Having been named finalist for the School House Mind & Mental Health Award 2025 last week, we were delighted to discover earlier this week that we are also finalist for the Independent School of the Year for Student Wellbeing 2025!

The judges recognised the strength of our counselling team, ContemPlace (including, of course our lovely Hungarian Vizsla therapy dog, Kanga!), whose incredible work has been further enhanced by the opening of our pastoral hub, Cornerstone, and our weekly Pulse check ins which offer the girls a safe space to voice anything that’s worrying them and allow our pastoral team to monitor, identify and respond to any issues quickly and appropriately. They were also impressed by the positive impact of our Yondr mobile phone policy and our Girls on Board curriculum, which empowers pupils to navigate the turbulent waters of female friendships by, as one pupil has astutely put it, “showing empathy towards each other and trusting that we can solve friendship fallouts by showing kindness”.

Thank you and congratulations to our Senior Deputy Head Pastoral, Sarah Pittaway, our Lead Counsellor, Zoe Juniper, and our incredible pastoral and wellbeing teams for all that they do to support our pupils and staff, every day. More widely, the way that support girls at FHS could not be achieved without the dedication of each and every member of staff and every parent and we are infinitely grateful to them all.

We are so grateful to School House and Independent School Parent for celebrating our pastoral care programmes and we look forward to the winners of both awards being announced in October. Watch this space!