From the Head Teacher

Thank you so much to all who supported the PTA Winter Fair so fabulously last Sunday. It was a great success and such a pleasure to see so many of you. My thanks go to the PTA and all parents who supported the school so admirably. The work of the students in their Houses deserves special mention too as the celebration of Christmas movies was wonderful. The imaginations of all of the participants went into over-drive with games, prizes, activities and a wonderful team of students of all ages working together in the true spirit of the House system. The House Boards were particularly beautiful this year. Choosing the winning House, amongst such superb competition, was again an horrendous task: Congratulations to Curie for their superb representation of The Nightmare Before Christmas, showing a huge range of students involved and great diversity of content. Congratulations to all the House Captains who rallied the girls of all ages!

The final profit has broken all previous records and we have breached the £5000 mark, with some final outcomes to be confirmed. All money raised will go towards the refurbishment of the Food Technology classrooms next summer. Thank you for supporting the Raffle with over £1500 taken on the day!

I was delighted and very grateful to be presented with a cheque for £20,000 from Helen Buck, PTA Chair, towards the refurbishment project.

An enormous thank you to parents who have been able to make a contribution to the school fund. The number of parent donors has fallen from an all-time high of 135 families in 2015 and has since steadily declined to our lowest point of only 90 families. This has since increased to over 100 families making a regular donation to the school fund.

The weather held and the walk to the Abbey on Friday afternoon was thankfully uneventful. Students arrived at the Abbey and took their seats in their Houses. When the first verse of Once in Royal David’s City started, sung beautifully by Hannah Fox in Year 13, silence fell amongst the congregation of over 1000 people and all gathered, fully participating in the Carol Service. This is such a joyous occasion and made more special as it marks one of the great traditions of STAGS which has been ongoing for over 40 years. My thanks go to Miss McHugh and Mr O’Neill, who organised the logistics of the service; to Mrs Buckley who coached and supported the readers; and to the Music Department of Mrs Hennelly and Mr Kulha who ensured the high quality of choral accompaniment.

My thanks also go to Mr Zarrouq and the team who led the very special celebration of Diversity at school for those  students who did not attend the Abbey. With the theme of 'Our Diversity Tree', students worked together to focus on:

· Roots - their life influences and beliefs, where they were born, parents’ origins

· Trunk - life structure (particularly aspects that are quite firm and fixed) traditions, celebrations

· Branches - relationships, connections, directions, interests, how they spend their time, family etc.

· Leaves - information, knowledge and sources

· Buds - their ideas and hopes for the future and their potential, long term ambitions

· Fruit - their achievements

· Flowers - what makes them special, their strengths

· Thorns - challenges, threats, difficulties

With all good wishes,
Margaret Chapman