Head's blog - October 2023

I can’t believe we have reached the end of the first half term already; what an incredible start to the academic year it has been.

We had another very successful Open Morning, School in Action and Step up to Sixth Form Evening to kick off the year and our key Admissions period. It was wonderful to see the whole community come together to represent the school and the atmosphere was very much abuzz - aided by the varied and lively Music performances that were on display. It always makes me feel so incredibly proud of our students, staff and school and you can tell that we all so enjoy showcasing our school to existing and prospective families. We have had lots of glowing feedback.

The new school year has involved the bedding in of lots of new programmes and events, such as our prestigious Girl EmPowered Scholarship Programme, our invaluable Enrichment Programme and more widely our day-to-day activities around building our Diversity & Inclusion programme of school events. You will hear more on this later in the term, but as part of our Diversity & Inclusion this month, we have had a calendar full of activities to celebrate events such as Black History Month and a brilliant Dyslexia Awareness Week, which showcased Designers with Dyslexia.

We have had an exciting Magic of Autumn Hive workshop at Junior School, an inspirational Circus of Life resilience skills workshop at Senior School, and some brilliantly motivational speakers at our Wollstonecraft Speaker Series for our Sixth Formers, which all serve to constantly develop our students’ key skills for the future. Not to mention the various GDST and inter-school maths and languages competitions that our students have taken part in.

Listening to our Year 9 candidates speak during their interviews for the King’s Classics Scholarship gave me a renewed interest in studying Ancient Greek culture and their passion shone, seeing their eyes light up as they spoke of what they had learned from their Classics studies – our students are the true, very real definition of inspiration. A huge well done to all our students for their hard work and brilliant engagement with all our activities, competitions and events. 

With all that is going on in the world today, I am incredibly grateful for our special community and the joy it brings each day. I started my day today at the Junior School watching 2B’s delightful and confident assembly about the ocean; while earlier in the week at our Step Up to Sixth Form Evening and corresponding Year 11 meetings, I listened proudly to our students and their aspirations for the future. We are very lucky to see how our girls can grow and flourish over the years in this great community.

So, time now for a well-deserved break. I would like to wish you all a wonderful half term holiday and we look forward to seeing all our students return refreshed and raring to go! 

Best wishes, 

Natalie Argile  
Head