“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.
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.
