Tag: Prep School

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!

Lost for words?

Lost for words?

Earlier this week it was ‘International Stammering Awareness Day’ and suddenly I was back in my elocution lessons. A feature on the BBC news focused on a school teacher called Abed Ahmed – or rather MISTER Abed Ahmed as he can’t say his first name without a prefix – and again I was reminded of my own occasional struggles to pronounce certain words and sounds. Mr Ahmed was helping the pupils in his school with this speech disability and once more my elocution teacher was there in front of me.

Heartwarming help

This piece of news reminded me of a similar heart-warming article in the Press in January this year about author Chris Young, who was trying to get in touch with his English teacher, a Miss Ward, from the late 1970s. Mr Young, who commended his teacher for supporting him after his mother died and his alcoholic father could not cope, tweeted: ‘I’d dropped into the bottom quarter for English at school. My #English Teacher Miss Ward pulled me out of that ditch’. At the age of 13 years, Miss Ward ‘treated me like a rock star, loved what I wrote and got me to talk in front of the class’. He is now about to launch his first book!

I imagine (and I hope) that we all have memories of someone who has stood by us, encouraged us and ‘been there for us’ when the going got tough. Whilst my early life was very different from that of the gentleman above, I can also remember a teacher who impacted me positively and immeasurably – and who also gave me confidence to speak in front of others. Her name was Miss Margaret Maclaurin and she was my elocution teacher at Prep School in Scotland in the 1960s.

Stuttering and stammering

My parents lived and worked in West Africa and were in a remote area of Ghana when the time came for me to go to school aged five. There was nowhere suitable for me locally and so I came to board, aged five, at Drumley House Prep School near Ayr, Scotland. Whilst I have only fond memories of my eight years at Drumley, at some point in my early years there I developed a stammer. This was probably a result of the separation from my parents (perceived wisdom then was for me to be a whole school year away from my parents to enable me to settle as a boarder). Miss Maclaurin came to my rescue! She saw me once a week for elocution lessons and during this time not only did I learn a few ‘tricks’ (such as how to avoid using words beginning with ‘p’ when feeling tired and stressed and also, like Mr Ahmed, about prefixing troublesome sounds with easier words), I also learnt about speaking in public. Where this was once the most disarming place for me as a stutterer, it came to be a challenge which I relished. Miss M taught me to learn poetry off by heart so that when I declaimed I could concentrate on expression, modulation and emphasis and not have to worry about the words themselves.

As a Head I had to speak in public almost daily and owe a huge debt of gratitude towards Miss Maclaurin. It was a delight to visit her in her home when recently married and to introduce her to my wife. So engrossed were we in conversation that we quite forgot that my wife had gone off to the bathroom (and somehow locked herself in) – but that’s another story!

So, a challenge for us all: think of someone who has had a positive impact on our lives in years gone by and why not surprise them with a letter, a card, a call or even a visit – just to show appreciation? It might prove to be a ‘drop of grace’ in their life at this very moment. You’ll never know if you don’t try it – and who knows, someone may do it for you, too!  Don’t be ‘lost for words’, no matter what this might mean in your life.