A message from St Swithun’s Old Girls’ Association
We hope you are keeping well and our thoughts are with you at this difficult and anxious time.
St Swithun’s School Update
In line with the UK government's announcement, St Swithun's school gates have now closed except for the children of key workers. A special assembly was held on the last Friday, spreading the students out throughout our hall as far as possible, to say goodbye to our U5 and U6 pupils. It was a poignant and uplifting experience, featuring our St Swithun's spirit, a lot of singing and a guest appearance via video from Rev Wallington’s living room as he couldn’t be with us.
With thanks to the sterling efforts of the IT department and our Head of Computing / Digital Learning Co-ordinator, the facility for remote learning is now in place and the school has set up new technology to include a
synchronous element, i.e. real-time/‘live’ teaching/discussion/support for pupils.
As more complete information becomes available from the regulator and examination boards, St Swithun’s will be studying their plans closely and responding accordingly in regards to the cancellation of this summer’s I/GCSE and A-level qualifications. The school will be working with the examination boards to ensure that our pupils achieve the best, fairest outcomes.
Jane Gandee, Headmistress said, “I was struck by the sense of perspective of our U6. They said that despite being disappointed about not being able to take their A levels, they understood the government’s decision to prioritise public health. We are all really proud of our U6.”
Bramston Bursary Foundation
Whilst our event fundraising plans are now on hold, we stay committed to doing all we can to help transform the lives of girls in care, or on the edge of care, through fully funded boarding places at St Swithun’s. If you would like to find out more about this initiative, please visit our
BBF web pages. Thank you.
How to Keep in Touch
To help our community through periods of isolation, please do use our online facilities to keep in touch with each other.
If you have not yet joined the Old Girls’ Association online network - now is the perfect time to do so.
Please click here to join. We have 1,234 Old Girls and former members of staff who have already joined the network. You can use the platform to search for old school friends and get in contact via the messaging tool.
When you sign up, an email notification is sent to us, so we can ‘approve you’ as a bona fide member of our St Swithun’s community. We will be monitoring notifications closely and will do our best to ‘approve’ all new member requests as soon as possible.
If you'd like to get in touch with someone and can’t find the person you are looking for through the online network, or would simply prefer not to join the network, please do email
OGA@stswithuns.com and we will try to link you up.
Or, please do call the office telephone number: 01962 835734 and you will get diverted to mobile.
We’d love to hear from you via email or phone. If you are in isolation at home, please do get in touch for a chat. You may want to take the opportunity to share with us some of your St Swithun’s memories, which we’d really love.
It is great to see the supportive messages amongst the St Swithun’s community already on our Facebook Page. Please visit here:
OGA Facebook Group
In regards to Old Girls’ Day, currently scheduled for Saturday 12 September 2020, we do hope that this will go ahead as planned. It would be wonderful to see as many Old Girls and former members of staff getting together for what could be a truly special occasion. If you would like to register for this event, please
click here, and of course we will be in touch if the date has to change. Thank you.
We look forward to keeping in touch through the power of technology.
Keep safe.
Veryan and Kelly
Veryan Vere Hodge
Director of development and alumnae
Kelly Carr
Development and alumnae manager
St Swithun’s School
Alresford Road
Winchester
Hampshire
SO21 1HA
Registered Charity Number 307335
