Each year the students who graduate from Year 13 (previously Upper 6) are allocated an Alumni Group Number. This system helps contemporaries to stay in touch with one another and is used for arranging special events, such as decade anniversaries on 10, 20, 30, 40 etc. years after leaving school following completion of A levels, IB, or equivalent qualifications.
Alumni Group Numbers were first introduced in 1923, twenty years after the Guild was founded. That first group in 1923 and earlier alumnae were allocated as Alumni Group 1 and the numbering has followed this pattern ever since.
In order to calculate your Alumni Group Number there is a (relatively!) simple formula:
if you completed Sixth Form in 1999 or earlier, please deduct 22 from the last two digits of your graduating year. Thus 1999 = Alumni Group 77; or
If you completed Sixth Form in 2000 or later, please add 78 to the last two digits of your graduating year. So, 2010 becomes Alumni Group 88 and so on…
If you left Stephen Perse or Perse Girls before Sixth Form, for example if your family moved away from Cambridge, you will still be allocated to the Alumni Group that relates to your Year 13 or Upper 6 year completion, as if you had remained in Cambridge throughout.
We hope this information demystifies the historical roots of the Alumni Group numbering system and explains how you fit into this century old tradition!