My message to you this week must of course take account of the news from Wednesday night’s meeting. As you will know, our Chairman of Governors announced that we are now in transition to become part of the new Brighton College Prep Hove from September 2027, on the former site of Windlesham School on Dyke Road. Overseeing this exciting step for our community will be our new Head, Ms Tamsin Hoyles, formerly Senior Deputy Head at BCPS. Ms Hoyles will be the 10th and final Head of St Christopher’s since our foundation in 1927. She has already been in school this week, meeting many of you, and will pen a Meet The Head feature for next week’s Newsletter.
The chance to move to a much larger site, with Brighton College investing £3 million in new facilities and improvements, is an exciting one. Everything that our community currently achieves will remain, but will we have the chance to do things bigger, better, and with more space to run around in at break. For those of you who know the former Windlesham site, it has two main teaching blocks, and these will be renamed St Christopher’s (and Windlesham) in honour of the two communities that will merge to form the new school. Displays and memorabilia will ensure that the legacy and history of our school are preserved as we merge into a bigger and better part of the broader Brighton College family.
Time has come to prepare for another significant change in the life of our school, but the important things stay the same. What makes St Christopher’s such an outstanding institution is its ethos. To quote the school hymn, “When these gates I do forgo / For such a place I do not know / Hopes and dreams I will pursue / My song unchanged”. The difference here is that we know exactly where we are going. This is the start of a new and exciting chapter in the history of our school community.
To use an apt metaphor in Cricket season, September 2027 will see St Christopher’s hanging up its red blazer having scored a century, but it is very much 100* (Not Out) as we aim for those higher things that our school community has always strived for.
For those who think St Christopher’s is indelibly linked to the red gates of 33 New Church Road; you might like to know that the new site will be the fourth in our history, and the gates haven’t always been red! The school began life on Sackville Gardens, then moved onto New Church road a few doors east on the other side of the road, before arriving at our current site nearly two decades into our history. A school is more than bricks and mortar.
Eras in any school’s history are momentous, but time moves ever forward. There are many alumni who find the architecture of our back court utterly perplexing to their memories of St Christopher’s; only last week we welcomed visitors who left in 1979 who remarked “Gosh, hasn’t everything CHANGED?”. When the Saunders family era ended in 2003, there were no doubt some who said, “St Christopher’s won’t be the same…”.
But of course it was. Our core values of high academic achievement, sporting successes punching above our weight, and a strong culture of co-curricular activity remained entirely unchanged. Under new leadership as a Brighton College School from 2003, St Christopher’s has thrived and developed further, with nearly 200 Scholarships to the College awarded since becoming part of the family, and countless innovations to teaching, technology, and wellbeing across our community. Under Brighton College’s world class guidance, exciting times lie ahead.
Ms Elizabeth Lyle, Head
