Back to school for alum Olivia Holmes

Olivia Holmes (2018) recently returned to our Junior School on her very first teaching placement as part of her Bachelor of Education (Primary). Here, Olivia shares her experience of returning to Penrhos as an alum and her takeaway thoughts on all-girls education.

My very first day at Penrhos was in 2013. I can recall putting on my too-big blazer and my straw hat, lacing up my shiny, stiff new school shoes and posing for awkward photos. My Year 7 self would not have believed that, in 2021, I would be returning to Penrhos for another first day - this time not as a student, but on my very first placement as a preservice teacher.

It felt oddly like coming home as I walked through the College gates in the first week of June, three years since my graduation and I could feel a wave of nervous excitement rising as I signed in and got ready to meet my class. Having never been a Junior School girl myself, I was incredibly excited to see just what the girls get up to, and to have the chance to finally put into action all I’d learned in the last two years of university.

I was initially apprehensive when I found out I would be with Year 5s, but Mrs Ritchie and the lovely ladies of Year 5 soon put my mind at ease and made me feel so welcome. I thoroughly enjoyed learning the ins-and-outs of Year 5 life at Penrhos, with the girls as my guide - and I was so excited to tell them that I was once a Penrhos student too!

Some of the highlights of my placement included going on an excursion to the rather aptly named Winter Games, performing an impromptu speech in the Rixon Theatre (to the delight of my class), observing Art and Drama classes, and discovering just what the staff room is really like. The atmosphere was so friendly and warm. The conversations I shared in the staff room with both Junior and Secondary staff were some of the nicest parts of my days. Although it is some time since the Class of 2018 left, it still felt odd to now be colleagues - and on a first-name basis - with many of the teachers who taught me! It was so lovely to discover they still all remembered me, too!

It would be hard not to feel happy in the Junior School because the immediate, reassuring sense of community, shared achievement, growth, wonder and nurturing is so strong and evident in everything the girls do. I was continually surprised by the intelligence, kindness, determination and resilience of the students - and I found myself learning so much from the girls. One of the best take-aways for me was feeling so proud watching two students from my class in the Speaker’s Challenge competition.

It was truly a privilege to have worked in this placement; the highlight of my year so far is to have been welcomed back into the Penrhos community with such open arms and to have had such an incredible opportunity to continue my lifelong learning in the same place I started out. I will forever treasure the precious time I spent in the Junior School and I will take forward with me many lessons learned there for my future career in education. The experience only served to reaffirm my belief in the power of girls’ education and I feel very much like I have come full circle - from learner to teacher, generation to generation.

It is undeniable that many of the teachers at Penrhos are the reason I chose to pursue my career path, so to come back and engage with them once again was the most wonderful experience. I hope that in some small part I may have inspired some of the girls to potentially consider going on into education themselves, just as they have inspired me to remain committed to my pathway.