From the Headmaster

Robin Silk

I write on the back of a memorable weekend and especially the Saturday evening with Stuart Lancaster as our guest of honour, and our first social occasion of such a magnitude since the re-founding of the school. I do, in the same breath, apologise for the standard of opposition put out against the OSB cricket team, although I will remind the OSBs that a scratch school pupil/RNLI side did have the OSBs at 6 for 4 at one point. In fact, it was a very England-esque performance of modern ‘Bazball’ vintage from the OSB middle order as they streaked away into the broad sunlit uplands before skittling the school team for not very many. More poignantly, it was wonderful to have so many OSBs back at the school after so many years, and that included three OSBs of 90+, the eldest of whom, at the age of 94, danced into the early hours of the morning. A highly entertaining and thoughtful address from Stuart Lancaster and great live music capped a thoroughly enjoyable night. Thanks are owed to many for organising the event, but most of all to our Head of Admissions and Marketing, Ceara Fisher, and the OSB Society Secretary, Pam Rumney.

This was one of the events forming the end of a very successful end of year for St Bees School, with the school ending on seventy-two students, with forty-two boarders and thirty day students. Next year we will be passing a hundred students for the first time since reopening, with about fifty-five boarders and forty-five day students, including over thirty students in the Sixth Form. These are exciting times for the school and it is a testament to the team on the ground and our support from Full Circle in China, alongside the St Bees School Trust here, that we are growing once more. On a note of China, our two schools and one international section of a third school continue to grow and we look forward to the day when China opens up fully so we can really do justice to our free-flow campus concept, which will see more students from China attend St Bees School here and more students from here have, a probably more short-lived, Chinese experience. So far, we have only two students from mainland China, and although we want to restrict our Chinese students to a maximum of one-third of our international cohort and our international cohort to about one-third of the total number of students, we certainly do want to grow our Chinese contingent.  

There has been a number of firsts this year for the new St Bees School. Our first Wainwright Mountain Walking Club (ticking off about thirty Wainwrights in its first year); our first fixtures against other schools, including Cross Country, Badminton, Basketball, Volleyball, Football and Athletics, most of which, I am glad to say, we have won; our first school play and our first Founders Day. We have also had our inaugural Inter-House Triathlon among other events. Our recent Sports Day was really well attended, which bucked the COVID trend, and we welcomed Gary McKee on his 175th marathon of 365 in the year, to run with the students and present the prizes. Of course, throughout the year as we have navigated the latter stages of the pandemic, the focus on good academic work, excellent pastoral care, and redeveloping the student voice alongside good governance for the school has continued apace. I am delighted to say that we now have a Local Advisory Committee that is functioning well and overseeing what we do in school alongside our Board of Trustees and the Board of the School based at Full Circle in Hong Kong. These collaborative bodies give the school the proper oversight to ensure it is compliant and meeting its targets. We have also established a Student School Council and our first Boarding House Student Council to get the students more involved in the running of the school, which even included their involvement with the development of a St Bees School fusion ice cream - it is not all hard work! Last, but not least, we had our first major community initiatives since reopening, including acting as a centre both for collection for the West Cumbria Ukraine Appeal and for a Multicultural Group, which supported integration of refugees into the area. We also are, once more, the venue for the St Bees Bash, which this year raised in excess of £6,000 for charity. All these things go together to make the student experience here a rich one, whilst also re-establishing St Bees School at the heart of the community.

We therefore end the year in a much stronger position, ready to take on the challenges of the future, and with an imminent visit from the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI), we certainly approach inspection with more confidence. With that said, we still do need to get our facilities up to standard and for that the Trust is going to be at least partially reliant on donations from generous benefactors, especially you, the OSBs. We will be investing in a new boarding house for Sixth Formers next year, as with numbers growing we do need more space, and at the St Bees School Black Tie Dinner I did launch the St Bees School, Library and Arts Fundraising Appeal. If you have agreed to receiving OSB/School marketing and fundraising information in the past, I would ask you to look at the Brochure that will be sent to you either in digital or hard copy form and give generously to the Appeal. If you do not receive a brochure, but are interested in finding out more, please see the following link: https://www.stbeesschool.co.uk/st-bees-school-appeal/. A further article from me elsewhere in the Bulletin also embellishes this point.
 
I hope all OSBs have a fine summer or, if you are in the Southern Hemisphere, an equally enjoyable winter (remember the weather you experience will be better than that you experienced in a St Bees summer!). The recent St Bees School Alumni weekend is, I hope, here to stay and we look forward to welcoming OSBs back to the school on these and other occasions. For those of you going to the London Dinner on 16th September or to the London social gathering on 14th October, we will be joining you for the evening. Can I just encourage all who receive this newsletter, in turn, to encourage all the younger OSBs to join up. The very best to you all for a fine summer.

Robin Silk

Headmaster

 

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The St Beghian Society    
St Bees School,    St Bees,    Cumbria,    CA27 0DS.

         Tel: (01946) 828093      Email: osb@stbeesschool.co.uk      Web: www.st-beghian-society.co.uk