Founder's Day 2018

We all had a fantastic time on Founder’s Day this week - an occasion when the whole school comes together to celebrate the life and work of the founder of Pipers Corner, Miss Jessie Cross. 

Each year a different decade is chosen as the focus for the celebrations and this year marked the 1940s. From Pre-Prep to Upper Sixth, girls and staff came to school dressed in the fashion of the 40s and were given the opportunity to experience a range of themed activities in lessons, as well as learning about the history of Pipers Corner and what Jessie Cross set out to do for the school.

In the afternoon the whole school attended the Founder’s Day Assembly where the hymns and readings reflected the period. The service culminated with the cutting of a celebration cake by the Head Girl and the youngest member of our Reception Class. Performances included a solo rendition of the “White Cliffs of Dover” and a group performance of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”. The Prep Department also treated the rest of the school to a medley of songs from “The Wizard of Oz”.

Throughout the day the teaching staff worked hard to include elements of the 40s in their lessons including the following: In Pre-Prep the girls learnt a typical 1940s swing dance, played fun games such as snakes and ladders and made war time rock cakes using the traditional 1940s method. In the Prep Department the girls in Year 5 and 6 made bread pudding just like people from the period would have had for rations. In the Senior School girls looked at inventions of the 40s in Design Technology. In Art students in Year 9 – 13 looked at the work of artists from the 1940s including war artist Paul Nash and Graeme Sutherland as well as other artists of the time such as John Piper and Frida Kahlo whilst listening to 1940s music. In Chemistry girls were making Nylon, and in Biology students considered the history of antibiotics. In Maths, the focus was on the wartime code-breaking work undertaken at Bletchley Park. At the end of a lesson one class also had a visit from Mr Horlick who talked about his life as a schoolboy in London during the war. He brought in his 1940s school blazer and the girls were fascinated by his stories of near misses with the dreaded “doodlebug” bombs.

At lunchtime the girls had the opportunity to watch the film “Pinocchio” which won an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score in 1941.

Headmistress, Mrs Ness-Gifford, said “Founder’s Day is an annual school highlight – enjoyed by girls and staff alike who put huge amounts of enthusiasm into activities to mark the day. It is always a wonderful opportunity for us to reflect on the history of our school, whilst at the same time enabling us to discover more about the general social history of a particular decade.”