It’s that time of year again – when we shake the last of the summer petals from our hair and prepare to snuggle up for the long, chill nights of winter. It is also the time when we prepare for our annual OHS Open Evenings.
As ever, we started this year with the Sixth Form Open Evening. This event, which is open to current students in Year 11 as well as external candidates, provides a comprehensive overview of life and study in the Sixth Form. On the night, each subject had a room to itself, with each room looking appropriately resplendent as darkness fell over the school. There were beautiful displays in Art and Textiles, a buzz of interested chatter in the STEM rooms, a babble of modern and ancient languages in our MFL and Classics rooms, bold dramatic forays in the Miriam Margolyes Drama Studio and a rich trove of Humanities learning being dispensed by our resident Sixth Form experts and their teachers.
This year’s Sixth Form Open Evening was also special in that we welcomed Dr Stringer, who gave a fascinating address explaining how the OHS Sixth Form’s women-only pathway gives our girls the purpose and the purchase to take on a world of radical change on their own terms. Latterly, after addresses by Mr Nicholl and Miss Pallas Brown that further bore out this message of purpose and purchase, we welcomed a recent leaver, Kate Dorkins, and our current Deputy Head Girl and Charities Rep, Claudia Preston.
Both girls spoke movingly about their experiences at OHS. Kate talked about how her confidence as a historian and resulting place to read the subject at Oxford derives to a great extent from the support and faith invested in her by her Sixth Form teachers. Claudia, meanwhile, shared a very moving account of how she has transformed from a shy new arrival in Year 8 to a young woman who is realising her vision not only academically but also ideologically, as she expresses herself on issues such as the climate, migration and women’s rights.
