News & Events

Outstanding Achievement at A Level

We want to congratulate our students on their impressive performance at A Level. The A* was introduced at A Level this year for the first time. Five girls achieved 2 A*s amongst their results and 23% of all results were an A* grade. The A* grades were achieved across a range of subjects including Art and Design where all candidates achieved an A*, a number of girls achieved them in Drama, English Literature, History of Art, History, Photography and Religious Studies. One student gained 3 A* grades and an additional A grade in her Lower Sixth and has now secured her place to read English at Homerton College Cambridge. Overall the performance at A* and A grade has significantly increased from previous years to 56%. In line with these results our A*-C performance has also increased to 89% this year.

Please click here for the results summary with graphs.
 

Confirmation 2010

Have you ever tried to fit a quart into a pint pot?  Well that is what we had to do this year when it came to fitting the confirmation candidates and their families into Chapel, at this year’s confirmation service.

With 25 Girls being confirmed and over 230 guests it was certainly a squeeze.  However, it proved to be a most enjoyable and happy occasion.  The Bishop of Reading, Bishop Stephen Cottrell, presided over the proceedings and as usual gave us much to think about.  I know I speak for us all when I wish those who were confirmed all the very best, and I look forward to watching them grow in their faith.

Roll on next year; at this rate the next building project may have to be an extension to the Chapel!

Fr Martin Robbins
Chaplain

Third Form Trip to Barcelona

The ever popular III form trip to Barcelona again took place this year with the aims of gaining an understanding of the Spanish culture and collating data for a geography project. Art and photographic skills are also brought into play with the girls recording their observations and later producing a CD and display in school.

Choral Evensong

Gloucester Cathedral provided a magnificent venue for the choir to show their talent in May. They performed George Dyson Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis amongst other beautiful pieces and both sounded and looked stunning.

Drama and Music

Our acclaimed St Mary’s Theatre again provided a perfect setting for another successful evening of music and LAMDA drama on 21st May. Parents, girls and staff were treated to an evening of outstanding talent which earlier in the month had earned students a number of higher awards – 6 Silver Medals (Grade 7) and 5 Gold Medals (Grade 8). When you add this to the fantastic GCSE and A2 drama pieces performed this term I am sure that you will agree that all our girls are immensely talented and a credit to themselves and Heathfield.

Trip to Cheddar Gorge

Studying rock formations, Limestone features and completing an assessment of tourism were all part of a combined Geography and Science trip to Cheddar Gorge which took place on May 6th. As always the girls took part with enthusiasm and got a tremendous amount out of their experiences both academically and socially.

European Youth Parliament

OnThursday 4th February eight rather anxious students left Heathfield at 7am to travel to St Hugh’s College Oxford to compete in the EuropeanYouth Parliament debate. The girls had prepared their speech proposing that: ‘Weathering the current economic climate: Europe should turn around failing industries to create green jobs’.

The team participated in a total of six different debates includingThe UK’s role in the EU, Nuclear Disarmament, the Future of Afghanistan, Human Rights, and Post-recession Europe. The exchange of ideas was animated and at times heated and the team performed well, showing good insight and preparation of the topics.

Our thanks must go to the support team who helped research the topics and prepare the notes.

Mrs S Ingram
Head of Sixth Form

Launch of the New Website

At the beginning of 2009 it became apparent that the then current post-merger website was looking tired and unloved. Comments at the time were that it had too ‘corporate’ a look and that information was hard to find. We took on the services of Buffalo Design to create a new website for Heathfield School, to represent us in the 21st century and provide more information, more easily found, a revamped parental section with updates to sports fixtures and a ‘Girl Talk’ section to appeal directly to prospective pupils. We wanted to wow current and prospective parents equally and give the School a web presence that everyone would be proud of.

Another technical issue was the continued use of the ‘heathfieldstmarys.net’ domain, clearly now inappropriate for Heathfield School. It was time to move back to ‘heathfieldschool.net’ as our primary domain and ensure that the school was more easily found by Google, Bing and other search engines. This entailed informing a whole host of other websites to update their links at the same time.

The new website was formally launched in February 2010. Feedback received has been extremely positive, with one pupil writing “This is such an amazing website!” and a parent commenting “May I congratulate you and your team for a super new website. It looks great!” Statistics show that the website is creeping up the search engine rankings and that we are getting more hits than ever before: over 85,000 hits for 12 days in February. One person searched for “reasonable boarding schools for girls in uk” and found us. So now you know!

Mr M Taylor
Director of IT

Opening of the St Mary’s Theatre

Friday 11th December saw the official opening of the new St Mary’s Theatre. The evening commenced with a traditional Heathfield Carol Service held in the Chapel where the congregation was treated to an enchanting display of choral and orchestral pieces arranged by our new Director of Music Mrs Julie Dance.

After an interval for refreshments the audience moved to the St Mary’s Theatre where Mrs Heywood opened the proceedings before handing over to Mr Jonathan Davie representing the Chairman, Mr Tom Cross Brown, and the School governing Council. Mr Davie took the opportunity to thank all who had contributed to the building of such a magnificent new addition to the school’s facilities, in particular the community of St Mary’s School Wantage in memory and celebration of which the theatre had been named. Mr Davie then introduced the guest of honour, the Reverend Mother Winsome from the Community of St Mary the Virgin, Wantage whose order had founded St Mary’s School. After a warm and welcoming speech where she praised the memory of St Mary’s and offered heartfelt good wishes for the future of the St Mary’s Theatre and Heathfield School, the Reverend Mother unveiled a plaque commemorating the occasion.

There then followed a dazzling display of the talents of Heathfield girls showcasing musical, dance and dramatic excellence as well as an entrancing fashion show, "Creative Catwalk". From ballet to modern dance, Dangerous Corner by J.B. Priestley to Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell; Annie and The Wiz, the full spectrum of the performing arts was on display with the girls, as always, rising to every challenge put before them and far exceeding anyone’s expectations in terms of both dedication and sheer acting ability.

Heathfield Show Jumping

In a recent regional qualifying round for the National Interschool’s Show Jumping competition, Heathfield came 4th in the Class 4 category, narrowly missing out on the national finals. This represents a very creditable display of skill in all the categories and we are all very proud of the girls who participated.

Lacrosse

This term Heathfield has had four girls represent the county at U15B county level. We also have one girl who is in the National Centex squad and one in the regional academy. Well done to all those who have been selected.

Staff News

Congratulations to Mr Chris Jordan who has just been awarded his PhD in Greek Gospel Manuscripts from the Byzantine Period, teaching RS and Latin, and we welcome Mrs Joanna Meeson who will be teaching History of Art and Mrs Jess Dawson who will be teaching Economics and Business Studies.

Choir of the Year Competition

The Heathfield St Mary's School choir reached the area selection of the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year competition which took place in Basingstoke on March 2nd 2008. The Choir of the Year competition, launched in 1984, is the UK's largest singing competition. To qualify, the school sent in a CD recording of selected pieces.

This was a busy term for the choir with Choral Evensongs taking place in Salisbury and Winchester Cathedrals as well as the tour to Prague. In addition to these, the girls were invited to perform in the 'Music for Youth' regional Festival, held in Newbury on February 23rd.