Hello everyone, well I had better introduce myself. My name is Emma Anders, I am a Matron and I have the privilege of looking after a house full of lovely girls between the ages of 10 & 18.  When I have to tell people what my job description is I do get the odd comment of “Oh Matron” from the carry on films, and I have to explain that No, I do not work in a hospital! J Believe it or not a lot of people who have not worked in a boarding school don’t have a clue what a matron is and what their specific role is…Well now I am going to give you lovely people a sneaky insight into what I do.

My day starts at 6:30am, that’s the time I wake up, it’s lovely in the summer with the glorious sunrise over Ravenscar. However in the winter it is a little trickier.  Anyway, enough of that.  So I go around my boarding house (formally known as Main House) at about 7:00am and wake the girls up, I usually wait for a groan or a little movement as teenagers are hard to wake. We all attend Breakfast at 7:45am.  Now breakfast is a quiet affair, you could hear a pin drop (quite hard to believe if you have ever been sitting in first lunch sitting).  So at about 8:20am I will go around my boarding house and make sure that the girls have done the regular things of making their beds, brushing their teeth etc. At 8:30am all must be whisked out of the house ready for the day (this doesn’t always happen on time, and I can sound like a broken record).  8:35am Time for a cup of tea.  The rest of my day varies.  So on certain days I will be over at the Junior School on break duty or looking after a lunch table.  I am also a member of the P.E. Department.  From 2:00pm until 4:00pm my day is spent on the games field, Summer is fabulous, Winter…cold.  I come up from games and from 4:15pm I am in the boarding house.  I go into the girls common room and have a cup of tea with them sometimes and we have a good old chat about the day.  I also have laundry duties to do in the evenings (I’m dreading Rugby season, mud isn’t the word).  Depending on the day I do a prep session.  So back in the house I will turn the girls lights out at their designated year groups time.  Lights out start at 9:00pm and the last one is 11:00pm.  It’s amazing that just as you are about to switch the lights out the girls will ask you questions (yep a little extra time of the light being on).  11:00pm I get to go to my room, by this time I am a little tired.  Of course I do have to have a little down time and there is no better way for me to do this than read.  There you have it, the mysterious job of a Matron…Of course this isn’t all of it.  There isn’t a day that goes by where there isn’t an entertaining moment but you will have to wait a little to read those.  Until next time, this Matron has jobs to do.