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Founders Day 2004 - The Headmaster's
Speech
Your Royal Highness. Distinguished
Guests. Trustees and Governors. Colleagues. Parents.
Pupils - and especially prize-winners.
It is my pleasure to welcome you
to this year's Founders Day and prize giving.
The year 2004 is a most significant
year:
In 1974 Your Royal Highness became President of
the School - and we thank you for 30 years of
support
And fifty years ago - well more accurately fifty
years less one day because it was the 10th of
May - a tree was planted to mark the opening of
the Junior School by the then Duchess of Gloucester,
Princess Alice, to whom I send our greetings today.
You may have read in your programme
that the original format of Founders' Day was
a sermon followed by a fund-raising dinner.
Examination of the texts of some of those early
sermons indicates that they lasted about an hour.
58 minutes to go, then!
I do not know if the pupils were
actually present for the early Founders Day Services.
They were for the Trustees of the school, for
adults. And the focus was not about what the young
people had achieved.
Today I am very glad to be able
to say that pupils are at the heart of this day
and of this school and I would like to tell you
about the diverse and most successful group of
young people who look so smart in their blazers
and ties -
I can see lots of adults nodding
in agreement at that. I have to tell you that
Year 8 think that uniform is "sad".
That is why they are Year 8!
As I said, a diverse and most successful
group of young people
And what have they done over the past year?
- They achieved hugely improved
results in Key Stage two SATs and Key Stage
3 SATs and I can confidently predict that the
current Year 11 pupils will achieve record results
at GCSE . For the first time in many years we
had two candidates for Oxford and Cambridge
and I am sure that this upward trend will continue.
- The Boys and Girls sports teams
had considerable success at all age groups,
both Junior and Secondary, in Rugby, Netball,
Athletics, Football, Table Tennis and Rounders.
- Increasing numbers of pupils
gained bronze and silver awards of the Duke
of Edinburgh's award Scheme Duke of Edinburgh's
Award scheme and our in-house Junior version,
the Young Gattonians award scheme, is very popular.
- There are dancers here, including
a number who performed at the London Palladium
recently
- There are musicians here, including
the saxophone quartet that you will hear later
- who won their class in the Reigate and Redhill
Music festival - and the Choir who gained an
Honours award in their class
- There are artists here, including
those who were involved in the project called
Inspiring Views - Art in Gatton Park
- There are readers here, including
those who helped to establish the world record
reading of Wordsworth's Daffodils
- There are actors and singers
here, including many of the cast of last term's
production of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour
Dream Coat.
- There are Young Ecologists here,
including those who took part in Pollution Alert
- There are Cubs and Scouts, including
four winners of Chief Scout's Gold Award
- There are swimmers here, including
those who were in our Junior Team in National
Team Championships
- There are Public Speakers and
Debaters here, including those who represented
the school with distinction in recent Model
United Nations meetings
- There are those who ride, play
chess, practice Karate
- Who do work experience, and are
congratulated by employers as sensible and mature
young people
- Who raise money for Cataract
operations for the poor in India and for Cancer
research
- Who meet together in Chapel on
Sundays and weekdays
- Who host an annual party for
the local Club for the Blind
To sum all this up, I can simply
quote the words which appear at the front of each
term's Gatton Guide, our school calendar:
"Royal Alexandra and Albert school is committed
to providing an environment in which all will
achieve their full academic, social and spiritual
potential in order to become valued members of
society."
All this is going on, but you may
wonder if the school is developing in other ways?
Yes it is
- Seven boarding houses have refurbished
- and I shall invite Your Royal Highness to
visit one of them
- The George VI Memorial Hall,
which is the original and correct name for the
Dining Hall, has been refurbished - and even
has a waterproof roof!
- We have spent over one hundred
thousand pounds on Car Parks and pavements -
vital for the safety of young people and adults
I hope, Your Royal Highness, you
will be as pleased as we are by the developments
and success that you have heard about and will
see today.
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