Anna Peak will be taking up her appointment as Housemistress of Mary Sidney Hall in September 2012.

Anna was educated at Gresham's School, Norfolk, and is a graduate of Exeter University.  She is currently Head of Geography and a House Tutor at Loretto School in Edinburgh, and has 12 years' experience in boarding school education.

Anna has previously taught at Garden International School in Thailand, and at Epsom College, where she was an Assistant House Mistress.  Her interests include a wide range of sports, and she has coaching experience in netball, hockey, lacrosse, basketball, athletics, volleyball, swimming and scuba diving.  She is also a keen outdoor enthusiast, holds Bronze, Silver and Gold D of E awards, and enjoys music - she was a member of the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, and has Grade 8 in singing and flute.

Anna and her partner, Simon, have two young girls, Willow aged two and Clementine aged five.  Anna writes from Edinburgh "We are very excited about the move to Shrewsbury.  We hope be able to meet as many people as possible before the start of the Autumn term, and have felt very welcomed by members of the school community we have met already."

On Friday 9th December we sat down almost 850 staff and students for a traditional Christmas dinner in Kingsland Hall, where every inch of room was needed and all the usual servery equipment had been removed.

Each house decorated their own areas with crackers and balloons, creating a lovely Christmasy atmosphere in the dining room.

In the kitchens, the chefs were busy slicing over 250kg of turkey, preparing over 80kg of fresh sprouts and 90kg of carrots, not to mention the 1,000 pigs in blankets and 1,000 stuffing balls. The meal was served at the tables by forty waiting staff, after which the Christmas raffle was drawn.

The washing up took us in to the small hours and had to be finished on Saturday - a huge task, but one we always look forward to.  Only 48 weeks to go till the next one!

Happy new year.

Team KH

Please also see our 2011 news page.