Mr O'Reilly: A year in Junior School

The importance of our community has been highlighted over this challenging academic year. Like me, I am sure that many of you have drawn strength and reassurance from the belonging that our St Mary’s community offers this past year.

The special relationships between staff and pupils and between families and girls have provided a sense of continuity at the most uncertain of times. As we reflect on another year in which we were an online school and a bricks and mortar school, we can be proud of the way in which we successfully navigated through the stormy waters of an international pandemic, and I am certain that as a result of this shared experience we have strengthened our community spirit.

Looking ahead to a better world

Many have spoken about the opportunity for a post-pandemic ‘reset’; indeed, the pandemic has presented an opportunity for us to re-think how we live, and for us, how we educate our daughters. In the wider world this has manifested itself in the Climate Change protests, the Black Lives Matter movement and the impassioned fight for gender equality.

In school, we are actively learning about these issues and thinking about the consequences in our context. We have a very engaged Eco-Council who organised a Climate Change Conference and are now spearheading a campaign to discourage ‘fast fashion’. We have also set up a diversity and inclusion committee with Junior School representation to examine these issues in school. Through assemblies and discussion with the girls, I am always struck by their maturity and engagement with such issues. It gives me great hope that we have a generation of young women who engage with the problems, and have ideas and an evident passion to solve them, thereby creating a cleaner, fairer and more inclusive world in their image.

This is what a Mary Ward education should give your daughter - Mary Ward also fought an impassioned fight in the context of Tudor England; she would be proud of our Junior School girls today.

It gives me great hope that we have a generation of young women who engage with the problems, and have ideas and an evident passion to solve them, thereby creating a cleaner, fairer and more inclusive world in their image.

A new chapter...

I will leave the St Mary’s community at the end of this Summer Term. I have enjoyed ten wonderful years, from newly qualified teacher to Head. Thank you for all your support: leading the Junior School and educating your daughters has been a great privilege and I am confident that the school will go from strength to strength under the leadership of Mrs Jo Christian. Looking forward, you have the opening of the innovative Junior School STEM Lab and Preschool in September to look forward to the full usage of our world-class Long Road sports facility.

Thank you for all your support: leading the Junior School and educating your daughters has been a great privilege and I am confident that the school will go from strength to strength under the leadership of Mrs Jo Christian.

Mr O'Reilly, Head of Juniors

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