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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Schools reinforce links
All are namesakes of Queen Margaret
BY LAWRENCE LATANE III
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
TAPPAHANNOCK - Educators from England, Australia and New Zealand are wrapping up a meeting at St. Margaret's School today to promote an international sense of community among schools named for an 11th-century Scottish queen.
Margaret Broad arrives to the campus of St. Margaret's School-Berwick outside Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, during her sabbatical trip November 2000. While away, Broad made brief visits to two additional New Zealand schools in the Queen Margaret of Scotland Girls' Schools Association: Queen Margaret College and St. Margaret's College, located in Wellington and Christchurch, respectively. This weeks QMSGSA Heads met in Tappahannock to outline future factulty, staff, and student exchanges among sister schools.
St. Margaret's School in Tappahannock helped form the Queen Margaret of Scotland Girls' [sic] Schools Association two years ago; the organization represents 10 schools in six countries and provides a foreign-exchange program for students, teachers and staff members.
"It's meant a great deal to us and our families to have these connections," said Margaret Broad, headmistress at St. Margaret's in Tappahannock. St. Margaret's sent out four exchange students and was host to four foreign students last year under the program. Currently, two St. Margaret's students are studying in Australia, and two are in New Zealand at host schools.
The chance for travel and overseas study and exchange of ideas "gives you a global perspective in a big way," Broad said.
Association members include other Episcopal schools as well as nondenominational schools and schools associated with the Presbyterian Church and the Church of England.
Broad said the group organized in 1999 when St. Margaret's participated in an international choral event at St. Paul's Cathedral in England. "We met with the school choirs and decided we should do more," she explained.
Today is the final day of the association meeting, which began Monday on the Rappahannock riverfront campus. St. Margaret's has 155 students in grades eight through 12.
The association is dedicated to promoting the value of girls schools worldwide and fostering the shared identity among Queen Margaret's namesakes, which Broad said are inspired by the life of teaching and service Queen Margaret was known for.
Contact Lawrence Latane III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com
