Top Fives and Unsung Heroes
During November we are following a Challoner’s High Top Five theme to celebrate everything that is good and great about our school. Year 13s have been reflecting nostalgically about their favourite memories, whilst many Year 7s have been putting together their Top Five Highlights So Far. The girls’ Top Fives typical-ly include cherished moments and experiences with their favourite teachers – not surprising given the pas-sionate, experienced and characterful teachers at Challoner’s. It has struck me though, that whilst our wonderful teachers are in the front line, behind them, and out of the limelight, is an army of unsung heroes who should also be celebrated.
Perhaps ‘army’ is overstating the scope of government funding, but I have become increasingly impressed by our formidable sup-port staff battalion. They are certainly in my Challoner’s High Top Five. Our Front Office and the Sixth Form Office both contain an incredibly broad range of skills and professional backgrounds, with, for example, the Data Manager/Timetabler having the prob-lem-solving abilities of a NASA scientist. The Finance Team are not only ever efficient and cheerful but are underpinned by very significant financial and accountancy expertise. They are ably led by Debbie Grimsdale, who has a finance background in The City and 15 years of school business management experience to draw on.
One key characteristic of our support team is a willingness to go above and beyond, such as the commitment of our premises and lettings team. For example, earlier this term Ron Mackender postponed annual leave at 24 hours’ notice to help us in our hour (week) of need. A wide range of staff go the extra mile for our girls, with our devoted learning support assistants and special edu-cational needs team being particularly good examples. Matron is our compassionate and skilled fifth emergency service and across the corridor, our Exams Officer provides absolutely gold star service for our girls, running the logistical complexities of exam seasons with a wonderful blend of warmth, calm and military precision.
For so many of our support staff, working at Challoner’s is clearly more than just a job. It is taken as a way to make a significant contribution to society. Teachers and girls are enormously fortunate to have such committed and talented individuals supporting them including: our hard working IT Support team; the long-standing and highly knowledgeable subject technicians and adminis-trators; the librarians; reprographics support; Development team; language assistants; and specialist lesson cover supervisors.
I was tempted to avoid mentioning one member of support staff - my PA, Adele Cook – for strategic reasons. If too much detail was to leak out about quite how good she is I would almost certainly lose her to the CEO of a FTSE 100 company!
Best wishes for a really good weekend.
Alan Roe
