St David's School - Senior School

St David’s girls decided Red Nose T shirts featuring their Teachers were the must wear top on Red Nose Day. The sale of the specially created T shirts helped to boost the money raised at the school to over £800 for Comic Relief.

More money was raised from a Red Nose cake sale, car washing, mufti and a variety of individual sponsored events including sponsored silences and perhaps the most popular the caretakers dyeing their hair red.

The girls celebrated the day by creating a giant face complete with red nose on the lawn in front of the school.

St David’s School in Ashford hosted an Asian Cultural evening featuring special guest musicians playing Sitar, Pipa and Shamisen, Kathak, Bollywood and Bhangra dancers, a demonstration how to put a Japanese Kimono on and a fashion show by St David’s pupils wearing every colour in either traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai or Indian dress.

Guests included Mehboob Nadeem on Sitar, Chinese and Japanese string instruments the Pipa and Shamisen were played by Cheng Yu and Shino Arisawa and one member of the audience discovered just how tight a Kimono is tied as part of Akemi Solloway’s talk on Japanese culture.

Heavy snowfall caused chaos on the roads but resulted in a unique Snow Day for Boarding pupils consisting of a few lessons from teachers who had managed to get through the snow to school as well as special snow sculpture art classes (making snowmen) and rounders practice (using snowballs).

Hot chocolate was provided at break time and, not surprisingly, the girls declared the day a great success.

St David's Sixth Form team came second in a one day marketing challenge organised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Surrey County Council.

The challenge was to develop a marketing strategy to raise awareness about knife crime and how to dissuade young people from carrying knives. St David's presentation to the judges developed their strategy around the line "You carry the Blame with the Blade"

Three St David's girls were in the top ten students in the country in Art GCSE this summer. Caroline Ross and Kirsten Tinkler, who are both continuing their studies in the Sixth Form at St David's, are pictured above with a proud Head of Art, Mrs Caroline Coldicott. Beth Morgan was the third St David's girl who beat over 36,000 other students to get into the top ten.

St David’s School GCSE students produced the school's "best ever" results with 93% A*-C grades and 44% A* & A grades.

Tessa Smith, Headmistress said “Our girls have not just lived up to our high expectations, they have surpassed them and this underlines dramatically the real benefits St David’s consistently delivers”

With 67% A-C grades at A level St David’s will be carrying on their studies at universities around the country from Edinburgh to Exeter

We wish them well both on the courses they are studying and in their future careers.

St David’s School gymnastics team's success this year was recognised by Spelthorne Sports Council who awarded them the School and College Sport Achievement Award at their Sports Awards evening. Pupils, Teachers and Friends of the school picked up other awards - Ella Kirby (above right), who swims for Staines Swimming Club, was runner up for the Junior Individual Female Award. Neil Griffiths, from Spelthorne Elite Acrobatics, who works with the Gym team was Coach of the Year. Sue O'Connell, a Prep School Teacher, is also a key member of Staines Ladies Hockey Club who won the Senior Sports Team Award.

St David’s Schools own Dragon Boat was launched at the Friends of St David's (FoSD) May Fayre. The launch took place from the new jetty on the school lake. Both the jetty and the Dragon Boat have been generously funded by FoSD.

St David’s School gymnasts won all three pairs competitions at the National Acrobatic Gymnastics Competition in Stoke on Trent on 26th & 27th April. The team also won the bronze medal in the under 11 group event.

Jo-Jo Perryman (11) and Anne-Marie Seabourne (10) were the youngest gold medallists in the under 11 pairs. Katie Bell (13) and Kim Hunter (12) matched this performance clinching gold at under 13 level representing St David’s for the first time in this National competition.

Katie Axten (15) and Abigail Ralph (13) are no strangers to the gold medal position and won yet again in the under 19 event. Katie has now won 7 gold medals and 7 national titles for St David’s and Abigail has set a new record by winning 4 consecutive gold medals and National titles.

The under 11 squad, Mia Stoop, Sandra Clement, Julia Richards, Ellen Dixon, Charlotte Hattersley-Hoskinson and Chantelle Murphy won bronze medals in the group event.

St David’s School raised £4,000 for the Breast Cancer Campaign last year through a variety of fund raising activities including sponsored events – the girls’ favourite being the Jelly Wellie race as well as mufti days, St David’s Day games and a tuck shop run by the pupils throughout the year.

The Breast Cancer Campaign recognised the school’s efforts with a Gold Level Award in their Schools’ Challenge.

Rebecca Nichols, St David’s Head Girl said “Everyone in the school helped to raise this fantastic amount of money. We all feel strongly about the Breast Cancer Campaign charity so we all enjoyed raising the £4,000 – we hope to raise even more next year! All the charity events were fun and enjoyed by everyone in the school from the Nursery to the Sixth Form”

Beauty and the Beast was the latest in a long line of St David's productions. The play was performed by St David's girls from Prep School to the Sixth Form. A lunch time performance was staged for local schools and two evening performances played to packed and appreciative audiences.

The acting, costumes and set were all praised by the critics and the hard work by everyone involved really showed in the standard of the production. A DVD of the play is available from the School Office.

On a cold November Saturday a group of girls, parents and teachers enjoyed a taster day with BA Dragon Boating Club at Wraysbury.

After the initial training there was some determined paddling in some races. The boats can really move when the 20 paddlers coordinate their efforts. The day was really enjoyable - but some thought it would be much better when the sun was shining!

With that in mind we are sure that St David's will return to Dragon Boating and who knows the Chinese Dragon could appear on the Welsh Dragon's Lake at the school in the future.

St David’s School celebrated its 150 years in Ashford with a visit from The Earl of Wessex. The school moved to Ashford in 1857 and the new building was officially opened by Prince Albert, The Earl of Wessex’s great great great grandfather.

His Royal Highness was welcomed by the school’s Head, Penny Bristow and Chairman of Governors, Steve Humphreys, and enjoyed a tour of the school that included a gymnastics display from the school’s medal winning squad, a drama performance and the school choir’s rendition of the Welsh national anthem in the school chapel.

As a Trustee of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, The Earl of Wessex was particularly interested in a display of recent expeditions and other Duke of Edinburgh Award work that St David’s girls had undertaken.

The tour ended with His Royal Highness planting a tree and unveiling a plaque to commemorate the visit. Penny Bristow said:
“St David’s school was delighted to welcome The Earl of Wessex in this year of celebration. Our girls were thrilled to meet and speak with His Royal Highness and were equally keen to demonstrate their skills be they singing, in the gym, on stage and in the classroom”

The Right Reverend Michael Colclough Bishop of Kensington led a service to bless St David’s School’s new stained glass rose window that marks the school’s 150 years in Ashford.

The service was in the school’s own Welsh Chapel where the new window is situated above the altar. The window incorporates the school’s logo, a Red Welsh Dragon, as its centrepiece and is a striking colourful addition to the chapel.

Five girls from Years 5 to 9 read their own prayers as part of the service, which was attended by the whole school.

The Bishop suggested that the girl’s should be reminded by the dragon to be enthusiastic about life and learning, as St David was, but not to forget that St David’s symbol was the dove so to combine that enthusiasm with compassion and love.

Steve Humphreys, Chairman of Governors at St David’s, said, “The window is an impressive and a very appropriate way of celebrating our 150 years in Ashford. It is also very pleasing that so many parents, past parents and Old Girls contributed to the Rose Window appeal and I would like to thank them all for their generosity’.