THAT TRICKY SECOND ALBUM: THE HEADMASTER’S BLOG NUMBER TWO

You’ll doubtless all be hissy-fitting with expectation, waiting to hear about this week’s state visit to Pre-Prep. Well it was Reception and Nursery this time. The majority of the young Bromsgrovians were courteous to a fault, though during one brief exchange, a particular four-year-old displayed Aristotelian logic, Daliesque surrealism and a positively Saturnalian disregard for the order of things all in one go. He was pulling plastic letters out of a sand tray when he called out to me:

“Oi! Edwards! Come ‘ere.”

I swept across the room in the hope nobody had heard the unconventional nature of the summons.

“Do you know my brother?” he said.

“No.” I said.

“Well I do.”

And then he went back to pulling letters out of the tray. Conversation over.

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The Year 8 boys won the national rugby sevens title at Millfield, and the Under 16 girls lost their cherished national netball title by one extra time score at Southampton.  Two amazing Bromsgrove teams of whom we are immensely proud. The best I can offer the girls is a four hundred year old observation from Francis Bacon: “There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that lost by not trying.”

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Monday and Tuesday were, in the argot of the Upper Fourth, well big.

Take a bow Mrs. Bateman and team who organised a very large Sixth Form conference on problems facing the developing world. It was demanding, in your face, meaningful, big-issue education of the highest order. Visiting state and independent schools, and eminent guest speakers from venerable universities swelled the ranks. There was but one downer: I, the Chairman, had lost my voice. By the time it came to questions and answers at the end, I was doing little more than mooing into the microphone in response to some very challenging observations from the brightest young minds in the Midlands. On Tuesday, the Combined Cadet Force inspection, superbly organised by Mr. Stephens, saw my moo morph into a deeply unattractive bleat (had I gone down on all fours I could actually have doubled up as a regimental mascot. Now there’s an image to savour). However, what a Utopian sight greeted the inspecting Brigadier: so many nations represented by the cadets; young people whose forebears had fought one another (sometimes over centuries) standing shoulder to shoulder in the Bromsgrove sunshine. I left with a sense of optimism such as most Everton supporters will never know.

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I miss the barneys of bygone Senior Parents’ Liaison meetings. Thursday evening’s gathering was eminently civilized. Sure, car parking has replaced the weather as the new conversational black (I’m not sure if the last ten words hang together in any conventional sense, but you get the drift), yet good constructive points were well made by engaged parents for the betterment of the School. Wistfully, I thought of angrier us-and-them days, and especially a parental letter I had received years ago when I suggested we change the nature of Saturday School: “Congratulations Headmaster. You have, overnight and singlehandedly, turned a once great international institution into a provincial backwater.”

At least I knew where I stood back then.

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On Tuesday, the new Foundation Director, Jane Rogers, came in for a meeting with some key Foundation players. Some of this country’s most successful people have thrown their weight behind the ambitious long term goal of the Bromsgrove Foundation: to make Bromsgrove a needs blind school by raising mighty funds for bursaries. Recent additions to the board include Sir David Arculus (look up Sir David on Wikipedia if you’re not familiar with the business world and you’ll understand the calibre of person I’m talking about). That people such as this are willing to be Bromsgrove trustees is humbling. I am excited beyond measure as to what we can achieve, even though I know it will be one of my successors who reaches the magic number and says: “We now welcome applications from absolutely anybody, regardless of household income.” However, next academic year we will, for the first time ever, give out over one million pounds in means-tested bursaries. What an ironic shame that this week, of all weeks, saw the School attacked in the local press for high-handedness in the community.

Much remains to be done if we are to deconstruct the stereotypes. Take my situation. Mum and dad were born in Anfield, Liverpool (currently residing very near the bottom of the poorest postcode in Britain table). Dad left school at 14, mum at 16. I was the first in my family to go to university because of the sacrifices they made. But in the eyes of some, I suspect, that’s all irrelevant or inconceivable now. I came into the world fully formed as posh, privileged and, presumably, out of touch. Insanity. But Bromsgrove has to reach out still more: we must try to change perception rather than wait for some social epiphany. Huge task. Bromsgrove’s educational DNA needs to be shared, not kept in test tubes.

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I’ve been invited to a conference at which Titans from Gove to Mandelson, Starkey to Dimbleby will be sharing thoughts on the future of education. One Head is going to argue that in order to be successful, Heads must model themselves on Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider. Oh dear. My movie role model is very different. Lie low. Be quiet. Do great things if you can. Deliberately lose a hundred little battles in order to win the war. Let egos puff and swell around you, and let false rumour run riot if people are gullible enough to believe it. You will be remembered for your deeds.

 I am Keyser Soze.

But a nice version obviously. Friendly. Personable. Not given to blowing up ships. That kind of thing.

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Namby-pamby Heads will sometimes tell you theirs is the loneliest job in the world. Rubbish. We all know John Tracy has been up there alone in Thunderbird 5 for forty-seven years, so we can scotch that self-pitying bagatelle from the outset. However, there has been a sad change to my routine: this is week three without my little workmate of thirteen years, Jude the Border Terrier.  Now, where there used to be a basket in the corner of my office and the sound of contented snuffles, there is only a skirting board that needs painting.

HEADMASTER'S BLOG - A RELUCTANT INTRODUCTION

“You’ve got to write a blog,” they said.

“Why?” I said.

“Because you are Headmaster of one of Britain’s largest and most successful independent Schools,” they said. “And other Heads are blogging.”

“Reason enough for me not to,” I replied. I’m genuinely impressive when I’m angry. “Our parents get proper newsletters written by wise, literate staff. They don’t need self indulgent bilge. I won’t blog. I won’t do it, I tell you. You can’t make me. I am my own man.”

Here’s my blog.

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Apparently I’m supposed to tell you what I’ve been doing. Well, I’ve been contemplating that mothership of ugliness, the word “blog”. No coincidence, methinks, that at least two unpleasant three-letter words which make little boys giggle can be made from its letters.  My own anagrammatic mistrust is encapsulated in the nasty sounding “Glob”. Will they let me write a glob, I wonder?

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“Headmaster, don’t be deliberately obtuse: just cooperate and tell the world what you’ve been doing in the last seven days.”

Frankly, the idea that the world could give a pant-hoot about what I’ve been doing is as fanciful as Mr. Mullan coming to School on a jetpack. It’s not that I don’t do interesting things. I do. I mean to say, I write songs about members of staff. That’s fun. But, as I’m sure you will understand, this is not something I can share with the world. No, what my team want from me is a diary of the working day. They want me to sound busy and impressive so parents will think:

“Gosh, he puts some hours in. Top man.”

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LAST WEEK – DAY ONE

A week ago ... let’s see. Aha! I was having breakfast at the Ivy restaurant in London. But should I be telling you that? Parents may have already put their fists through the computer screaming “My fees are going on WHAT?”

Put down your swords, mes braves, ...... I was invited by the New York Times and they took the hit. Bromsgrove’s input was requested at a breakfast conference on issues facing higher education and their subsequent coverage in the world press, specifically the International Herald Tribune. All the other delegates were representing universities so I was the only person in a suit. I hope my mother’s reading this.

On the train back I wrote two references.  There we go again: that’s the kind of thing I hate about blogs. Who could possibly care? ”On the train back I wrote two references.” Stephen Fry is venerated for tweeting things like that, but – in the name of all the saints  - why? I did lots of other things on the way back, but none of them is as edifying as the closing chapters of The Brothers Karamazov, which you could all be reading instead of this. Brace yourselves for my other roller coaster moments on the train:  I read over my extensive papers for the imminent meeting of the full board of governors and – sorry parents – I stared out of the window from time to time, remembering the odd line of Philip Larkin.

Back at School I had a two hour meeting with the Executive (more about these scary ladies later) and architect. This pow-wow is a weekly fixture while the huge new build is going on, and I’ve learnt much. (Why, only last week I proudly told my wife I was late home because I had been “value engineering”. She reminded me I can’t even turn a television on without help and proceeded to make further unkind and hurtful comments). I then met two sets of parents on sundry matters of good and ill, had a meeting with a pupil who has been signed up by Birmingham City (great, provided he doesn’t score against Everton), and then taught an early evening lesson in my office to the impressionable young. I finished my admin to the soulful guitar of Robert Cray. Here endeth the first day.

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LAST WEEK -  ALL THE OTHER DAYS

A day by day account of a Headmaster’s comings and goings is clearly going to drag. This could turn into Anna Karenina without the exciting bits. Which is the same as saying this could turn into Anna Karenina. Let’s speed up.

Cometh the weekend, cometh the governors. Every term the full board meets, and matters weighty and grave are discussed in the Cookes Room. We look solemn and intimidating and reach mighty decisions. Some Heads are pinned down by governing bodies who are themselves shackled by the weight of a School’s history.  At Bromsgrove governors’ meetings, we soar above the mires of timidity and invariably alight upon broad and sunny uplands where fat sheep safely graze.  I am immensely grateful and fortunate. June Longmuir and former Chairman Matthew Horton retired at the AGM: they have given service such as few will ever understand, and Matthew effectively gave me the opportunity to become Headmaster of Bromsgrove. I am minded of Ghandi: That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.

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I spent a morning in the Pre-Prep observing Year 2 lessons as part of the School’s “Teaching and Learning” thrust during which I will see teaching in all year groups across the School’s three constituencies. Mrs. Finlay’s class began with the question “Who was the fourth man on the moon?” I beat a hasty retreat. No six year old is going to get the better of me in public. They talk some rot, these six year olds. Apparently Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. Madness. Next they’ll be saying a cartel of Old Etonians is running the country. Note to self: speak with Mrs. Deval-Reed about dodgy content of year 2 lessons. (And how come everybody is so happy in the Pre-Prep? They need to read some Thomas Hardy).

Inevitably at Bromsgrove, I watch a fair bit of sport throughout the week, and selecting highlights will lead to torrents of complaints, but ... are Year 8 classy or what?

This time of year, I interview candidates every week for Senior School teaching posts. We are blessed with a plethora of mightily talented applicants, but some are half my age and I am obliged to fight a blind, irrational fear of this demographic. The hideously bright person sat before you may well have a double first from Cambridge, but how can you employ somebody who doesn’t know who Jimmy Page is? Exactly.

Lots of interviews, then, plus the hosting of a fifteen strong international delegation coming to see how we do things; a governors meeting at another school where I am Chair of the Education Committee; heaps of prospective parents; a stunning pop and jazz evening; two complaints; detailed in-house debates about the future curriculum both in Prep and Senior School; and the leitmotif that is Senior staff appraisals. Each member of staff is given a thorough appraisal every two years by pupils as well as line managers, and the final conversation takes place in my office. I always ask appraisees something along the lines of “If you were me, what would you do differently?” Worryingly, answers have been getting longer.

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Since much of a Headmaster’s time is spent having confidential conversations – many of them sad – I am wary of accusations of selectivity or even censorship in these musings. There is often a ground bass of insecurity beneath the lively Chaconne of young lives, and this week it played too loud in one instance. Like the music of the spheres, it usually hums quietly behind the teenage years, though it sometimes, albeit very rarely in Bromsgrove, drowns the melody. It will be forever thus. We are not the Garden of Eden; we are a School.

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I did some more teaching to Oxbridge PPE hopefuls. My lesson on the relationship between Upper Palaeolithic cave art and the Pre-Socratics was a blast and greatly enjoyed by two people.