Audrey de Sola Pinto, head of Wolmer’s Girls, 1962–1984
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Audrey de Sola Pinto, head of Wolmer’s Girls, 1962–1984
Audrey de Sola Pinto was headmistress of Wolmer’s Trust High School for Girls. She was not an old girl. The Jamaica Observer of 6 August 2011 recorded that she was educated at St Andrew High School, Kingston, not at Wolmer’s.
The same Observer Life Tribute said she was born in the Canal Zone, Panama, of an English father and a Jamaican mother; took a BA Honours from Birmingham University; taught at St Hugh’s and at St Andrew High; then taught at Kingshurst High School for Girls in Warwickshire, England. Her appointment at Wolmer’s Girls’ School took effect in April 1962, on the eve of Independence. The paper printed a report that one trustee had worried that, as a Jewess, her conducting prayers with the girls might present a difficulty. The Observer said she did conduct prayers, in a mildly ecumenical way, with Kingston Parish Church as the school’s spiritual home and with occasional visits by Rabbi Bernard Hooker.
She stated her philosophy as: “To aim for excellence within your capabilities and to educate the children to face the realities of life.” The Observer named as her main achievement “the broadening of the curriculum, excellent performance and the increased capacity of the school,” and her belief, “long before it became popular to say so, that girls receiving an academic education should also know how to do things.” It recorded sixth-form integration with the boys in the 1960s and 1970s; a sports expansion beyond netball and tennis; and, in the mid to late 1960s, a combined school choir under Hazel Lawson-Street of the girls’ school and Sydney Morris of the boys’ school. She was invested with the Order of Distinction for services to education in 1982.
The Observer of 6 August 2011 reported the funeral on Monday morning, 25 July 2011, at the Jewish Cemetery on Orange Street, in the Matah House chapel, conducted by Stephen Henriques. Pauline Findlay, chair of the Wolmer’s Board of Management, delivered a tribute on behalf of Wolmer’s Girls’ Alumnae (WOGA), Trust Chairman Milton Samuda, and the principals of the Boys’ and Girls’ schools, Dr Walton Small and Colleen Montague. Findlay read excerpts from In the Light of The Sun.