It is a pleasure to wish you all a very happy New Year. I hope all members of our community had the chance to have a break over the holiday period and I wish you all the very best for 2026.

We ended last term with a marvellously ‘Abbey’ event to celebrate Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary. Jane had briefly between 1785 and 1786 attended the forerunner to The Abbey, Reading Abbey Girls’ School, and we helped to unveil a commemorative plaque to her there last summer. Our Abbey was named to commemorate that school, and we opened the Jane Austen Wing to commemorate her even more directly in 2009.

Jane’s schooldays in Reading were allegedly the model for Mrs Goddard’s school in Emma, about which Austen wrote with typical punchiness: ‘Mrs Goddard was the mistress of a School – not of a seminary, or an establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality upon new principles and new systems – and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity – but a real, honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs Goddard’s school was in high repute – and very deservedly’.

When our school librarian, Joanne Wenman, discovered by chance this year that she was descended from the Austen family, we felt that we had to do something really special to mark the occasion Joanne and Julia Wootton played leading roles in creating a suitably celebratory occasion on 16 December.

Joanne managed to contact an incredible 15 Austen family descendants who joined us, some travelling from Europe for the occasion. We also hosted our local MP, Matt Rodda, the Deputy Mayor, and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire, together with a host of other invitees.The BBC joined us to film at The Abbey and BBC Radio Berkshire broadcast live from the Hardcastle Hall throughout the occasion.

It was fascinating to hear more about Jane’s varied links not only to The Abbey but to the local area. Some of the stars of the show of our event were our Artist in Residence Mia Rosten, who painted a superb new portrait of Jane, and two of our student poets laureate, Ellanya and Beatrice, who read poems they had written to commemorate Austen and her legacy.

I cannot think of a better way of celebrating such a groundbreaking female writer than hearing the powerful, witty and profound writings of young women in a school inspired by her school. Amongst the panoply of national celebrations of Austen’s anniversary, I hope ours was one which would have resonated with her. I hope, too, that our school’s philosophy of providing girls with an excellent academic education and creating independent-minded young women would be one of which Jane would wholeheartedly approve. I am sure that Emma, Lizzie, Elinor or Marianne would fit into The Abbey beautifully.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that The Abbey has wonderfully talented students. We look forward to all of the opportunities to showcase those talents that the coming term will bring. I leave you with the powerful poems by Ellanya and Beatrice as the best way of showcasing those talents and such a memorable occasion.

Her Ink, Our Freedom – Ellanya (Lower V)

She lived in a world
that wanted women quiet,
their thoughts tucked away,
their dreams folded small.
But Jane Austen wrote anyway,
her courage spilling onto pages
she sometimes had to hide.

She gave us Elizabeth Bennet,
who refused to trade her worth
for wealth or expectation,
a lesson still echoing
in every woman
who chooses respect
over limitation.

She shaped Emma:
bold and unapologetic,
a reminder that confidence
in a woman
is not a flaw
but a force.

She wrote Elinor, Marianne and Anne,
each strong in different ways,
teaching us that bravery
wears many faces,
and all deserve to be heard.

Her ink became a spark.

And today,
that spark is everywhere,
in classrooms, workplaces, parliaments;
in young women who speak their minds
without whispering;
in girls who dream loudly
because no one tells them not to.

Her stories helped lift ceilings,
open doors,
change expectations.
They showed society
that a woman’s voice
is powerful,
not despite her strength,
but because of it.

Jane Austen wrote in secret
so women today
could live in the open.
Her courage became our freedom,
her stories became our steps,
and the world she once dreamed of
is a world we continue
to build.

The world that she wrote – Beatrice (Lower IV)

A girl sits
In the corner
Of a library,
A mug of hot chocolate
Cooling by her side.
On her lap
Rests a deep indigo cover,
Gold lettering
On the front:
Pride and Prejudice,
It reads.

Hours pass.
The hot chocolate
Cools,
Grows a skin
And congeals.
But she doesn’t care.
She is absorbed,
Absorbed in a world
Of Regency era England,
Absorbed in a world
Of judgements
Of first impressions
Of status and of society
Of romance and of love
Of pride,
And indeed prejudice.
A timeless world
That still captures hearts and minds
Some 212 years later…

Times have changed,
Attitudes have changed.
But the stories still connect,
Still make an impact.
Because
Through centuries that have slipped away
Jane’s stories still ring true.
Times have changed
But people have not;
Human nature does not age.

So the girl reads on
Learning that
We change,
We grow,
We make mistakes,
And try to mend them.
And learns
That a book written
Two centuries ago
Can still reach
Straight into the present.

Dr Sarah Tullis, Head