Passing by ‘on the other side’?

I have just attended a richly international and multi-faceted wedding of a young man I used to teach in India. At my wedding breakfast table, of the eight people sat there, I discovered that three of us (all of whom looked on the ‘outside’ to be white British people) had been born in Nigeria.

Racism today

Apparently, when my maternal grandmother heard that my mother was to give birth in northern Nigeria, she was shocked: she told my mother that she would be doing the unborn baby (me) a disservice because being born in Africa meant the baby would be black! We might smile at this some 60 years later: surely we are much more enlightened, educated, tolerant and accepting today? Very sadly, reports of alleged racism in the White House, the apparent ineffectual ‘kick it out’ anti-racism campaign in football and the rise of the Far Right in Europe (including the UK), leads us to suppose that there has been little progress in this area.

When I hear taunts of ‘send him/her back to where he/she belongs’, I wonder where I belong? Born in Nigeria to Scottish/English parents (with some French, even Jewish bloodlines), schooled in Scotland but brought up in Ghana, where would I be ‘sent back to’ if someone in authority took exception to me? What about the English World Cup cricket team where players originating in Barbados, Dublin, Pakistan and New Zealand played under the Three Lions’ badge and Cross of St George (he of likely Turkish origin)?

Third Culture Kids (TCKs)

Later this summer I shall be helping out at a ‘camp’for ‘third culture kids’ (TCKs). These are young people whose passport may say they are British (like mine), but who perhaps have ‘mixed race’ parents, were born somewhere in Asia or Africa, have always lived outside of the UK apart from the odd trip to visit family and friends, and are now coming ‘home’. Much time on this ‘camp’ will be spent helping the TCKs understand aspects of modern Britain with which they might be unfamiliar – such as travelling on public transport, eating ‘British’ food, going to a school or college in the UK and experiencing peer pressure in which alcohol, sex or drugs might play a significant part. Sadly, too, we shall need to spend time considering racism and discrimination – even hostility – from some in society who are also entitled to British passports (but may never have traveled beyond English shores – or only as far as a ‘little England’ enclave in Spain or the Mediterranean).

Welcoming, understanding and accepting

We look to our politicians and to other figures in public life to set an example of acceptance and welcoming of those who are seemingly different but, at root, this understanding must begin and develop closer to home within our families, amongst our friends, in our schools and workplaces. We need to be prepared to ‘stand up and be counted’ when we come across racism or else we risk ‘passing by on the other side’ and leaving the ‘stranger’ in the ditch to be ignored (at best), jeered at, spat upon, mocked – even attacked. I was born and lived in Africa and I’ve worked in India: I feel immensely privileged to have this heritage and opportunity to look ‘beyond myself’. Whatever our background and circumstances, I hope we all might re-programme ourselves to be more accepting – even welcoming – to the ‘stranger’ and be prepared to help others to do the same.

Dreams are made of this

A small black and white TV

This is a week of dreams – dreams that came to pass in my lifetime. I was 12 years of age and just home from boarding school. It was one of those rare school holidays when my parents were home from Africa and we were staying in our small tenement flat in Paisley. We were not wealthy – don’t believe all you might read in the Press about those who go to independent schools, even today. Our tenement home had two small bedrooms, a kitchen / lounge area and a small wash area – no toilet (we shared the one on the stairs with other families) and no bath (these were available in the town centre at the public baths – not to be confused with a leisure pool today). But we did have a small black and white TV, courtesy of Radio Rentals, and here my dreams unfolded.

As a young boy, I had flown to and from Ghana twice a year between home and school in Scotland. These were the days of the BOAC ‘young fliers’ – later Ghana Airways and a VC10 – where ‘unaccompanied minors’ were treated to visits to the cockpit where they were allowed to sit in the pilot’s seat and watch the dials and see the clouds rushing by. I wanted to be a pilot! Aged 12, however, I was about to be enthralled by something even more exciting than being an airline pilot: an astronaut!

Air travel – and space

At my small boys’ boarding school near Ayr, we didn’t see much TV although ‘Dr Who’ was a regular Saturday feature. Space travel featured in my favourite comic, ‘The Eagle’, and in our ‘free time’ on Wednesdays and Saturdays we regularly made model ‘Airfix’ models of aircraft. Space travel and a moon landing was something else and even at school we were aware of what was about to happen – and my excitement was increased by knowing my parents were back from tropical Africa (where we had no TV and only intermittent wireless connection) and that we would be renting a TV for the holidays.

Diary extracts from July 1969

My 1969 diary picks up the narrative:

Monday, 14th July: End of term. Most people went home at 6.30 pm. End of term service was at 5.00 am (sic). I stayed the night. 19 boys stayed – had a feed (aka ‘midnight feast’)

Tuesday, 15th July: Got the train to Paisley at 8.10 pm (sic). Played golf. 18 holes. Mum – 105. Dad – 86. I got 124. Watched TV. (Golf was our main pastime on our small mining ‘camp’ in Ghana. In Paisley we played on the Municipal Course next to Barshaw Park where the notices said, in typical Scottish fashion, ‘no golf in the park’).

Wednesday, 16th July: Played golf. Mum – 109. Dad – 79. I got 60 and 62. Watched TV. APOLLO 11 BLAST OFF. I saw it on TV.

Thursday, 17th July: Went up Town. Played football and cricket with Cameron. Apollo 11 all right.

Friday, 18th July: Went to see the dentists. Went to Glasgow – Rowans – new suit. Saw a film at the ABC 1 called ‘The Italian Job’. Watch TV Apollo 11 all right.

Saturday, 19th July: Played football with Cameron. Watched TV. The Apollo 11 still all right. Got my comic and pocket money. (The ‘still all right’ catches the mood of the time – we were on tenterhooks that this amazing mission might fail.)

Sunday, 20th July: Apollo 11 landed on the Moon! It landed at approx 9.13 pm. Played golf…

Monday, 21st July: Went to the doctors. Went to see ‘Ring of bright water’ at La Scala. Watched TV. Apollo 11 – 1st Men on the Moon!

Tuesday, 22nd July: Played with Cameron. Watched TV. Cleared up the settee. Apollo 11 – Luna Bug linked up with the Service Module. Went up Town with Dad.

(No reference to Apollo on the 23rd July but I did see another film, ‘Where Eagles Dare’ – aware that another ‘Eagle’ had dared – and succeeded.)

Thursday, 24th July: Stayed in most of the time – did my model glider. Apollo 11 splashed down safely in the Pacific. Dad’s last day. (He returned to Ghana the next day.)

Survey – faith or fiction?

This week the Daily Express carried out a survey of its readers – ‘Was the 1969 moon landing real or a hoax?’ Over 32% of respondents (2,713) said it was a hoax with some 6.5% undecided. Amazing! That means the other four landings were also fake and that’s an enormous secret for hundreds, if not thousands, involved in the space programme to keep. I don’t need such bizarre surveys: I witnessed the first Moon landing as a youngster and I know it was real, nerve-tingling and inspiring: ‘Apollo 11 was still all right‘.

Collective worship

RE and RSE

I have just attended the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) meeting in the House of Commons on ‘Promoting positive outcomes in Religious Education (RE) and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE)’. I was especially struck by the contribution of Ron Skelton, Head at Broadway Academy in Birmingham. Whilst accepting the legal imperative to teach both RE and RSE, Ron emphasised the importance of a third component (also enshrined in law – viz the 1944 and 1988 Education Acts) – daily collective worship. Ron is a Christian, whilst his school roll is predominantly of Asian and Muslim background, and he posed the question: why is it that our young people are amongst the unhappiest in the developed world with a frighteningly high incidence of self-harming and teenage suicide? Could this possibly have some link (albeit in part) to the abject failure of most schools to obey the law and hold a daily (let alone weekly) act of collective worship? Added to this is the failure of 24% of secondary schools in England and Wales (and 44% of academies) to offer RE in the 14-16-year age range – also in contravention of the law.

Daily / Weekly whole-school assemblies

I’m not going to fall into the ‘trap’ of suggesting that the high incidence of troubled youth, with a high proportion suffering from mental health issues, is simply down to the lack of curriculum RE and the paucity of assemblies and chapels – and neither, I suspect, is Ron Skelton. I would agree (with Ron), however, that the lack of the latter is a significant contributory factor. So much that is positive can be achieved in a daily (or at the very least, weekly) gathering of the whole-school community even if much of the time the ‘visible’ content is ‘only’ notices, exhortations and information. There is an incredible strength to be had in gathering regularly to share together as a community. Clearly there are practical issues for some schools (such as the size of the roll and the available space) but even here there remains the possibility of several daily, smaller, gatherings where the same ethos and message are shared. Ron talked about character development in these times with shared values promoted and encouraged, commendations shared, joys celebrated and community sorrows recognised. All too often we bemoan the rise of the smart ‘phone, the loneliness of the long-distance online surfer and the time spent in front of individual screens and we fail to utilise the opportunities we have – even those which are actually required of us – to share together corporately in our schools.

Shared experiences

As a Head I certainly valued meeting with the whole school at least weekly (on other days we had smaller group assemblies and form assemblies) for a gathering in which I was able to share centrally (often around a termly theme), where we sang together, had a Scripture reading and a prayer. (One of the schools of which I was Head had a significant non-Christian population but these pupils and their parents valued having a clear structure, backbone and ethos to the assembly even if it didn’t reflect their faith-position.) These assemblies also afforded me the opportunity to stand at the door at the end of the gathering and look each pupil (and staff member) in the eye and exchange a greeting. Yes, it’s an effort to find space in the daily routine for this and also to come up with something interesting (even instructive) to say – but let’s not shrink from the brave and, may I say, the right thing! In my last school the age-range involved was from Reception Class to Year 11: a challenge regarding the overt message to be shared but well worth the effort in the ‘subliminal’ message of a shared time together.

So, yes to RE and RSE but also a ‘yes’ to daily, or at least weekly, corporate worship together as a whole school.

Rubbishing resilience!

Key expressions in school

When I first started out in teaching in 1980, there were several key expressions doing the rounds. ‘The photocopier’s on the blink again’, is a polite form of what I regularly heard on teaching practice. ‘Where’s the banda paper?’ was another refrain as was a line from a Riding Lights Christian sketch about the Prodigal Son – a Social Worker from Camden Town saying (as she dragged on her cigarette), ‘I really care about the kids’!

I certainly did (and do) ‘care about the kids’ and for me a buzz-word in education was ‘holistic’. I wanted to involve pupils outside of the classroom with activities and sport as much as I wanted to inspire them academically inside. (I still do.) As the 1980s moved on into the next decade, a key educational term was ‘cross-curricular studies’. I remember teaching History and English at a rural boarding school in Scotland (Glenalmond): we re-enacted Shakespeare’s Macbeth among the trees and paths of the school drive before returning indoors to research Medieval Scottish monarchs and their wars whilst plotting their campaigns on large-scale maps before going into the wonderful Episcopal Chapel and trying to imagine how they worshiped. It was an incredibly creative time and, I think, great fun for all concerned – but this phase didn’t last the early 1990s.

Differentiation – for all

Next we were on to ‘differentiation’ and this seemed much more challenging. The core subjects of Maths, English and Science – as well as Modern Foreign Languages and the Classics – were safe from interference as they stuck rigidly to their setting. Humanities’ teachers, however, had a challenging time devising ‘hands on’ lessons which allowed pupils of all abilities to access the curriculum and be stretched accordingly. This emphasis definitely had the advantage of ensuring teaching material and approaches were always being re-examined. I remember one priceless lesson with a mixed-ability Year 9 Religious Studies class. We were considering the run-up to Easter and I happened to point to a picture on the wall which was a reproduction of Leonardo’s ‘The Last Supper’. Quick as a flash, one boy blurted out: ‘Ah, sir, that’s the one with Jesus’ wife in it’. The Da Vinci Code has a lot to answer for!

Resilience and relationships

In more recent years much has been said about ‘resilience’ as part of the character-building we pride ourselves with in schools (and that’s not just for the pupils). Many school ‘Mission Statements’ now contain this word and in my last school (Ballard in New Milton, Hampshire) we put it into our list of pupil expectations. I happen to like the word and the grit and determination it tends to inspire. Recently, however, I read an article by Andy Wolfe (Deputy Chief Education Officer for the C of E @mrawolfe) in the TES, in which he calls on us to re-think the concept of resilience – and I warm to his reasoning.

Resilience as a word has Latin roots and from there to an old English word, ‘to resile’, which means variously ‘to return to the same place’, ‘to spring back’ and ‘to return to normal’. Considering these definitions, the word is much less inspiring than we would wish. Andy Wolfe quotes from a recent conversation with a Headteacher which rather sadly sums this up: ‘Resilience for me means coping until I retire’.

In the New Testament (and the book of Romans), St Paul (who knew a thing or two about opposition, heartache and struggle) wrote this: ‘We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope’. Andy Wolfe argues: ‘Re-thinking resilience offers a different lens to re-imagine our present situation. It can help us move beyond the idea of just getting through or coping. In the most difficult situations we face at school, it is primarily the formation of character (as opposed to technical competencies) that defines our response and shapes our relationships’. Andy quotes another Headteacher who uses a telling phrase which I like a lot: ‘I need the courage to tell a more realistic story’.

The courage to tell a more realistic story

Staff, pupils and parents need to see that we, too, have struggles and don’t have all the answers. If we endeavour to let times of difficulty shape and mould us positively so we emerge all the stronger; then our pupils (and others) will see that the teacher is also learning and not simply doing and repeating. Learning and Teaching rather than Teaching and Learning – I feel a new expression emerging!

A pearl in the making

In the last blog I wrote on retirement (in November) I dwelt on the pain of separation from a community – in my case a school – that I had been part of over the past nine years. In fact, this was almost my last blog to date as since then I have been going through another type of pain: moving house.

Stressors in life

It is said that the three most stressful things people go through in their lives (apart from some extraordinary tragedy) are bereavement, the break-up of a marriage (or long-standing relationship) and moving house. In our 42 years of marriage, my wife and I have lived in eight different places across three separate countries and changed house 17 times. I didn’t particularly rate, in advance, the latest house move as being especially traumatic – after all we were ‘only’ moving within England this time – but I was wrong! It has led to a great sense of weariness – not just physical but also mental, even spiritual. This has accounted for my silence as far as blogging is concerned.

Moving on

I have tried to analyse why this last move has been so tiring and draining. There are some obvious clues: I’m older now than when we last moved some eight years ago; I have just retired as a Headmaster and I am still adjusting to a new status and state of being; we hadn’t had a good clear-out since 1995 when we left Scotland for England and put far too much in storage in 2000 when we went to India – and then had no time to sift through this when we returned to the UK in 2009 and straight into another school post: until now! Furthermore, we first put our house in Hampshire on the market in April 2018 expecting to sell over the summer and to move to the Midlands in early Autumn: how naïve we were! We eventually moved in January 2019 and only now, two months later, is there some sense of a lifting of fatigue.

Even more fundamental than the ‘clues’ above, has been what on the surface appeared to be a release: for the first time in our married and working lives we have been at liberty to choose where we wanted to live. No longer was there a tie to a teaching post – and in most cases to a boarding community – and thus, as they say, ‘the world was our oyster’. Sadly, the ‘pearl’ was not immediately clear to see and even now the ‘grit’ in the body of the clam is still being worked over as, I hope, the ‘pearl’ is being created. A decision to move nearer to family made sense, as did a location more into central England in view of the itinerant part-time post I am taking up next month. All of this seemed ‘sensible’ but it hasn’t really accounted for the other stressors.

New beginnings

It is apparent that, unlike when we have moved to be part of a new school community, we are now having to create a brand new fellowship in a fresh town, neighbourhood and church without the luxury of there already being one there pre-formed for us to be a part of. Learning names, finding shops and services, coping without the regular routine of the school day, term and year and managing on a pension have all taken their toll. In God’s strength, we are resilient and also convinced that we are in the right place at the right time – but this hasn’t prevented a sense of loss nor a bewilderment at the new surroundings in which we find ourselves. Some will say ‘time heals’: I don’t believe it’s the time which is the healer, only God, but it is true that this can take time to feel and to embrace. Re-starting my blog, if only for my own health, is a sign that things are stabilising but there is still some way to go. ‘Further up and further in’, as CS Lewis puts it in The Last Battle: gradually my new environment will become clearer and more familiar – and it will also be exciting and invigorating even if that’s not just yet!

Boost your mood

Mental health concerns

As a recently retired Headmaster, I remain a member of three professional associations which serve schools in many and varied ways: ISA, The Independent Schools Association (representing around 500 private schools from primary through to the secondary sector), TISCA, The Independent Schools Christian Association (supporting schools with a Christian foundation and ethos and assisting Christian teachers) and the Society of Heads. In each case, conferences and meetings over the past two years have shared a theme: ways of understanding mental health in schools and how we might better boost wellbeing. The Government has also been sponsoring studies into this area and various charities have been promoting ‘mindfulness’ in schools. It seems that young people (let alone staff in schools) are facing unprecedented levels of mental pressure, and not simply at key exam times.

Government initiatives

In its NHS Long Term Plan, published this month, the Government said that by 2023-24, an extra 345,000 children will be able to access mental health support via local health services and new school-based mental health support teams. Alarmingly, however, a goal of ensuring all children get access to the specialist care they need will only be achieved ‘over the coming decade’, the document states. Furthermore, a damning report by the parliamentary education and health committees last year was very critical of the Government plans and argued these delays will put additional pressure on teachers.

Useful advice for all

It was with all this in mind that I was attracted to an article in a back edition of Women’s Weekly (not, I might add, my normal choice of reading, but definitely full of useful features and advice). The article in question was called, ‘Boost your mood in just one day’ and I share a few suggestions from it – either for your own wellbeing or even for that of your children. There may even be a New Year’s resolution here! It was written for key moments of the day (adjustable according to your diary and routine):

7.00am Let in the light: daylight stimulates our body’s serotonin (the so-called ‘happy hormone’) and thus it’s good to open the curtains early
8.00am Eat yogurt for breakfast: probiotic-rich foods are great but I am also profoundly aware that some pupils arrive at school having had little breakfast at all
9.00am Log on and laugh: a great antidote to the backlog of emails awaiting me which I’ll tackle much better once I’ve seen one of the 50 funniest YouTube films (such as the one about playful kittens)
11.00am Catch up with coffee: it’s not just the caffeine which (in moderation) can be helpful but also the stimulus of the oxytocin hormone which is released when we bond with friends
12.30pm 10-minute tidy up: even sorting out a small pile of mail can help create some inner calm and combat the stress hormone cortisol
1.00pm Have a happy meal: ideally not the fast-food variety but a low-carb lunch, again with friends or colleagues to assist bonding
2.30pm Flick through photos: it’s a real mood-booster to look at a few pictures of family and friends
3.00pm Get up against a wall: apparently a 30-second stretch pressed up against a flat surface will enhance our mood
3.30pm Say thank you: my favourite – and see below for an example. Writing one appreciative text, email or letter a week boosts our own satisfaction and happiness levels. Just think what one a day might do!
4.00pm Try speed-thinking: give yourself 30 seconds to list all you can about a loved one or friend. Quick thinking has been proven to improve our mood
4.30pm Cheer up with chocolate: say no more (except it ought to be the dark variety for best results)!
5.00pm Do a good deed: volunteering, giving to charity, doing a random act of kindness – all boosts our mood but also enhances others. A ‘win win’ situation!
6.00pm Chop some fruit: see, feel and smell the fruit – another great activity to raise the spirits
7.00pm Have a fish supper: omega-3 rich salmon is apparently best and thus don’t just wait for Friday (or that seaside holiday) for fish
8.00pm Start your wind down: steady breathing, relaxing muscles…you might fall asleep before you know it! Begin to switch off your devices and have a break before bed – and leave your mobile ‘phone outside your bedroom
10.00pm Go to bed on a kiwi: apparently this fruit is high in serotonin-boosting nutrients and vitamin C…the perfect way to drift off for a happy sleep…

Saying ‘thank you’ – the best of remedies

And so to return to my favourite from the list above – the ‘thank you note’. The following, from a parent last year who had three children through my school and with the youngest just about to leave, was by all accounts stimulated by one of my earlier blogs. I quote just a few sections here and will let them speak for themselves. Suffice it to say, emails such as these go a long way to boosting my mental health and so I wonder who else we might similarly encourage today?

Thank you for your latest email about mind sets. I found it very interesting and it was this that prompted me to write to you. Yes, I know another email for you! I’m sure you get so many, but I hope this will be a welcome addition…

I have thought long and hard how I can thank you all for having (my children) and helping my husband and myself and all our family to shape them into the adults that they have become. It is our belief that basic principles, attitudes and morals are so important to teach children from the minute they are able to recognise them and whilst this indeed starts at home, we have always felt that they have been enforced at your school alongside the way we would teach them. I could buy wine or chocolates, but to me this seems so impersonal whereas I hope the sentiment in this email will stay with you and your colleagues for a little longer than a drink or a box of sweets…

There are so many proud moments that will stay in our memories for ever thanks to your school. Nothing compares to hearing from teachers that they like and enjoy our children’s company. I know that parents’ evening are some people’s nightmares but we always looked forward to it as we heard only constructive comments and we felt that the teachers really knew and understood our children. It is important to us to teach the children to be kind and considerate to others in life as many other things then tend to fall into place. The ‘act of kindness week’ was a fabulous idea: it really makes us stop and think that it doesn’t take much to make others happy.

To say that all of you go beyond your duties as teachers is an understatement…thank you to all the teachers and staff who have been a part of our family for all this time. I truly believe that it takes a very special type of person to be involved with kids’ learning and wellbeing on a day-to-day basis and your school has managed to get it right on every level.

A New Year and an Old Story in schools

‘And so this is Christmas, And what have you done? Another year over, And a new one just begun…’ (John Lennon)

It’s time to ‘bash’ the independent schools again: as ever last year we have had the attack on charitable status (again), the criticism of elitism and places at Oxbridge (again and again) and now, as we enter the New Year, too many private schools are apparently offering ‘easier’ IGCSEs rather than the ‘tougher’, newly reformed, GCSEs. Bah! Humbug!

‘Bashing’ independent schools – again and again

It always strikes me as amazing that with fewer than 10% of the UK school population in independent schools, we seem to attract 90% of the Press attention. We are meant to be a Nation which values ‘the little man’, privatisation, democracy and freedoms – individual and collective – and yet somehow when the word ‘education’ or ‘school’ is combined with ‘private’ or ‘independent’ the blood boils, the prejudices rise and ignorance abounds!

We applaud competition on the High Street and online, we allow people to choose between a range of supermarkets for their weekly shopping without comment and, unless you’re the Home Secretary enjoying a hard-earned family holiday overseas, we value being able to choose a whole range of exciting holiday destinations. When it comes to recognising those families who scrimp and save, however, make sacrifices and hard choices in education – even paying twice for the privilege of schooling – all of a sudden we get onto our self-righteous hobby horses.

Choosing where we might be most effective

The arguments are well rehearsed and clearly made but too many people choose to close their ears and trot out the same old invective against those of us who dare to choose an independent school for our children or, what’s almost worse, deign to work in one. The latter criticism is easily refuted, I feel. When as a 17-year-old I spoke to my Housemaster about being a teacher (yes, I went to an independent boarding school – paid for by working class parents who both left school at 14 years and who sacrificed home ownership, fancy cars and expensive holidays), he wisely suggested I consider where I might be most effective. Having only ever been in private schools myself, I told my Housemaster that I felt I should teach in the State sector. He didn’t try and dissuade me but he also knew me well enough to believe I’d be most influential, happiest and fulfilled in a setting I understood best. At the time of our conversation in the 1970s there was much upheaval in the maintained schools and many teachers were no longer offering to help with sport and extra-curricular activities – aspects of holistic schooling which I value highly. Much has changed in State (and private) schools today, of course, but the advice I received remains valid: choose a school setting where you can best use your talents to enhance the lives of the pupils and, indeed, the colleagues around you.

IGCSEs – the easy option?

And so what of the latest attack on schools which choose IGCSEs? The critics forget that some State schools choose them before the Government decided not to include them in annual exam statistics. They also forget that most independent schools chose them not because they were easier but because they were harder and prepared pupils better for the rigours of A level. Many IGCSES, being international in focus, have a broader curriculum to master. Julie Robinson, the independent schools’ council (ISC) general secretary, puts it succinctly: ‘Schools in the independent sector choose the subject qualifications their pupils sit based on the intrinsic educational quality of the course content. They have a responsibility to ensure pupils are fully prepared for their next steps in life, achieving qualifications that are well-respected and valued by universities and employers…Historically, independent schools opted for IGCSEs due to their rigour and reliability compared with GCSEs, before the introduction of recent reforms, which are still being rolled out’.

Contribution to the UK economy

Others, much more eloquent than me, have made the case for independent schools retaining their educational charitable status – the partnership with local State schools, clubs, societies and community projects speak volumes for their real world ethos – but for those who listen only to economics one statistic stands out: the annual saving to the UK tax payer through the education of children and young people in the independent sector is approximately £3.5 billion. (Please note that if independent schools are drummed out of existence then these pupils will need State educating…) Moreover, independent schools contributed £11.6 billion to the UK economy in 2017 and supported 257,000 jobs. (Figures such as these can be confirmed via the ISC website and RSAcademics, a specialist educational consultancy which works across the State and independent sectors.)

I conclude where I started, with some lyrics from John Lennon’s ‘And so this is Christmas’, and the hope that the New Year is indeed a good one in which we find more to unite than to divide ourselves across the whole of education:

And so happy Christmas, For black and for white, For yellow and red ones, Let’s stop all the fight

Less is more!

A Happy New Year to the readers (reader?) of this blog! I trust you have had a festive break with some refreshment with family and friends. A time to reflect, too, and to make resolutions.

All that stuff

I am getting ready to move house early in the New Year and have recently spent many a happy hour / day / week / month sifting through the boxes, trunks and bags in my garage. Why on earth have I kept all those history books from university days, those teaching notes from the early 1980s and all those video cassettes from yesteryear? I accept that I am a bit of a hoarder (I prefer to say that as an historian I’m interested in sifting through the past and everything has a value) but there has to come a limit – and, besides, my wife has ordered me to downsize!

Gifts galore

These thoughts of excess and surplus are, I suppose, natural at Christmas time when most of us will no doubt receive many more presents than we really need or want. As a teacher I am extremely grateful to all those pupils who have given me cards, boxes of chocolates and bottles of wine over the years – but I have to confess to ‘re-gifting’ some of those Belgian sweets and bottles of Scotch. (I know, as a Scot, I really should like whisky!) On a different scale, but similarly thought-provoking, I read recently that 200,000 books are published annually in the UK. The Times literary editor, Robbie Millen, wrote an exasperated piece asking people to kindly stop sending books to him as he was overwhelmed. Apparently, with so many books clamouring for our attention, it’s much easier to award them ‘nervous little pats on the head rather than to separate wheat from chaff’ (as DJ Taylor has written in the I newspaper). Moreover, there were 821 films on release in the UK last year (equating to 16 per week) and so surely way beyond the capacity of mere mortals, let along film critics, to assimilate, evaluate (or even enjoy)! Perhaps ‘less is more’?

Plastic pollution

I expect that most of us who have seen some of the harrowing images from Blue Planet 2 (and other Nature programmes) will agree that where plastic is concerned, less is indeed more – more sea creatures and, in time, more health for humans, too. A simple walk around our local woodlands or seashore, even a glance in the roadside ditch, reveals extensive amounts of waste and litter. (Can anyone understand the mentality behind those who apparently throw away tin cans and coffee cups with thoughtless abandon?) Less is more beauty and, again, greater health to the planet. The recent Government decision to increase the cost of single-use plastic bags is to be applauded.

Less stuff and more for all

DJ Taylor, in the aforementioned newspaper, commented on a further concern: …the more stuff becomes available the more the overall quality of things on offer starts to sink…the greater the volume of stuff brought before our eyes the less able we are to discriminate between good and bad, to work out what we really want to watch, read or listen to and establish whether it shapes up. Taylor’s advice for a New Year resolution is that we buy less of everything as we may then enjoy what’s left all the more. This seems to me to be a sound approach but I hope it’s not simply for what it might do for ourselves but also for others. One present I particularly appreciated year on year from a parent was this: a donation made (in place of a ‘thing’) in the School’s name to ‘Oxfam unwrapped’ to help pay for a child’s education in a developing part of the world. Here ‘more’ will definitely be ‘more and not less’!”

Every blessing for 2019…

FYI -ELI5 is not a postcode

Acronyms are everywhere!

I am currently in Liverpool visiting family. The other day I had my four-year-old grandson in the car on our way to football club. We passed street signs telling us that ‘dream’ should now be ‘believe’ and ‘stadium’ was now to be called ‘home’ when my grandson suddenly exclaimed, “Look Bubba (his name for his granddad), we are now in L5”. What on earth has happened to our language? I think I am in need of ELI5…’Explain it Like I’m Five’.

AMA…Ask Me Anything

I am in the City of the so-called ‘friendly derby’ (apparently the Blues and the Reds in this City of Belief and Home really like each other except when playing footy) and I am here to help out in a family which has a new baby and so I am AMA…’Ask Me Anything’ (which translates further as ‘I’m ready, waiting and willing’).

I am all for KISS (‘keep it simple, stupid’), not least in the home of a new born and when the headlines this week about baby research are all about DNA: did you know this stands for ‘deoxyribonucleic acid’? Clearly another case for ELI5. Still, now I am retired I am no longer afflicted by YAM. (In my younger days in Africa this was the name for sweet potato but apparently now means ‘Yet Another Meeting’.)

Things move fast, however, and my children now tell me that I should take care when putting LOL at the end of a text or WhatsApp message. I thought it meant ‘Laugh Out Loud’ (or ‘lots of love’) but apparently this has long since been replaced by LUZL which is a corruption of LOLs and denotes fun, excitement, kicks and laughs (and not always of the straight forward kind).

TIL…Today I Learned

My head is already reeling and so I’ll conclude by telling you this: TIL (‘Today I Learned’) that the most useful acronym of our time is ‘TL;DR’. I wish I’d known this when dealing with 80+ emails a day as a HM / HT (Headmaster/Head Teacher), not to mention the YAMs. I expect that President Trump uses ‘TL;DR’ rather a lot. Worked it out yet? It stands for ‘Too Long; Didn’t Read’.

JSYK (‘Just So You Know’) I am indebted to Gyles Brandreth in a recent edition of the I newspaper for his stimulus here. OAO (‘Over And Out’).

Dirt can be good for you!

I can remember as a young boarder at Drumley House Prep School in the Ayrshire countryside, regularly coming into the ‘boot room’ in the Main House and being ticked off by Matron for the state of my muddy knees and ‘play clothes’. I always sensed an underlying attitude of good humour and tolerance, however, and I can’t ever remember being punished for my muddy adventures. In fact, we were encouraged to spend time ‘in the woods’ in the school grounds building dens, climbing trees and playing active games. I can also remember the whole school being marshalled onto a newly cleared piece of ground that was being prepared as a cricket field and asked to pick up any stones left lying on the surface. I am sure today that there would have been cries of ‘child labour’ and ‘my rights’ but back then in the 1960s I only remember the fun had from collecting odds and ends including one of my earliest prize possessions – a very tarnished George III shilling dated 1819.

Healthy Food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child

In her book published in 2016, Healthy Food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child, Dr Maya Shetreat-Klein advocates contact with the microbes present in soil, saying dirt could prevent early-onset health issues. “Parents today are keeping their children away from the things that are critical to their health,” suggests Dr Shetreat-Klein. “We are sanitising their lives with cleaning products, pesticides and antibiotics.” (A more recent study also promoted the habit of mothers of new-born babies sucking their child’s bottle, rather than sterilising them, so as to pass on healthy, motherly, antibodies!)

Education Secretary, Damien Hinds

I was delighted that just last week the Education Secretary, Damien Hinds, announced he will launch a ‘bucket list’ of life goals for children. Activities include outdoor activities such as tree climbing, sleeping under canvas and exploring a cave. “Bluntly”, Mr Hinds told the I newspaper, “it is about doing stuff that doesn’t involve looking at a screen. It’s about getting out and about”. He is advocating tree climbing to grow character and build resilience.

Tree climbing is good for you

I have just retired as Headmaster of Ballard School on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire. At Ballard we encourage the climbing of trees, running around in the grounds, the adventures of camping and trekking and the playing of old-fashioned games such as ‘tag’ and conkers, the making of dens and the kicking around of a football with friends ‘just for fun’. One of the prospective parents I met before I had even started my first term at Ballard ten years ago told me how they had just popped into Lymington Hospital to have one of their children checked over after a fall. One of the nurses enquired about their school choice (they were moving to the New Forest) and when they said they intended to visit Ballard, the nurse said (in an approving way I am relieved to say), ‘Oh, that’s the school which lets them fall out of trees’!

Mud, glorious, mud

I have to admit to having been a little cross with pupils who came off the fields after the lunch break with mud on their trousers or their shoes. My thoughts, of course, were with Mum or Dad at home who will likely have to wash the offending article of clothing (or perhaps in the most modern of households the children play their part in the cleaning!). I hope, however, that underlying my stern exterior lay the Prep School boy who rather enjoyed the great outdoors and the dirt and grime which went with it! With a grandson who attended a forest school nursery until recently I have seen life moving full circle.

I’d better follow Mr Hinds’ advice and close down my screen now and get out on the forest trail…even though it’s raining hard!