Head’s Welcome
Our vision is simple: help each girl ignite her potential.
As a school with a long tradition of scholarship, Queen’s reputation for academic excellence often comes before us. Our girls work hard, enjoy intellectual challenge and achieve outstanding results. Every year, many progress to Oxbridge and Russell Group universities. Those outcomes matter. But they have never been the whole story.
Our ambition is the same for every girl. How we measure her success is not. Sometimes her potential reveals itself in the classroom. Just as often, it appears on a sports field, during a Duke of Edinburgh expedition, through a creative project or by becoming unexpectedly passionate about a lunchtime club that nobody outside Queen’s could possibly explain.
Not every Queen’s girl wants to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Many do. Others don’t. They travel. Try new things. Build lives they love. They go on to elite sport, apprenticeships, careers in the arts, business, technology, public service and, my hope for the future, professions we haven’t even invented yet. What unites them is not a single definition of success, but the confidence and willingness to apply themselves and make the most of every opportunity an independent education affords them.
Bringing that approach to life takes intention.
We encourage girls to aim high. We know them well enough to know when they need support and when they need stretching. And we believe learning should extend well beyond the classroom, using our city-centre location and partnerships with employers, charities, universities, and community organisations to ensure the world beyond school isn’t something to be prepared for one day. It’s part of school life from day one.
The result is happy, confident, future-ready girls.
Since Queen’s was founded in 1878, one idea has remained constant: the importance of using your own mind. For over a century, this has been captured in our School Motto, Honour Wisdom.
At one level, Honour Wisdom is wonderfully simple: a love of learning. At Queen’s, learning is celebrated. It is something to be curious about, to strive for and to enjoy.
But Honour Wisdom means something deeper than the pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge can be learned. Facts can be memorised. Wisdom is knowing what to do with them. It is the ability to ask good questions, think independently, exercise judgement and use what we know with purpose. It is understanding not only what to think, but how to think.
Perhaps that philosophy has never been more relevant than it is today. We are educating young people in a world where information is almost limitless and instantly accessible. Success will belong not simply to those who can find answers, but to those who ask better questions, weigh evidence, distinguish fact from opinion and think for themselves. While none of us can predict exactly what the future will look like, we can be confident about the qualities it will demand.
Alongside our educational philosophy sit The Queen’s Qualities: the habits and behaviours we deliberately cultivate every day. Confidence gives girls the belief to put their hand up and have a go. Curiosity encourages them to keep asking why and trying new things. Kindness reminds them to care about people. Together, these qualities shape the culture of Queen’s just as much as they shape the girls who leave it.
They are not taught in a single lesson. They are part of everyday life. You see them when a girl puts her hand up before she is entirely sure of the answer. When someone asks ‘why?’ for the fifth time. When the aspiring medic sings in the school musical. When the hockey captain helps backstage with a Lower School production. When girls move easily between sport, the arts and debating because they enjoy all of them. When a team celebrates the substitute as loudly as the goal scorer. When an older pupil knows the names of girls half her age. When someone tries something new, gets it wrong and comes back the next day anyway. When a teacher refuses to let an easy answer pass or quietly notices that today is not the day to push quite so hard.
And then there is something more difficult to define.
The Spirit of Queen’s isn’t a programme or a set of values. It is teachers performing in the staff band one week and taking the merciless mockery of the Sixth Form panto the next. Girls holding the door open for visitors and helping not laughing when someone trips. The laughter coming from a classroom. The chatter with the catering team at lunch. It’s the feeling of warmth that you get when you spend time here. None of these things appear in league tables, but they matter. They are the tiny moments that add up to shape the entire experience of school.
I felt the Spirit of Queen’s on my very first day, and it remains one of the things I am most determined to preserve. For those families new to Queen’s, I hope you’ll come and experience it for yourself.
Joanne Keville
BSc (Hons) Queen’s University of Belfast, PGCE, NPQEL
Head, The Queen’s School