At the end of the Summer Term, in which pupils at St Hilary’s children experienced remote learning and a phased return to school, the academic year was brought to a close with our prestigious annual Awards Ceremony. In 2020 this became a pre-recorded virtual event, but the celebration, anticipation and excitement of the event was not lost in the new format.
The Awards Ceremony included a wide range of group and individual performances, along with some moving speeches and the announcement of the Award winners. We were delighted to welcome our Guest Speaker, Katherine Jenkins who provided motivating and encouraging words to the pupils.
Year 6, being one of the first years allowed to return to School by the Government, benefitted from outdoor rehearsals, resulting in singing and music resonating around the School’s grounds and enabling the pupils to deliver a memorable performance of ‘The Drum Dream Girl.’
This thoughtful poem by Margarita Engle, encourages the reader to pursue their dreams and passions, thus giving the pupils a timely message before moving onto Senior School. Year 2 rehearsed a performance to celebrate moving up from Pre-Prep to Prep, led predominantly over Zoom by our Director of Music, Mr Walsh. It was impressive to see how these performances all came together on the day of filming.
Exuding confidence, the Head and Deputy Head Girls reflected on their time at our School and in their roles, giving an insight into their leadership and the support they have given. The unveiling of the new Head Girl and Deputy Head Girl was much anticipated and was revealed in a special short video released shortly after the Awards Ceremony, causing great excitement. Congratulations to Yasmin and Iris who assume responsibility of Head and Deputy Head Girls for this academic year.
The entire Awards Ceremony provided an extraordinary celebration of a great academic year, despite the unprecedented circumstances.
As St Hilary’s moves forward into the Autumn Term, the use of Zoom, YouTube and virtual events has opened up a number of new possibilities for families, staff and pupils to share their performances, assemblies and concerts. St Hilary’s embraces the ‘new normal’ and optimises on the unrivalled benefits that technology can bring.
