I start this morning by stating the obvious – we live in rapidly changing times. As someone who has always taken a keen interest in current affairs since my teenage years, I must admit to being baffled by goings on at home and abroad in recent months.
This is probably not a huge surprise given the advent of the recently invented phrase ‘fake news’. We see the rise and rise of social media and the concept of instant tweeting and posting, which seems to spread information that is not always found to be true. It does put an interesting spin on the late John F. Kennedy’s words, ‘The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.’ Finding out the truth is perhaps more of a challenge than it once was. My genuine excitement at the prospect of a General Election turned to something of a disdainful sigh, as personality seemed to rule over policy - shades of the American election perhaps? So much of the way in which we exist is being brought into question by all manner of influences. It does seem to be a very unsettled period.
Back down to earth and a little more local to home however, it does remind me how vitally important the formative school years are in preparing children for that changing
world – as Malcolm X, the American activist once said, ‘Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today’.
But many of the daily problems that parents face are much the same as they have always been, as reminded to us in Diane Shore’s poem, ‘Get out of bed’, which goes
something like this:
What I want to talk you about this morning is how we are preparing the young people sat in front of us for the aforementioned changing world, and how the central tenets of
Westbourne House will go about achieving that.
I hear those who say that independent education, particularly that such as delivered in this kind of environment, puts children in something of a bubble, detached from the
outside world. To be frank, I don’t see that as too much of a bad thing, given what much of the outside world looks like, and reinforces my view that children need to learn any
number of skills in order to be a successful and fulfilled human being in that world. They will be out of the bubble soon enough, and have plenty to learn while they are in it.
A few months ago I read the Collins Dictionary ‘ten new words of the year’. Top of the shop, not surprisingly, was ‘Brexit’ – the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, closely followed by ‘Dude Food’ – junk food such as hot dogs, burgers etc considered particularly appealing to men. I quite liked this one: ‘JOMO’ - acronym for ‘joy of missing out’. The pleasure gained from enjoying one’s current activities without worrying that other people are having more fun.
As I moved through the list I came to the term ‘snowflake generation’, something I had heard of before but not really considered in any great depth. The definition from the
Collins Dictionary goes like this: the young adults of the 2000’s, viewed as being less resilient and more prone to taking offence than previous generations.
This obviously alerted my interest, and so I read a little further into the idea. There is a school of thought that feels that children are far too mollycoddled by their parents, such that life is a clinical perfection where nothing ever goes wrong. It would seem that employers are responding to the shift in culture, with the traditional perks of company
cars and bonuses apparently being replaced by free ice cream, meditation classes and hangover days.
I read with interest in the press a few weeks ago an apparently typical scene of a small business trying to employ an IT specialist. It said that most of the few dozen applicants weren’t even basically qualified for the post, but the employer found five applicants, all young graduates who – on paper – fitted the job, whom he invited for interview.
One of the applicants had given a misspelt email address on his CV so never received his email; the second cancelled his interview on the day; a third just didn’t bother turning up at all, and a fourth called an hour before the interview to reschedule.
On the day of the rescheduled interview, that applicant called 10 minutes before he was due to arrive to say he was running 20 minutes late. When he was told “thanks, but no thanks” and that the interview would not go ahead, he was utterly baffled as to why his prospective employer was being so unreasonable.
The sole applicant who did actually turn up was barely coherent and utterly unemployable. Another (expensive) advert had to be placed, and the job is yet to be filled.
The education system should surely be preparing our young people for the outside world better than that?
Further, I believe that we must be careful how much words such as ‘stress’ and ‘mental health’ are thrown around with children. While I perhaps wouldn’t go quite so far as
former Prep School Head Peter Tait, who wrote recently in the press, ‘It is not the modern world that is overwhelming our children, but our adult take on it and the way that
we feel compelled to talk, as adults, to our children, about issues they are not ready to handle, emotionally or intellectually’, we do however need to find a better balance than
we have currently, in my view.
As the balancing argument, it is also true to say that children are growing up with very different and additional pressures in their lives to those of perhaps 15 or 20 years ago.
The question is, how is education going about preparing children for this rapidly changing world? The silence from the government and therefore state sector is quite deafening – there seem to be bigger fish to fry - and so more specifically what about here at Westbourne House?
We continue to provide what I consider to be an amazing all round experience for the children. You are well aware as current parents of the range of art, music, drama and
sport available as part of every day life here. Throw into that the outdoor education trips, music and sports tours as well as academic trips such as the French trip in Year 7. These all provide the holistic experience that, in my view, answers many of the questions that the modern world is throwing up for our children.
We are focused on initiatives such as ‘Leading by Reading’, ‘Happy Helpers’ and ‘Buddies’, not to mention our existing peer counselling ‘Friends’, all of which enable
children to help each other and develop the sort of empathy that is likely to be needed in abundance in our modern world, but which is in short supply from so many modern
influences.
As you will probably know, we have extended our boarding offering such that children can board flexibly over the weekend in addition to our weekday offering. Again, the
central belief here is in that of community, living an active and healthy life, building resilience and independence as well as taking responsibility for oneself. You could argue
that some of these are old-fashioned ideas, but I believe that it is taking some of the best of the past and addressing some of the challenges of the future.
Children will need to be able to take on challenges, and be confident in doing so. They will need to be adaptable and able to think about how to deal with different situations, the generally held view being that the next generation of adults will have a range of jobs over their working life. They will need to be able to take responsibility for themselves and not always relying on others to do things for them, yet be able to play a full part in a community. And they will need to be able to keep perspective in a world that is relentless in throwing what can only be described as a blizzard of information at us, not least through ever bulging and intrusive email inboxes. Moreover, having the confidence to try things, and not shy away from failure, but merely treat it as a learning experience.
I strongly believe that it is the holistic experience provided here that enables children to develop the confidence that they can do things, and they can deal confidently with other people.
The Ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, perhaps summed it up nicely: Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.
Lao Tzu
An additional ‘need’, in my view, for the young people of today is to be able to deal, with conflict. Too much of the time I see people in their late teens and early 20’s talk as if
there is simply no alternative opinion to the one that they hold, and this seems to have reached epidemic proportions in some universities. ‘No platforming’, in other words not
providing any kind of stage to a person who may have a slightly punchy view on a subject, seems increasingly to be the way. How about hearing the view, and then also
hear it torn to shreds by someone equally passionate in the opposite direction. I thought that was how democracy and civilised society worked? There is an interesting and very direct commentary in Claire Fox’s book ‘I Find That Offensive’ if you are interested. Many of you I know were as pleased as me to see the resurrection of a debating club at Westbourne and recent fixture with Brighton College. More of that to come…
While it may seem incongruous with much of what I have just said, we have been particularly focused on our provision for English and Maths over the past year or so. The
Inspire Maths Singapore style programme has been a great success, while plans are afoot to boost the amount of reading time the children have in school in order to inspire a passion for such an important pastime. My message to you is then a simple one: support some of these basic ideas and what you know to be right – hard work, a positive outlook, a breadth of experience - maybe a bit of JOMO, and all will be well!
I feel that I must make mention at this occasion of the changes to testing for entry to senior schools. The majority of schools are now looking to pre-test children in Year 6. As
I have written earlier in the year, it does bring into question where Common Entrance will be in the not too distant future, and it does shift the dynamic somewhat. We at Westbourne feel well prepared for this evolving change, and suffice it to say that the vast majority of children at Westbourne are successful in these tests. Hopefully the words of Jim Hawkins, Headmaster at Harrow School may explain why:
We are not just looking for academic aptitude. Places go to those who have impressed us most in terms of ability, character, attitude and their potential to
contribute and thrive here. This is why those interviews, as well as the current school’s reference, are crucial to a candidate’s success.
Jim Hawkins, Headmaster of Harrow School
His words perhaps encapsulate so much of what we try to achieve here.
Before we come to the award of the prizes, I would like to comment that we have had an exceptional Year 8 this year, who gelled well as a group and put in the necessary work to produce some really fantastic results. We are very confident in our preparation for Common Entrance and Scholarship exams, but it is not an automatic right of passage – the children must work hard for success in ever more competitive exams.
Nineteen scholarships and awards were made to Westbourne children by Senior Schools this year:
| Name... | Destination School... | Scholarships Achieved... |
|---|---|---|
| James Barker | Canford | Sport Scholarship |
| TJ Bethell | Lancing | Ken Shearwood Award |
| Remi Briggs | Hurst | Sport Scholarship |
| Murray Carter | Seaford | Sport Scholarships to Hurst & Seaford |
| Ben Gooley | Brighton | Sport Scholarship |
| Hollie Hodges | Cranleigh | Eric Abbott Award for Netball |
| Monty Marley | Millfield | Sport Scholarship |
| Jasper Marshall | Lancing | Headmaster's Award |
| Charlie Morison | Wellington | Sport Scholarship |
| Maddy Ross | PGS | Nock Exhibition |
| Sophie Sabin | Brighton College | Governors' Presentation to PGS + Millennium Scholarship to Brighton |
| Charlie Tear | Seaford | Sport Scholarship |
| Andreas Vlahodimos-Hinton | Brighton | Choral & Drama Scholarships |
| Rosie Wade | Brighton | Millennium & Academic Scholarships |
| Phoebe Wheeler | Brighton | Art |
Very well done to all.
Year 8 have enjoyed an excellent post Common Entrance programme, managing to produce a wonderful play in no less than 11 days, as well as entering into all their
activities with great enthusiasm. They have worked hard and played hard all year long, and can feel well satisfied with all that they have achieved – please join me in applauding all their efforts and achievements in their final year at Westbourne.
And so finally, as we bring down the curtain on another school year, I say to parents that I hope you feel assured that your children are receiving a wonderful broad-based
education, the Westbourne Way, and one that is destined to keep getting better. To the leavers – you have had a fantastic preparation, make the most of every opportunity –work hard and play hard. To those of you who are staying, we look forward with great anticipation to next year.
