HEADMASTER’S EIGHTEENTH BLOG – CUPS AND FORCES

Having done the rounds in the Pre-Prep I am currently going to lessons in the Senior School. I scored a creditable 5 out of 11 in a test on the rise of Italian fascism and narrowly missed getting a Kit-Kat. I was also challenged but not utterly lost in a recent Maths lesson (I won’t tell you what year group though, given the School turns over many millions of pounds and I’m supposed to be in charge). But not all lessons have gone so well for me. In one, the pupil next to me asked if I could assist with Question 1. I said unfortunately I couldn’t as I didn’t understand it. Question 2 perhaps? No, I didn’t understand that either. Well what about question 3, boss man? At this point I had to confess to not having the foggiest idea what was going on.

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Last week I was invited to an evening event in Birmingham Town Hall for Leaders of the Midlands. Given I’m not even the leader of my corridor, I was somewhat surprised to be there, but it turned out to be a jolly affair with the Managing Director of John Lewis, Andy Street, on fine form as guest speaker. I admit my leadership technique (sic) has been compared before now to that of Vlad the Impaler (why can’t we give him a break?) but I’ve also tried to follow this suggestion of David Lloyd George: “Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You cannot cross a chasm in two small steps.” Well, not unless you’re Bugs Bunny.

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I don’t want to stray into Mr. Bowen’s Senior Newsletter territory here, but the Fourth Form play, Shockheaded Peter was, in the words of a young member of the audience, “like amazing.” Just stunning. The leads and supporting players were sensational, and the imaginative flights of the production were as creative as anything I’ve seen in the Studio. Bravo. But let’s not forget all those who worked behind the scenes in the high pressure jobs:
Q: How many stage managers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I DON'T CARE - JUST DO IT!

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Somebody should inform the United Nations that the Headmaster of arch-rivals King Edward the Sixth Birmingham and I had both lunch and dinner together last week. At one point I was seen walking around his School holding a KES umbrella. Sorry. Anyway, their Head let on that an old sporting cup had been sent back to him, but he discovered that it actually belonged to us (the confusion arising presumably because we are also a King Edward the Sixth School and for a long time retained the same nomenclature). But guess what? They’ve gone and kept our silverware on the grounds that we’ve won enough cups.
I’m priming the CCF for a Commando raid.

THE HEADMASTER’S SEVENTEENTH BLOG – TALL STORIES

As a Headmaster I am compelled every now and then to ascend the pulpit of an eminent Prep School and hold forth. Last Sunday was a case in point as I found myself in the delightful Chapel of one of our finest establishments. My primary aim on these occasions is to avoid creating schism and inciting religious war among the young, but no matter how I try to keep to matters eschatological, I always seem to end up telling seven year olds wholly inappropriate stories about what happened when I was last in the pub. I can’t help myself, even though I see their teachers throwing disapproving glances at me, and parents whispering down to their little ones:  “It’s Marlborough for you, my lad.”

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I don’t want to milk excessively the entrance examination papers, but I think there is a category of answer that is neither funny nor ridiculous but which you wish had been correct. For example, this year I asked pupils to identify the sources of five famous quotations. How very plausible to hear that “Go ahead, make my day,” was coined by Margaret Thatcher, and that the last words of Mahatma Ghandi were: “They think it’s all over. It is now.”

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I note that Newt Gingrich's most popular attack on Mitt Romney came in the form of an accusation that the Mormon candidate was so un-American he had the gall to speak French. This spectacularly crass and frightening assault comes at a time when 57% of pupils taking GCSEs are not sitting any language whatsoever. And yet ... Goldman Sachs’ projections for GDPs in 2050 don’t just have the likes of China, Brazil and India up in the top five: they also have countries such as Mexico and Indonesia riding high above the UK. As Mitt Romney would say: On doit se réveiller et sentir le café.

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A few days ago, one of the scary ladies shrieked in horror when she realised I was taller than her. I told her that I’d been taller than her for the seven years I’d been here and quite possibly longer than that, but she wouldn’t have it. Curious, I then asked one of the ladies in Administration how tall she thought I was and she said “Five foot seven”. Increasingly deflated, I asked one of the retired policemen who works in our gatehouse: 

“You should be an expert on this sort of thing,” I said: “How tall am I?”

“Five eight.”

Fearing for the safety of the nation, I returned to my office where my PA told me that her mother had seen a picture of me in the paper and said “He’s not very tall, is he?” My PA then asked a Head of Department with a top First and a Doctorate how tall I was.

“Well,” he said, “I’m five nine and I tower over him.”

My last full medical had me at six foot.



THE HEADMASTER’S SIXTEENTH BLOG – DIAL M FOR ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS

This is the only time of year when I feel like a real teacher from central casting. The 11+, 13+ and 16+ entry papers are flooding in and I can skulk about the Common Room justifiably moaning about my mark load and how unreasonable it is to expect me to ... etc. etc. Feels good. Best answer so far has turned up on the 13+ General Knowledge paper.

Q) Name a mammal that lives in the sea

A) Sea Horse

We like this kind of thinking at Bromsgrove.

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About three years ago, as part of the General Knowledge paper, I asked 13+ candidates to fill in the final, missing word of famous film titles. So, for example, they would see “Live and Let ..” and I would expect them to write “Die”. What actually happened had me writing scripts in my sleep as I tried to invent plotlines for the following epics: Lawrence of Manchester; Bridge on the River Tweed; The Empire Strikes Lucky; The Good, The Bad and the Really Quite Unfortunate; and that most cerebral Bond movie of them all ... Quantum of Physics.

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My favourite account of an entrance examination is Winston Churchill’s, whose experience at Harrow is described, unedited, below:

I was found unable to answer a single question in the Latin paper. I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the question " I." After much reflection I put a bracket round it thus "(I)." But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true. Incidentally there arrived from nowhere in particular a blot and several smudges. I gazed for two whole hours at this sad spectacle : and then merciful ushers collected my piece of foolscap with all the others and carried it up to the Headmaster's table. It was from these slender indications of scholarship that Mr. Welldon drew the conclusion that I was worthy to pass into Harrow.

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There’s no way of doing this next bit tactfully but I think, as a service to mothers, I need to share something with you. On my Essay Paper for the 13+ candidates this year was a statement for discussion:”Everyone has to lie sometimes.” Now then, the vast majority of candidates who chose this topic used the same example to illustrate why lying is sometimes necessary. What example is this? Well, in the words of one candidate: “It’s like when your mum’s going out and says to you ‘How do I look darling?’, and you have to say ‘Really lovely lovely, mum’ even though she looks a right state.”

Like I said, I’m not commenting ... just passing it on.

THE HEADMASTER’S FIFTEENTH BLOG – OXFORD BLUES

I doubt the Head of Eton received “Holy Cow! It’s The Wurzles Christmas Album” as a seasonal gift from one of the parental body. You will recall that “The Wurzles”  was deemed second best answer to a recent quiz held on the blog, and the runner up is clearly trying to persuade me that the artistic output of these cider drenched warblers is superior to that of the winning answer – the Hallé Orchestra. I’ve played the album and I think it fair to say I’ll never be the same again. That men can make such music such as this is indeed remarkable. Thank you.

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Just before Christmas there was a quiet celebration in a dark hut. Me and a crowd of hunky dudes. We raised our plastic cups and sipped the warm fizz with some satisfaction. The builders were handing over four of the five new buildings to the School. Now because of the landscaping works (and I’m not talking a few daisies here .. think Great Wall of China), the South end of the campus still looks like the set of War of the Worlds, but amidst the mud and din we have a useable Mary Windsor and Sports Arena. My thanks to the Scary Ladies for ensuring the builders remained cowed and frightened throughout the process.

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Oxbridge results are still coming in but already I’ve had some dreadful news. For many years I have successfully avoided sending a pupil to my old Oxford college on the grounds that if they went and found out what I’d been up to, I’d have to resign and live on top of a pillar for the rest of my life. Well, one of our pupils sneaked under the radar and has gone and got themselves a place there. A quarter of a century has passed since I left. Is it enough I wonder? Anyway, I’ve packed a trunk and a false moustache just in case.

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Ignore Robert Peston. The recession is over. How do I know? Well, when I arrived at Bromsgrove I got a fair few letters (usually from people whose children had been refused entry) that began “If I ran my business like you run your School” and proceeded to make clear that Bromsgrove and I were as dysfunctional as News International. Since 2008 I haven’t received much in the way of swaggering contempt as I suspect even the Shining Ones have been subdued by recent economic woes. Imagine my delight, then, when on opening the New Year mail I find a letter beginning “If I ran my business like you run your School....”. Good times can’t be far away. Happy New Year.

HEADMASTER’S FOURTEENTH BLOG – HARK THE HERALD

On Friday night I had two Oxford PPE hopefuls in my office for a final tutorial with their glorious leader. I nodded appreciatively as they spoke about things I didn’t understand, and waved an approving hand whenever quotations I didn’t recognise from philosophers I’d never heard of were cited. I then asked both students to offer a solution to the Eurozone problem in sixty seconds, but immediately got lost when one of the pupils described the European economy in terms of arcane political theory. Finally, I was asked if philosopher X was responsible for theory Y, and I said I didn’t know. We all shook hands and off they went to Oxford.

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Consider the humble tea towel. No, seriously. How elevated it must feel when, once every year, the soap suds are left to drain away of their own accord because the proud rag adorns the head of a Pre-Prep shepherd. If “Come to the Manger” lacked a Cecil B. DeMille budget, it sure hit home in the lumpy throat department. (This may be because the play was not marred, as was a production some years ago, by a fight breaking out among the three wise men). Meanwhile in Prep we had “The Peace Child” which should be compulsory viewing for some of the role models (sic) playing in the Premier League. The Seniors turned in a transcendental “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, while tonight we have a charity concert (staff and pupils performing) for the flood victims in Thailand. And yet .. and yet ....  a prospective parent told me yesterday that Bromsgrove is still perceived to be dominated by sport. I will set my reply to music and have a dance troupe deliver it.

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I am going to sing “Baby I love you” at the Charity Concert. Why? Because you should never trust a pop song that purports to say more than “Baby I love you.” Look at the lyrical abominations that have arisen as bands try to say things beyond the proper metier of pop (which is teen angst round the soda fountain). I mean, what’s this about?

"I drew a line,
I drew a line for you.
Oh, what a thing to do.
And it was all yellow."

 And they’re millionaires. Millionaires I tell you.

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In the middle of Gordon Green stands a Christmas tree. Yesterday evening, as darkness fell, we had a two hundred and sixty strong floodlit CCF Review on the south side of the tree, overseen by a naval Commodore. To the east, at the same time, in a brightly lit Routh Hall, pupils chatted, served and performed at our Christmas party for local senior citizens. North, our many caterers were busy in their kitchens preparing hundreds of evening meals, while to the west, the administration workers processed a myriad online forms and accounts. And on the other side of the world, a different Bromsgrove School also prepared for Christmas. And the children there will, from time to time, be thinking of a place a long, long way west of them. An ancient, special place where for hundreds of years, young people have looked forward to this time of year. And from where I, the most fortunate of Headmasters, now offer Season’s Greetings to you all.

ESPRIT DE DOORS - THE HEADMASTER’S THIRTEENTH BLOG

I was explaining in our Senior School assembly recently that whereas many countries will only define a civilised environment after analysing moral, intellectual and artistic advancement, the British do it on the spot by watching how a child behaves in the vicinity of a door. Open a door and let others through, and you are a Renaissance youth, beloved of adults and numbered among the blessed. Try to go through a door before an adult, however, and you a reprehensible Visigoth, toppling the towers of empire and determining in three second that visitors will choose another “more civilised” School for their child. Never mind examination results: British Schools are really all about what happens near doors.

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International parents may not know that we have a chain of fitness centres in the UK called David Lloyd. (David was a great British tennis player. That’s not the same as a great German or Russian tennis player, I admit, but David got the ball back over the net sometimes and is subsequently a national treasure. He is now a hugely successful businessman and discerning art collector). In the Bromsgrove branch of David Lloyd there is, understandably, much talk of Bromsgrove School. My gym-based Stasi (when they are not working the School car parks in trenchcoats and walky-talkies) duly keep me informed. This week, for example, I was given a peculiarly (and, I pray, untypically) David Lloyd take on the number of pupils supposedly doing a certain course in the Lower Sixth. It was wrong by a factor of ten. A factor of ten!  When exasperated, the Cherokee Indians famously declared: svgi inageehi giniyaluga. It means Let's go hunt for some wild onions.

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I always thought Aristotle tutoring Alexander the Great was the coolest teacher/pupil combo I had ever come across. However, I had the good fortune to sit next to Sir Eric Anderson at a lunch this week. Sir Eric has been Headmaster of three Schools, Provost of Eton and Rector of Lincoln College Oxford. He is an expert on Walter Scott and a hundred things besides. And he has also given Aristotle a run for his money, for in his time, Sir Eric has taught: Prince Charles, Tony Blair and David Cameron. Who knows if right now, in Bromsgrove, a young teacher is inspiring a trio of future Titans.

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Anyway, back to the door thing. For the days immediately following my announcement, I witnessed moments of bewilderment and terror as pupils neared these oblong arbiters of human decency. Even with no adult in sight, Bromsgrovians were scanning the horizon to ensure that by no conceivable means could they be accused of letting a door close on someone. Pupils were hesitating before open doors even when no one was coming the other way, fearing the threshold as one might a portal to the planet Tharg. I saw one pupil hold the door open at lunch only to find hoards of pupils filing through and setting him back a hundred places in the queue. Indeed, had I not relieved him, he’d still be there now. Thinner, but with his skeletal fingers clutching the handle. “After you” has become as common a phrase as “Any chance of some more chips, please?” We are in a golden age –the Athens of Pericles – and it may even last to the end of the week.

THE HEADMASTER’S TWELFTH BLOG – DAISY, DAISY

Long standing readers will recall the summer of torment when I inexplicably rubbed Factor 50 suncream into my eyes rather than adopting social norms and applying it to my skin. Well, I went one better last half term and damaged my ligaments in a curious cycling accident. Curious because the cycle in question was nailed to a gymnasium floor. Let me explain. Dismounting with butch gusto, I forgot to extricate my right foot from the strap. I duly fell into the lady cyclist next to me (my right foot still attached to my own bike). Since this unfortunate lady was listening to her I-Pod and in a state of blissful detachment, the sudden appearance of my head in her lap was unsurprisingly followed by a panic-induced flurry of blows to my face. As I was still strapped in to the next door bike and therefore unable to move, I had no option but to lie there and take the beating like a man.

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I’m not sure I have ever been as proud of the School as I was on Remembrance Sunday, and not simply because of the levels of respect, smartness and discipline on display from our pupils. More because those pupils represented over thirty nations who had spent periods of the twentieth century engaged in the most terrible conflict with one another. After our services, I watched British, Russians, Germans, Chinese, South Africans and a host of other nationalities walk away together into the crisp, bright morning. Sometimes, life really can be obviously and upliftingly symbolic.

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On Wednesday evening, the third annual Bromsgrove Foundation Lecture was held in the Lansdowne Club, off Berkeley Square in London. The superb Dame Julia Cleverdon gave the collective conscience and intellect of a one hundred and fifteen strong invited audience a thorough shaking. Dame Julia (one of the Fifty Most Important Women in Britain according to The Times) has herself a list of achievements as impressive as Smokin’ Joe Frazier’s uppercuts, but readers of a noble vintage will extend serious respect when I tell them that she once worked in .....wait for it ...  Industrial Relations at British Leyland in 1972. While the import of this position may be lost on younger readers, venerable observers will surely acknowledge that Damehood is poor reward for what has to be industry’s equivalent of climbing Mount Everest in leotard and flippers while carrying a Yak.

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I should add that when the gym staff pulled me off the terrified lady and the situation was explained to her, she apologised. Despite feeling and looking like a pizza (puffy and bulbous at the extremities but fine in the middle), I apologised in turn for entering her life so abruptly and without proper introduction. As the staff applied ice to an ankle growing quick as bamboo, I struck up polite conversation with my onetime assailant and discovered that the lady had young children and was thinking about appropriate schooling. Ever the trooper, I suggested, through my tears, that she take a look at Bromsgrove. She said she would. She hasn’t.