College Headmistress, Rachel Owens shared with us why a gift in your Will would help St George’s develop more bursary support for future generations.
“Back in 2014, a couple of years before I started in my role as Headmistress of St George’s, I came to visit the school. I was friends with Joe Peake, the previous Head, and he invited me here for lunch. I’ll always remember that first visit, as Joe led me along the merrily bustling corridors at St George’s, I was struck be the thought, ‘What an amazing school. What a fantastic place!’ But I couldn’t put my finger on why. As I’m sure you know yourself, there is something extraordinary about St George’s. Even now, after several years in the lucky position of being Headmistress, I still struggle sometimes to articulate what it is that people respond to so powerfully when they first set foot on our grounds. What I can tell you is that one of the things that attracted me to the school, the reason I jumped at the chance of applying for the job when the opportunity arose, was the knowledge that St George’s had a strong tradition of bursary funding.
Tradition is often spoken of as an end in itself, as something automatically worthy of respect. Although I’m a historian – maybe because I am a historian- I don’t tend to like traditions for their own sake. I love the traditions that survive because they work, they enrich our lives. It’s incredibly important to me that we continue to be able to welcome students to our school, no matter what their background and financial situation. In fact, we must expand our offering, giving the necessary support to even more families, so that we can keep creating that rich mix of personalities, abilities and aspirations that make our school what it is.
If a child belongs at St George’s, we want them to come here. It is as simple as that. And bursaries are critical in making that possible.”
