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Speech given by HRH The Duchess
of Gloucester GCVO
at the Royal Alexandra and Albert School Founders'
Day
Sunday 9th May 2004
May I thank you, Headmaster, for
your kind words and indeed everyone at the Royal
Alexandra and Albert School for your warm welcome.
It is a real pleasure to be here
again and to learn, at first hand, of the many
greatly needed and very positive changes to the
school. The story of the two schools, and how
they came together, is complicated, but what they
had in common was the foresight of their founders
in seeing a need for the education of the children,
who would not otherwise have had any training
at all available to them. In both cases Royal
Patronage was considered to make a huge difference
to the necessary raising of funds from the public.
Although circumstances are now so very different,
I am delighted to be following in the tradition
of royal support that started so long ago.
What an impressive account of achievements
in all aspects of school life that we have heard
of from the Headmaster - (I don't know if I am
the only one here to feel almost exhausted by
the amount of activities that some of you manage
to fit into your day!) You are, as a school, to
be congratulated whole-heartedly on your steady
upswing and achievements since the sorrowful state
of this establishment only a few years ago. I
should imagine that the co-operation amongst teaching
staff, management, pupils and their parents, and
the governors under the new leadership of Mr.
Spencer Ellis was second to none. The excellent
improvements at the school, both academic and
practical, would not have materialised had you
not all worked together in unity and pulled out
all the stops to save your school. This you have
done, and much more. There are almost one hundred
more pupils than a few years back, you have already
been awarded 'Sportsmark' and are heading towards
'Sports College Status' - (I wish you the best
of luck and energy with fund raising) - and with
plans of a new covered sports area and indoor
riding school, a new cricket pavilion and facilities
to allow camping in the Park. Then, there is the
continuing renovation of all the boarding houses
with the computer network being extended to each
one, and changing rooms being completely upgraded.
We have to remember what a large place this is,
and in the most glorious setting, but it takes
time and huge funds to get round to completing
it all.
And now back to the academic side
of things: we have heard in the Headmaster's speech
of the successes achieved by many individual pupils;
well done every one who has worked so hard. However,
I note that the prizes that I am about to give
out are not only for academic achievements, there
are also prizes for Sport, Music and Dance and
for those other aspects of our lives - for Endeavour,
for Perseverance, for being a Good Citizen and
for Leadership. Regardless of how clever you are
in Maths or how good you are at French, these
are the things that I would encourage all of you
to aim for. Congratulations to pupils and teachers
- you really deserve praise.
With my warmest good wishes for
continued success in the future, I now look forward
to being shown round the renovation and building
work, and I hope to have the chance to meet as
many of you as possible who make the Royal Alexandra
and Albert School what it is today.
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