Reflections of Havergal: 1994-2019

S C H O O L L I F E

Curriculum Overview “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.” —ALBERT EINSTEIN

Discouraged, Havergal Hall’s first ‘lady principal’ assessed the antiquated facilities she had at her disposal. She found classrooms equipped with long black desks set facing the walls, ‘so that girls could keep their backs turned and study without looking at their companions.’ Clearly, the schoolmistresses who had recently vacated the building had had a rigid view of what constituted ideal learning conditions. 23 However, as Havergal: Celebrating a Century also makes clear, Ellen Knox  had the imagination to succeed. Taking the only positive aspect of her first visit—the crab-apple tree under the staircase window—she turned it into a classroom, letting her girls perch on its branches to study. To all appearances a stiff Victorian gentlewoman, with a perfect lace collar at her neck and a severe roll of hair framing her face, she was in fact a feisty and loving woman who saw those black desks turned to the wall, removed them, and never looked back. 24 She was an educator with heart and in many ways ahead of her time. In those early years, decisions about the curricula appear to have been relatively easy to make. The girls were set to  studies that included, as a minimum, English language and literature, and scripture (both taught by Ellen Knox),

“Every classroom and school communicate a story of what learning means—what it feels like and looks like, and how it works to develop lasting understanding.”

—SEONAID DAVIS, DIRECTOR OF CURRICULUM AND FACULTY DEVELOPMENT, SPRING 2012 ISSUE OF TORCH

Havergal’s story, it is clear, begins with a bold vision of women’s education, one that the school’s founders were convinced Ellen Knox could help them make a reality. However, her first priority when she arrived in August 1894, according to Havergal: Celebrating A Century , was to ensure students would have hospitable housing and classrooms conducive to learning—no mean feat given the dilapidated building she found, and the fact that students would arrive in only 16 days.  

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