Letter from the Head
If you would like to view an original copy of this letter, please clink this link.
January 2024
Dear OFs
I hope that this letter might reach as many of you as possible. I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce myself as the new Head at Saint Felix School having taken on this role from September 2023. Having been at Wellington College in Berkshire for twenty-five years, the last ten of which were in senior leadership roles, it has been a joy to now move to Suffolk and lead this fantastic school. I grew up in Cambridge where I was educated at The Perse School, and it does feel as if I am returning to my roots of East Anglia.
After school, I studied History at Oxford University (St Edmund Hall) and returned to do my PGCE at Keble College with a year travelling and working in various fields in between. My teaching career started at Bryanston School in Dorset where I had three wonderful years learning my craft before the move to Wellington.
My first term was a real pleasure as I got to know all aspects of the school, not least the wonderful students who have so many fine qualities and attributes. I have also been able to meet some OFs, including many of those on the Executive Committee, and it has been fascinating to hear their stories of the school in a different age. I have offered Saint Felix as a venue for the AGM, and this will take place on Wednesday 13th March at 2 p.m. In addition, I would like to invite all OFs who were here prior to 2002, before the school went co-educational, to a reunion event on Saturday 18th May 2024. A formal invite will be sent through in due course, but it will be an afternoon event with an opportunity for a tour of the school, an address by myself on the future plans for Saint Felix, High Tea and some performances from Saint Felix School musicians and actors. We will run a similar event for those that graduated from Saint Felix after 2002 during the academic year 2024-25. As the database is not complete, please can I ask those that do receive this letter to disseminate this by any means that they can to their fellow OFs.
Much of my first term at Saint Felix was about establishing the vision for the future of school and shaping the culture to ensure optimal student outcomes. We have embedded a new Learner Profile into the structure of the school to shape our teaching and learning initiatives, inform students and staff of the attributes and characteristics that we are trying to instil, as well as guiding our thinking on curriculum review. We want our students to become increasingly aspirational, curious, independent, reflective, and resilient as they move up through the school. It was a real pleasure to be able to give out certificates and book tokens to the students throughout the school who have best exemplified these qualities in the final assembly of the Autumn Term. In addition to the establishment of the Learner Profile, our staff and students have engaged in a term-long process to establish the School Values. The students debated, discussed, and deliberated on the concept of values in PSHEE lessons prior to a short-list emerging; their favoured options combined with the most popular amongst the staff, went before a whole community vote on Thursday 7th December.
As a result of this, I am pleased to announce that the Saint Felix School Values will be:
• Creativity
• Honesty
• Kindness
• Passion
• Respect
These values will help guide our thinking and ensure that the students have a clear sense of moral compass. They will inform our policies and procedures whilst also guiding new initiatives and innovations. In short, they will become part of the fabric of the school.
This term, we will be continuing discussions to accelerate our thinking on the shape of the day and week as well as the nature of curriculum changes to be implemented in the future. We will be exploring different ways to create a dynamic and modern curriculum that will best suit the Saint Felix students of today as well as those of tomorrow and beyond. And, as we look to broaden the co-curricular provision and fully incorporate these opportunities into the school day, ensuring that we have created the right structure for this will be crucial. Whilst we are waiting to implement this in September 2024, it is important that we do not stand still and with that in mind, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme will be re-starting this term for Bronze level students with Silver available in due course. We will be introducing Model United Nations (Global Citizenship), Debating and Entrepreneurship Societies during the course of the rest of the year whilst also starting a series of lectures for the older year groups entitled “Beyond The Horizon”. These will enable students to think and consider potential future pathways via an informative and interesting set of guest speakers; I am hoping to accompany this with a twilight series of events open to the whole community where we will hear from some prominent names in the field of sport, the arts, education and much more. We will also be looking to embrace Careers Week in March with a number of events taking place; a Speed Networking event for our students on Tuesday 5th March will provide the centrepiece. Please can I ask for any OFs to volunteer their services for this if they would like to do so in order to have a wide array of career opportunities for them to explore; please contact Mr Grigg (Assistant Head Co-Curricular) on mgrigg@stfelix.co.uk if you would like to help.
Whilst I have no intention of reintroducing Saturday school, we will also be starting Saturday Morning Clubs as part of our boarding programme and for day and local students to opt in. We will be trialling this in the Summer Term with a Musical Theatre Club which will run for eight weeks and from September, we will be running three strands: performance & creative, physical and academic. The physical will look at gaining qualifications and experiences in sports and activities our students might not otherwise be able to access such as lifesaving and sailing, whilst the academic will look at disciplines beyond the classroom such as Astronomy and Environmental Sciences potentially.
In other news, we are well on the way to finishing the refurbishment of Clough with every classroom space refreshed and renewed to create a more dynamic learning space for our younger learners. The Cloisters Project to open up the front of school in a more dramatic and appealing fashion will take place over the Easter break; the crest above the entrance has already been restored to its former glory. Once that has been done, we will be implementing a more coherent traffic management system as well as looking at lighting throughout the entrance into school. The Sports Hall changing room development continues and the seed will be laid on the two sports pitches in the new year. When you next visit the school, I hope that you will begin to notice significant changes to the fabric of the school; there is much more to come.
It has been exciting to see the new brand emerge during the course of this term with all elements of our communications redesigned prior to the new livery on the minibuses being completed and an updated website coming online. These changes have gone down well and the new strapline of “An Education By The Sea - Broaden Your Horizon”, begins to encapsulate the learning environment that we are creating. It was also a pleasure to host our Community Christmas Drinks at the end of last term as we look to reconnect with all of those that live and work locally in order to collaborate and engage together in projects and initiatives; as we look to alter the shape of the week from September, service learning and community projects will begin to take on a key role in the life of the students.
It was sad to say goodbye to four wonderful members of staff at the end of last term who some of you might have been taught by; Miss Cooper, Miss Parker, Mrs Dobson (OF) and Mr Currie have all moved on to seek new challenges in their ongoing professional development. As you can begin to gather, there are many changes ahead at Saint Felix as we look to grow the school, broaden the co-curricular provision, and ensure the very best outcomes for students with a modern curriculum in a dynamic learning environment. I hope that some of you might consider Saint Felix for your sons and daughters, and we do offer a 5% discount for all OFs; in addition, a wide range of scholarships are available for students who show talent and potential in either the academic field, sport or the creative and performing arts. We do not currently have a Development, Community and Foundation Office but this is an area that we would like to introduce in order to keep more fully connected with all OFs and begin to raise finances for life changing and transformative bursaries as well as key identified projects. Whilst we are moving to this point, if any of you are interested in becoming a donor, please do contact me directly on head@stfelix.co.uk.
I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at either the AGM or the Spring reunion in May. A formal and more detailed invite to the Reunion event will come out in due course.
Yours sincerely
Matthew Oakman
Head