(The full version of St. Mary's Messenger can be found in the password-protected area of the website)

Dear Parents, Children and Friends,

Another week over, and what a busy one it has been, with tournaments, photographs, dressing-up days, cake-sales, trips out and much more besides. As I said recently, school for children in the twenty-first century is considerably more varied than for their parents. However, the basics have to be inculcated somehow amongst what may seem as fun to the casual observer. (Though let me tell you, it is certainly not all fun being the driver, penned in a bus with fifteen Form 6 pupils who are all frenzied with excitement at the prospect of visiting the television studios at the University…)

Any school has to make certain that the vital basics are learned; that is why there is a National Curriculum. All well and good, but for a school like St. Mary’s there must be a lot more in the curriculum; what is a useful working framework for an Inner London school with twenty different native languages in a class of thirty-two children is not ideal for the fifteen or so children in a class here. Now, bearing in mind that we are not a school who only cherry-pick the very brightest children and thereby end up with fire-work spectacular results compared to national averages, we do very well. The children leave here with an education that has prepared them thoroughly for their next school and given them moral values and social skills that should last a lifetime. Our leavers are well-rounded individuals who stack up very favourably alongside pupils from other schools.

However, with the National Curriculum came the two-edged sword of SATS. Almost immediately the nation became obsessed with tests, levels and league tables, frequently not seeing the wood for the trees. Nowadays children could spend all year, every year preparing for, sitting then going through some form of test. Speaking personally, I do not see any value in having our Form Two children undergo the stress of sitting government tests at the age of 7, making little children take what is, in effect, a series of exams. In a small school like St. Mary’s, if even one child has a bad day (headache, lost snack, dog ill) our statistics take a blow and teachers have many conversations where we have to give reassurance. I can state loud and clear that the standards here were high to start with and are getting higher with each passing term. We are constantly looking for ideas that can improve the academic standards and pastoral care. There is no grass growing under our feet.

All of this is quite heavy stuff compared with the usual editorial, if I can call it that, of the Messenger; but it does have a point. This week, a parent asked me if I had read the Parent Power supplement of The Sunday Times, in which the paper compares SAT scores. I confessed that I had not, so the parent told me that St. Mary’s had come out as the “top” prep school in the area. I hurried to have a look and there it was in black and white – in this year’s table of the 250 best preparatory schools, St. Mary’s soared up from 247= to 135. Here is the link so you can see for yourself that I haven’t just made it up.
www.timesonline.co.uk/parentpower/league_tables.php

For a small, non-selective school, that’s pretty impressive, showing that those basics are being learned and learned well, reflecting well upon the teachers and the pupils. Let us enjoy the moment and then it’s back to the business of giving the best all-round education in the area.

My thanks go to Mr Sleight for his kind invitation to bring our Form 6 children down the hill to see how the University television studio works. Having deafened their Headmaster in their glee, they trooped off the bus and into the studio to observe what goes on backstage in producing a programme. I think that what they saw really opened some eyes about studio-based television: what looks slick on the box has actually taken a lot of people working hard for a long time. In a few years time it would not surprise me one little bit to see some of those Form 6 pupils showing another generation of St. Mary’s pupils round the Media Studies department.

Here are a couple of thoughts about reading. One of the most important things that we can do for our children is instil a love of reading. Help them, encourage them all you can. When they are very little they especially adore having mum or dad read to them and even older children enjoy it too. Please take the time to enjoy precious reading time together because all-too quickly they will be at the age where they barricade themselves in their bedrooms with PC, TV, DVD, X-Box, MP3 and parents are banned. If any parents have a child who says that they haven’t got anything to read, steer them into the library upstairs or help them choose a book from the Book Fair next week. The more and the broader children read, the better.

Lastly, please continue to keep Winnowsty Lane clear at all times and in all weathers. This week there has been a neighbour’s car that has caused some headaches, blocking the road for quite a while, (the man in the Curry’s van was politer than I think I could have been in those circumstances!) but of course we got the blame. If we can avoid adding to the gridlock, that would be great.

Andy Salmond Smith