St Paul's Girls' School

The year hasn’t started yet. The student leadership teams already have.

The new SPGS HoST Team and St Paul’s School Prefect Team recently came together for a three-day leadership residential, designed to challenge, inspire and encourage them to think about the impact they hope to have on their school communities.

Through workshops, creative team challenges and outdoor activities, they explored what it means to lead with purpose, integrity and empathy. There were campfires, marshmallows, birthday celebrations and more than a few encounters with the British weather, but above all, there was time to build trust and strengthen friendships.

The year ahead looks to be in very good hands. (And, should the need arise, capable of building a raft.)

What a night!

A huge congratulations to everyone involved in The Welkin, which was awarded Best Play at the National School Theatre Awards® last night at the Gillian Lynne Theatre.

Performed in March 2026, The Welkin triumphed in a category featuring 35 productions from state, independent and specialist performing arts schools across the UK. The award was presented by James Graham OBE.

Representing SPGS on the night were Mr Davies, Deputy Director of Drama, and VII and VIII students Marilou, Genevieve, Poppy, Rachel and Maya, who proudly accepted the award on behalf of the cast, crew and creative team.

This is an extraordinary achievement and a wonderful recognition of the talent, creativity and dedication that brought The Welkin to life.

National School Theatre Awards ®

The Great Hall filled with flavours from around the world. Corridors became a showcase of cultural dress. An Indian dance performance had audiences captivated.

Culture Week offered countless opportunities for students to share, celebrate and learn from one another, highlighting the breadth of backgrounds, traditions and perspectives that make up the St Paul’s community.

Some of the most memorable journeys don’t require leaving the school gates.

Some people spend their summer at the beach. Others spend it tackling fundamental mathematical questions at Oxford.

Congratulations to Keya and Silvia in the VII (Year 12), who have secured places on PROMYS Europe, a prestigious summer programme for mathematically ambitious students at the University of Oxford.

We look forward to hearing about the discoveries, theorems and adventures that await them.

GirlsInSTEM

Cathedral grandeur. School hall. Same ambition. 🎻

String players from St Paul’s School and St Paul’s Girls’ School came together for a Joint String Day, rehearsing and performing Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis in Wathen Hall on the SPS campus.

To recreate the work’s cathedral-inspired sound world, the musicians were divided into a main orchestra, a solo quartet and a distant “echo” orchestra, tackling the challenge of balancing the piece’s intricate layers while navigating its ever-changing atmosphere.

The day concluded with a wonderful performance for parents, showcasing not only musical skill but also the power of collaboration between the two schools.

Alumna Spotlight of the Month: Proof that annotating Greek texts can occasionally lead to annotating history itself.

Huge congratulations to SPGS alumna Katherine Backler (2010–2012), whose first book, Athena’s Sisters: Reclaiming the Women of Classical Athens, has just been published.

In Athena’s Sisters: Reclaiming the Women of Classical Athens, Katherine explores the lives and voices of women in Classical Athens through inscriptions, dedications and tombstones, offering a perspective that challenges traditional understandings of Athenian society.

The book was featured earlier this year in a window display at the Cambridge University Press Bookshop to mark International Women’s Day. And in a particularly lovely full-circle moment, Katherine recently taught at the Joint Association of Classical Teachers’ Ancient Greek Summer School alongside Dr Sharp, the very teacher who first inspired her love of Classics at SPGS.

Sir Simon Rattle. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. The Royal Festival Hall. This week’s reminder that London is a pretty exceptional place to study music.

Our A level students recently attended a rehearsal with the legendary conductor and the OAE, courtesy of percussion teacher Matthew Dickinson. An electrifying performance, a masterclass in musical precision, and perhaps the only time “that was what Berlioz should sound like” has been used as a mic-drop moment.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

The MIV (Year 7) and UIV (Year 8) swim gala this week was a medley of friends, fun and front crawls.

There were close finishes, plenty of cheering from the sidelines and an impressive level of commitment to every length of the pool. A fine display of house spirit, determined racing and the unmistakable energy of a morning spent poolside.