'Effervescent' headteacher remembered for her lifelong love of Bourne End

A well-known Montessori school headteacher has been remembered as a ‘brilliant’ mother and an ‘effervescent’ longtime resident of Wooburn Green and Bourne End. 

Larissa Olney was a keen horsewoman and established Wise Owl Montessori Nursery School in Cores End in 1994, where she served as headteacher for nearly 30 years.

The 51-year-old died at Stoke Mandeville's Florence Nightingale Hospice on Sunday, April 27, following a six-year battle with breast cancer.

“She was one with the children,” her father, Terence Sharkey, told the Advertiser.

“She was very hands-on – the children would crowd around her, and she would be sitting on the floor with them.

“It was that kind of relationship; she was almost a big sister.

“But all the time questioning and getting them to think about things.

“It was very, very much about being one with the children.”

Born in January 1974 and the youngest of three, Larissa was fascinated by the work of early 20th-century physician and educator Maria Montessori.

After studying at Maidenhead and Amersham colleges, she received a diploma from St Nicholas Montessori College in London and trained at Cookham Montessori before launching her own establishment.

“I took her to many halls, as indeed her mother did, and all the time there were reasons why things failed, and she didn't select the schools,” said Terence.

“Suddenly, we found Cores End United Reformed Church had a hall right at the end of the road from where she was living.

“So, although her search had extended as far out as East Hampstead Park near Bracknell, suddenly there it was literally on her doorstep.”

The school grew from three to 24 students, and every year, a 15-minute video of the children accomplishing Montessori exercises was filmed for parents' evening.

Terence, a retired filmmaker, used footage from these 30 DVDs while creating a film of Larissa’s life for her funeral service next week, but said ‘it wasn't easy’ to ‘encapsulate it in ten minutes’.

He referred to the ‘countless’ cards on their dining table from parents and ‘most touchingly’ from children who remember her.

“Children from 20 years ago, 30 years ago, sending cards and their commiserations,” he added.

“We're very touched by that. I think it could be said that she certainly had an effect. As parents, we're very proud of what she did.”

Pictured: Larissa and her pony, Ellie.

Larissa learned horse riding at Snowball Farm in Burnham Beeches from the age of seven.

She enjoyed cross-country jumping and could frequently be seen riding in Burnham Beeches, accompanied by her mother, Shirley, a former ballroom dancer for Victor Silvester.

After getting her Arab horse, Polly, when she was 14, they competed in several gymkhanas and brought home many rosettes.

Larissa would return home to Bourne End each weekend to care for her horse while she lived at the YWCA in Knightsbridge during her studies.

Until recently, Larissa was still regularly feeding and looking after her 32-year-old small Welsh mountain pony, Ellie, who had been Polly’s company until she died in 2004.

Terence said her love of horses was ‘a great therapy’ for Larissa during her illness.

“She was riding right up to just a few weeks before her death. She never gave up. She would still be carrying buckets of water and going up and feeding twice a day,” he added.

When asked what kept Larissa in Bourne End her whole life, her parents said, ‘she just loved the area’.

“But I suppose what really captured her was the horses,” added Terence.

“She kept her horse in various pastureland all around, and I think she just felt at one with the countryside here.”

A small group of Larissa’s friends from her nursery days at St Paul’s Primary School in Cores End will speak at the funeral as they kept their friendship for ‘over half a century’, said Terence.

“She was effervescent and articulate. She had a great sense of humour and we are learning just how popular she was with so many friends, with their cards,” he added.

Her parents described her as a ‘brilliant’ mother who ‘was a natural’ in helping her two children, Isobelle, 24 and Harrison, 21.

A funeral will take place on Monday, June 2, at 2pm at Cores End United Reformed Church, where Larissa established her school three decades ago.