On Wednesday evening, BGS and the wider community enjoyed a wonderful evening in the beautiful marquee setting within the school grounds. The Prize Giving evening celebrated the success of the girls, who have gone above and beyond this year, prizes ranged from Academic Excellence to Citizenship.
A lively marquee saw all prize winners, governors, trustees, parents and teachers in attendance with invited guest speaker Sir Anthony Seldon. Currently the Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, Sir Anthony Seldon is one of Britain’s leading contemporary historians, educationalists, commentators and political authors. He is best known in part as former Master of Wellington College and has written biographies on Margaret Thatcher, John Major, and Tony Blair, to name but a few. He was the co-founder and first director of the Centre for Contemporary British History, co-founder of Action for Happiness and a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the 2014 Birthday Honours, he received a knighthood for services to education and modern political history.
After a beautiful performance of A Piece of Sky from Senior School students and opening addresses from Headmistress, Miss MacKenzie, and Deputy Head Girl, Niru Muthiah, who welcomed our guest speaker Sir Anthony Seldon, the awarding of prizes followed. Years 7 to Upper Sixth pupils were honoured for a wide variety of successes.
After a succession of prizes, students Eva-Grace Ng (Year 7) and Isobel Stearn (Upper Sixth) performed Adante in DB, a stunning piece composed by Isobel herself, as part of her IB Diploma Music course. Further awards were handed out, with Upper Sixth student, Rosalie Inman, being awarded the School Dux.
Sir Anthony Seldon delivered a brilliantly witty speech, linking the importance of intelligence to happiness. he said: “Intelligence includes the intelligence to know how to be happy and not talk ourselves down. Life is about living it, life is about loving other people. The things that make us happy are to have somebody to care for, to care for ourselves, to have a reason to get up in the morning and to have good health. We have a big control over how healthy we are and this is what it means to be intelligent.”
“My final message to you is simply this, we all have a duty, not just to ourselves but to each other, to talk each other up, to help affirm and support each other. We have enormous power to be the kind of people we want to be. This is my message to the girls as we go forward. You have done incredibly well; you are at a wonderful school. You will go onto university and can achieve incredible things. You can make this world a more compassionate, enlightening, loving, caring and greener sustainable place – if you want to do it, if it is in your heart, you can do it. You can make this world, you can save this world and I think you will.”
The Head Girl, Chloe Boul, brought the evening to a close and reflected on the influence Sir Anthony Seldon as an inspiration to us all.
