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Open Day 2011
I ask the girls to introduce me as Head because I know that ultimately you are looking at our girls and deciding whether or not you want your daughter to grow up & be like them. I hope you agree that each girl is distinguished by her individuality but that each also bears the RMS stamp! This was the idea behind our stamp ads- that we are a school that values girls as individuals with a range of talents that they are free to pursue here, but that each is first class in her own way, that each girl is aspirational & aiming to do her level best in all that she attempts. And our girls are recognised for their exceptional qualities by leading universities. A former pupil who applied for a scholarship at Durham was given the following feedback by her tutor who said that he had come over the years to recognise Eton boys by their confidence and excellent interpersonal skills and he now had enough experience of RMS girls to recognise the same winning qualities.
A school is “four walls around the future” and at RMS we take our role very seriously in educating our girls to take their place in the world. We aim to produce confident, committed and courteous young women equipped with the social and emotional intelligence required to enable them to put their excellent qualifications to good use in their professional lives and to balance this with fulfilling relationships. Girls joining Year 7 in 2011 will enter the job market in 2022 and retire in 2074 at least. We can only prepare pupils for a world we don’t yet know, for jobs which do not yet exist, using technologies not yet invented, solving problems we can’t begin to imagine, by giving them the transferable thinking and interpersonal skills that extend beyond paper qualifications.
I am going to try to answer the key questions that you as prospective parents will be asking yourselves & asking of us.
Firstly, why pay? We are surrounded by outstanding maintained schools, why take the independent route. I would argue that if you have the means, it’s a no-brainer. I spent 13 years teaching in Bucks grammar schools and they are great schools, but girls don’t benefit from the individual attention that they will get here. Girls only get into teams & orchestras if they are county players – whereas here we foster excellence and sport & music for all. We get transfer every year from local grammar schools because girls have come to feel marginalised, disregarded as individuals and driven through their education rather than guided and nurtured. You may think that I am talking about transfer from those struggling at the bottom, but many of the transfers are very able indeed, going on from here to Oxbridge because of the stability and commitment of the teaching staff and the self-belief that they have rediscovered in a calmer and more supportive environment.
We are also surrounded by outstanding independent schools, so why choose RMS? - because we have a unique vision for the education of young women, which includes the option to board flexibly, weekly or full time. We are proud to be different; RMS is not a hot-house, it is a school which values social and emotional intelligence as highly as academic intelligence – and at the end of the day, as adults we know that what enables us to make a success of our lives bears no relation to the paper qualifications we achieved at school. We appreciate that human beings are happy, balanced and successful because they know how to relate to others in a meaningful way, however different those others may be. ON results day one of the greatest joys is seeing the pleasure the most able take in the results of those who have struggled to overcome dyslexia to achieve grades beyond their wildest dreams. We also know from universities that our girls go onto achieve very highly when they leave because of the skills that we have instilled in them & that is why RMS girls get excellent offers. This year 89% of girls got into their first choice uni.
So what about our results? WE are the only school in the area with a truly comprehensive sixth form – all our competitors, maintained and independent have weeded out pupils to create a selective A Level cohort. What kind of commitment does a school show to pupils whom it has educated for 6 years only to throw them out after Year 12 if they get results at AS level which threaten the school’s league table position. WE in contrast guarantee all our own girls right of transfer both to the Senior Department and to the Sixth Form and we go out of our way to accept most siblings. The girls placed with us by our parent charity are here for social reasons and are not selected academically. We are very proud that almost 20% of all A Level grades this year were A* and almost 60% of all A Levels were graded A* - A better than any local grammar school, with an A*-B rate of almost 86%. These results put us on the 99th per centile for Value Added nationally – the teaching at this school makes an exceptional difference to the achievement of all girls. We have high expectations for the education of young women, and we work hard to ensure that all girls have high expectations of themselves. A testament to this is the fact that we keep all our ablest pupils, from Year 6 to Year 7 and from Year 11 to Year 12 because we successfully challenge them.
Next question – my daughter is very able – why should I consider RMS?
This school is not a soft option academically – it may have been years ago, but it isn’t now. It is a vibrant, creative go-ahead institution with outstanding teaching & learning where able girls get exactly the same results that they would have gained in a powerhouse, but without being stressed out along the way. Able girls choose this school because they thrive on breadth & nurture rather than competitiveness & pressure or because they have great talent for sport or the performing or creative arts & they want those talents to be given due weight by their school The girls who have spoken to you this morning have shown that they are very academic but they have not had to give up their extra curricular activities in pursuit of their target grades – they get the grades and keep up their acting and their sport and have a social life and maintain their sanity.
OK, so I have two daughters, one is very bright and the other is far less academic – how do I know that they will both thrive? We go out of our way to accept most siblings. We won’t take one sister because she will accrue good results for us and reject the other because she isn’t good enough. As parents I am sure that many of us are surprised by our capacity to produce children who are deeply dissimilar and we are one of the very few schools that can cater for this. RMS is not an examination factory - we aim to assess each child accurately, to gauge her true potential and then to support and challenge her to fulfil it. Our commitment is to each child as an individual, regardless of the results that child will accrue for the school. We have excellent SEN support & a strong Gifted & Talented programme. Our broad curriculum means that everyone finds something to be very good at, & once a girl has found that, she will fly in all areas of endeavour because she will have found self belief.
And, finally, why should I as a parent trust you, Mrs Rose, as Head, with my daughter’s education. After 10 years in the job, I would like to think that I know what I am doing! My vision of Headship is one with girls at the heart. I know almost every girl’s name; I came into headship because I am committed to developing the potential of young people not because I wanted to be a remote chief executive or because I am on a power trip. Approachability with parents, girls and staff is crucial to me and I believe that this gives parents confidence. My standards are high; I am supported by outstanding colleagues at all levels and we all work as a team to ensure that expectations are realised. The girls know where they stand and they know there will be consequences if they cross the lines of acceptable behaviour and we make no apology for establishing clear boundaries in a shifting world beyond school where anything goes.
I have asked & hopefully answered questions for parents – but what about the girls in the audience, the most important people in the room? How does it feel to be an RMS girl? The only thing that we will ask of you is that you always do your own personal best. We won’t compare you with your neighbour, you won’t ever be made to feel second rate. You will all feel good about yourselves here, gain the confidence to fly high and if you already fly high academically, you will continue to do so and be able to sing, act, dance, draw and play loads of sport or music. Above all, you will enjoy being at school - this is a very calm place with loads of space to be civilised, where everyone has time for everyone else.
The best thing about the school, girls, apart from the food, is that you can’t be tutored for our entrance test – there aren’t any past papers that you have to wade through. You just come on the day and do the tests on computer, and everyone is in the same position, regardless of the kind of school you come from. The tests will show us your potential & you will also have fun on the entry test day.
So, girls. how will you know which school to choose?, YOU will know, because, you will feel it – you may not know why, but your gut feeling will be right. Don’t be swayed by your friends. Keep your antennae sharp, visit each school more than once, see it on Open Day and on a normal day, check out the website, think about how you are treated on the entry test day and whether you are made to feel really welcome, and then ask yourself, . Do I feel comfortable in the school, does it feel right when I walk in – and if it does, then that is the one for you. Do the girls look happy? How do they talk to their teachers & how do the teachers talk to them? Are they at ease with each other?
I hope that I have given you a flavour of life at RMS. This is an interesting school with vitality and values. I hope that many of you will want to be part of the RMS experience. This school is at an exciting crossroads. We are thrilled with our new Pre-School, Ruspini House, and are deeply proud of our new Pre Prep & Prep Dept, Cadogan House and a new Sixth Form Centre opens in September 2012. Thus RMS pupils of all ages will be superbly accommodated. The School is growing in response to increased demand for the unique education that we offer.
As I said earlier, we are surrounded by outstanding maintained & independent schools which are highly selective. If your daughter receives an offer from one of these schools, but deep down you know that she would be happier in a more nurturing environment, don’t give in to the temptation of hubris on the dinner party circuit & ignore the niggling doubt that your daughter might actually do better without the pressure of a highly competitive environment which feeds on girls’ infinite capacity to do themselves down & undermine their own self confidence. Choose the option where your daughter can enjoy her education AND achieve all that is within her potential & more because at RMS we appreciate that academic achievement and individual care are not mutually exclusive.
Please feel free to come up and ask questions at the end.
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