Investing in our Future
When Sherborne Girls opened in 1899 with just 14 pupils, it may have been difficult to imagine that it would grow to become one of the UK’s leading girls’ boarding schools. Even so, just after a century since Kenelm Wingfield Digby MP and his wife Charlotte brought their vision for a girls’ school to birth in Sherborne, the institution they founded goes from strength to strength. We’ve been located at our current Bradford Road site since 1903, and the fabric of our school has grown in line with pupil numbers. We’re proud of our tradition. It’s one that’s always being formed and reformed, as the facilities of the school evolve to meet the needs of each era. But at its core is the same commitment that our forebears shared all those years ago: to provide an all-round education in which girls are given every opportunity to flourish, now and in the future.
1898:
1899:
Charlotte and Sherborne Girls opens at Kenelm Wingfield Digby Ransome House, with 14 pupils form the idea of building a girls’ school in Sherborne
1903:
1907:
Sherborne Second house, Girls moves Dun Holme, to Bradford opens Road, with Aldhelmsted West opened as its first boarding house
1911:
1915:
1926:
1928:
1930-1950:
1950:
Two further houses, Wingfield and Aylmar, open, along with new classrooms and a school hall
School site expands to 26 acres. Two boarding houses added: Thurstan and Ealhstan
The Clock Tower is built, along with laboratories and a science block
Kenelm, the seventh boarding house opens
Hilda Violet Stuart becomes headmistress. Aldhelmsted East, the eighth house opens
Diana Reader Harris becomes the school’s third headmistress
Investing in the Future: Reviewing our five-year strategic plan, and looking ahead to the final phase: a brandnew Arts Centre at the heart of our campus.
Contents
From the Headmistress
A Love of Science
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Facilities for the Future
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Vibrant Boarding Life The Next Step
The Arts Centre
Introducing the Foundation
1967:
1979:
Upper-sixth Stuart Centre boarding house, for Music and Mulliner opens Drama built, under the headship of Elizabeth Coulter
1999-2006:
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1988:
1992:
Reader Harris Art Centre opens, after June Taylor becomes headmistress in 1985
New Mulliner Geraldine Jenny Dwyer boarding house Kerton-Johnson takes over opens serves as sixth headship headmistress. She oversees the opening of Wingfield Digby boarding house
2006:
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10
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2011:
2012:
2013:
New Science and Language Centre opens, as first stage in five-year strategic plan
New Sixth Form and Careers centre is unveiled
Candlelight Bursary is launched. New beddington building and Aldhelmsted West open and Kenelm is refurbished
2015 and beyond: Plans get underway for state-of-theart Arts Centre. Sherborne Girls Foundation is inaugurated
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From the Headmistress
Our focus is providing a rigorous all-round education, in which girls are given every opportunity to flourish, now and in the future. One in which girls are stretched academically, equipped to think creatively about their place in the world, encouraged to form community, and schooled in the habits of compassion, generosity and kindness. We achieve this through a full and varied programme: academic study, of course, along with a busy co-curricular life, community engagement projects and time simply to enjoy life as a young person in the beautiful surroundings of Sherborne and Dorset. To ensure we continue providing the very best experience for our girls, we launched an ambitious five-year strategy in 2011. This involved a variety of projects, including construction of a new
boarding house and refurbishment of an existing one, significant investment in our science department and other classrooms, and the provision of new facilities for our sixth formers. With these achievements behind us, we’re now entering the fourth and final phase of our plan: construction of a brand-new Arts Centre. We’re hugely excited about this opportunity, and deeply appreciate the support of the friends who have helped set the ball rolling by making early pledges towards our challenging fundraising target. Thank you so much for your interest in Sherborne Girls. Please do get in touch if you have any comments about how we can achieve our goals and continue preparing girls for the joy, excitement and challenge of life in the 21st century. Jenny Dwyer
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The Life Scientific
If you want to engender enthusiasm for an academic discipline like science, it’s essential to provide the very best facilities. That was the rationale for the first phase of our five-year plan. This involved construction of a brand-new science building, with eight wellequipped laboratories spread over separate floors for the teaching of biology, chemistry and physics. The primary aim of this project was to enhance the teaching and learning of science and inspire a love of the discipline throughout the school. In a world where more and more women are exploring careers in science, technology and engineering, we see this as crucial to preparing our pupils for the future. Opened by leading scientist Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE in October 2011, the new Science Centre incorporates a variety of additional features designed to ignite interest and fire imagination.
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We have also refurbished our Astronomy Room, as part of the Beddington Building’s makeover in 2013. The room is dedicated to the memory of former Sherborne School science master Mervyn Ellison, whose legacy lives on through specialist equipment intended to inspire a girl to a career in astronomy or astrophysics. Our investment in science has certainly paid off, as Head Girl Flora testifies. Her love of the discipline has been nurtured at Sherborne Girls, and she’s planning to read Medicine at university. “The new science facilities really inspired me,” she says. “The space is so modern and airy in comparison to the old classrooms, with designated learning areas for lectures and experiments. “Everything feels much more professional, and the teachers seem more enthusiastic than ever,” she continues. “I’ve found it inspirational, and will always be grateful to Sherborne Girls for sowing the seeds of my future career.”
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Moving Houses
As any pupil who visits Sherborne Girls will tell you, boarding houses are at the very centre of our community’s life. They provide a much-valued home from home for our pupils, giving them a place to live and thrive in company with friends, house staff and teachers. With this in mind, we continually invest in our boarding houses, ensuring they are welcoming, comfortable and equipped to the very best standards. To achieve this with Aldhelmsted West, our boarding house for girls aged between 11 and 13, we decided it was necessary to construct a completely new building. That’s exactly what we did in 2012, and were proud to host Camila Batmangheilidj as our guest
of honour to open the new house. The building is bright and airy, with great facilities and plenty of room for girls to work and play. The same can be said of ‘new’ Kenelm, which is located in the building that used to be Aldhelmsted West. This was extensively refurbished in 2013 with roomy study bedrooms and work spaces to accommodate 69 girls. The development of new Kenelm is a key part of our plan to grow boarding numbers at Sherborne Girls. Coupled with a recent upgrade to Aldhelmsted East, including installation of a new kitchen and dining room, it ensures an extremely high standard of accommodation across our site.
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Thinking Bigger
Every development programme has totemic projects. These are the milestones by which progress is measured and achievements marked. Alongside these pivotal moments come a series of other steps forward. Our five-year plan has seen a number of these, as we seek to shape our school facilities for the future.
The good news is that we’ve reached every one of our objectives so far, ensuring our girls have the very best preparation for life in the 21st century. Here’s a brief summary of what we’ve achieved since 2011.
Upgrading classrooms We have refurbished two-thirds of our classrooms as we work towards a target of updating them all. Through this process, we’re creating inspiring teaching spaces for all of our academic departments, making best use of the latest technology to help staff deliver lessons that are engaging, formational and memorable. This project began in 2011, and is due to be completed within the next 12 months.
The Beddington Building With the new Science Centre up and running, we were able to develop the former science block into a new building for the humanities. This was completed in 2013, and includes the upgraded Astronomy Room. The ground floor of the Beddington Building will eventually be developed into a conference facility, helping us develop a stream of commercial income to fund further investment in our school.
The Tea Crate Mention the term ‘Tea Crate’ to any Sherborne Girls sixth former and they’ll respond with no small amount of enthusiasm. This is a new social space located in the basement of Mulliner, providing a place for light meals, meetings, small concerts and relaxation. Opened in 2011, the Tea Create is the ideal environment for our older girls to switch off from the pressures of A Levels and university applications.
Other enhancements Two further projects completed so far are installation of a new organ, funded by a special appeal, and upgrades to our sports facilities. These include new changing rooms in the Oxley Sports Centre, a digital scoreboard for our astroturf pitch, and floodlights for the tennis courts at Wingfield Digby boarding house.
New Sixth-Form Centre We’ve put all of our sixth-form study facilities in one place, alongside the careers department and Higher Education advice. As a result, girls have a single port of call when they want to explore their options for the future or complete homework. Even better, they now have a working environment that is bright, spacious and easily accessible.
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More than bricks and mortar Girls and staff alike have been invigorated by these developments, demonstrating how investment in buildings and equipment goes much further than simply providing a better environment in which to learn.
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We’ve come a long way over the last four years in building our school’s future. Now it’s time to take the next step. Stephen Wingfield Digby, Chairman of Governors
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The Next Chapter A creative hub at the heart of our community
Looking across the school, it is clear that the area where development will now have the most profound impact is the Arts. That’s why we have been working with architects over the last year on the design for a new Arts Centre, to be built at the heart of our campus.
The development will comprise a new Music School and an imaginative conversion of the Stuart Centre (the current home of Music) to house Drama. The centrepiece will be a 560-seat recital hall. “This will revolutionise music here,” says Director of Music John Jenkins. “The acoustics, the sight-lines, the sheer sense of theatre – it will be inspirational, and put us on the map as a venue.” The school will also gain an attractive and intimate theatre through the conversion of the Benjamin Britten Hall. Physically linked to the existing Art School, the new centre will promote greater creative synergy within the school. It will also provide stunning display space for artwork.
Beyond the obvious benefits for the Arts, our vision for the new centre is that it should serve the whole school. For instance, the recital hall will be a wonderful venue for assemblies and seminars. And we see the foyer as a new hub for the school – a place where the girls will want to meet and to collaborate. The building also has an important role to play architecturally. It will be in a prominent position and will create a natural centre to our campus. This is one of the key challenges we have given to architectural firm Tim Ronalds Partnership. The projected cost of the Arts Centre is £6.5m, and we need to raise £2.5m of that before work can get underway. We’ve already started appealing for funds among our friends and supporters. Next year, we’ll be launching a public campaign to raise money and heighten awareness of this exciting phase in our school’s life.
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The wider benefits
We believe our new Arts Centre will have a profoundly positive effect on the education of every pupil at Sherborne Girls. It will enable us to offer far more opportunities in the performing arts: a greater number of plays and concerts, as well as a wonderful environment for learning and teaching.
What’s more, the centre will provide a venue for visiting theatre companies and orchestras, giving our girls the chance to see brilliant performers at first hand and be inspired in their own creativity. The benefits of the new centre will flow beyond the arts. For instance, the recital hall will allow us to develop an extensive and ambitious programme of visiting speakers. It will also be a perfect space for social gatherings.
As a venue for match teas, the foyer will be exceptional, with the experience enhanced by the fantastic art displays. We’ll also open the centre to the community, so that our friends, neighbours and local schools can attend plays, concerts, art shows and talks. From the earliest stages of design, we’ve made it clear to the architect that this development is more than another teaching environment. We want the girls to feel ownership of the Arts Centre, so that it becomes their space, facilitating growth across the school.
15 • Artist’s impression of Arts Centre foyer
Introducing the Foundation
We have recently created a charity – The Sherborne Girls Foundation. This new body will represent all that Sherborne Girls stands for as a charitable cause. Everyone involved in Sherborne Girls agrees that development is critically important to the future of the school. We have all seen the value that innovative and well-planned projects can bring to the education of the girls. With further exciting projects ahead, the governors have created the stand-alone charity, putting helpful distance between the school’s business accounts and philanthropy. The Foundation has a longterm role to play in the school’s future and will help develop the bursaries programme, in addition to working with the school on major building projects.
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Nicholas Wordie, parent and trustee of the new Foundation, “Although the Arts Centre is the flagship project in our sights right now and will be the focus of our attention in the short term, we should be clear that the Foundation is here to stay. We will work on other developments – and not just bricks and mortar projects: we aim to grow the fund for scholarships and bursaries. We will also help the school develop partnerships with local schools and with the community.” Gill Blenkinsop (DH’62), also a Foundation trustee, said, “Many parents and Old Girls have already given, and there is enormous goodwill towards the school. We now need to build on this and create a real culture of support. The creation of the Foundation is a very important step towards this.”
Development Office Sherborne Girls | Bradford Road | Sherborne | Dorset DT9 3QN
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