HMC

I'm writing this from the Headmasters' Conference in St. Andrews.
Of course, the School's, or more correctly my, membership of HMC is anomalous. HMC exists primarily for the independent, private and extremely expensive schools of the UK. In his very fine opening speech at the conference, the Chairman, Ken Durham, defined independence as, among other things, freedom in curriculum, admissions and finance. These are feedoms which do not apply to grammar schools, even voluntary grammar schools, such as BGS. Our curriculum is broadly, although flexibly, prescribed; our admissions are governed by a fairly tight regulatory system; and our finances depend almost entirely on the munificence of DE. Why then do we belong to such an elite independent outfit as HMC?

It's an accident of history. As far as I understand it, sometime in the middle sixties, membership of HMC was opened to direct grant grammar schools in England and Wales, and BGS, in company with a number of other Northern Irish schools, because of their voluntary status, qualified. The English system suffered the seismic impact of the move towards comprehensivisation (forgive the word!) and many of the old direct grants became independent. Northern Irish education stayed more or less as it was and the voluntary grammar schools were left as a state school 'rump'.

Why continue the membership? IN the UK, HMC is a quality mark, prestigious and highly regarded; not so in NI. Nevertheless, I think I can justify it in a number of ways:

HMC provides an unparalleled quality of training, admittedly more for principals, perhaps, than staff. It offers possibilities of networking and sharing, not least within the Irish Divsion, which is, in itself, enriching for me and, to an extent, through me, to the School. It also offers access to the highest levels of policy making in the UK as a whole and to valuable statistical information of various kinds. It has leverage with the examination boards and provides us with information about the examination system as a whole which we could not obtain elsewhere.

Finally, and most relevantly, it allows us to belong to a group of schools and principals, all of whom share our educational values, which are old-fashioned and unfashionable but nonetheless enduring. HMC tends to cut through faddish ideas and educational jargon to a bedrock of common sense. As a state school, and proud to be so, BGS is utterly different from most of the independent schools represented here; but our values about what education truly is, what its aims and objectives are, are very similar.

Yesterday morning alone made coming to the conference worthwhile. Presentations by A.C. Grayling, the philosopher, and Ed Smith, a kind of renaissance man, were both inspirational and reminded me why I came into teaching in the first place. Grayling talked about the liberal arts, about knowledge and learning and the role of higher education and about what schools and universities should be doing. The skills our boys need as they enter an exponentially changing world, he argued, are principally intellectual; he outlined a new currciulum for higher education which will be implemented from next year in a new college for the humanities, which draws its inspiration from three thousand years of historical example. Ed Smith is a most annoying person: a double first in history from Oxford, capped three times for the English cricket team, leader writer for The Times, broadcaster and writer. How many abilities can one man have? He reminded us about what leadership truly is, about the need for patience and resilience and above all, the absolute need for character in an ethical sense. He defined the financial crisis as "the victory of expertise over integrity", the result of constructing short-term financial models "with inadequate knowledge of history". Leadership is character rather than credentials, judgement and bravery rather than expertise. Between them and an equally challenging presentation by John Abbott, they made not only the journey to St Andrews worth it, but also membership of HMC as a whole.

I suspect that I may develop these thoughts in a slightly different way at Speech Night!