Letter From The Headmaster - July 2018
As we reach the end of another busy school year, I would like to thank you all for your support for the College. As ever, the summer term is dominated by the public examinations; we hope and pray that all our pupils did justice to themselves and the work that they have put in over the years. After the exams finished it was so good to see the Year 11s and Upper Sixth return to the College with their parents for their thanksgiving services in the Chapel followed by the Year 11 prom at Warwick Castle and the Upper Sixth Leavers’ Ball at Coombe Abbey; both of which were lovely celebrations in truly stunning venues.
This year we have created more pupil leadership opportunities and raised the profile of pupil voice with our student and school councils and other feedback via questionnaires. We want to extend the opportunity for pupil voice further and to do this, need all pupils to be regularly accessing their school email account. For pupils with smartphones we would like the pupils to have direct and easy access to their email via the phone and therefore ask if you could encourage your child to download and install Outlook on their device at home please. Full instructions for Android and iPhones can be found here. In the event of any technical difficulties, please contact our ICT support, amraizeajaib@Princethorpe.co.uk
The year has again been packed with a range of activities, trips and expeditions. We know that residential trips make a huge impact on our students in so many areas and are often a highlight of the year. This year they have had so many opportunities: the History and Politics trip to Moscow and St Petersburg; the Holland Hockey exchange; the Year 7 trip to the Pioneer Centre; the Year 8 trip to Whitemoor Lakes; the Lower Sixth trip to Marle Hall; the Ski trip; the Spanish trip; the Dubai Football tour and the recent Year 8 trip to the World War One battlefields sites. Within the next few days we will have 16 pupils and staff undertaking the 200-mile cycling trip from Chepstow to Caernarfon, 19 pupils and staff on the retreat to Taizé and shortly we will have 77 pupils and staff depart for Costa Rica for the biennial Camps International expedition. We wish them well and hope that their experiences are rewarding, enjoyable and also open their eyes to new horizons and opportunities. We will keep them in our thoughts and prayers and thank all the staff who give their precious holiday time to benefit the pupils. Of course, the planning for next year’s trips, which include the Geography trip to Sicily and the Senior Sports Tour to South Africa, are already well under way.
It was tremendous to see that within the past few weeks 173 pupils managed to get through the various Bronze (113), Silver (40) and Gold (20) Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. There is a large team of staff involved to thank, but special thanks must go to Will Bower for his leadership of this key pillar of our co-curricular programme. Thanks too must go to Greg Hunter for all his work ensuring we offer a wide range of educational trips that go smoothly, as well as his superb organisation of Activities Week, which is always a highlight of the year.
As you will be aware, we are constantly looking to make improvements to the campus and facilities for our pupils. Last summer one of our major building projects was the complete refurbishment of the Clarkson Theatre. This super facility with high quality sound and lighting has been a real boon for the school and we have been treated to some notable productions already: Kindertransport, Arabian Nights, Loserville and the Lost Girls. Special thanks must go to our pupil theatre technical team who have mastered the hi-tech sound and lighting equipment, ably led by parent Dave Lomas and our own Pete Wilkes. The Clarkson refurbishment was a project which received major support from our Parent Teacher Association and I would like to record my thanks to all parents and staff who have given their time and energy here. They support so many of our events in a variety of ways, not least by providing hospitality, but of course they also raise large sums of money for projects and equipment to benefit the education of all our pupils.
This summer holidays our staff again will be working exceptionally hard to prepare for the new academic year. In addition to the annual programme of redecoration and refurbishment of our accommodation, there will be some major work going on to improve the College; this will include the complete refitting and facelift of our Art Corridor, as well as the creation of a new careers office and library in the Sixth Form Centre.
With the school now at its optimum size and oversubscribed, we will not grow our pupil numbers but we will continue to develop our campus. Our next major project will be the building of a completely new Science wing. Within the next few months we will be seeking planning permission for a new 10-laboratory Science building, which will accommodate our Physics, Chemistry and Biology departments under one roof in state-of-the-art-accommodation. For more details of this exciting project please see the article below titled Science At The Forefront Of Princethorpe’s Vision For The Future.
There is so much that goes on in school and I am sure you will all have your own personal highlights of the year. There are so many times when the pupils inspire us with their creativity, hard work and perseverance: the House Talent Show; Arabian Nights; the Spring Concert; the Summer GCSE and A-level Art, Photography and Design Show; seeing the inspirational work produced for da Vinci projects and The Pinnacle; the Princethorpe Oscar Awards; and of course the wide variety of sports teams and fixtures throughout the year. It’s hard to single-out individuals but it was certainly a major achievement for the girls’ U13A Hockey team to win the 7 and 11-aside county hockey titles and qualify for the nationals. The multitude of House events at all levels are also inspiring, giving each pupil the opportunity to contribute and represent their houses. The pinnacle of these events is of course the tremendous House Activity Day where every single member of the College is involved. With this year’s theme being Disney, staff and pupils had nine amazing tasks to tackle including dancing to High School Musical, drumming, singing and dancing à la Lion King, designing a new movie and shooting arrows with Robin Hood… all in all a really wonderful day. Huge thanks to all the House Activity Co-ordinators and prefects and particularly to Matt Parsons for his leadership of the House programme this year. We wish Jess Newborough well as she takes over the House Activity Leader’s role next year.
Some of the most memorable and special moments are when the whole school community comes together. This is often by giving both time and energy to some wonderful charitable causes and living out the ethos of the school by showing kindness, compassion and love for others. This has been another bumper year for projects and activities run with the sole aim of helping other people, not just by raising money but also by giving of time. We have had cake sales, ice-lolly sales, pancake races, 24 and 40 mile walks, non-uniform days, pink days, blue days, Valentine’s flowers, car boot sales, visits to the Leamington Night Shelter, lunches and social events. Some of the charities we have been involved with are local, other are national or international. Mary’s Meals, CAFOD, Breast Cancer, UNICEF, Prostate and Testicular Cancer, Father Hudson’s Society, British Heart Foundation and Warwickshire Young Carers, our House charity, have all benefited.
The money is still coming in but the total raised by the Princethorpe Community so far this year is just under £20,000 which is a tremendous achievement and it is worth noting that over the past eight years we have raised over £83,000 for Mary’s Meals. The £11,680 raised this year will feed 840 children at the Makalanga School in Malawi every day for a year. Many thanks to all staff and pupils who have been involved in these events, but a special mention must go to Mary Benham, our Chaplaincy Co-ordinator, who also co-ordinates our charity events; Rod Isaacs who leads our Youth SVP and Sixth Form community outreach programme; and our House Teams who have been championing the cause of Headway, which has so far raised £3,806.24
We have been pleased by the response from the Princethorpe community to the launch of our 50 + 10 Bursary Fund. As you will recall, we have created the Fund to provide an additional ten full bursary places for deserving pupils who would otherwise be unable to attend the College. An increasing number of families are choosing to support this Fund by making a small monthly donation and I would like to reiterate my thanks to these families whose contributions make such a difference. As a result of their generosity, we are already able to fully support one pupil though the school.
If you are in a position to do so and would like to join the growing number of our community who support the Fund in this way, please consider making a regular donation of any size; we value a gift of a few pounds, as much as a large donation. The easiest way to donate is through the Virgin Money Giving link which can be found on the College website under the ‘Support Us’ tab.
A school, of course, is only as good as its staff and we are tremendously fortunate to have such a large number of hard-working, caring and dedicated professionals; I would like to thank them again for all that they do for the pupils in so many ways. I would like to say a personal thank you to Digby Carrington-Howell who steps down as Deputy Head after nine very successful years as a key member of the Senior Leadership Team; his patience, wisdom and good humour will be sorely missed, though we are delighted to be retaining his services in the Biology department.
As always, we have a number of staff changes for the new academic year. Our longest-serving leaver is Fen Whittle who retires from the Mathematics department after 25 years of loyal service. Also in the Mathematics department, Sarah McKeever leaves to take up a post at Warwickshire College. Karen Bannister steps down from Head of Department as she moves to become part-time and we welcome Tomi Owens, currently of Jersey College for Girls, to run the department next term.
Sarah Sellars, a stalwart of the Design Technology and Textiles department for the past 16 years leaves us to move with her family to Shanghai. Miranda Porter from Malcolm Arnold Academy in Northampton joins us to fill Sarah’s shoes.
Gill Smith our Head of Science and Chemistry retires this year, having been with us for over 13 years. We have appointed Emma Cooper, from North Leamington School, as our new Head of Science and Chemistry. We also say “au revoir” to Faye Roberts, Head of Biology, as she takes a one-year sabbatical to undertake voluntary charity work in Africa. Francesca Wright joins the Science department from Trinity School and Catherine Warne becomes acting Head of Biology whilst Faye is away.
In the PE department, Debs Brookes, Head of Girls’ Games retires after over 13 years of excellent service at the College; we have appointed Jennifer Law, currently a teacher at the United World College in Singapore, to take over the running of the department in September. Louise Harrison returns to us from maternity leave and we say goodbye to Kat Berns who has been covering for Louise this year.
Lil Gane, Head of Economics and Business, has also returned from maternity leave this term and is joined by Louisa Fielding in September. Louisa is currently at Campion School, Northamptonshire and will teach both Economics and Business. We also say goodbye to Kate Limb from our History department at the end of the year.
Patrick Higgins leaves us following his temporary assignment with the English department as Nicola Borman, joins us from Akeley Wood. Loretta Jones, who has a wealth of knowledge, joins the new, but expanding, Law Department.
We also have a number of moves within the support staff: Becky Underhill moves from the Sixth Form Resource Centre to the new post of Academic Secretary supporting Michael Reddish; Marion Mitchell, takes up the job share post of Sixth Form Administrator to work alongside Amanda McKenzie; Carmel Hopkins, my PA, becomes part-time as from September when she will job share with Keren Andrews, and Claire Lloyd joins us to work together with Keren as Recruitment Co-ordinator.
As you will be aware, we have a number of teaching assistants and language assistants who have helped out in a variety of ways round the College – in the Chaplaincy, Food Technology, Games, Administration and Learning Support to name but a few. You will have seen them at parent interviews, tutor evenings and on the games fields and they play an essential role in oiling the parts of the school which many don’t see. Taylor Vaughan, Nick Bonsall and Libby Williams made a real impact and we wish them all well in the next phase of their lives. Our new Teaching Assistants for September are Upper Sixth leavers Ben Haden and Luke Tallis, along with Ford Callum, who joins us from Downlands School in Australia, where Upper Sixth leavers Alex Tubb and Emilli Thornton will be working next year.
We thank all our leavers for all they have done at Princethorpe and wish them all well in their retirement or future careers.
For the summer holidays, we will cross our fingers that England can reach the World Cup Final in Moscow and I say to all pupils “Carpe Diem” – seize the day. Enjoy a good rest and break, but don’t let the time disappear without setting yourself some tangible goals for your free time.
I hope you and your families have a safe, happy and relaxing summer holiday.
Ed Hester
Headmaster