Admissions Team’s Message – September 2024

Dear parents and guardians,

It’s a gloriously sunny morning at Lancing, autumn is in the air and the swallows are gathering for their flight to warmer lands. It is excellent to see that other gathering and arrival/ return of your children and to feel the school year truly underway. From the quads to the classrooms to the cloisters, there is a buzz of activity and the excitement of a community re-formed and re-grouped.

We welcome nearly one third of the school new to us this year and it is excellent to see people finding their feet, enjoying academic and co-curricular challenges and building friendships. It promises to be a very busy term!

I wanted to take this opportunity of introducing myself as Director of Admissions. In some ways I am new too – new to this role and to working with you and with our prospective pupils in this way. In other ways I am far from new! I joined Lancing in 1996 as a Housemistress; have run two boarding Houses, managed our move to full co-education twenty years ago and for the past ten years held the post of Senior Deputy Head. It is a real joy for me to be able to use my knowledge and commitment to this great school in a different way and to work with the superb team in Admissions.

This newsletter will give you a glimpse of some of the excitements of Lancing today as we move into our 176th year. The mixture of tradition and innovation; of academic seriousness and curiosity and a sense of fun is alive and vibrant and our pupils are excited about the new film, the Fives Café and the Sixth Form Centre – all launched in the last week.

I hope you enjoy this newsletter and the flavour it gives of the school and I look forward to meeting many of you, in person or virtually, in the weeks and months ahead.        

Hilary Dugdale, Director of Admissions.