From the Junior School head's desk: 5 August 2022

Sarah Warner

And so we end the term as we began it, with a note on collaboration. Since Friday last week, the girls and teachers in the Junior School – as well as several of our colleagues in the Senior School – have devoted their time and energy to staging our play, The Girl who Would Be King. The production, and all its offshoots – in the form of costumes, make-up, and after hours fetching and carrying – is a monument to the love and community we preach and practise on a smaller scale year-round. Thank you again, parents and guardians of our girls, for staying the course with us.

“A scribe, a goat, a boy with a sword, and a man who was once king went forward together.” The unlikely collaboration brought to life in our play, the band of misfits who show us what it is to be brave, are also our girls, staff and parents who, not just this week or even this term, go forward together – again and again and again. Make no mistake, launching and living projects like this is how we keep each other brave.

The sheer scale of the thing (how many times have I been told we are crazy to want to put Grades 1 to 7 on stage together?), the feat of imagination, adaptation, and compromise it requires to get it on stage – and what a stage it was! – is worth considering. Considering and celebrating.

Well done, St Mary’s, for allowing girls who weren’t even sure they wanted to audition to take centre stage, look an audience in the eye, and challenge them to “see past what is right in front of us”; for allowing our staff and parents to conjure a world of characters and creatures (a goat!) out of words, music, dance, sound and lighting, make-up, costumes and raw talent – and remind us to “imagine things can be different”.

“For what matters in the end is love. Love, and also… stories.” After three years of waiting and watching, we took the opportunity to tell our story again. And it is clear to me – you too, I think – that what we believe in, is love.

Travel safely, read, rest, enjoy the time spent together. We look forward to seeing you back on campus in September.


SARAH WARNER
JUNIOR SCHOOL HEADMISTRESS

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