G day arrived in September 1992 when girls were first admitted to KHS.

The first house mistress of Severn House recalls those days.

Severn House was opened By Sheila Hanton - wife of the Chairman to the Governors, David Hanton.

The article below was compiled from notes submitted for our use by Mrs Rosie Hayes, the first Housemistress to the girls' house at that time.

First Girl pupils on the Hill
Mrs. Rosie Hayes
First Housemistress to the girls' house

When we were appointed to start the first girls' house there were only 8 on the books, but by the opening September we had 21 girls in a newly refurbished Severn House ranging from year 7 to 12. The girls arrived into all years and the opening day saw the sitting room full of girls chatting and pots of tea being poured as the new uniform was named and  numbered.

We tried to liaise fully with the boys' house so that we kept the same routines, and gradually established good working practice for prep time and responsibility for being organized and looking after the house.  Boys visited the house every evening like bees to a honey pot and we had to institute house night in on Tuesdays so that we could have the place to ourselves and chill out.

We were usually the show house for visitors so “scores on the doors” for tidiness set high standards. Discipline was linked to community. Girls joined CCF, became prefects, and trained hard to get netball, hockey and rounders  teams up and competing locally in matches from that first year.

By Cartoonist Ronald Searle

Activities included: piano practices, year 11 preparing a dinner party for invited boys with juniors waitressing, going punting, organizing a huge bouncy castle, pink iced buns on Founder's day, mulled wine and carols round the tree, chocolate fridge cake with leftover digestive biscuits, sunflower growing competition, pamper and massage evenings, Blind Date quiz with Durham House, car washing days post exam, charity dressing up, learning Japanese origami and welcoming girls from abroad, BBQs and water fights in the garden, Valentine poems and heart biscuits, Badminton on the back court, and formal Christmas dinner parties in the house. We shared family life together with tears and laughs, and many photos record events and are still in the albums in the house.

Within a few years the house was overflowing with 44 girls, day and boarding, and then Greenwich became a girls' house for the juniors.

Ronald Searle illustration for the original St Trinian's stories.

We at the Schoolday's website hope that this will bring back memories from the first intake of girls, who will then share them with all readers to enjoy and compare. We wish that this was in existence in earlier times, because as with Family History, once the oldest generations are gone, so much goes with them that can never be recalled.

The History of a thriving school changes. Today's events are tomorrows history!

Frank Foster Schoolday's editorial team: December 2009.

Plaque on the wall of Severn House