From our Head Girl: Alice G.

As we approach the end of the school year and my time here at St Mary’s, I can confidently say that being given the opportunity to become Head Girl has been one of the highlights.

My fourteen years at St Mary’s have been such fun, and while being Head Girl was always something I aspired to be, I used to think I was too shy for the role. If you told me in my first term of Year 7 that I would ever speak in front of the whole school, I would not have believed you as even speaking in class used to fill me with dread.

Throughout Lower School, I would push myself to take advantage of opportunities to speak in front of larger groups and I quickly became a lot more confident and comfortable with myself. When it came time for Prefect applications in Lower Sixth, I decided to give it a go and have been amazed at how much I have learned about myself and the variety of skills I have been able to develop.

To me, the first and possibly most important part of leadership is believing that you can do whatever it is that you are trying to do.

Even if you only believe there is a small chance of achieving your goal, trusting that you can do it is so important. The attitude that you enter a project with will not just impact the outcome but also how the people around you will work, and it all starts with believing that somehow you will be able to do it – maybe not the way you initially thought, but somehow.

This is something I have worked on a lot during my time as Head Girl and I talked about this idea when we introduced the new Prefect team to the Senior School as I hope it will help any budding future leaders lower down the school in their endeavors.

When I look back on everything my team and I have achieved over the last year, I am very proud. Despite still being affected by the pandemic restrictions, we managed to give virtual assemblies, produce a pre-recorded Sixth Form Revue, take part in short films to help with events that are normally in-person such as Open Day and help with organising our Sixth Form leavers’ ball.

We managed all this while still working towards our A Levels, giving us an excellent chance to develop our time-management and organisational skills, which will be incredibly useful in the future.

I am very thankful for the support my fantastic Prefect team gave me and for all the great work they did themselves to help enrich the school community.

It is very bittersweet preparing to leave St Mary’s this term, but I am so ready and excited for my next steps.

I will certainly miss the kind and loving environment the students and staff have created, and I am extremely grateful for the encouragement and comfort they gave me over the years.

Alice G, Head Girl

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