The GDST Minerva Prize

The Girls’ Day School Trust awards a number of high profile prizes and scholarships each year, including poetry, creative writing, public speaking, travel, classics and more. The highest accolade, in terms of prestige, is the Minerva Prize, which is awarded to a Year 13 student who embodies the GDST spirit and ethos, demonstrating qualities such as Creativity, Innovation, Perseverance, Resilience, Kindness and Empathy.

The Prize this year was awarded to Anna Eason, who was named as joint winner. What made this extremely poignant is that Anna is Sheffield’s first winner of this top prize in the 14 years that Mrs Dunsford has been Headmistress of the school, so it is truly special!

Anna has been a fantastic member of our Senior Prefect team, has been House captain of Gurney, has been a member of the school trampolining team since Year 7 and is also a superb artist. Many will remember Anna’s portrait ‘Andy, Homeless’ which was selected as the welcome portrait at our Celebration of the Arts event last year.

Anna was delighted with the news: ‘It was the best!’ She said. ‘To have all those things that you do recognised and appreciated is very special.’ Anna will go to Trust Office in London in June for an awards ceremony.

In true Minerva fashion, Anna intends to donate her prize to help continue the school’s funding of Outreach activities and the SHINE project. Anna took part in SHINE, where Year 12 and 13 students from our Sixth Form mentor Year 5 children from 8 local primary schools, helping to excite them about learning and raising their expectations and self-belief.