the design.

She applied the same devastatingly high standards to herself, and was never, ever satisfied with her own achievements. She had a beautiful calligraphy, and would copy out passages in a lovely script, and then tear them up because of some small or imagined flaw. Sometimes tears of frustration would run down her cheeks. It was perhaps the inability to reach her own standards that gave her such sympathy with the children. They were always treated with dignity and understanding, and their talents were fostered often by being given a part in the plays she produced with near genius. If it was Shakespeare it had to be the whole Shakespeare, with no cuts. The result was breath–takingly professional. The children would catch her enthusiasm, fully co–operated with her, and many, from being her pupils, became her friends.

I must add that after she came to York no criticisms passed her lips, which speaks volumes for the nursing care she received at St Joseph’s.

It is consoling to reflect that the perfection she sought so ardently on earth, but which always eluded her, is hers to enjoy for ever in Heaven.”

16 Jan: Extra–Curricular Activities

This term’s programme of extra–curricular activities, sports clubs and fixtures has now been published.