Pete Holiday

The title comes from a letter that writer and professor of Biochemistry Isaac Asimov sent to celebrate the opening of a new library in Troy, Michigan in 1971. He addressed the children of the Troy community: “Congratulations on the new library, because it isn’t just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you—and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.”

He was right. Libraries truly are life-enhancing places of interest, wonder and enjoyment. A school library is a barometer of its own attitude towards education. According to research carried out by the National Literacy Trust, school libraries “have a positive impact on all areas of pupils’ learning, including the development of reading and writing skills, their wellbeing and overall academic attainment.” In a time in which many libraries are closing and some school libraries are being given over entirely to computers, we are hugely fortunate to have libraries which are flourishing and at the heart of our community. 

This term marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Senior School’s Taylor Library, which was opened on 9 November, 1973. Cyril and Catherine Taylor, residents of Reading and committed philanthropists, generously donated the money to pay for the library and to give a special and ongoing gift to Abbey students and staff. It houses an amazing approximately 45,000 items and makes an average of 7,904 loans a year. It is a place of calm reflection and individual exploration at the heart of our busy school.

Brilliantly organised by our school librarian, we are working on a wide range of events to mark the library’s birthday. These will include everything from a tea party to reading challenges to a competition to produce a commemorative portrait of the Taylors to hang in the library. This term’s assemblies, given by staff and students, will be themed around books and reading. So far, titles include: ‘Literature for female empowerment’, ‘Ancient libraries’, ‘How a PhD in Chemistry affected my reading’ and ‘book burning’ as well as many others.

The great philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who donated money for over 2500 libraries between 1883 and 1929 and changed many lives through his thoughtful generosity, said: “a library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never-failing spring in the desert.” I hope that our students and staff will enjoy and take a lot from this term’s exciting and extending range of library events and will continue to use and enjoy the school libraries to the full. I will end where I began with Isaac Asimov. He is truly right that libraries are ‘gateways’ to so much and it feels fitting to be writing about them here.

Sarah Tullis, Senior Deputy Head

Welcome back! The start of a new school year is always a time of such possibility, even if the sun isn’t always shining quite this brightly. New students and staff, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. New projects, this year more so than ever. We were delighted to open our new Sixth Form centre: a huge airy space, full of light and views, exactly the environment to encourage new thinking and new ideas. And a brand-new dining room, too, to double the space for students in the middle of the day and provide more room to breathe and enjoy activities and each other’s company.

At our first Senior School assembly of the year we shared a key goal for all of us as a school. We want to be a place where people listen; where people make clear that they are interested and that they care; where every student is known, understood and encouraged for the individuals they are. So our goal for the year is to be a school offering the best care and support anywhere to help young people towards their unique futures.

We also discussed the role of girls’ schools in the modern world. There are so many examples in recent news of why girls’ schools matter more than ever. There’s the convulsion taking place in Spain in response to a man in a position of power, Luis Rubiales, forcing a non-consensual kiss on women’s football player Jenni Hermoso, sparking the SeAcabo movement – enough is enough.

There’s amazing research released recently suggesting that patients have a 25% higher survival rate one year after an operation when the surgeon was a woman. Of all the ways the male head of the Royal College of Surgeons could have responded to this news, he chose to do so by questioning whether this was because women do the easy surgeries.

However, the example on which we chose to focus was the gender pay gap. Not among men and women in the workplace: among boys and girls in terms of pocket-money. From the age of eight, boys get more. One reason for this appears to be that they expect it; they ask for it repeatedly; so it happens.

This is what girls’ schools matter. We all know that the world is structured in a way that can exclude women. Crash test dummies being based on male anatomy, so that cars are optimised for male safety, The temperature in offices being set to suit male metabolism. Sports kit and protective equipment being designed originally for men and being uncomfortable and ineffective for women. The list is endless of ways in which women have had to adapt to arrangements and terms set by men. This kind of adaptation happens in most schools, too. Research suggests that teachers in co-educational schools give 30% more teaching time to boys while girls are expected to adapt.

Well: not here. Being a girls-only school is not negative – it is not about the absence of boys. It is about a positive sense of power and expectation: about fostering students with an absolute expectation of equality. Not adapting and fitting around systems that are unfair. Changing them. 

That’s why our focus will always be on individual support and on how young people achieve success as much as the successes themselves. Helping them get wonderful results matters, and we are so proud of all the outcomes achieved over the summer. But in the end it is what they do with them: it is about going on to live lives full of confidence, purpose, and joy. In every space in our school, that is what we are working towards.

Will le Fleming, Head

Prom? Ball? What’s the actual difference, and does it matter? 

Well: Monday evening’s wonderful Upper V soiree in the Richards Hall was celebrated as a Prom, whilst last nights’ delightful celebration for the Upper VI, in the charming setting of Trunkwell House, was billed as a ball. Great food, great company, fantastic attire, and some joyous dancing – surely they were both the same type of event, just with a different badge?

‘That’s just an Americanism,’ my mother declares annually around this time of year. I typically use the weekend before a prom to dust off my dinner jacket which, if nothing else, gives me something to talk to her about during our weekly phone call. And she’s sort of right. ‘Prom’ does conjure up images of dances in American high school movies. For those of and over a certain age, that means Grease, Back to the Future or the horrors of Carrie. But does that make proms any less traditional or significant? I’d argue not.

Records of proms, or ‘promenade dances’ to give them their full title, date back to the late 19th Century in Massachusetts, so there’s already a fair weight of history behind that label. The term ‘Ball’ is of course older, deriving its name from the Latin word ‘ballare’, meaning ‘to dance’, and was possibly first used to describe a formal dancing party in the 12th century. However, the ‘Debutante Ball’, the forerunner to the current school ball, was an 18th century concept and not the most savoury of affairs. They provided the first opportunities for young women of ‘civilised society’ to essentially be paraded in front of eligible bachelors. Painful outfits aside, the corruption and objectification of young women helped perpetuate the concept that girls were commodities, possessions that could be sold by fathers to suitors. Astonishingly, variants of these balls still exist in certain circles worldwide, despite Queen Elizabeth II banning them in royal court in 1958.      

Thankfully, the school ball is significantly detached from the debutante model, and possibly owes its identity more to the discos of the 1970s and 80s, thereby making the ‘school prom’ a more traditional event, despite its North American roots. Interestingly, our own traditions at The Abbey seem to echo those of many schools in East Asia, where they have a Junior Prom and a Leavers’ Ball for those graduating from school. It’s hard to work out why, but my best guess is that the two events, which have been running for some years now, simply needed different titles so that students, staff and parents could tell them apart.   

Whatever we or anyone else call them, both this week’s prom and ball were hugely enjoyed, and played a significant role in the Abbey Journey of our students. For the staff, it was a privilege to share these ‘rites of passage’ with our girls. These two year groups, who collectively faced the biggest academic challenges of their lives to date, embraced the opportunities to make themselves and their friends feel special for an evening, to enjoy each others’ company, and to celebrate both their own hard work and the wonderful times they have spent together. Indeed, for many at the Leavers’ Ball, the night culminated in an emotional farewell, as they now take their next step on from the two, seven or in some cases up to 14 years spent learning and growing together at The Abbey. 

Prom? Ball? It doesn’t matter: they were both magical.

George Morton, Deputy Head Sixth Form and Outcomes

Wednesday was National Thank a Teacher Day.  I hope some of my colleagues received a note of appreciation. Let’s think for a minute about where we would be without teachers and education.  Quite simply, in the dark. I don’t think it’s too sweeping a statement to say that education is the foundation of any civilised and humane society.

I wonder who your favourite teachers are or were?  Mine were Miss Walker, PE teacher and netball coach.  Mr Enghem, fearsome when riled, but a brilliant maths teacher, and Miss Lishman, who was probably only 22 when she taught me, but the 7 year old me hadn’t a clue about her age. I can still remember trying to spell ‘antiquarian’ in one of her ferociously difficult spelling tests: though I couldn’t pronounce it and had no idea what it meant!

Yesterday, both Miss Cook and Mrs Robinson went up to London to join a sizeable contingent of alumnae for drinks.  Many of them will have been taught by these two redoubtable teachers, who leave the Abbey after many years service at the end of the term. It is a huge pleasure to see students you have taught making their way in the world – as well as being accosted by anecdotes about your lessons – were they really like that?!  

For me, teaching has been the best job in the world.  (I tried finance, thinking that’s what you did after a glitzy university, but it really wasn’t for me.) And whilst the Abbey is a community made up of fallible beings, and therefore not perfect, it’s a pretty good place to spend your days, whether as a student, teacher or member of the wider staff. 

In two weeks’ time, we will have reached the end of the academic year, and for some of us, results days notwithstanding, our final day in school.  This year, I know how those students who are leaving us feel on their last day.  Ready to move to something new, but sad to be leaving the much-loved and familiar; students, colleagues and community.  

We always end our year in Senior School with our Commemoration Service for our founders and benefactors.  It’s a simple set of words that acknowledges those whose vision founded the school and those whose efforts have ensured that this vision has moved forward so that girls and young women can benefit from an education that will allow them to take their place in shaping society. For myself, Miss Cook, Mrs Robinson and other staff who are leaving, it will be especially poignant.

So I would like to say thank you for all that The Abbey has given me.  Thank you to all those students who have sat patiently through my many lessons and assemblies.  To the many parents with whom I’ve talked, who’ve allowed me to understand their daughters better. And to all those colleagues, dedicated to the education of girls and young people.  You will all be missed. With my very best wishes – thank you.

Allison Hadwin, Deputy Head Ethos and Pastoral

When I was growing up in Surrey, long before I crossed the Atlantic and eventually joined an industry which took me to every part of the world, landscapes and their imagery were my gateway to the destinations I longed to visit. I’d see images of globetrotting archaeologist Harrison Ford and imagine I too was deep in the South American jungle. Or I’d flip through my dad’s archival National Geographic and dream of the virtually uninhabited ice-covered landmass of Antarctica. 

Much like a great novel or art exhibition can introduce us to new worlds, there are many ways for the mind to take flight. The methods by which we get away from it all are evolving. The rise of transformational trips that help us make sense of our lives – whether that’s redefining our purpose, finding balance or planning out a new career path – seems to tap into the uniquely post-lockdown phenomenon of trying to put ourselves back together. As the psychodynamic coach Nick Hatter says, “Sometimes we are so busy working in our lives that we forget to work on our lives”. We speak a lot in our school about identity. This used to be defined by place or by age or by role. But we live in a world now where we are not leaving things to chance – we’re choosing to define and redefine ourselves and what it means to live our “best lives”. 

A great escape can be a valuable mental journey as much as a geographical one. One early morning just a few years ago, I found myself peering out of the window of a tiny propeller aircraft, watching the sun rising over the vast scenic expanse of the gentle rolling African savannah plains. The air was warm and the magnificent cloudless sky left me breathless. As we approached the dusty airstrip, I could see hundreds of school children’s faces eagerly awaiting our aircraft’s descent, their teachers nervously attempting to shepherd their students’ palpable excitement over meeting us. To say that our arrival to their school was joyous would be an immense understatement. 

Our immersive itinerary focused on key areas of life in a foreign, extreme, beautiful setting – community, sustainability and wellness came into sharp focus in a new environment, offering a fresh point of view. As our time surrounded by nature’s epic masterpiece of animals, birds and geology unfolded, so did my self-knowledge. It was the golden moment when I dared to grab onto something more. It disrupted my sense of normal. It challenged boundaries and guided me through a process of self-discovery and self-renewal. Time away from the day-to-day, focusing on what really matters, woke me up, forcing me to face those important questions, decisions and life whispers I’d avoided for so long. Going to a new place physically helped to provide a space with new perspectives. It opened my eyes to a new sense of possibility while leaving behind what weighed me down. 

We’re heading into travel season – the days are longer and summer holidays are finally in sight. Wanderlust underpins the educational experience at this point in the school calendar. Many of our students are enjoying trips to far flung destinations. And every summer, there is a magic in the moment we set the ‘out of office’ and head off for a few days of sand and sea.

What I have learnt is that – even when you’re in paradise – going on a journey of transformation requires faith to think bigger, be audacious, identify and overcome limiting beliefs and trust the process. Our Junior School’s unique Human Intelligence curriculum offers children the opportunity to challenge the norm, to question society’s views and to celebrate their individuality. Self-belief is a powerful force, and that is just part of what clicked for me aboard that tiny plane in the middle of the Masai Mara. 

We live in an always-on, plugged-in society. So whether you find yourself on a plane, beach or garden sun lounger, I hope this summer gives you the sweet escape you deserve. 

Nisha Kaura, Head of The Abbey Junior School

What is the value of Pi to 16 decimal places? The answer is 3.1415926535897932, which is Pi expressed with sufficient accuracy for the purpose of space engineering. Earlier this week, two students taught it from memory, in a few moments, to a lecture theatre audience who also then knew it from memory, and repeated it back to them. And it sticks: which I know because I typed it from memory here (and then checked it via Google, of course…).

This was a demonstration of the memory palace technique: part of The Memory Project initiative at The Abbey. Under the leadership of Head of Psychology and memory champion James Paterson, we are exploring the role of cognitive psychology in education. How do we learn? How does memory work? How can we help our memories to work smarter? And how can we ensure that we understand the way our minds work more generally, and learn to think critically, to imagine and invent with freedom and purpose?

This week saw a wonderful event at school as part of this Project. James explored memory techniques on stage, including demonstrating his own knowledge of Pi to hundreds of decimal places; students taught the audience the techniques of memory stories and memory palaces; there was a live competition of memory skill, in which I was soundly thrashed by Junior School students; two visiting professors from the University of Reading discussed the way memory works and how certain diets improve brain performance (top tip: regular blueberry smoothies); and finally students from The Abbey and our partner schools attended break-out sessions led by alumnae who are studying and working in the field of psychology.

The event was part of our ARCH programme, providing remarkable learning opportunities to young people across Reading. It was also a step towards future memory and psychology events, part of James’s ground-breaking work bringing benefits to all Abbey students, to partner schools, and to the way we teach and learn.

From September all students in Upper IV (Year 9) will study a course of cognitive psychology as part of their core curriculum, looking to acquire the skills and self-understanding that will equip them to tackle GCSEs and Sixth Form study. Examination and assessment can feel overwhelming. The more we help students understand learning as a set of skills, over which they have ownership, and which they can consciously choose to practise and develop, the more perspective we hope to give them about these challenges, and all those that lie beyond.

We’re hugely excited about The Memory Project. It connects to our ground-breaking Human Intelligence curriculum at the Junior School and to the enrichment and critical thinking embedded in learning throughout our curriculum. As we ponder the advance of AI, what is clear above all is that understanding our own human intelligence will be critical in the years ahead. 

We want our students to gain the excellent qualifications that unlock the doors of their future, and the in-depth but utterly natural understanding of technology that they undoubtedly need. Alongside this we seek to help them gain knowledge of themselves. As Danielle George, another brilliant recent ARCH speaker, reminded her audience, the human brain is quite the machine. If one were to encode the brain’s information in digital form, and play the subsequent string of 1s and 0s as if it were a song, the track would last for fifty thousand trillion trillion years.

The Memory Project will help students understand this marvel that they carry so effortlessly with them, and from which they view the world; and in so doing, will help them understand who they are and how they interact with others. It’s an ambitious and exciting journey of discovery – which is what The Abbey is all about.

Will le Fleming, Head