In 1113, the 23-year-old monk and founder of the Cistercian order, St Bernard of Clairvaux, entered the Abbey of Cêteaux in Dijon with the words, “If thou beginnest, begin well. (Sarah Sands, The Interior Silence)”

Beginning, let alone beginning well, was very much on our minds these past two weeks in the Junior School as we embarked on a new year and laid the pathways for relationships not only with our new teachers and families, but also with colleagues, parents, and children who we meet again in different grades and new roles.

The idea of “beginning well” is more complicated than it seems at first glance: while it would be gratifying to get everything right at the start of the year, avoiding all miscommunication and misunderstanding, to begin well must mean more, and less, thankfully, than striving after perfection. In fact, if anything, beginning well, by definition, is about humility.

While good intentions are inadequate on their own, careful, conscientious planning – the kind that often goes uncelebrated owing to the unspectacular dependability of its outcomes – is the condition of possibility not only for reflection and progression, but also, importantly, for innovation and deviation from the norm.

In other words, we can always do better at St Mary’s, and imagine how to do better, because we can build on what is already being done well. There is scope and the will to do more because of what we can take for granted about our school and all the people – all the people – who make it work.

This is the wellness that shapes our beginning and gives us the strength and desire to renew our efforts and reset our horizons. The continuity from one year to the next, the preparation that comes before, is the source of our wellness: the girls enter new grades, new phases and, in the case of our matrics whose excellent results were published this week, new worlds; ready, steady – and well.

To begin, we forget too often, is a gift.

It is in this spirit of thankfulness and special attention to the gift of beginnings that I welcome you all to the first term of 2023. Thank you for stepping into a new year with us, your daughters, and their teachers, and for offering to serve the school, at different levels, and in many different ways.

My thanks and acknowledgement, also, to those people who are leaving us to begin anew elsewhere: earlier this week, I announced the departure of Melanie Grobbelaar, who leaves us, sadly, at the end of the term to teach at St Peter’s; we also say goodbye to our esteemed colleague from the Open Door, Lara Rammutla, who is taking up a post at St John’s, and to Jeanine Du Toit who leaves us after twelve years of dedicated service teaching Afrikaans in the Senior Primary.

Please join us at our 135th birthday celebration on Wednesday 25 January in the Senior School Close. Make time; begin well.

SARAH WARNER
JUNIOR SCHOOL HEADMISTRESS