Parents' Day 2007: The Head's Speech

Miss Rees-Mogg, guests, Governors, Parents and members of the St Mary’s Community: a very warm welcome and thank you, Mrs Dallyn, for those opening words. 

Moments ago, I was standing outside the marquee and a gentleman came up to me and said, “I usually skip this bit………..and who are you?”
“And who am I?” he may well, quite rightly, ask. 

I grew up in Suffolk, listening to the ebb and flow of sea on shingle, my childhood idyllic, dedicated to playing the piano and football, leaving very little time for schoolwork which was just as well as, at eighteen, my offers from music colleges were dependent on achieving two Es at A Level.  I set off for London for four blissful years of study at the Royal College of Music.  After which, with the world at my feet, a hair style not dissimilar to a rather large lampshade, excited by the possibility of a bohemian lifestyle ahead of me, getting by as a pianist and conductor (and even the possibility of studying conducting in Warsaw - this was 1981) my father, to whom I already owed money, sat me down and told me to grow up and get a proper job. In those days, girls, you did what your father told you and so I went into teaching. But after nearly four years I left to work, as I had originally dreamt, as a self-employed musician. A good plan: I fell in love and became engaged to an artist (also self-employed).  We talked of marriage and went looking for a mortgage.  A bad plan: after two years, unable to convince any building society, I got a proper job again, was immediately offered a mortgage, got married and grew up.  Nine years as Director of Music at a co-ed Prep School in Sussex were followed by ten very happy years at St Mary’s Ascot.  There I ran the music department, my wife taught art and together we ran one of the boarding houses.  In 2005 I moved here as Deputy Head; from the beginning of this academic year, Acting Head; and the last six months as Head of St Mary’s - not exactly as I had planned my career but I have never been so fulfilled in all my life and I feel so very privileged to be in this special role in this very special place. I would not change my life for anything – except I still owe money to my father!

And my family and I love living in the West Country:  the pace of life is slower and the people here are so genuine.  But driving has been a bit of an eye-opener.  In the middle of winter on the occasion of very heavy snow I was driving along some rather twisty country lanes and the snow had drifted in some places up to about five feet.  As I turned a corner I could see a man with only his head showing above the top of a snow drift.  I very carefully came to a standstill; I applied the brake, wound down my window and asked the fellow if I could offer him a lift.  “Oh don’t you worry about me,” he replied, “I’m on my bicycle.”

I’d like to thank everybody for their support over the last year: girls, staff parents and Governors.  I feel that I have got to know the girls well this year.  I do not always recognise you as parents, though, and if I haven’t yet met you, please do introduce yourselves today.  On recognising people I’m reminded of the lovely story of Sir Malcolm Sargent, the great English conductor who, one afternoon, was taking tea at the Ritz.  He recognised a lady at a nearby table but couldn’t place her.  As he was looking across she very graciously waved and so he gestured to her.  He still couldn’t think who she was but etiquette required that he should leave his table and greet the lady. “Good Afternoon,” he said, to which she replied, “Good afternoon, Sir Malcolm.”  But still he could not think who she was.  He asked after her health, she asked after his and yet he still couldn’t place her.  And then he had an idea: “And how is your husband?” he asked.  “Very well, thank you, Sir Malcolm” - but still no idea.  “And what is he doing these days?” he asked, to which she replied: “Oh, he’s still King”. 

I would like to mention briefly the Parents’ Forum which is your opportunity to meet with other parents to discuss any aspects of the school and also to contribute actively in planning events that might further improve communication and interaction between St Mary’s and yourselves as parents.  My thanks to Mr Devereux for chairing this for the last two years and to Mrs Cardozo for taking it forwards.

Throughout the year I have had many lovely letters from CJ sisters who lived and worked here and from Old Girls in which they ask that I change nothing about their school.  There are some wonderful traditions and there are many happy memories for girls to take away when they leave.  There is very little that I want to change.  Of course, we as staff are as keen as you are, as parents, that your daughters achieve their potential and I intend to ensure just that, in and out of the classroom. 

As a school we know exactly what we are: we do not need to go co-ed; we do not need to merge; we do not need to go weekly boarding; our applications are up and our registrations have doubled this year, enabling us to be even more selective in future years. For that, I have to thank our Upper Sixth students for all their wonderful tours (and, this term, the Lower VI).  And so St Mary’s has no need to be trendy and introduce “lessons in well-being” – we have this covered within our ethos, we live this, and have been doing it in our retreat programme and PSE lessons for years. 

The Junior end of the School is very important to me and I will continue to recruit nine and ten year olds and increase the intake at 11+.  I do want our Upper IIIs, our Year 7s, to have a secondary school mentality and achieve even more academically whilst staying young outside the classroom.  I have great confidence in the future of the Juniors and they are very much in the safe hands of Mrs Key and Ms Seal-Newman.  But back to change: when I visited here for a meeting in 2004 I was taken aback by the atmosphere, the welcome, the calm. This school is what education is all about and that will not change.  We are concerned with the individual and we will enable the special talents of your daughters to emerge and we will nurture them. 

The great Hungarian composer, and theorist, Zoltan Kodaly, said this:
True education is directed at the whole person, the human being, who is not merely a combination of separate ability pieces, but a self contained whole, a microcosm and this is precisely what is meant by personality. To achieve true education we must aim for a special insight, an intuition, if we are to make the very most of the individual.

A major happening for us, as a school, this year, has been Inspection.  We have had both an ISI Inspection, and the Diocesan RE Inspection.  Mrs Dallyn has already mentioned this but in a year of change this was a great reassurance for us as staff and of course the girls rose to the challenge and were at their absolute best.  I don’t know who it was but during a morning registration session, whilst being observed by an Inspector, one of the girls decided to offer up a prayer for the Inspectors – forever thoughtful and whoever it was it clearly worked – thank you.  The RE Inspection, the same week, resulted in Grade 1s for academic results and the prayer life of the school, and I would like to thank Mrs Bowe, Mrs Lane, all those that teach RE and, indeed, all staff for everything that they do in creating and contributing to our very special St Mary’s ethos.  You know, we all know, that this is a great school but schools don’t just sail through inspections without a great deal of hard work in preparing documentary evidence.  I was therefore indebted to Miss Walker who brought her wealth of knowledge to our preparations, my p.a., Mrs Sampson, for steering me through this year (I have never been nagged so sensitively) but especial thanks to my Deputy, Mrs Raffray, who has worked so hard all year and whose brilliance and laughter are appreciated more than she knows. 

I’d like to mention one or two highlights of the year.  For me some of the most memorable evenings have been those when we have seen the girls excel at just being St Mary’s girls; events often organised by the girls themselves, such as the St Cecilia’s Day concert: a performance of an advanced flute piece followed by a little LIII playing ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ on the violin - the applause identical for both.  The debates have been outstanding and I always quote debating to prospective parents as an opportunity for girls to find their voice and to develop their confidence: when applying to our top universities, this is an aspect of education that differentiates our girls from others.  This year the Debating Society had the wonderful opportunity to visit the House of Commons and the girls were led there in a debate.  A big thank you to Mrs Norton for all that she does for debating at St Mary’s and also for the work in enabling the production of the Phoenix Poets Anthology, a collection of poems by girls at the school, which, I believe, is on sale today.

The girls have benefited from some wonderful trips: Lower III to France, Upper III to York on a Mary Ward experience, Lower IV on a Middle School Trip to France,  a Classics trip to Pompeii and the Bay of Naples, History of Art to Paris, a joint Photography/French trip to Paris, the History department’s visit to the Battlefields, not forgetting the skiing trip, and with a Chapel Choir trip to Vienna planned for October and a sports tour in the early stages of planning, these are very lucky girls.
My highlights, though, are everyday as I walk around the grounds and through school as everywhere looks, always, so immaculate and I’d like to pay tribute to Mr Peters, Mr Blake, Ray Pitmann, Debbie Martin and all the support staff for ensuring that our girls live, work and play in the most beautiful environment.  And, of course, Mr Blake and his family are very much in our thoughts today.

I do encourage you to look at the art around the school and in particular the exhibitions in the Blue Common Room, the Hall and in the art department.  It’s very easy at a Prize Giving day to focus on your own daughter but please, all of you, pop in and have a look at the wonderful work that goes on, in admittedly not hugely capacious conditions, in the art department.  Inspired by Mrs Ridgeway and her staff, the girls produce wonderful work, some of which I have started to buy for my office, and photography, under the guidance of Mr Rowland, has become an ever-present feature and is of an exceptional standard.

Music goes from strength to strength and earlier this term we saw the return of music making in the school chapel with a glorious concert of the Chapel Choir, the school orchestra and music scholars.  This will become an annual event and we are planning to use our beautiful chapel more as a concert venue.  The orchestra has come a long way this year: there are informal concerts in Campion Hall most Fridays and wonderful work is being done in junior classes.  The future of music at St Mary’s is an exciting prospect and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Miss Radford and the department for all the wonderful concerts this year – and of course the Chapel Choir, whose beautiful sound, week in week out, we must never take for granted.

Drama generally, and all the Speech and Drama, has also been a highlight this year.  The success in LAMDA exams has been outstanding and medals will be handed out later.  Our two main plays this year have left the audience staggered by the professionalism of the productions: brilliant acting, creative direction and some extremely imaginative costumes, not forgetting those yellow shoes in ‘The Visit’.  All this success is not possible without the extreme talent of Mr Sykes and Mrs Holman and my thanks also to Mrs Key and Holly Homan for their part in enabling the success of ‘Charlotte’s Web’.  Girls, your love of acting and your skills in this extra-curricular area contribute greatly to what St Mary’s is all about.
 
For a small school our sport is highly successful and this is very much due to all the coaching staff, led by Miss Boyer.  The pool, opened this time last year, is a wonderful asset and I thank my predecessor Mrs McSwiggan for initiating this excellent facility.  It is always in use and there are many opportunities after school and I would encourage more day girls to make use of these sessions.  We have already had success at County level and we were very lucky to have a GB coach to visit and take a session earlier this term.

At hockey, eight St Mary’s girls have represented the County and this has no doubt helped us to get beyond County level, as a team, into the British Regional finals. We have done extremely well in County netball tournaments and eleven of our athletes this term went through to County Championships in various track and field events.  And one of the joys for me this term has been to see so many girls representing the school at tennis, the courts full every evening with girls practising and really enjoying their sport.

We are also very proud of our Individual equestrian eventers some of whom are destined for international success and we wish them luck in future events. 

I very much believe in sport for all and we are still increasing the number of fixtures and opportunities available to the girls and to that end are employing a further coach and umpire for September.  But I am very proud of the sporting achievements of the girls and love to hear the weekly sports reports form our Games Captains at assembly.  There is so much that is possible but we can’t do everything.  I was chatting to a gymnastics coach last week and in passing I asked whether she thought that she could teach me to do the splits.  “How flexible are you?” she asked.
I said, “Well I can’t do Thursdays!”

I’m scratching at the surface of our extra-curricular life but I do not want to underestimate the importance of learning outside the classroom in developing the holistic child.  There are so many opportunities for your daughters to be engaged in clubs, societies, teams, music ensembles, not to mention the packed weekend programmes we have, primarily for the boarders, but I am delighted that more day girls are joining in our weekend activities; but this all needs coordinating and I am indebted to the work of the House Mistresses at weekends, but in particular Mrs Webb who ensures that no St Mary’s girl is ever bored.  

This is all lovely, but do the girls do any work?  We are so proud to be able again to celebrate two Oxbridge successes and since we last met here every one of last year’s leavers are either into universities, colleges or have succeeded in studying for the careers of their choice.  Our Classics Reading competition winners, our large take-up of the sciences at A Level and the introduction of Further Maths balance our artistic achievements and only yesterday I received the Key Stage 3 Maths results which are outstanding.

One of the great joys of being a teacher is seeing your pupils enabled through your own direction and the greatest joy of being a Head is to be able to praise success and our Prize Giving today is about just that: academic success, effort, improvement, strength of character, thoughtfulness and perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can offer to the young, that of discernment, the ability to make judgements, to distinguish between right and wrong, to choose the most appropriate path.

The pupils at St Mary’s are taught to discern, they leave here ready and able to make decisions, not only because of the special nature of this place but because of the guidance and dedication of our exceptional staff. I would like to pay tribute to the Heads of Department, all academic staff and all pastoral staff.  The girls are cared for, nurtured, respected and brilliantly taught by this group of people sitting just here and I would like you to join me in thanking and showing appreciation for all the St Mary’s staff.

Praise is so important and I heard a fine example of just the opposite only this week on the radio, a classic put-down:
I won’t mention any names, but a very well known celebrity, retiring, was being interviewed and it went a little like this: “So how are you intending to occupy your time, now that you’ll be stepping down?”  “Well I hope to take a little time out to finish my book.”  To which the interviewer replied: “Really - but I had no idea you were reading one.”

I turn finally now to our Upper VI leavers.  Today is about you and you would have dreamt of this day for many years.  The day when your A2 examinations are over, there are no more classes, no more registrations or assemblies and you probably will never be told again to tuck in your blouse.

But today is a day of mixed emotions.  You will have already begun to reflect on your achievements of five, seven, even possibly nine years at this school and as time goes on you will recall even more of your schooldays and we celebrate exactly those reflections today and it is fitting that, in a few moments, every one of you will come on to this stage and we will acknowledge you, your time here and collectively this year’s Upper VI.  So, a day of applause; a day of laughter; celebration; collective worship at your Mass later. This evening you will eat and drink together, you will dance, you will laugh together and you will cry together as you enjoy your last ever day all together at St Mary’s and then tomorrow, when the sun rises, you will have moved on.  Girls you are all intelligent, talented, beautiful people with your lives ahead of you.  Work hard, be dedicated and follow your dreams.  You will always be welcome at St Mary’s (especially if you have daughters).  Ladies and Gentleman, please can we show our warmest of wishes to the outgoing Upper VI.