HEADMASTER'S TWENTY-THIRD BLOG - AHHH, GYM LAD

Salvete. Welcome to the first Headmaster’s blog of academic year 2012/3. It’s not The Brothers Karamazov, I’ll grant you, (where Dostoyevsky took two years, I’ve been known to whack this baby out over break time) but there are fierce creatures in rooms above me who insist all good schools need a blog. (Or was it all schools need a good blog? In which case I’m toast). Anyway, they come over shirty if I don’t hit the qwerty, so tippy-tap is the order of the hour. What’s in it for me? you ask. Oodles. My loyal readers have before now won champers, relived the Wurzels golden moments (sic), and voted in that crucial Halle Orchestra versus Sugarbabes debate . I venture to hope that everything you never wanted to know about Bromsgrove is here. Who says great Schools need to wear starch every day? Welcome one and all.

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Every year, at the end of August, just before term proper begins, I journey to Oxford with a handful of staff, all the new international pupils and those feral Antipodeans upon whom we have taken pity by employing them as gappies. It’s a trip that opens minds and hearts. Not really. Once we’ve parked up, Mammon’s hapless slaves (the majority) actually go shopping while a dissenting cadre of keen beans and future monitors comes with me around my old college. Upon breathing the rarefied air of my alma mater, I adopted hushed tones and told one innocent looking new girl that the quadrangle on which I had lived was 700 years old. Her immediately asking if I’d witnessed its construction nearly led to an unseemly punch up.

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Last week, during my opening Prep School Chapel talk – an event I like to think makes the Gettysburg address sound like a Teletubby monologue – I began to motivate the seven year olds by telling them that on my first day of School, aged five, I was locked out of the classroom and duly started crying. I went on to discuss why I had nothing to offer the ancient Romans, how the Yugoslavs had conquered Australia and why it didn’t get any easier as you got older. As the youngsters filed out in bewildered silence, staring at me with suspicious eyes as they passed through the Chapel porch, I could see I had made an early connection. Establishing bonds like this is very important when running a large School.

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As the molar fears the drill, so I dread the School gym. Last week I clambered aboard a cross-trainer (this is a machine, not an angry Mr. Mullan) and saw on the television screen in front of me a fearsome, hunky dude yelling at me to work harder. I looked at him and thought, “Yes, darn it - with a little more work, I too could have a body like that.” Anyway, it transpired a few seconds later that what I had been looking at was the “before” model. For those who don’t know, that’s the tubby guy prior to embarking on his training programme. Suddenly the “after” model appeared: a block of human granite with a trilobite stuck to his midriff. I got off the machine forlornly and went down to the cafe for a bun.

HEADMASTER'S TWENTY-SECOND BLOG - WORKING OVER-THYME

Civilisations have risen and toppled back into oblivion since my last blog. I’m cool with that: there’s a School to run. Alas, the marketing Furies upstairs have a rather more contemporary, not to say aggressive, take on the significance of blogging. Indeed, those little incisors that were grazing my heels last week have now become gaping maws, closing around my stumbling legs, and threatening me with torments that would have Hieronymus Bosch turning queasy. So, since I value my knee caps, let us take the M5 to the Three Counties Showground and the Malvern Spring Gardening Show.

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Q) “What do you get if you divide the circumference of an apple by its diameter?”

A) “Apple Pi.

With dextrous wit and urbane sophistication I entertained visitors at Bromsgrove School’s award winning garden. And not just any award: this was a first prize in a show visited by tens of thousands of people. I was in awe of the exhibit, because last time I mowed my lawn I found a wheelbarrow. Two female members of staff and pupils from all three sections of the School should be feeling immensely proud of themselves. The theme was sustainability and bees, so some of our smallest dressed up for the occasion in bee outfits. My suggestion that I too would look mighty fine as a bumble bee excited people less than I had hoped.

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Gardens have not been kind to me, as I told the Prep School in Chapel only last week. When I was the same age as our little Pre-Prep bees, I auditioned for The Selfish Giant. There were numerous speaking parts, so imagine my disappointment when I was told I would not be the Giant, nor The North Wind, nor one of the children, but the tree. I rallied a little when I realised that the tree was actually home to the boy Jesus, and that the giant would fall dead at my base, upon which moment I would shower him with blossom. It wasn’t King Lear, I’ll grant you, but I told my teacher it was an honour to be THE TREE. I wouldn’t let her down.

“No, Christopher,” said Miss. “Not ‘the’ tree; ‘a’ tree.”

They’d only gone and created another tree, not in the original story, whose job was to stand in silence for the entire play with his arms out. As my fellow tree dropped coloured paper over the giant’s head, I shed silent tears. It was like auditioning for the Sound of Music and being cast as an Alp.

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Now that I’m a School gym-freak (sic), I’m catching up on contemporary dance music while falling off machines. Sadly, I’m of an age when all I hear is a cracking riff from my jeunesse doree ruined after ten seconds by some wannabe gangsta from da hood rapping over the top. And why is everybody called something like “Slee-Z featuring Dod –G” ? Why can’t they just play the original James Brown? And why am I so old?

THE HEADMASTER'S TWENTY-FIRST BLOG - GRAND DESIGNS

Nearly three years ago, in a small seminar room in Oxford, the scary ladies and I came up with a masterplan for the neglected Worcester Road end of the campus and for Prep School boarding. The scheme lacked humility. Many governing bodies would have thrown it out. Typically, our governing body did not. They asked for details.

Almost done. Sure there’s some touching up required, but every new building of the Worcester Road development is now operational. I’ve just hung out and had a cup of well posh coffee in Café 1553: you’ll love it.  And yesterday I went to the new gym and entertained guests by screaming “Make it stop, oh please make it stop!” a lot. I’ve seen people dancing in the shiny studios; Mary Windsor has been thriving since Christmas: Oakley is a joy; the Hospitality suite last week witnessed its first major event for around 150 people; the arena has already been booked by national sports teams and will host the England Schools hockey finals next year. Page House (possibly the UK’s largest Prep School boarding house) will be finished for September, as will the new extension to the Health Centre.

On it goes. Energy and purposeful change remain our mantra.

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During the Easter holidays I found myself gettin’ down wid da crew in the newly built but as yet uninhabited Oakley House. By this I mean I was helping the Bursar and Director of Estates attach labels to the girls' pigeon holes. Me at my demotic best you might think. Not so. I immediately bagsied the bourgeois job of putting the labels on the pigeon holes, while Bursar and Head of Estates acted as the lumpenproletariat by peeling the labels from their backing and handing them to me in alphabetical order. However I was soon demoted because in the Bursar’s prosaic eyes I wasn’t putting the labels on straight enough. Get her. Anyway, the Bursar now took over and, despite my protestations, I was unceremoniously relegated to peeling labels and handing them to her in sequence. Relations were now frosty. Worse was to come. But let’s pause for a moment.

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Next week the statue arrives. The final aesthetic flourish to the Worcester Road project. Inexplicably, none of the governors seemed interested in a fifty foot statue of me, designed along Stalinist lines, with a square-jawed, flag-carrying Headmaster striding boldly forward, grateful children clutching his bronze boots. As a result we’ve had to go for something else. Herbert Read said that “Art is pattern informed by sensibility”: the only definition of art I have come across that resonates with me. It is evident in the sculpture that is set to appear next Tuesday. Please like it.

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Back to labelgate. As the Bursar neared the end of the job (and there are lots of girls in Oakley), I discovered I had sometime earlier dropped a label and therefore overlooked a name. A name that began with a letter significantly nearer “A” than “Z”. I suddenly remembered what it felt like to kick a football through your mum’s kitchen window. Reverting to the passive tense, as one always does in these situations, I informed the Bursar in a mousy voice that there had been a tinsy-winsy error and that she’d need to peel off the labels and start again. In the following moments I had time and cause to muse on Christopher Morley’s observation that a man who has never made a woman angry is a failure in life. I felt like a king.

HEADMASTER’S TWENTIETH BLOG – CARRY ON BROMSGROVE

I went on Mumsnet for the first time last week. Not because I’m becoming a mum - no gags about the midriff please - but because I heard the site was a cornucopia of gossip from the chattering classes about independent schools. And it is. Oh boy it is. But where’s Bromsgrove? Mamans, I am sorry to report we are all but invisible. The only thing I could find about Bromsgrove School was a lady saying she “wouldn’t touch it with a barge poll” (sic). Now while I’m perfectly happy not to be touched by this good woman’s nautical election process, I was rather peeved to see so little in the way of scandalous and unfounded rumour. I felt quite left out. Come on mums. I’ll start you off:  “Bromsgrove’s been going downhill ever since Michelle Obama said it wasn’t right for her daughters....” 

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Last week I saw a revival of Billy No Buzz in the Pre-Prep. The actors were three. Age not number. Much as Aristotle defined the essence of great tragedy, I have applied my own rules to determine whether a Pre-Prep work is successful or not. My criteria for an outstanding production at this age are: no crying, no fighting and no falling off stage. I am delighted to report that the players adhered to the dramatic unities and that the morning was a triumph, darling.

Q. Who is the patron saint of actors?

A. St. John the too, too Divine.

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Only one person wrote in regarding the appalling grammatical error in the last blog. You’re a very polite audience.

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Eager to assuage my high brow longings, I followed Billy No Buzz with Pirates of the Curry Bean. The eleven- year- old Sid James and Charles Hawtrey doppelgangers confirmed that what happens to a child’s sense of humour between Billy No Buzz age and Pirates is akin to coating a snowflake in creosote. A vast and wonderfully talented cast revelled in dodgy puns, crude slapstick set ups and glitzy Busby Berkeley routines.  Sadly, I loved every minute.

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And then it was Birmingham Town Hall to hear Vivaldi, Bach and Handel. Four hundred people listened to our brilliant young soloists and mighty Choral Society. Coming so hard on the heels of our St. Paul’s performance, it was a fitting end to a historic musical term. As the final chords of Handel’s titanic Coronation Anthems faded in the great civic building, I thought of the Billy No Buzz cast. It will be their turn sooner than any of us would wish it.

Have a wonderful Easter.

HEADMASTER'S NINETEENTH BLOG - OUR DAY OUT

“I’m so bad at lying,” moaned the Upper Sixth former, rocking back and forth with his head in his hands.
Where was he? In my office about to be expelled? Regretting his two timing ways with a longstanding girlfriend? No. He was sat behind me in an IB lesson on Oligopolies and had just lost an exercise on game theory in which the object was to make as much dosh as possible for your business. The game had been won by a baby faced assassin at the back of the class whom I had previously considered to be a young lady of unimpeachable standing. Everything my lovingly wrought School Mission statement stood for had been usurped in the fifty minute lesson I had just witnessed. Not since Luke Skywalker discovered Darth Vader was his dad had anybody been so taken aback. We will return to this sorry state of affairs in a minute.

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An hour before Evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral, I slipped quietly away (as in left the coffee shop rather than passed over the great divide), and wondered off to look at a couple of the City’s churches. On every corner of my walk I saw Old Bromsgrovians, many in their OB ties, strolling about the city waiting for the service to start. One was a girl – an international pupil - who had left last year, and another a gentleman who had last sung in Bromsgrove Chapel over sixty years ago. Later, inside the Cathedral and a few minutes before our Choir sounded the opening notes, I noticed these two OBs walking in together. They sat down next to one another. Soon the Choir had infused the cathedral with ethereal grace, and – looking at those two OBs – I could not help but be moved by how very, very far this great School has travelled.

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And then we all piled into the House of Lords. Well, not all of us. Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, had kindly provided a venue for the party animals in the congregation to raise awareness for Bromsgrove School Foundation. Actually, the reception almost never happened because Digby gave the coach driver some kamikaze instructions and his vehicle full of guests became wedged in the approach road to the Lords. Nonetheless, the battle weary revellers eventually escaped and found their way to a wonderful event that sought to impress on everybody why we need to widen access to our School. My sincere thanks to Digby, the governors and all who place inclusion and opportunity before arid social elitism. Thanks also to the kind lady serving the posh canapes who took my “I couldn’t eat another thing” to be the meaningless social nicety I intended.

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“But lying is bad,” I pleaded. “Come back to the light. Walk with me my child.”

I was told game theory wasn’t lying, so much as the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent, rational decision-makers.

“But you’ve all been telling porkers to one another. How can this be righteous?”

Tomorrow’s business leaders left the classroom oblivious, and I approached the teacher who was awaiting my assessment.

“That was the most morally reprehensible lesson I’ve ever witnessed,” I said.

“Thank you Headmaster.”

It was as if I’d given him an ASBO.

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.