Presentation Evening
Mrs Kirkham’s speech reviewed the many highlights of the previous academic year, including some particularly impressive results form public exams, as well as looking forward to our 70th anniversary year, with visits to New York and India high on the agenda for senior girls in the months ahead.
Our guest of honour, palliative care consultant Dr Kathryn Myers, presented many girls with prizes and certificates, before the Chamber Choir sang two contrasting pieces, one by Fauré, the other an arrangement of American folk tunes.
Dr Myers went on to inspire girls, parents and staff with some of her recollections of school, university and beyond: the need for self-belief to sit alongside effort and ability, the centrality of faith, and the importance of family and friends were all themes likely to remain with her audience long after the evening’s conclusion over drinks and canapes in the Marian Hall.
Audio from the evening...
Mrs Kirkham's speech:
Dr Myers, Madame Chairman, Sisters, Reverend Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen and girls.
Presentation Evening is an occasion for celebration, it is also a time for reflection on achievement and for speculation on the challenges ahead. I am delighted to have this opportunity to report on the activities of the senior school this year.
Forgive me if before my formal review of the year, I divert attention to our recent school inspection report. Following an arduous year of preparation, I am delighted to say that its contents cheered even the most cynical amongst us who could not but delight in its findings. It is a wonderful accolade that in almost every area of school life we achieved the highest commendations of outstanding.
Hopefully, you will feel that the report merely confirmed your own expectations, but I have to admit it is gratifying to receive confirmation that our school is fulfilling its mission of helping pupils to ‘be the best that they can be’ and that ‘they are fulfilling that potential within a happy close knit community’. Pupils, teachers and parents should rightly take pride in this report which uses the adjective outstanding more than 20 times times! All areas of the senior school curriculum received commendation and it is with our core academic activity that I should like to start my formal review of the year.
I am sure you will all share my pride in this year’s external examination candidates. At A level we again celebrated 100% success with more than two thirds of all results at the top grades A or B. Results were equally strong in arts and sciences with students progressing to their chosen courses including architecture, law, Mathematics, fine art and Psychology at some of our premier universities. Nor were vocational subjects neglected with students also choosing to pursue courses in physiotherapy and computer animation. Not surprisingly our results again compared more than favourably with national averages and with all local independent and state colleges. Our lower sixth students similarly excelled in their AS level results and are very well placed to achieve outstanding results next summer. They have already begun to receive offers from their chosen universities. I should like to give special mention to Emily and Emelia who not only achieved A grades across the board at AS level but also achieved a seven 100% scores in their module results. Emily is one of a number of students from this very good year group who is awaiting the result of her Oxbridge application. We wish them all the best in their interviews.
Not to be outdone by their sixth form colleagues, our GCSE results were outstanding this year. The overall pass rate at GCSE, at grades A*-C, was more than 99%, but that only tells half the story with more than 67% of all passes at grades A* or A and 9 out of every ten passes at grades A*/A or B. The average number of GCSE passes was again over 9.8 subjects per student with every student again passing Maths and English at GCSE. The outstanding individual performance came from Katie with 10 straight A*s with 12 more girls achieving straight A*/A’s and a further large group achieving at least eight A*/A’s. Three students, Ellie, Amy and Lucy, outperformed their contemporaries nationally to receive a special commendation from the AQA Examining Board for outstanding achievement in French and English Literature. This is the third year running that candidates from our school have received such accolades. No wonder there were so many smiling faces on results day. Our current Fifth form students also got in on the act achieving very promising results in their GCSE Religious Studies and ICT Business and Communication Studies.
This love of learning is nurtured by dedicated teachers passionate about their individual subjects, who make time to answer questions, run workshops and offer extra support. This year we said goodbye to a number of teachers including Miss Freed, Miss Hart, Dr Bancroft and of course Mrs Charles who had nurtured Law so successfully here and, as a long serving member of the Senior Management Team, made an incalculable contribution to school life. Mrs Charles retired after more than 31 years service to Alton Convent School. She has been a dedicated teacher, loyal colleague and great friend to countless pupils, teachers and parents. As many who departed before her, Mrs Charles is finding we do not relinquish our own lightly. She continues to direct some of her considerable energy and wise counsel to school initiatives. Change is never a one way process, this year we are delighted to welcome Miss Challis, Miss Binns, Miss Hobday and Mr Heath as new teachers who have brought to our expanding school exciting ideas and youthful energy.
The increasing numbers of teaching staff are not the only evidence of the continuing vitality of the school. Accommodation is currently rather tight as we attempt to squeeze our record pupil numbers into a building already bursting at the seams. A new Sixth form seminar room has helped a bit and fortunately the weather has been kind to us so far this year. I have been impressed by the tolerance and consideration shown by everyone in coping with our temporary difficulties. We haven’t got too long to wait now. Last spring saw a major turning point in the history of our school with the cut of earth made by Katie and Sister Elizabeth to mark the foundation of our new Creative and Performing Arts Centre. The new building will accommodate fully equipped art studios and exhibition space, a multi media centre and photography suite with editing facilities, a large drama studio equipped with a gallery for technical services, new staging, lighting and sound systems and stores for scenery and costumes as well as linked music rooms to provide rehearsal space, practice rooms and a music technology suite. Progress has been frustratingly slow but we are now on track to open in spring of next year. It is a really exciting project for us and it is fitting that such a major new project with 660 square metres, that’s over 7000 square feet, of accommodation is to be completed in our special 70th anniversary year marking the establishment of the school in 1938.
Many celebrations are planned to commemorate this event including a new style magazine, whole school sponsored walk and a grand opening event for our arts centre. However, if anything could rival our excitement at a new building next year, then I believe it is likely to be our planned Sixth Form expedition to India. Last June, Sisters of Our Lady of Providence from all over India visited our school. Led by Sister Meera, the provincial in charge of India, and herself an old girl of Alton Convent, they swept into our school in their beautiful saris and stunning smiles and brought our world wide community into the classroom with a warmth and vivacity that charmed us all. Now it is our turn to give something back to this special community. We are planning to provide safe opportunities for our students to work alongside sisters in outreach work in Veranasi as well as giving them an opportunity to visit some of the great historical sites of such a culturally rich country. How exciting!!
Residential programmes are an important feature of every year group’s enrichment programme. Visits to Beam House, Normandy, the Belgian Battlefields, the Eden Project and Stratford upon Avon are now established as annual traditions. Add to these the German exchange, ski trip, netball tour to Holland and various geography and biology field trips and the many weekends given to Duke of Edinburgh expeditions, and it becomes obvious that students are making the most of opportunities to extend their horizons. The Sixth form too is not forgotten with visits to Wales for a leadership course, Paris, Lourdes, Bath and Amsterdam and, this February for the first time, a week long visit to New York to participate in a United Nations conference for young people on the role of the United Nations in peace and security and the way major issues of poverty, literacy and health care can be tackled. I am assured there will also be time for sight seeing and even a little shopping which, with the current exchange rate for the dollar, could prove very profitable.
A glance at our school newsletter, issued 3 times a year, provides evidence of many other non residential trips, as does our revitalised web site which has benefited so much from the expertise and inspiration of Mr Berry, the head of our prep department. Whatever the year group, students experience a wide range of enrichment activities from Covent Garden to Hengistbury Head. Sometimes we hardly move out of our own back yard, as with the fifth form visit to Chawton Manor where they learnt how to dance regency style whilst exploring the role of middle class women at the time of Jane Austen. The ‘cat walk’ show is also an evergreen event combining environmental imperatives with creativity and never fails to charm, whilst without doubt my personal favourites this year were a memorable visit to an art installation in the turbine hall at Tate Modern and the magnificent Slavery exhibition at the Commonwealth museum in Bristol. (By the way its still on and well worth a visit). I am also, already, anticipating with relish a visit to the Brandenberg gate and Jewish museum, as part of our biennial cultural visit to Berlin, Dresden and Prague at the end of June. Every single one of these visits is carefully planned to enrich, engage and reinforce the students in their own learning. Exposure to great beauty and ideas is never a waste of time and provides an ideal opportunity for growth.
Individual students continue to participate in exhibitions, festivals and a number of competitions. Some are recorded in the programme and I would only draw your notice here to Imogen’s success in being selected for the National Youth Theatre, Allison for her British Council Fellowship to study the education of autistic children in Paris and Emily of the Lower Sixth who achieved national recognition in the Imperial College Science Challenge.
The Duke of Edinburgh Award Programme also promotes individual achievement, building self confidence, leadership and teambuilding skills. Last year over 50 students engaged in this award at various levels with a large number of bronze and silver awards achieved and a few now tackling the gold.
Sport too continues to excite the girls with 32 teams in total engaged in more than 150 fixtures in Netball, Hockey, Rounders, Cross country, Volleyball, Swimming, Athletics and Tennis with victories in more than 70% of all fixtures. In particular I should like to congratulate last year’s U12 rounders team who won all their matches and the U14 netball team who remain dominant as a team. Members of the U12B netball team won the Aldershot and District tournament should also be commended as should the athletics squad who remained undefeated last summer but often had to battle against the weather, to which incidentally our own school sports day fell victim. They had their best ever meet at the ISA regional finals held at the magnificent Eton track and several students went on to the national finals including Francesca who won 3 events to become the Yr 7 ISA national champion. This followed on from her cross country bronze in the national championships where the school squad also performed with credit. In swimming too Francesca, Nichola and Abigail qualified for the ISA national finals. Abby in particular has much to celebrate this year as she has received lottery funding through her involvement with the national swimming squad. Almost every weekend I hear news of individual equestrian or sporting success at local, county or regional level. I know how much commitment this requires from the girls and parents and although time does not allow me to mention you all individually we take pride in all your achievements.
Sport is not all about competition, the girls participate in countless extra curricular clubs which range from self defence to badminton. For the not so energetic there are crafts, jewellery making, knitting, chess and for the keen debaters, the Blue Sky Group with its focus on exploring fresh, challenging ideas, through discussion, performance and listening. Apparently a dramatised reading by Aoife Mannix an Irish poet and Heather Taylor, a Canadian playwright provided one of the best after school activities ever!
Like sport the Inter-house Drama Day provided scope for more competition, this year with its theme of ‘Thinking Outside the box’. Four plays were devised, rehearsed and produced on one day with a clear winner this year, St Madeleine with their Toy Box Murder Mystery. The whole school production of Midsummer Nights Dream was a similar triumph. We are grateful to Mrs Dilloway, her production team and especially Mrs Titchmarsh for her choreography. We look forward to this year’s Anything Goes at the end of the month. I should also like to commend our Year 8 and 9 girls who acted in More House School’s production of Bugsy Malone and in their Farnham Shakespeare Schools’ festival-production of the Merchant of Venice
Music too continues to thrive and expand, with a memorable candle lit Carol Service proving as popular and serene event as ever in the pre Christmas rush. In fact so popular has it become that we have had to bow to pressure and run 2 services on concurrent nights this Christmas. A number of smaller recitals have taken place throughout the year including a young instrumentalists concert and a recital by music scholars as well as Jazz in the park and a delightful formal concert, showcasing our choirs, orchestra and soloists, played to a full house in the spring term. A fitting finale to the year for all the creative arts came in the Summer Festival of Arts. This year hundreds of parents and visitors were impressed to see an eclectic and impressive display of painting, sculpture, dance and musical performances. The evening provided a stunning example of the girls’ considerable creative talent.
The PTFA led by Mrs Mansell had a highly successful fundraising year with events including a memorable quiz night, the Christmas bazaar, the best Summer Fete ever, and a staggeringly successful Narnia Ball complete with magic forest which alone raised more than £15000 and brought the annual total to £29,561. This allowed the PTFA to purchase our fabulous new state-of-the-art mini bus. Thank you Sheila and all your tireless committee members.
Charitable events also capture the imagination of our students. Last year we raised over £17,000 for charity with sizeable donations to a number of local and national organisations including Children in Need, the Poppy fund, Jeans for Genes, Comic relief, the Good Shepherd Appeal, YMCA care for the Homeless at Christmas and HCPT. Particularly memorable were the girls efforts to raise funds for Cafod good gifts at Christmas, outdoing previous years by raising over two thousand pounds worth of goats, seed packs, cows, bicycles etc.
Kindness and generosity are intrinsic values in any Christian community. Our faith is expressed through regular worship in assemblies, class liturgies and at school masses and retreats with the continuing support of Canon Whale, Fr Buckley, Father McGreevy and
Fr McGuinness. Our ‘away day’ retreats held annually for each year group at St Lucy’s Convent, Medstead continue to be memorable events. We are grateful to the Sisters of St Lucy’s, Mrs Chambers and Mrs Bell for their continued help with leading the retreats.
Samantha and Sadie, our School President and Vice President also proved to be delightful leaders and role models for our younger pupils. Our recently appointed President, Sophie will I know follow in this fine tradition along with the two Vice Presidents Sarah and Megan. I am confident they and our band of senior prefects and school officers have all the right qualities to succeed and combined with our School Council will do much to enrich the day to day experiences of our pupils. I am always impressed by our students willingness to embrace change. Only last week they were relentless in supporting our Environment Day with its minimal use of heating, light and modern technology. They take the lead in recycling and don’t allow us to shy away from difficult problems of modern life.
This was also evident in February when our students hosted a third annual Inter School Sixth Form Conference, this year on euthanasia. More than 120 students attended from local Catholic schools. Excellent outside speakers including the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton and our eminent speaker tonight, Dr Kathryn Myers stimulated animated discussion on this difficult moral debate. It was an enormously invigorating day and a privilege to observe the passion of youthful argument.
Such events are a feature of our senior girls’ experience and enjoyed by all. The joint pilgrimage to Lourdes with boys from the Salesian College continues to be central to our sixth form experience. It represents the greatest personal challenge for our Sixth Formers as well as being a wonderful opportunity for fellowship and fun. In a couple of weeks time our young men and women will again share in a joint retreat to Kintbury in Hungerford. Our links with a number of schools including the Salesian College, and More House School have broadened the horizons of our young people and provide opportunities for debate, joint theatrical workshops and productions and joint retreats as well as a variety of social events including our highly successful Christmas ball and Sixth Form Prom at Frensham Ponds Hotel. I should like to thank Mr Wilson, Mr Huggett and heads of many primary, prep and senior schools who are increasingly collaborating with us on events throughout the year.
The Sixth form is the jewel in the crown of Alton Convent School. I am delighted that an increasing number of our GCSE students are showing interest and strength of character in staying on for the challenge of A levels here in our unique sixth form centre. It was a pleasure to share a taster day with over 40 prospective lower sixth students last week. In addition to academic excellence and genuinely personal tutoring all our girls enjoy a broad and varied experience which sets challenge and self discovery at its heart and which secures far greater long term gains than they achieve elsewhere. As one local independent girls’ school headmistress recently said….and I am paraphrasing here….. “If you give me your daughter till the end of the fifth form I will give you an ‘uncut gem’ if she stays until the end of the sixth form I will give you a ‘polished diamond’ of the first water.”
Leadership in school takes many guises. I know absolutely that without the teachers, Senior Management Team and administrative staff very little would be achieved here. I should like to thank all of them and the Trustees and Governors for their contribution to the smooth running and welfare of the school. Their work is unglamourous and largely unrecognised yet without them the school would be much diminished. Thank you too to the Sisters who continue to work so hard to promote the welfare and long term security of our community.
Returning to my opening comments. I believe the Independent Schools Inspection Service rightly identified our school as outstanding in many respects. Recruitment to the school is very buoyant, the school is larger than it has ever been but its expansion has been carefully managed to ensure we maintain the excellent quality of experience for our pupils. Our ongoing building development programme will increasingly allow us to enhance further, the already excellent curriculum provision for our students and yet, whilst these indices of success are incredibly important I would argue that at the core of this excellence lies a clarity of aim and vision among staff, parents and students who together develop confident, articulate, resourceful and delightful young women who are equipped to take on their own futures, armed with academic success, but also with integrity and enthusiasm for their wider societal responsibilities and with a cultural awareness which will afford them lifelong interest and pleasure. These are the indicators by which I measure the success of our school and I am delighted to accord all of you a certificate for taking risks and not settling for second best. At this time of expansion and innovation it is our commitment to continue to put faith, ethical behaviour and morality at the core of our school. We are determined not to allow ourselves to compromise our values, which might in any way threaten our integrity within the fellowship of the wider catholic school community. I personally am excited by our future and am energised by the knowledge that, this future will be forged alongside a very special body of students, teachers, support staff and parents who continued this last year to make Alton Convent School a beacon of excellence and a very special place to be .
Thank you ladies and gentlemen.
