What a terrific start to our term as we heard that our team of Conrad Challenge finalists were named Entrepreneurial Innovaters of the Conrad Challenge summit. The only award which straddles all the individual categories, it demonstrates the opportunities available and the way in which so many of our students grab them. Whether it’s the Anthea Bell translation competition or coding or Mock United Nations, our students make the opportunities for themselves too. As a girls’ only school, creating those opportunities and encouraging every student to take them is part of our DNA – there are no barriers, no school determined bar but rather the unshakeable belief that every student deserves the best possible encouragement if that is what they want to do.
Last weekend we welcomed over 90 alumnae back to Oxford High School. Despite some having left in 1965, that same sense of harnessed rebellion and sisterhood is at their hearts. Time and time again I heard ‘I was the first…’ It’s so heartening to see how the lessons and the ethos of Oxford High school pervades at the other side of life experience – how the unshakeable belief that any opportunities are just as much for them as anyone else is at the heart of their success. I met the first mechanical engineer to study at Manchester – she was the only woman on her course and it didn’t stop her from speaking up or the alumna who was so drawn to Kenya that she has started an educational charity there and lives half the time there and half the time in Europe. But the most important thing is that these women are living their best possible lives without limits. That core strand runs through everything we do here just as much as it used to and you will see it, I know, in all the activities that our students have enjoyed and reported back on in this newsletter.
Finally, I am keen to build a parent community at Oxford High School. We have always had lots of informal parental engagement but I would love to have some parental partners by my side especially as we head towards our 150th Anniversary. Would you like to be a part of a Parent Teacher Association for Oxford High? Would you be keen to find out more? If so, please email me on head@oxf.gdst.net
Otherwise I wish you a restful half term with your daughters. Whatever you have planned, or not, I hope that you find connection and joy.
Ad Lucem,
Mrs Gardiner Legge