We began half-term with our Little Saints and Grade 0 wheelathon as well as our Senior Primary inter-house gala, and a historic win – after nearly a decade – for Hares. Our thanks to all the parents and staff who were in attendance at the side of the tennis courts or the swimming pool, and our congratulations to the participants: our bikers and cyclists in the wheelathon; and the swimmers, captains and supporters of all the houses involved in the inter-house gala. As always, Mrs Hallendorff and her team of teachers ran a well-organised and closely contested event.

Last week, we were also pleased to welcome our Little Saints and Grade 0 parents onto campus for a coffee morning hosted by the Foundation, Old Girls, Parents Association and its subcommittee, HOPE. Junior Primary parents found themselves back on campus this week with the gratifyingly well-attended Grade 0 open morning and parent-teacher interviews. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that we’re back and hurtling towards the end of the first term with care and concern meetings, Singing Sistas, storytelling evening and plenty of sports fixtures, including our 22nd Hockey Festival. Keep a close watch on the app for updates and reminders so that you don’t miss out on any of the action.

The busyness and increased traffic on campus bring their own challenges, most of which our support staff manages with consummate ease. A reminder to all our parents to observe safety protocols in and around stop-and-drop and to allow pedestrians, some of whom are very small, to cross at our clearly demarcated zebra crossings. I would also appreciate your support with our drive to keep the campus clean and free of litter. I am astonished that we have any litter on the Junior School grounds and even more puzzled that the areas frequented by the older girls are the worst affected – I pick up discarded cups, wrappers, and tissues daily on my walk past the Grade 7 classrooms and the Grade 5 lockers. While our girls’ interest in environmental causes across the globe is laudable, their immediate accountability as far as unnecessary and careless consumption in their own environments (playgrounds, locker rooms and classrooms) is often lacking.

Another aspect of campus management that we regularly revisit and review is lost property. One of our newsletters dating back to May 2018 had the following to say on the topic:

While our on-campus lost property store might not boast the variety of unusual items listed by railway and underground stations worldwide (glass eyes, drum kits, whole raw fish, life-size Spiderman dolls, prosthetic limbs, mannequin heads, rocking horses and jackhammers), we accumulate an impressive number of items every week, including a disproportionate number of single shoes, takkies, slops and ballet slippers. We have appealed to the girls to take care of their possessions and to be more conscientious in tracking the whereabouts of their clothes and equipment as they change venues, but the prevailing mood of apathy is proving hard to shift.

Not that St Mary’s is alone in this – a quick search of school internet postings on lost property yields familiar results: unnamed, unclaimed clothes, odd shoes, water bottles and lunchboxes are piling up in lost property offices all over the world.

While the school continues to do its best by returning marked items to the girls from where they leave them (all over campus!) and conducting random clothes checks, please assist us by labelling your daughter’s clothes and equipment clearly, encouraging your daughter to take responsibility for her possessions, and resisting the pressure to replace mislaid items too readily. The replacement value of new uniform and other items is steep and, as a community, we need to demonstrate more respect for our belongings and our beautiful campus.

SARAH WARNER
JUNIOR SCHOOL HEADMISTRESS