Sue Hincks (SH), headmistress of Bolton School Girls’ Division JC: Perhaps we could start with a brief account of your own career in teaching and your vision of Bolton School as you arrived. SH: I started in the state sector and then spent 11 years in two affluent boarding schools, before I became deputy head at King’s Worcester, where I was for seven years. This is now my eighth year here at Bolton. When I was appointed, it was made clear to me by the chair of governors that one of the raisons d’être of the school was that we should ensure that this type of education should be open to anyone of academic merit. That meant that a large premium was put by the governing body on bursaries. It was explained to me that, when John Major won his victory, the governing body had assumed that he wouldn’t and that Tony Blair had it in mind to put an end to the Government’s Assisted Places scheme. So, at that point, they started putting aside money for bursary support and this is how the endowment fund has grown as it has. That was largely due to the foresight of the current chairman of governors, Mike Griffiths, who is going to retire at the end of this year. He was chairman of finance at the time and he has been the driving force all through his time here. JC: When you came, what was the situation with bursary fundraising and how did you see your own role in that purpose? SH: We started out with a series of alumni dinners and those still go on, with a few changes. The largest is in London but there are also dinners in Oxford and Cambridge. There was one in Bristol and we still have one in Edinburgh. There we meet potential donors and at the end, Philip and I speak. We divide it up: Philip does the comedy, I do the emotional thanks to the donors. That’s our main fundraising role. Each one of the Divisions also has its own Parents’ Association but the parents give less here than in some schools. That’s partly because there is a Parents’ Association levy every term, so the parents might feel that they are doing their bit. In my time, the Parents’ Association has run two balls (and are planning a third) where they have raised money and that money has gone to the bursary fund. We also have regular old girls’ lunches in school every term. Inevitably, these are local women who were here at a certain point and are at a certain stage in their own lives, so there will be a certain number of donors in that group. We do a lot of nurturing of old girls through books and magazines but we also have the alumnae network, which is an online platform. We have an active Twitter account and there are various events which I have inaugurated to make the old girls feel more at home here. The first one is our Armistice Day assembly. The old girls attend and walk in with the prefects. That’s a big part of assembly. And then there is a lunch after that and about 60 people attend. And, after the carol service, a time when lots of old girls come back, we now have a special old girls’ room – indeed two special old girls’ rooms because it is so popular – to entertain them. We have an old girls’ liaison officer who is a former teacher. She is wonderful with the old girls, knowing everyone and chatting. We do lots of things with the old girls with careers in mind and that is a form of giving back, part of a virtuous circle, but it might also lead to a level of engagement that could lead to giving. On 9 March 2019, International Women’s Day, we are holding a very big careers fair where old girls
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