Girls' Day House
Housemistress: Joy Gray
Assistant Housemistress: Jen Turnbull
Group tutors: Sian Lewis-Williams, Becky Connolly, Penny Fearn, Jonathon Brimacombe, Kevin Hawksworth, Danielle Edwards and Sally Bishop
House Spirit
The girls in The Lakes are high achievers within the classroom, if they're not dashing off to a fixture or a performance, they can be found catching up with some academic work. As a result, there are always plenty of successes to celebrate and, of course, we love to see our girls excelling.
Our girls are deeply mindful of looking after one another and our senior girls come alongside our younger girls to mentor. We are fiercely loyal and our house spirit is nowhere more evident than in annual house-matches. In 2018-19 we won debating, hockey, tennis, badminton and squash trophies and it was fantastic to see such brilliant teamwork in action. Lakes girls are caring, undertaking several charity projects each year such as shoeboxes for those in need at Christmas. In summary, a Lakes girl is one whose focus is relentless in pursuing, achieving and celebrating her personal best, in every area of her life, as well as helping others to achieve their best too.
Housemistress
Joy is Housemistress, having spent several years as a Lakes group tutor. She has been teaching English for over 25 years, of which 18 have been at Millfield. She has worked in both boarding and day houses, across all year groups. Joy is second in the English Department, as well as running the school’s public speaking and debating programme. In addition to this, she tries to find time for home life with her husband, two children, a dog and a cat. Holidays usually involve a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon to catch up with some Shakespeare, as well as a stay in Ireland to reconnect with family and friends - and restore her Irish accent! Our Assistant Housemistress, Becky Connolly, joined Millfield in 2016 in the post of Teacher of Chemistry, following her overseas post in Dubai, UAE. She is also second in the Chemistry Department and is in charge of BTEC Science.
Facilities
The Lakes provides the girls with a large common room in which to socialise, study or rest - with comfy sofas, a kitchen area to make snacks or breakfast, fresh fruit and a tuck shop run by the Matrons. There are also changing rooms with lockers, toilets and showers, and space for students to store books and kit.
There is a great sense of community and the girls are encouraged to look after one another. The mentor programme also works very well, with each new girl to the house being allocated a senior student to help them settle in. With the further advantage of being situated next to Overleigh (our sister girls' Day house), The Lakes girls can easily mix and enjoy close relationships with their neighbours.
An interesting fact...
We have had Heads of School appointed from our Upper Sixth for many consecutive years.
History
The Lakes is named after one of the original off-site boarding houses and we adopted this name several years’ ago. As a day house, we moved to repurposed buildings around 6 years’ ago, which place us close to all the upper campus locations and we are very handily positioned near to the dining hall. The Lakes is known as a friendly house, with many of our girls rising to positions of leadership and responsibility in school, in roles such as prefect and Heads of School. Academically, Lakes girls are high-performing, securing top grades in both GCSEs and A levels. Musically and on the sports’ fields too, in fact, in every area of their lives, The Lakes girls historically have been noticeably gifted. Last year, Isabelle Barber won the Millfield Musician of the Year competition, in addition to a great many external competitions whilst Katie Maddock secured a place at Oxford University to read Physics, and Hannah Passmore was selected to play for Team Bath as a professional netballer.
