In November last year, we hosted our annual Christmas Fayre and held our Auction. A popular prize that was bidded on was the ‘Junior Head for the Day’ and the ‘Senior Head for a Day’. 

Last week, two very lucky Junior School students who won these prizes got to spend their day as Junior and Head of School! Emily (Year 4) was Junior Head for the day and Charlotte (Year 3) was Head for the day. 

Their day began in Dr Lee’s office, where they prepared for their morning speech in assembly about neurodiversity. 

They very confidently delivered a vote of thanks to Mrs Beezley and a guest speaker following their insightful assembly on dyslexia, held in recognition of Neurodiversity Celebration Week. Reflecting on the experience, they shared “we enjoyed the assembly because at first it was scary but once we did our speech we were proud and it felt like we were just speaking to ourselves and we were not daunted by the large audience of the older girls”.

Following the assembly, they then had the extraordinary opportunity to take a very important call, with none other than the GDST Chief Executive Officer, Mrs Giovannoni. During their conversion, the girls particularly appreciated one piece of advice from Mrs Giovannoni when discussing their approach to interacting with staff: “it’s not about them liking you, it’s about them respecting you and being a good person”.

After their call, they were collected by Mrs Saunders-Wall for a Learning Walk through the Junior School. The girls visited the Nursery, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 to find out what their peers had been getting up to for the day. They made notes and nominated a pupil from each year to have Epraise points. 

At break time, Emily and Charlotte went back to Dr Lee’s office to join the Student Senior Leadership Team for their weekly meeting with Dr Lee. The girls had fun sharing chocolates and speaking with the Sixth Form girls and finding out what being part of the SSLT involves. 

After this, the girls visited the Marketing Team to find out how the school newsletters are created and our social media posts. 

Next, the girls headed to the Dining Hall where they met with Mr Hogg, our Catering Manager, who gave them a tour of the kitchen and listened to their suggestions for food options on the menu for next term.

At lunchtime, the girls sat with Dr Lee and the teachers at the teacher table in the Dining Hall and even had a special desert brought to them!

After lunch, Emily and Charlotte went for a Learning Walk with Dr Lee around the Senior School. They started in the Humanities Department and listened to a Geography Lesson. They then went to the Science Department and joined a GCSE class who were learning about cells. Following this, they went to a Year 7 lesson where they were doing an experiment, which the girls got to be involved with and thoroughly enjoyed! 

They also visited the Creative Arts department and saw some Senior School girls working on their Textiles work and the Creative Arts team designing the set for the school show, The Little Mermaid out of all the recycled donations. 

What a wonderful, fun-packed, exciting day they had leading the school and meeting pupils and staff from various departments, such as catering, site team and marketing. To top it all off, they even managed to persuade Miss Kneen to make them a hot chocolate in the staff room!