As we draw to the end of another exceptionally busy but unseasonably cold Spring Term, I would like to make you aware of some of our recent achievements, staff changes for next term and updates on developments and plans for September 2018.

There have been many individual academic successes to celebrate. Ten members of our creative writing club are to have their work published in anthologies, and last Saturday, three of our Physics students attended the final of the Talent 2030 Women’s Engineering Competition at the NEC in Birmingham.

It has been a particularly busy term for co-curricular activities. In the last fortnight alone, we became a regional hub for Cricket For Girls, an initiative launched on Sky Sports News by England legends Lydia Greenway and Heather Knight; over 70 dancers performed in a spectacular showcase; while six of our finest debaters competed for the coveted John Fry Public Speaking trophy, judged by TV Producer Juliet Bacon.

Further afield, Business and Computing Students have travelled to Euro Disney for a series of conferences, and our Sixth Form French students visited Paris for a packed weekend of culture and immersion in the language. Over the Easter holidays, a group of students is returning to Botswana, where we have strong community links with the Maru-a-Pula school, while our Tennis players head to Rome for an intensive training camp.

So far this academic year we have seen the opening of our newly designed and refurbished Bellman Sixth Form Centre as well as our new Library. Meanwhile the new Queenswood Hall is well underway: a first class multi-purpose indoor sporting facility on the footprint of the existing Palaestra. The snow has caused a little bit of a delay in recent weeks but I have been advised that we are looking to a late October completion date. 

The complete refurbishment and modernisation of the Middle School Boarding House is also much underway. Year 11 girls have recently moved into some beautiful new bedrooms and work continues through the rest of the House with completion due in September.