Welcome to our Community

I hope that browsing through this web site, you will gain some idea of life at Mayfield: about our aspirations for, and expectations of the girls who make this school such a lively, happy and successful place. In joining us you will be welcomed into a community which dates back to 1872, when Cornelia Connelly and the Society of the Holy Child Jesus founded the school, and which reaches as far afield as our SHCJ sister schools in Africa, America and Europe.

At Mayfield, we accept each girl for who she is and encourage her to have the confidence to find her strengths and build on them: she will have the time, space and emotional support she needs to flourish. Here she will be expected to think independently. We want Mayfield girls to become women of faith and reason. Her creativity will be nurtured in every subject she studies, her imagination stimulated and she will be inspired, by enthusiastic teachers, to a love of learning. A Mayfield girl is challenged to set demanding targets and helped to find strategies to achieve them. She learns to challenge her own and other people’s ideas and is expected to make her own, informed decisions. Her actions should be inspired by a sense of justice and integrity, sustained by her own faith and respectful of others. In sum, she is able to grow to be herself.

Mayfield is a vibrant community. Traditionally we have attracted girls from around the world, as well as locally. Such a cosmopolitan ethos helps the girls to understand and appreciate different cultures and perspectives and to value diversity. Friendships are forged here which sustain and support not only through school, but on into the future and we are proud to welcome successive generations of girls back to Mayfield.

The following pages should provide you with an insight into who we are and information about what goes on here; do keep looking as new things are always happening. More importantly, I would encourage you to come to Mayfield and meet our girls and staff themselves: we will be delighted to welcome you into our community.

We look forward to welcoming you here.

Antonia Beary MA MPhil (Cantab), PGCE
Headmistress

Antonia Beary has been the Headmistress of St Leonards-Mayfield School since September 2008. She was educated in the state sector before reading English at Trinity College, Cambridge. Her MPhil – which was on Catholic education - was also undertaken at Trinity. Prior to taking up the headship at Mayfield, Antonia was the school’s Deputy Head for Pastoral Care and Boarding and a member of both the English and Religious Studies Departments. She has also been Head of Sixth Form at New Hall (2004-06) and the Housemistress of the first girls’ boarding house at Ampleforth College (1998-2004).