Congratulations to our Winner!

Congratulations to Ceara Fisher from St Bees School for her winning entry to our open day story competition.  Not only did Ceara’s open day story have all of us chuckling along with it but we also felt it had the added cute factor thrown in – read on to see why!

Setting the Scene…

“St Bees School is a bit unique in that, despite being 439 years old, we closed for three years and reopened in 2018 with just 8 students. We’ve gone from 8, to 15, to 53, to 75 to now 100 across the four year time span; 2.5 years of which were covid. It’s not been easy! Essentially a start-up school, in the midst of the pandemic, where our location is both our virtue and our vice (fun fact – St Bees is the furthest village away from a motorway in the UK, and being coastal, half our target audience are in the North Sea!). Anyway – I digress. My point is… recruitment is not easy. We need all the kids we can get; but obviously only accept those who we feel would fit.

We accepted a lovely local girl for the upcoming September. Then the cost of living crisis arrived; Ukraine were now at War; parents had just been told that fees are going up in line with inflation.  The pressure was really on. This particular prospective Year 7 is one of four children and the cost of living crisis meant they were unsure they could afford an independent education. We needed to pull out all the stops to convince them of their investment.

We called them in for an urgent meeting. It’s make or break.

The Meeting

The week before, Headmaster, Robin’s, wife had been rushed into hospital for an emergency op, which later went wrong. An avid dog lover, she had wanted to breed their four pugs. The pups were due to be born that week. As timing would have it; the night before this important meeting, when Robin’s wife was still in hospital, the puppies were born. All night, Robin stayed awake feeding them as they were rejected by Mum.

He brought them into school as feeding needed to be every two hours. It was early Spring and cold so the only place they could sit was in a handbag next to a heater in his office.

The family were due in that afternoon. We couldn’t move the pups. So we had to sit in the office, with the pups whining and crying every ten seconds.

We showed the family. It could have gone either way…

A Happy Ending

Luckily the family fell in love. They are now sending ALL four children to us, with a finance plan in place.  And the best part?!

They took the puppies from us once they’d weaned, and they now bring them back to visit Robin regularly.

A meeting we will never forget!”

Thank you to everyone who entered our open day story competition.

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