The weeks continue to fly by with little time left to pause and take stock of the wealth of experience on offer. This Saturday 1 October, the school will host its inaugural Arts Festival, a day devoted to dance, music-making, art exhibitions, drama, poetry, and performance. Last Friday, the school commemorated Heritage Day, and the Junior School engaged with a programme of activities that included assemblies, project work, games, storytelling, drumming, design and an inter-house quiz.

Many of the girls and teachers took the opportunity to dress up and wear an aspect, or aspects, of their heritage on their sleeve – a feature of the occasion that South Africans, St Mary’s families included, continue to discuss and debate almost every year: should we dress up, are we celebrating our unity or emphasizing our differences, can we do both (appreciation or appropriation?), can we be curious about each other’s cultures, whose past are we trying, should we be trying to preserve?

The discussion is worth having and teachers and parents in the Junior School have asked for an opportunity ahead of next year’s onsite celebrations to engage intentionally with the topic and arrive at an approach that resonates with what we are trying to teach our daughters. My thanks to the staff and parents who take the time and expend emotional and intellectual effort reflecting on our practice and giving us constructive feedback on what we do and could be doing differently and, dare I say, better.

As I reminded the Senior Primary girls in assembly, Heritage Day cannot, thankfully, be about one idea or approach for the rest of time. Its value lies in the tension it maintains, like any historical occasion charged with remembering, between the demands of the past and the present and the future. Themes and questions and challenges emerge at different historical moments and are experienced and understood differently by us all as we grow up and mature.

What endures is our respect and love for one another, as it is expressed in our constitution (“We, the people of South Africa, Recognise the injustices of our past; Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land; Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity) and in our school’s Christian identity and ethos, notably, the heartfelt, lifelong commitment we make to loving our neighbour.

We have much to learn, happily, and so many people to learn from, with a diversity of experience, outlook and understanding. One young South African I return to again and again with the girls and whose inclusion in our assembly not only chimed with our Heritage Day celebrations but also with the Senior School’s annual fashion show (held on campus last Friday) is 29-year-old Thebe Magugu. Winner of the LVMH Prize in 2019, Magugu’s Girl Seeks Girl dress recently earned him a place in the Costume Institute’s collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York – “a collection” as one press release tells us “of more than 33 000 objects from seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the 15th century to the present.”

Follow the link to view Magugu’s limited-edition Heritage Dress capsule collection Heritage Dress: 8 South African Tribes, a glorious collaboration with South African artist Phathu Nembwili, also 29, whose stated aim is to inspire women with her work. https://www. thebemagugu.com/

So much to celebrate!

SARAH WARNER
JUNIOR SCHOOL HEADMISTRESS