The Charlotte Drake Society was established by girls within the College's Sixth Form in 2021 with the aim to augment the Pangbourne experience for girls. This society has since been ever-popular with our students and staff, encouraging girls to be able to speak openly, without judgement and feel a sense of belonging and community between them.

The name of  the society came from one of the first girls who attended Pangbourne College, Charlotte Butterworth. Following a discussion centred around the topic of women taking their husband’s name in marriage, the girls also agreed that it would be appropriate to name it after Charlotte’s maiden name, Drake.

The aims and missions of the society are as follows:

• To form a trusted group where girls can share experiences and learn from each other.
• To be a voice and make a positive difference in the Pangbourne community.
• To empower each other to take the opportunities available.

Our meetings are extremely varied covering career-based events, mindfulness, sexual health, self-defence and nutrition workshops as well as our popular Summer Formal each year. The society is led by a pupil committee with oversight from Mrs Elly Hayward. 

Meeting once a half term, the society is open to Year 11 and Sixth Form girls and Year 10 girls from January each year. This year, Nino is Chair of the Society with Emma as Vice-Chair, both of whom have introduced a new initiative to inspire the younger girls at the College: they are arranging opportunities to get together girls from Year 7 through to Year 13 to build strong bonds and friendships across the school and, hopefully, to inspire them to join the Society when they move into the senior years at the College. The initial all-years gathering was a movie screening in September of the inspiring movie ‘Hidden Figures’ enjoyed by over 30 girls from across the College. 

In our most recent termly meeting, we welcomed award-winning performance nutritionist and leading healthy-eating expert, Christine Bailey from Thomas Franks. As well as being a nutritionist, Christine is the author of over 16 recipe and health books. The session was really informative and interesting and the girls really engaged with Christine in open discussion about what they could do to improve their own nutrition.

'The Charlotte Drake Society has taught me ways to keep myself physically healthy through correct nutrition and optimising the ways I can fuel my body. It gives us girls in the College a space to chat and discuss problems which we can address. It also acts as a caring community to those that attend the meetings.' - Eva (Year 11)

Our next meeting will be on the 27 January and will be a careers event where we will be welcoming women from a variety of sectors including PR and Marketing, Finance, Well-Being, the Military, Hospitality and Events Management. Our guests will be speaking about how they got to where they are today starting from their studies at school. The girls will be able to have brief one-on-one time with individuals to discuss their career paths and then at the end will be able to informally chat and network with anyone they choose. This event was popular among our students last year so we are looking forward to doing it again this year where we will also be inviting prospective Sixth Form girls along too.

If you are an Old Pangbournian yourself, or a current parent that is a female in industry, and are interested in being a part of a Charlotte Drake Society meeting, please do not hesitate to reach out at [email protected]