This document presents verbatim the speech given by Headmaster Dr Gary Savage to those Alleyn’s pupils, parents and friends assembled at Speech Day 2018, which took place at St. Barnabas Church, Dulwich, on Saturday 30 June 2018. The text may include references to performances or presentations that took place during the ceremony.
SPEECH DAY 2018
Chairman, distinguished guests, Governors, Ladies, Gentlemen and prize‐winners: it is my pleasure to report for the eighth time as Headmaster here at Speech Day.
Today’s celebration of our wonderful prize‐winners also affords an opportunity to reflect upon what has been, by any measure, an exceptionally good year for the School. We have enjoyed record‐breaking public examination results, record numbers of applications, an emphatically positive ISI inspection and innumerable personal and collective achievements by the girls and boys in our care. We have completed the new Lower School building, and enhanced many other areas of the School site. The new website is close to completion, and will much better reflect the contemporary energy and breadth of co‐educational excellence which the School offers today. I am confident that all new teachers and expert support staff that we have worked hard to select from exceptionally strong fields across the past few months will enable us to continue to build on this positive trajectory as we enter our 400th anniversary year in 2019. We can do so with both pride and confidence, but also the humility to recognise that things can always be done even better ‐ which is precisely what we shall aim to do in all the years ahead.
The academic foundations could not be stronger. Last year, the prodigious efforts of our boys and girls led to record‐breaking results overall, with 99% A*AB at GCSE (with 68% A*) and 93% A*AB at A Level (with 41% A*). They were a brilliant, hard‐working group, who ‐ if I may indulge my inner Southgate for a moment ‐ positioned
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themselves to make excellent transitions. In other words, 93% of our Leavers went on to a university of their choice across the length and breadth of Britain. Nine went on to Art College (and as you’ll see in the Art, Design and Media Show today, plenty more could easily follow in their footsteps), twelve went to Medical School, two to the USA, two to Canada and one to Trinity College Dublin. I think this high quality of academic outcomes, and this range of prestigious and global destinations, attests to what we are trying to build here: a commitment to excellence across the disciplines (arts and sciences, applied and creative) and an openness to the wider world and to other cultures. Rooted as we are in the history and outlook of one of the world’s most cosmopolitan and connected cities, how could it be otherwise?
Those qualities of connectedness and openness, that sense of being a welcoming centre of excellence, helps to attract visiting speakers to the School in a virtuous circle of academic enthusiasm and aspiration. Notable examples from around fifty different educational talks this year include ninety‐three year old Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker‐Wallfisch; Professor Sugata Mitra, who has brought internet access to over a million children in some of the poorest parts of India, economist Dr Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute and artist and author Edmund de Waal, who gave the opening address at this year’s Summer Show. The Edward Alleyn Lecture this year was given by Dr Suzannah Lipscomb on the Reformation in England, while the RV Jones Science Lecturer was Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive & Computational Neuroscience at Sussex. Earlier this week, BBC news presenter Huw Edwards gave the plenary address at the annual Modern Foreign Languages extension day, with topics ranging from German film to Spanish football. (Plans to include a masterclass in how to tackle a tournament like die Mannschaft were wisely abandoned.)
The insights such visitors afford, and the discussions they stimulate, contribute to a whole‐school culture of inquiry nurtured in departments, in our Alleyn’s Learners’ Programme, in Upper School Enrichment and in a plenitude of trips at home and
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abroad through which every pupil benefits, and many truly excel. Ella, for instance, received an Excellence Award from the Royal Geographical Society for the highest GCSE mark last year. Safiyah won the Governor’s Research Project Prize for her philosophical study into whether Beauty and Truth are connected and, if so, what is the Truth that Artistic Beauty conveys?; while the Headmaster’s Review Prize (for pupils moving from Year 9 to 10) was won by Kitty on The Globe’s production of Romeo and Juliet. In Design and Technology, Ruby won the inaugural Lord Mayor of London Design Challenge with her superb desk lamp, while Zoe was awarded an Arkwright Engineering Scholarship. In Modern Foreign Languages, Nick and Dan won the inter‐schools Spanish debating competition (including a motion on whether to abolish private education); while Sam has just taken French, German, Latin, Italian and Spanish GCSE having successfully done Russian and Classical Greek last year! Other students doing remarkable things for the love of it include Ella, who was a winner in the Foyles Young Poetry award, Cameron, who won this year’s Science Fame Lab competition, and our very first cohort of off‐timetable GCSE Astronomers. I would also like to mention Elizabeth and Alba in Year 12, who set up the new Alleyn’s Radio Show and recorded a dozen high‐quality programmes over the course of the year. Countless other boys and girls have been sent by their teachers to sign the Headmaster’s Book for Outstanding Achievement at morning break ‐ always a highlight of my day, though not necessarily of theirs!
By no means all those who come to sign my book do so for academic reasons; on the contrary, many do so because of superb achievements in our wide‐ranging co‐ curriculum. Many do great things in the Combined Cadet Force, for instance, which continues to evolve, implementing new and improved syllabuses across all services and receiving fulsome accolades in a recent MoD inspection. Our Rifle Team beat Dulwich College at the London Cadet Skill‐at‐Arms meeting, and will compete in the National Schools Meeting at Bisley this summer. The Year 11 Cadre demonstrated their brilliantly choreographed ceremonial drill routine at their pass out parade with 3
precision and panache. The CCF also continues to support the community at Remembrance Sunday, has survived in sub‐zero temperatures in Sweden and has produced another army scholar: Sam, who will undertake officer training at Sandhurst. Two other students are currently at the selection board, and Nick has been awarded a Cadet Deputy Lord Lieutenant’s certificate for his CCF service.
It has been another excellent year for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, too, with almost two hundred participants making it the biggest ever cohort in our forty‐one years of involvement. Natasha, Matilda, Saskia, Florie, Isabel and Hannah were the 19‐24th Alleyn’s students to complete their Gold Award while still at School; and 17 past and present Gold award holders gathered at Buckingham Palace to celebrate this achievement in May.
Volunteering at Alleyn’s has also expanded markedly in recent years, with activities working both with children and elderly people. Fun Fizz, for instance, takes place at The Bridge Leisure Centre in Sydenham, where our pupil volunteers help to provide physical activities for children with learning or behavioural difficulties in a true spirit of friendship. A similar spirit can be seen in the Senior Saints option, where our pupils chat with the sometimes very frail residents of The Elms Centre in East Dulwich; and in the Sweet Readers scheme where Year 8 pupils spend quality time with elderly people living with dementia. Our Outreach programme is also growing, with over seventy Year 12 students delivering a series of lessons to pupils in seven local state primary schools. Topics range from Abstract Art and Animation to Health and Fitness, Drama, Dance and Science. In addition to our well‐established Rhythm for Reading literacy project at Goodrich Primary School, these varied initiatives are making a real difference to local children and a real impact in their schools.
I am proud of what so many of our pupils do for and in the community, and proud too of what the School is able to offer as an institution. The sharing of resources with local state schools and community organisations has increased significantly; this year our
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facilities are used for over 1000 hours involving around 4000 children and adults. Local schools use our facilities to host weekly PE and swimming lessons, forest school activities, sports days, end of term‐productions and music courses. Since January we have provided pitches on Saturday mornings to the Lambeth and Southwark Primary School Football League in which 35 local schools compete. During the year we also partnered with Solidarity Sports, a charity working directly with children affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy, and Resources for Autism. The genuine impact of such work was highlighted in September at a national educational event in Westminster attended by the Secretary of State and other members of parliament. David in Year 12 was one of two students to address the gathering about his positive experiences at an independent school like Alleyn’s.
We have also continued our long‐standing involvement in the Southwark Schools Learning Partnership, taking the lead on around twenty‐five initiatives including a joint expedition to CERN in Geneva. Our Saturday Maths Scheme ‐ part of the Southwark Community Education Charity ‐ is also flourishing. Every Saturday morning, four specialist tutors teach over fifty Year 5 pupils from a dozen local primary schools with the help of almost fifty volunteer mentors from Alleyn’s Year 11. Our sponsorship of the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham has also grown apace. This is a maintained sixth form college at the new White Hart Lane stadium (opposite Tottenham Hot Spud) providing an academic education in a borough with limited opportunities for schooling after GCSE. During this first year we have been able to help LAET with departmental support, governance and seconded teaching (in Biology), and we have enjoyed mutual staff and student visits. I am proud of the fact that Alleyn’s has been able to contribute its expertise and resources to support further education in London in this specific and constructive way.
We have also been building our links on more distant shores. In October a group of Alleyn’s staff and students visited Kobe University Secondary School, experiencing
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lessons and co‐curricular activities and helping to clean the classrooms at the end of the day ‐ as all Japanese pupils do. We in turn welcomed another group of Kobe students who spent three days with us in January. We would love to develop a similar partnership with our friends in the Diocese of Manicaland, Zimbabwe; but for the time being we are grateful that the Chaplain was able to visit the schools whose children we support in October. Happily, the proceeds from the raffle this afternoon will be put towards the scholarship fund that enables so many young people to receive an education in this part of the world.
Charity work more broadly has been a regular feature of life at Alleyn’s again this year, led by the Charity Committee ‐ who have a jewellery stall today so please check it out! We have raised close to £12,000 for our chosen charities Demelza Hospice (in south east London) and Sparrow School (in South Africa). The visit from two teachers from Sparrow School was both moving and inspirational; and they in turn were really complimentary about our warmth and friendliness and strikingly positive relationships between students and teachers. The money we have raised for Sparrow has helped to build a new kitchen where the pupils can learn how to cook and thus help to find a job later in life. We are looking forward to continuing our relationship with Sparrow South Africa next year; while our new local charity will be Reach Out, a mentoring scheme for 9‐16 year‐olds here in London.
As well as providing a pastoral and social hub around which so much turns, our eight Houses have also worked hard to raise money for their chosen charities this year: the Burkina Health Foundation (Brading’s); the British Heart Foundation (Brown’s); Veterans with Dogs and the KASHF Foundation (Cribb’s); the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity (Dutton’s); Women and Children First (Roper’s); The Refugee Council (Spurgeon’s); the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital and the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (Tulley’s); and the Campaign against living miserably (Tyson’s). House spirit was celebrated (and monetised for these good causes) across the year in events like
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Inter‐house LipSync and Dance‐off, and of course the biannual jamboree that is House Singing, won this year by Brown’s with their grandstanding performance of The Jackson 5’s “I want you back” and a Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons medley!
Perhaps the most far‐reaching cause we are all striving for is the green one, and our Eco Committee has continued to develop the School’s sustainable credentials. Pupils have visited Southwark’s new recycling and waste management facility and planted a hedgerow habitat in Dulwich Park. The new Lower School allowed us to think afresh about recycling, with new dual‐purpose waste bins and training for pupils in the fundamental (and sometimes confusing) rules of good waste management. Their interest and enthusiasm has minimised contaminated recycling and so we hope to install new bins across the site in due course. In addition, we now send all used coffee grounds from EABean to a firm who convert them into biofuel for London buses. This project relies on a keen group of Upper School volunteers who organise the heavy bags for collection. In this light, we are hoping to make this Founder’s Day our most sustainable yet: please make every effort to recycle as much as you can and visit the ‘Recycling station’ near the Pimm’s tent to find out more!
Underpinning all this good work ‐ in partnership, public benefit, charity and the environment ‐ is a sense of things beyond the immediate and the material. It complements an educational philosophy which strives to see life not as one mechanical step after another on a treadmill towards examination outcomes, but as something to be lived in the moment and as part of a community ‐ both in space but also in time. The Chaplain, Rev’d Buckley and the Assistant Chaplain, Mrs Birt, help us to consider all this with warmth and style and grace. One innovation in chaplaincy life this year was the Lower School weekend away to Shatterling Barn in Kent which helped provide a relaxed and happy start to the Advent term. Our speaker at the annual Chaplaincy Lecture was Prebendary Rose Hudson‐Wilkin, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Confirmation service in May was again led by
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Bishop Karowei of Woolwich, who was minded publicly to note the excellent behaviour of our candidates. I daresay the same could be said of those happy hobbits who followed our very own Gandalf to Oxford last weekend to see the “Tolkien, Maker of Middle Earth” exhibition. The fact that Gandalf will be moving permanently to Oxford in January is a matter of great sadness to us all; but it’s a great move for Anthony, whose immeasurable contribution to the life of the School over the last ten years will be properly celebrated in the autumn.
When we do so, there is little doubt that Elvis will feature; and Anthony’s regular YouTube clips of the sedulously side‐burned maestro in Assembly has been just one example of the rich musical life of the School again this year. One highlight was the Joint Foundation Schools’ Concert at the Royal Festival Hall, commemorating the centenary of the end of the Great War, featuring Herbert Howells' sublime Elegy for viola and strings (with alumna Alinka Rowe performing the solo) and Benjamin Britten's challenging and moving War Requiem. Following the success of the re‐ branded St Cecilia’s Concert (named in honour of the patron saint of music) and Christmas Concert back in December, all music groups have performed in recent months in one of four major concerts, beginning with the eclectic Jazz Night at the Hideaway in Streatham, and an exceptional concert of Chamber Music at Blackheath Halls in March. The annual Orchestral & Choral concert at St John’s Smith Square featured solo performances from Lizi (Bruch's Kol Nidrei) and Ed (Saint‐Saens' Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso); while the Hot Air & Scrape in the Atrium showcased the breadth of talent we have in our wind and brass ensembles. In addition to all this, we had almost weekly Friday lunchtime concerts in the Great Hall, providing an oasis for students and staff to immerse themselves in wonderful music performed by boys and girls of all ages in the very heart of the School.
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the student‐led close harmony group of Lizi, Jemma, Ottilie, Milo and Harry, who have serenaded us beautifully over the years,
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and have promoted ever higher standards of singing here at Alleyn's. They will be sorely missed when they leave, but perform for us now one final time: 'Vienna' by Billy Joel, arranged by Harry.
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
Our thanks to Lizi, Jemma, Ottilie, Milo and Harry, some of whom will I think be accompanying the Music Tour to Tuscany next week, where our singers and instrumentalists will be performing at venues in and around Lucca, Pisa and Montecatini between 8‐12 July: I know they would be very glad to see you there!
The depth, breadth and quality of Music, Dance and Drama at Alleyn’s is something we were able to celebrate with staff and students at the annual Performing Arts Dinner earlier this week (something we also do for senior students in sport, CCF and DofE each year). In Dance, an excellent year of teaching and learning in the Lower and Middle School culminated with the fantastic news that our first‐ever cohort of GCSE pupils gained full marks in their examinations, which is tremendous. In co‐curricular terms, all our Dance clubs are now hugely popular, and the pupils’ hard work, energy and expressive enthusiasm was showcased first at the O2 Indigo Arena in December, and then here at the annual Dance Show featuring a staggering 120 girls and boys performing an amazing range of pieces on the MCT stage.
It has been a richly memorable year for Alleyn’s drama, too, beginning with the Bear Pit Theatre tour to the Edinburgh Fringe for the seventh year running with another original piece of verbatim theatre: A Compendium of Lost Things. Back in London, this was a year of change for Alleyn’s Drama with Year 11 stepping out of the Middle School play to produce their own assured and confident Bear Pit in the Advent term. Among a panoply of brilliant work, Rosa’s production of Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour proved what Mr Piper called “an adrenaline rush of theatrical magic.” This set the bar high for the Upper School Bear Pit in the Lent, and they duly delivered.
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One highlight among many was Ed’s wildly funny original musical, Vegans! Rather more sober, and absolutely astonishing, was the Upper School production of Julius Caesar where a company of seventy played out on Tadhg’s stunningly designed traverse stage. The verse was compelling, the stage combat brutal and among the universally excellent cast the central quartet of Caitlin, Maddy, James and Zrey exemplified the kind of acting Edward Alleyn would be justly proud of. Equally impressive was the charming Middle School production of The Wind in the Willows featuring an assured company of Year 9 and 10 pupils who captured the wild, strange magic of the book; and the Lower School production of Morning Break, which saw sixty exuberant Year 7s and 8s impress and delight us all with a joyously theatrical mockumentary portrayal of friendship and loyalty. Those qualities will no doubt animate the Bear Pit Theatre company as they proceed once more to Edinburgh in August with another original show: The First Love Project. Tickets are available via the Fringe box office. And if you can’t manage that, then come back here in November for the eagerly anticipated Upper School production of celebrated rock musical, Rent!
Turning finally to sport, it has been another year of achievement to rival that of Gareth’s boys in Russia. Starting with Hockey, the U12 boys were London and Southern Counties Champions; the U13s were London Champions and Southern Counties Semi‐finalists; and the U15s were London and Surrey Champions ‐ quite a haul for our younger players proving Hockey at Alleyn’s is in extremely good shape. So too in Fives, where we returned from the National Championships with no fewer than six gold medals and five runners‐up across sixteen competitions. Gwydion became the first ever player to win the singles in two age categories, winning both the U14 and U16 National Championships! In Cricket, Alleyn’s were winners in three of the six London Cups completed last September; and the U12s, U13s and U15s are all now at the quarter‐ or semi‐final stages while the U14s have reached their final. We are delighted that all these sides are mixed gender and that more girls than ever before are talking to the crease in their dedicated teams too. 10
In our return to the competitive Gymnastics circuit our mixed teams excelled, reaching two national finals and finishing 5th in the country. In Water Polo we have had our most successful season ever with three national championship Golds and one Silver across all competitions making Alleyn's the most successful school in the country ‐ what a triumph! In Athletics some individuals have taken their opportunity to shine in what has been a good season for the various squads. Mabel (High Jump) and Oscar (400m Hurdles) currently top the national rankings for their respective age groups and event. While Athletics is of course traditionally measured through individual successes, our junior girls’ team has made the National finals of the ESAA Track & Field cup ‐ an unprecedented achievement at Alleyn’s and a remarkable one for a co‐educational school. They will travel to Newcastle at the start of the summer break to compete against some of the best in the country.
In Football, where we are traditionally strong, the senior boys reached the semi‐final of the ISFA Elgin Capital league; while the senior girls fought with togetherness, effort and resilience all the way to the ISFA Smith’s Construction National Cup Final at Bisham Abbey, losing a great game to St Bede’s. In Netball, the U13, U15 and U19 teams all reached the semi‐finals of their respective National Cup competitions ‐ a feat achieved by no other school in the country. And in the always fiercely contested TKB cup, the Alleyn’s firsts beat local rivals JAGS in both the Netball and the Hockey ‐ something we have not achieved for a number of years and (I feel compelled to say albeit in the most collegiate way possible) that JAGS have never managed!
In addition to these collective achievements, some of our pupils have represented the School on the greatest of stages. Sam gained an ISFA full international cap for England on their tour to Belgium; Oscar has been selected to compete for Gibraltar in the European U18 Track & Field championships; Jude was selected for the England Boys U17 Water Polo Team and competed at the U17 EU Nations Cup, as did Emily who was also selected for the England U17 Girls. Following her achievement at the Youth
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World Championships, where she won Bronze, Daisy has now made the GB podium potential pathway. Freddie has played for England U19s in Volleyball; Lauren went to Poland to compete for England in Fencing, while Laura competed for Great Britain in the Fencing World Cup. Finally, Eden went to China for the Fina Diving World Cup as part of the Great Britain senior squad, competing (with her diving partner Lois) in the 10m synchro competition and finishing an astonishing 7th in the world! We salute these remarkable students, and at the same time celebrate every single girl and boy who take part in sport at Alleyn’s week‐in, week‐out, enjoying House competitions, games afternoons and Saturday fixtures come rain or shine, for the sheer joy of it.
Sport is also a great way to connect AOGs and AOBs with their School, something which the Development & Alumni Office works hard to achieve, not least at this liminal moment with the 400th anniversary of the College of God’s Gift on the horizon. Our celebration of all that will start in January, with a commemorative service at Westminster Abbey; and then throughout 2019 with various events including a Jacobean cross‐curricular day in September and an alumni dinner at the House of Lords in December. Two key themes will underpin our commemoration: partnership, which we hope to promote by opening our doors to the local community for various educational lectures, workshops and activities for young and old; and bursaries, which we hope to expand and secure by raising money for an endowment fund of several million pounds. It promises to be a momentous year.
It is of course a matter of deep regret that some members of our community will not be with us to celebrate our anniversary. Among those I should like to pay tribute to here today are Rodney Scrase, the celebrated spitfire pilot who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944, and died in February aged 96. Another distinguished Old Boy we have lost is John Pretlove, brilliant cricketer and Fives player, School Governor and great friend of Alleyn's, who died in April aged 85. Peter Thompson, former Deputy Head at Alleyn’s who left in 2003 after many years of
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distinguished service, died suddenly in April. Barry Graham, brilliant and inspiring Jazz musician and teacher, and Sally Reidy, long‐serving member of the cleaning staff, also passed away this year. Our thoughts are with Rodney, John, Peter, Barry and Sally’s family and friends, and with all those in the Alleyn’s community who have suffered bereavements or difficult times over the past year.
Many of these dear friends and colleagues were regular visitors to Alleyn’s over the years, and I hope the same will be said of all those who leave us this term for pastures new. Ms Emma Starkey (Philosophy), Mr Richard Youdale, Mr Steve Smith (Classics), Mr Ifor Williams (Physics) were all superb temporary teachers, and Ms Emma Stewart (Physics) left the permanent staff to relocate to the USA. After three years of outstanding work, our scientist‐in‐residence Dr Adam Rutherford leaves to concentrate on writing and broadcasting; his successor will be Dr Kevin Fong.
Among various support staff colleagues who are moving on this year I should like to mention five retirees: Mr Nick Beagin, our Information Systems Manager with 19 years’ service (though he will remain in a consultant role for the time being); Mr Steve White, DT technician for 22 years; Rev’d Simon Dalwood, former Maths teacher and Examinations Officer over the course of 26 years; Ms Emma Chung, Chemistry technician for 31 years; and Mr Martin Columbell, who retired as a School Porter back in November after 35 years’ dedicated service to Alleyn’s. In March we also said farewell to Mrs Rachel Evans (former Registrar at the Junior School and more recently Head of Digital Strategy at the Senior School). I am sad to say we must now bid farewell to Mrs Isabelle Blake‐James (US administrator) and Mr Steve Hawkins (SSI to the CCF) who leave us over the summer; we wish them all well in their new lives and ventures.
The permanent teaching staff who are leaving this year are as follows: Mr Konstantinos Karadimos, who moves to teach Economics at the Reading Blue Coat School; Miss Megan McDonagh, who joins the PE & Games department at Hornsby
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House; Mr Matthew Eastmond, teacher of Maths and Computing, who is leaving London; Miss Victoria Rees, teacher of Geography and e‐Learning co‐ordinator, who is relocating to Hong Kong; and Mr Ed Mann, who will teach Maths at Latymer Upper closer to his family home in west London. We also have four Heads of Department departing this year: Dr Ali Galloni, Head of Physics, who becomes Head of Science & Technology at Sevenoaks; Miss Charlotte Goldthorpe, Head of Girls’ PE & Games, who becomes Director of Sport at Mill Hill Prep; Mr Peter MacDonagh, who becomes Head of Computing at Immanuel School in Bushey; and Dr Stephen Kelly, Head of German and the University & Careers Centre, who is relocating with his family to Japan. We wish all these colleagues every happiness in their new roles.
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to four teaching colleagues who are retiring this summer. Mr Ian Shead joined the PE & Games department in 2012 and has been an affable, inspiring colleague and coach, particularly in Football and Hockey. I am delighted that Ian will be continuing with some coaching work next year. Mrs Jan Tait came to teach Food & Nutrition in 2004, and has been a stalwart of that superb department ever since. Mrs Sue Mathieson, former Head of Food & Nutrition, has been at Alleyn’s since 2007 and in recent years has been a capable and caring Housemaster of Tyson’s. And Mr Mike McCaffrey joined as Head of French in 1989 and has been a wonderful proponent of, and ambassador for, the language, culture and sheer unadulterated joie de vivre of our close friends and neighbours ever since.
I should like to wish Ian, Jan, Sue and Mike all the very best in their well‐earned, no doubt full and enjoyable retirements; and to honour them now with valedictory gifts as a small token of our collective thanks and sincere best wishes for the future.
Flowers and print of the School to those teaching staff retiring
All that remains for me to do, before the prize‐giving begins, is publicly to thank one or two people for all their support of the School again this year. First the Chairman, Mr Iain Barbour, and to the Governing Board (including new Governors Ms Michelle 14
Terry and Ms Jennifer Scott) for all their advice, support and encouragement to me and my brilliant colleagues on the Senior Management Team. I should also like to thank the Dulwich Estate, its Chairman Nicola Meredith and Chief Executive Simone Crofton. (I should also like to pay tribute to former Chief Executive John Major, who retired earlier in the year and was always a great friend to Alleyn’s and a regular visitor to School events.) We are indebted as ever to the Wardens and Court of the Worshipful Company of Saddlers, particularly the Prime Warden, Mr Hugh Thomas. My grateful thanks, too, to the ever‐supportive Alleyn’s Parents Association, its Committee and Chair, Anna Wille, Vice Chair, Lucy Corrin, Treasurer, Ros Walton and Secretary, Catherine Gardiner; and to our alumni in the Edward Alleyn Club, led by Chairman Paul Barber and President Nell Butler. Finally, a sincere and fulsome thanks to all the brilliant support and teaching staff who work so tirelessly to make everything else possible, each and every day. Thank you so much, one and all.
As for the most important people of all ‐ the pupils ‐ I should like to congratulate each and every prize‐winner here today, in addition to the boys and girls as a whole, who have contributed so much to the collective good while pursuing their own journeys in their own way. Particular thanks to all the House Captains, Senior Prefects and Lower School Prefects, to Vice‐Captains Milo and Matthew, and to School Captain Maddy, from whom we shall hear a little more shortly. They have been really fantastic, part of a wonderful Year Group, and we shall miss them all ‐ until they next visit, which I hope will be sometime during the quadricentennial. You will always be most sincerely welcome.
It remains only for me to thank you all for being with us here today, sharing in the success of our prize‐winners and of the School community whose ethos, values and outlook have created the climate in which prizes can be won. I do hope that you all have a wonderful Founder’s Day, and a glorious summer. Thank you very much.
GJS 28.VI.18 15