BLESS ME FATHER – THE HEADMASTER’S SIXTH BLOG

This week’s Friday weigh-in revealed I had shed a pound while one of my fellow dieters actually put on two. I am experiencing deeply unChristian emotions.

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The Pre-Prep deserve loud Yaroos from us all. They passed with distinction what can most charitably be described as a very detailed external audit. Distinction, but not perfection. Where did the Pre-Prep fall down? Gentle readers, I must tell you that the serving of fruit scored only 1 out of 7. That’s some pretty rubbish fruit serving if you ask me. 1 out of 7. Does this mean that our little ones don’t get enough fruit? How can this happen? OMG! What next? Scurvy?  But I’d forgotten this is 21^st century Britain. Mrs. Deval-Reed explained that if you serve fruit as we do with a serviette (how civilised) you score 1. Serve it on a plate and apparently you score 7. God’s own country.

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Bromsgrove Senior School staff are making even bigger strides than my fellow dieter’s tailor. A few are leaving for serious promotions at the end of this year and I offer my congratulations. Two, for example, are off to be house parents at well known boarding schools. Wonderful stuff. Now rumour (see below) can turn this triumph of professional development into something very different. The fact is, last year only one member of staff left the Senior School and I put that statistic on the School Risk Assessment. Seriously. I’m thrilled people like it here so much, but if schools do not aereate themselves, they become clogged and stodgily complacent. If every full time member of staff stayed ten years (which is a long time), we should have eleven teachers leaving each year from Senior School. So even a leave of fifteen, for example, would be perfectly normal for most schools this size. Some people here get shocked when it’s five. Chill. Every school has a place for Mr. Chips, but we need a fair few Fries-To-Go as well. Good luck to them.

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Rumour is a school’s anti-matter. Allow me to paraphrase and grammatically improve Wikipedia: The observable universe is apparently almost entirely matter, but do other places exist that are almost entirely antimatter instead, and what might be possible if antimatter could be harnessed? This week I have been told I have a new dog (I don’t). I have moved away from the School house (I haven’t). I am better (What? Spooky!). Anyway, I’ve decided it might be fun to spread a few stories myself to see if they get a run in classroom and car park. Incy wincy fibs made up by me for subsequent embellishment. A prize for any angry person who reports one of my own stories back to me as truth, and extra champers to anybody whose variant is barely recognizable from my original hare. Now then, did you hear that this year’s Commemoration Day will be sponsored by Tescos? No? Well apparently ...............

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Elsewhere on this website I have written a brief tribute to Roundy Rudell who died suddenly last week. Whether you knew Roundy or not, I hope you will find a minute to read it. He was an extraordinary man who gave much to this School and believed passionately in its young people. We will miss him.

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Site manager Jim is in charge of the sports section of the new build, and whenever academic staff walk round the new arena and satellite buildings, he rightly insists we don safety wear. But no safety helmet fits me properly. This is because I have a huge brain. (Well, that’s my take. Mrs. Edwards says my cranial issues arise from the fact that I am the only post-Neanderthal hominid not to have evolved away my occipital bun). Jim’s attempts to force the safety helmet down over my prodigious bonce saw a gleeful management team rejoicing rather too easily in my humiliation. Whereas the real builders look mean and manly in their rugged safety gear, I feel like a flour baby with a lego hat.

CARELESS WORDS - THE HEADMASTER’S FIFTH BLOG

One of the Furies from Marketing was away last week so I thought I’d assert myself and not write the blog. Remind them who was boss. But she came back unexpectedly and checked up on me, asking why no blog had been forthcoming. I stood my ground, put my hand on my hip and went all teen strop:

“I’d really love to have written something earlier but - you know what? - I literally couldn’t be bothered.”

 Her response was swift, candid and unnecessarily physical.

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When you are building sports facilities on the scale we are, it is inevitable, understandable and wrong for people to suggest that the Arts have to take a back seat. This term I spent evenings at the Bromsgrove Festival listening to our choir sing the African Sanctus (the Birmingham Post review called Mr. Kingston a “local legend”) and, along with Mr. Bowen, taking pupils to the Bromsgrove Festival Young Musicians final. I have witnessed a stunning Words and Music evening in the Prep, a slick Charity Fashion Show for the shining ones in the Senior School, and a virtuoso Housman Verse Prize performance from the worthy winner, Alistair Aktas. Due to governor duties at another School, I regrettably missed the Chamber Choir performance at St. Swithin’s Worcester, but all should note too that auditions for next term’s Midsummer Night’s Dream have been cracking on apace in a week when numerous RADA certificates were awarded.

So, yes, it is a whopping big sports arena, but let’s all remember: our orchestra plays Mozart Symphonies.

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This week, the diet (thank you for not asking) was given a mauling due to a mighty induction lunch with a new governor. I was wondering why I still felt hungry after so large a meal until, on leaving the table, I realised I had deposited most of my goodies (including the raspberry coulis) over the floor around my chair. (Whoever dreamt up eating coulis with a fork was clearly the same sadist who put an “s” in the world lisp). Sheepishly following the governor out, I inadvertently stepped in the coulis and trailed it down the carpet. It now looks to visitors as if I butcher my guests and drag them into my dining room. The detention queue might look more nervous than usual this week.

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My unpopularity graph is likely to go Alpine because I have just made up the new Senior School monitors. It’s for the most part a democratic process. Staff and pupil votes are counted, and house recommendations assimilated. Yet the plethora of extraordinary young people in the current Lower Sixth (we could make up two or three times as many monitors as we do) means some exceptional pupils do not join the team. I am always touched by the pride and the utter lack of cynicism of our older pupils, manifest especially in their total respect during the solemn signing in ceremony. But that means feelings run high. Accusations that I am biased towards or against a particular gender, race, House, subject, examination system, or even extra-curricular activity have all, in the last six years, been levelled at me by disappointed parents and pupils. At times of such emotion, reason is sometimes as intangible as froth on a daydream. Best to concede and let myths go out into the car park and unto the world.

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I lunched at the Prep School this week with the young people who have volunteered to be “buddies” for other pupils. They told me the biggest problem people face in schools is gossip. Same with adults, I said. At Prep Chapel earlier in the week I had recounted the ancient tale of the mouthy woman who one day, regretting her careless words, went to the village wise woman to ask how she could undo the hurt her gossip had caused. The wise woman told the villager to pluck a chicken and drop the feathers along the road. The villager, thinking this was some kind of magic spell, did as she was told and returned to the wise woman the next day. But all the wise woman said was: “Now go back to the road, collect the feathers and tell me what you find.”

The villager did as she was told. When she returned to the wise woman, the villager said:

“Some feathers were still there, although in different parts of the road, but some had vanished on the wind. I’ll never get them back.”

And then she realised: so it is with words.

TRUTH IS BEAUTY - THE HEADMASTER’S FOURTH BLOG

I have decided to become unfathomably gorgeous for Commemoration Day.

“Come, come, Headmaster”, I hear you say; “how can one improve on perfection?” And I thank you for that. But maybe – just maybe - I’m a teeny bit overweight. By three stone, say. Anyway, after an abortive first diet over Christmas (I know, I know..), I am now in a weight losing competition with both fellow blimps and more streamlined models who erroneously think they are tubsters. I have already told Senior Staff to strike me if they see me eating desserts. My ribs sting. But at least the lady who hit me found my ribs. My competitors have set themselves ambitious target weights. As for me ... I’ll just be happy if well meaning people stop rolling me back into the sea when I’m lying on the beach.

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Terms have rhythms, and the Royal Wedding is not the only new syncopation. The International Baccalaureate examinations are underway. We are not used to the public examination season beginning so early. Indeed, results will be out and university destinations known just after Commemoration. So, the Senior School is not going through the late spring phoney war period to which we have been accustomed. It is now and it is for real. We wish all our IB candidates every success.

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Readers may recall that as we broke up for Easter I was heading off to London for the launch of Lord (Digby) Jones’ new book: “Fixing Britain.” I’m not in the business of plugging all Old Bromsgrovian’s books, but think of this volume as the antithesis to Princess Beatrice’s hat. (I initially thought –honestly - that some of the Abbey’s masonry had fallen on poor Princess Beatrice’s head and that she was stoically soldering on). Whether you agree with Digby on every issue or not, this hugely entertaining trip round the bay is paradoxically a ludicrously sane account of national problems and solutions in Asia’s century. The chapter on UK education is searing. And as far as I’m concerned, anybody calmly advocating policy delivery via a technocracy rather than leaving it to the vicissitudes of career politicians deserves to be heard. Anti-establishment and highly recommended.

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I went and got some Factor 50 suncream in my left eye over the holidays. Sadly this happened just as the doorbell rang. I don’t know if any of you have suffered from directional issues when squirting the Factor 50, but I promise you, Hieronymous Bosch could not have dreamt up the torment I was going through as I answered the door to a stranger. I started yelling and clutching my face as she said “Hello.” Blistering agony then compelled me to bang my head against the porch and howl. For my finale, I staggered into the drive groaning and flailing like Dr. Jekyll after a drink. She ran off. Those of you plagued by cold callers, take note.

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While the holiday saw mighty and very visible progress in the multi million pound developments in the Senior School, we should recall a quieter moment that took place over the weekend in the Prep School. The untimely death of John Ormerod, who as Headmaster led the Prep School into the twenty-first century, was a sadness to all who knew him. I did not know John, but was moved by Saturday’s ceremony attended by his wife Jane and family. The new Prep School cricket pavilion will be known as the Ormerod Pavilion. John apparently  loved cricket beyond measure and even –according to Jane - banned football in summer break times, insisting the boys practised their batting and bowling instead. The building will have a special place in many hearts.

THE EROICA – THE HEADMASTER’S THIRD BLOG

History has taught me two things:

a)      Never invade Russia in winter

b)      Don’t get smart with fifteen- year-olds

The latter observation is based on two recent incidents in a Fifth Form set. A few weeks ago, while teaching these paragons of nonchalance, I incorrectly attributed a quotation to Stalin.

“It was Lenin actually,” came the languorous correction from the back.

“Man errs as long as he strives”, I thought, quoting Goethe to myself.  But I could see the class were thinking more along the lines of “You’re some loser, dude.” Not to worry; I would use shock and awe to win them back.

My chance came this week with Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess”. Many of you may know that the poem’s big surprise comes when we realise the elegant portrait on the wall is of a woman the narrator had killed. Eager to spook the naive teens, I slowed the pace of the lesson with masterful ease, slipped effortlessly into my Vincent Price whisper and asked:

“Can you guess what he keeps on his wall?”

“The rotting corpse of his wife?”

Thunder stolen.

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Schizophrenia struck early this week. Monday began in Maoist fashion with the massed choirs of the Pre-Prep piping me out of the building with Happy Birthday and showing their blind obedience by giving me twenty-one congratulatory claps. But by lunch time I’d heard that I’d resigned.

To be fair, this morale-boosting dispatch usually does the rounds whenever I call a Senior Staff meeting at short notice. Once the staff realise that it really is just another meeting on academic issues rather than a teary Headmaster’s farewell, I sense bunting being shoved slowly back into pockets and fridge doors closing reluctantly on the Veuve Clicquot. I walk around the campus afterwards saying “Good-afternoon” to people; but behind the polite rejoinders, I detect a weary “Still here then?”

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Just as every Friday afternoon is set aside for the architect’s meeting, so Wednesday morning is for the weekly Project Review meeting with Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Pernickety quantity surveyors, burly Site Managers, enigmatic Health and Safety nabob, frenetic Estate Manager, the Scary Ladies, bemused Headmaster etc. Some of you may have seen the informative plaques appearing on the more historic Senior School buildings (funding kindly supplied by Senior PA, texts from Mr. Bowen,), and I got to wondering if, in a hundred years time or so, any of the five new buildings currently under construction will have granite slabs attached to their walls celebrating the achievements and vision of our generation. Again, I thank you all for your forbearance in the face of this unprecedented construction. We won’t let you down.

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It’s been Upper Sixth reports week. This means my penning (yes, I still use a pen) advice and encouragement at the bottom of each document. Bromsgrove Upper Sixth pupils tend to be stunningly impressive and so it’s a genuine pleasure to read about and comment on progress.  All the same, litigation and the threat of a lengthy stint of bird have taken a good deal of fun out of report writing. Gone indeed are the days when a Geography teacher could write “I’m amazed Algernon can find his way home”. I will now confess to having written a small number of alternative, private reports on the very few pupils who are not cutting the mustard: things I would have said were I not so concerned about prison food. One day.

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In the week those unstoppable Year 8s became National Rugby 7s champions (remember, they became National Prep Hockey champions the previous week) I suggest we all give a big Yaroo! for the fact that Bromsgrove is more James Brown than Radiohead. (Before complaints of misogyny or worse flood in, I’m thinking specifically of “Get Up Offa That Thing”). No shoelace bands here, thank you very much. On Friday evening I watched a hilarious Year 6 production of Aladdin; on Saturday night the Choral Society and Chamber Choir moved us with a haunting Chapel concert; Sunday saw the England Under 18 Rugby team (coached by our own Mr. Mullan) play at School; Monday night will see me giving a speech at a dinner for Foundation donors, and on Wednesday evening I’ll be in London at the launch celebrations for Old Bromsgrovian Lord (Digby) Jones’ new book, modestly titled “Fixing Britain.” At Bromsgrove we are, in the words of the Godfather of Soul, most certainly “Sayin’ It and Doin’ It.”

Have a wonderful Easter.

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.