Miss Hamalis, Head of the Junior School, writes about Founders' Day celebrations at the Junior School last Saturday 1 July . 

It was a real pleasure to welcome so many of you into school on Saturday morning for Founders’ Day in order to mark the 138th anniversary of the founding of the school. I felt a little emotional as the girls so proudly collected their passports to tour you, their siblings and their grandparents around their school. I hope you enjoyed looking around the school as the girls took you on a once in a lifetime world trip to: Canada, Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malta, Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago.

It was a lovely day and celebrations continued late into the afternoon for all staff and Senior School pupils. After we closed the Junior School, all of the staff attended the Founders’ Day Service at the Senior School where we listened to readings from the Year 13 Head Girls and two of our governors, Mrs Leigh, Chair of Governors and Revd Crostley, Unitarian minister, and Mrs Hughes’ address. We also listened to the beautiful music and singing from the Founders’ Choir and Symphony Orchestra before all joining in with the Channing Hymn, which always strikes a chord with me when it is sung all together:

Now here assembled, old and young,

A company of Channing’s friends,

By one and all let thanks be sung

For what this Channing comprehends.

 

Let thanks be sung for hopes and dreams,

Which here may clear and clearer grow,

And for that spirit light whose gleams

Will travel further than we know.

 

Thus now assembled, old and young,

A company of Channing’s friends,

By one and all let thanks be sung

For grace that but in new grace ends.

 

You may enjoy watching this fantastic video: Happy Founders' Day. It is a whistle stop tour about the history of the school.