Dear Parent,
It was wonderful to welcome the staff and pupils back this week; fresh, rested and sun-kissed faces, new haircuts, and more summer dresses!
As the season changes, so too does the landscape of our beloved school. I write to you about the departure of two members of our senior leadership team: Paul Neagle, who left St Christopher’s at the start of the month, and Ella Schierenberg, who will leave at the end of the academic year.
After a long, successful, and varied career, Paul has decided to retire from full-time employment, which will give him more time to enjoy with family and to pursue other opportunities. We are grateful for the good work that Paul has done whilst here, including on the groundwork for our new building capital project, the transfer of the Teacher’s Pension Scheme to a new provider, the introduction of new pay scales and many other things. I am sure we will all miss Paul’s cheerful presence about the school, and we wish him well for the future.
Ella Schierenberg leaves St Christopher’s after ten years – she joined as a newly qualified teacher; school has been a second home for her ever since. St C’s has shaped her career: from Reception teacher to Head of Lower School, to Acting Deputy Head Strategy and Operations, to Deputy Head Pastoral, Ella has been an influence – an inspiring and unstoppable force for good in our community. It will be hard to imagine the school without her. Ella is following her heart, and will be moving to Dubai in the summer, to join her partner who is relocating there this month.
Paul and Ella's departures, along with my own upcoming transition, mark a moment of change for us all, and I do not underestimate the impact this news will have on our community.
As we bid farewell to our departing colleagues, we also look forward to the fresh perspectives and experiences that our new team members will bring.
We welcome Stephen Cole to act as Bursar for the remainder of the academic year, whilst we seek to appoint a permanent bursar. Stephen is highly experienced and has successfully stepped into the role of Interim Bursar in a number of independent schools, including a boarding school on an historic 50-acre site. Stephen has also acted as Chief Operating Officer for several commercial enterprises, including the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. Before this, Stephen had a successful 20-year career in the Army (Black Watch and Royal Signals regiments, no less), rising to the rank of Major and leading operations in Kosovo, Kenya, Belize and Hong Kong.
Stephen is involved in an ongoing project as a pioneer of British home-grown tea - he is the founder and owner of Buckland Tea Ltd., an organic commercial tea plantation in south Devon. In his spare time, Stephen enjoys tennis, running and photography, and practising his Castilian Spanish.
Lizi Courtney-Magee will join us in September as our Deputy Head Pastoral. Lizi will bring with her a wealth of teaching and pastoral experience, having been Head of Pre-Prep at St Albans High School Prep for the last 11 years, and prior to that as a primary school teacher, Acting Deputy Head and Performing Arts Lead in a number of primary schools. Lizi firmly believes in a culture of happy learners. The ethos of St Christopher’s, with its holistic approach to education, underpinned by a commitment to kindness, thoughtfulness and inclusion is very much aligned to Lizi’s philosophy of education and one she wants to build upon in her new role. Lizi is an advocate of mindfulness and is a trained Paws B mindfulness practitioner. Outside of education, Lizi is a keen amateur dramatist. She takes part in three productions a year, both in an acting and directing capacity, and she is keen to bring some of her drama skills to her new role at St Christopher’s.
Change, as we know so well, is the only constant in life. It certainly has been in my adult life. Consistency, as our parents and grandparents knew it, is a thing of the past. Our lives move fast: science, technology, careers, governments… We are always in movement, much like our girls’ learning.
The meaning of change has been a regular topic of reflection and discussion for me. I have read good and less convincing books on the topic, listened to illuminating podcasts, and discovered new theories. We seem rather adept at coining new phrases and inventing new concepts to help us make sense of the world. Recently, I have delved into the principles of motivational interviewing (MI), a concept developed by William Miller and Stephen Rollnick. In therapy, MI is an approach used to enhance motivation and support change. It is particularly effective for people who have mixed feelings about altering their behaviour, which is why it is often used with teenagers and young people. Change talk and resistance behaviour are two sides of the same coin. They represent our internal struggle with the desire for stability and the need for growth. It is within this process that we find growth and the potential for transformation.
Without doubt, change brings with it a sense of loss and resistance, a reflection of our ambivalence towards the unknown. This is natural and expected. The pandemic reminded us that we cope badly with uncertainty. Change can evoke a myriad of emotions, from anticipation to apprehension. It reminds us of the delicate balance between the comfort of the familiar and the invigoration of the new.
In the context of our school, change is not just about transitions in leadership; it's about the continuous evolution of our educational environment. It is about preparing our children to embrace change and risk, to be ready, willing, and able to adapt. Our goal has always been to instil in them the confidence to face change with hope and self-efficacy, to see it not as a threat but as an opportunity for growth and learning. In fact, how we respond to change can define our experience.
Self-efficacy, our belief in our capacity to make changes or act to achieve goals, does not come naturally, however. I see this every day in our school, and indeed it is an aim of education (in teacher speak, we talk about growth mindset, resilience and adaptability). We teach our girls to observe and celebrate their peers’ successes – implicitly, we teach them to recognise their impact on self-efficacy. It may be the courage of performing a solo, or the attitude displayed by our netball teams, drawing upon their inner resources and resilience to return to training after losing a match. We weave mindfulness into the timetable (in fact, we have changed our timetable this term so that lower school children have 30 minutes of mindfulness daily, and at least once weekly from Year 3 to Year 6) because we know that emotional states can strongly influence self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is central to growth, for it leads to resilience, healthy habits, and academic achievement. It provides the basis for motivation (you see where I am going with this), wellbeing and personal accomplishment.
With motivation, comes the ability to manage change. Change needn’t be met with a defensive response, but rather an open mind, one of discovery. Just as MI encourages collaboration, autonomy, and evocation, allowing clients to explore their motivations and find their own reasons for change, so does education.
Change is good – it is an opportunity for discovery. This aligns with our educational philosophy, where we encourage our pupils to engage with change and risk through play, fostering a sense of agency and adaptability, whilst being faithful to our traditions and strong values – these are here to stay. It is through thoughtful reflection that we can approach change not with fear, but with curiosity and openness. This is a lesson we strive to impart to our children, preparing them to face the future with confidence and optimism, to nurture, together, an environment where change is not just a concept to be managed but an opportunity to be embraced.
Thank you for your continued trust and partnership, as we uphold our shared vision for a school that remains steadfast in its commitment to excellence, innovation, and the wellbeing of all our girls and colleagues.