Ask an adult what they love doing and, more often than not, the answer traces back to primary school; a teacher who put a violin in their hands, an afternoon they were able to try fencing, a club they joined because a friend did. Children cannot choose a passion they have never encountered. The job of a school is to widen the field of things they might stumble into.
That is the thinking behind our co-curricular programme, and it is why the list is deliberately long.
Sport for every kind of athlete
Not every child wants to play netball on a cold Tuesday, and a programme built only around team sport quietly tells half the school that sport is not for them. Ours is broader:
- Team sport — netball with fixtures against local schools, football coached by a UEFA-qualified coach, and summer athletics, rounders and cricket
- Individual sport — tennis with an LTA Level 5 coach, gymnastics with a British Gymnastics coach, and fencing with the Paul Davis Fencing Academy
- Something different — skiing, with twice-monthly training at Gosling dry slope and the Hemel Snow Centre
- Dance with BeaTz Dance Company, and table tennis at break for those who prefer their sport in short bursts
Between them, these run from Reception right through to Form VI, so a girl can start something at four or at ten.
Music, from first note to orchestra
Music at St Hilda’s works as a ladder rather than a club. Individual lessons are available from Form I in piano, voice, strings, woodwind, brass, drums and guitar, with ABRSM theory classes running alongside from beginners to Grade V.
From there, girls join Junior Choir, Showtime Singers or Senior Choir depending on their age, plus recorder groups, string group, wind band and, once they are at Grade 1 standard, the orchestra. Class concerts give every girl the opportunity to perform, and the House Music Competition in the Summer Term is one of the highlights of the year.
Drama, art and the written word
- LAMDA lessons in acting, verse and prose, taught in groups of four to six with the option of taking exams
- Top Draw Art Club for Forms V and VI, and after-school art clubs with projects that change each half term
- Authorfy, where girls take on ten-minute writing challenges set by some of the UK’s best-loved children’s authors
- Silver Stories, an inter-generational reading project in which girls telephone their “Silver Listener” each week to read aloud
Silver Stories is a favourite of ours. It asks something real of the girls, a standing weekly commitment to someone who is looking forward to their call, and the reading practice is almost a side effect.
STEM, languages and the quieter corners
STEM Club gives Forms III to V a weekly hour of problem-solving and engineering, and German Club offers a first taste of a second language beyond the French taught in lessons. Outdoor Explorers takes learning outside whatever the weather.
Helping girls choose and letting them change their minds
Breadth only works if children are allowed to experiment. We encourage every girl to try something each term that she has not done before, and we are relaxed about her deciding, at the end of it, that fencing is not for her after all. Ruling things out is part of finding what you love.
If you would like to see the programme in action, come to our Open Morning on Saturday 3rd October, 10am–12pm, or arrange a personal tour, and do ask the girls showing you round what they have taken up this year.
