Grammarians

The last week has been about old boys. During half term, the Grammarians held their annual Bangor Dinner, a convivial, inevitably somewhat bibulous evening. On the afternoon preceding the dinner, I had the pleasure of showing two 'reunited' year groups around such part of the School as interested them, which really meant  only Crosby. The nomenclature of the year groups was confusing. The 'Year of 51' dated their time from their collective entry to BGS; the 'Year of 71' dated themselves from their leaving. The fifty-one-ers were energetic and exceedingly spry, a wonder given that it is sixty years since they were short-trousered Form Ones. Those who had left in 1971 were a remarkably consoling sight since they looked bloomingly young, in the pink and at their peak. I say 'consoling' because I left school in 1970.

Anyway, their pilgrimage was a very jolly one and as they made their way around the rather depressing Crosby environment, the memories came a-flooding: being told of the death of George VI in Assembly; the sight of 'the Bird', AL Hawtin, gown hoicked up, warming his posterior against the fire; sitting at  the back of class, viewing the games piches by way of a strategically placed mirror... and so on.

At the dinner, I asked a provocative question: what, from a school's point of view, are old boys for? If an accountant were to ask for a cost benefit analysis, could one be provided? Well, I think it probably could. Take into account, at least from the perspective of BGS, the money which the Grammarians donate, say to support sports and games; then there are the prizes which the Grammarians sponsor, or the trophies, scholarships and awards which they present in their own names; many send their sons to BGS; and last, but of the utmost importance, there are the old boys who become governors and invest their time, energy and professional experience to our great benefit, without any reward, pecuniary or otherwise. We simply could not afford to pay for their collective expertise at  the market rate.

So, yes, I think old boys add enormously to the school in ways which can be quantified. But there is something more and something which I think is just as important, but utterly unquantifiable, so much so that I'm not sure that I can articulate it with adequate precision. I read a reference recently to Edmund Burke's comment about society; it is, he said, "a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are dead and those who are to be born". Heavy stuff, but it is relevant to what I'm trying to say and perhaps I can explain it in this way.

This morning at our moving Remembrance Service, the wreath on behalf of the Grammarians was laid by Geoffrey Alexander Bowman. One of the 39 names on the World War Two memorial board is another Geoffrey Alexander Bowman, lost in action, flying for the RAF in 1943. He was one of two Bowman brothers killed and the uncle of the living Geoffrey. As many will by now know, my predecessor, Maurice Wilkins, wrote an obituary of each former pupil killed in action, and trudged round to Main Street, through the blacked-out streets of Bangor from his home in Crosby House, to deliver them to the Spectator offices. He remembers Bowman's close friendship with Bertie Hannay, also killed, and his "happy nature and exuberant energy of mind and body", exemplified in the whole school photograph of 1934 when he is shown, as Wilkins describes him, "repressing his mirth with obvious difficulty". After the service, with the help of  Geoffrey and his brother, Terence, I was able to identify him in that photograph; there he was, responding I suspect to a rude noise or a wicked comment, caught in freeze-frame, his laughter a permanent memorial, an expression of vibrant, irrepressible, evanescent humanity.

'Time like an ever-rolling stream / Bears all its sons away,' we sing in one of the remembrance hymns. In this curious moment, I am conscious of the School as a continuum, an ever flowing stream, constantly changing, constantly renewing itself, but, somehow, always, quintessentially, itself. I stand in 2011 looking at this tiny expression of mischief  caught in a school photograph and I am connected to Maurice Wilkins, also looking at that photograph with darker and deeper feelings. Geoffrey Alexander Bowman, uncle, connected to Geoffrey Alexander Bowman, nephew. Those boys, that generation, connected to my boys, this generation: it's a connection which enriches our sense of ourselves, since we live in the same streets and learn in some of the same rooms, as part of Bangor, part of a place, part of a school of which we are merely the latest representatives, stewards of its name and reputation. Tradition, as TS Eliot pointed out, is a living thing, always changing, always being added to, not a dead weight. We serve this school with pride, humility and a sense of responsibility, drawing strength from the past while we prepare to hand it on to the next generation. Remembrance is about the future.

Speech Night 2011

The School has now broken for half-term and we are beginning, as my friends who are not teachers would have it, yet another holiday. Well, yes, teachers do well in holidays, there is no denying, and we're unlikely to convince anyone that we slog through them, selflessly devoting ourselves to the interests of the children we teach, even when this is actually true. The holidays are needed not so much by the staff, as by the children, who can and do get tired and fractious towards the end of any term. There is an old argument about whether the present holiday structure is the best and most effective in fostering effective learning and I have some sympathy with those who argue that a four term year with a shorter summer break is the best configuration to sustain consistent freshness and vigour. The long summer break is, however, a wonderful luxury...

The last week of a term or half term is always the same. A looming deadline imposes a sense of urgency and the thought that everything must be finished and tidied up NOW. This was certainly the case in the last week, which began on Saturday (22 October) with our AQE orientation day. In our case, it passed off smoothly thanks to the impeccable organisation of Jonathan Todd, our Examinations Officer, and the willing, voluntary help of so many staff, teaching and non-teaching. We also had the assistance of our prefects and, for the first time, some of our Year 8 boys, who were drafted in to reassure the P7 children and help generally with the organisation. This they did wonderfully well.

Much of my time since then has been devoted to the writing of The Speech for Speech Night. Prize Distribution speeches are a genre sui generis. They are a mixture of an annual report and educational tour d'horizon with something of the state of the nation thrown in for good measure:  I take my time to do it. It's difficult to balance all the themes and weave them into a seamless whole, but, when completed, it is undeniably satisfying. It's not poetry and as prose it is little more than adequate, but it's a useful intellectual exercise to draw out what are the really important issues. Maybe some time in the far distant future, some poor, harmless drudge will write his PhD thesis on the great issues for Northern Irish voluntary grammar schools in the 21st century and will access my collected speeches and find them useful.

Then again, maybe not...

There is no recognised form, but there is the absolute restraint of timing, by which I mean the length of time taken to deliver the speech on the night. George F. Kaufman famously said that plays are not written, they are re-written. This is true of Speech Night speeches. My first draft is always execrably written and long beyond the ability of any listener to endure.   Once it's there, however, the real process of writing can begin and the first priority is to cut and cut again. The prose looks after itself as part of that process. My 'rehearsal' ran for 25 minutes; the performance, I am told, but not necessarily reliably, stood at 27 minutes. Some year, the winner of the staff's sweepstake, a suitably grateful punter, will cut me in on the winnings...

Fortunately, the star speech is given by the Guest of Honour and  we were excellently served this year by Jonathan Allison. Details of his biography may be found at the beginning of my speech and if you read it, you will understand how fortunate we were that he so kindly accepted our invitation. Jonathan flew from the USA especially to be with us, an astonishing compliment, and his speech was a small masterpiece of reminiscence, reflection, humour and graceful compliment, all delivered with disarming affection and warm wit. The guest always has the graveyard shift, speaking at the end of a long evening when the boys and parents might be said to have had quite enough, thank you. Once he began, however, one could feel the audience audibly relax, evident in the attention they gave and the depth and resonance of their laughter. Once that happened, the time ceases to be a factor. Thank you, Jonathan.

Any time there is a public event, when, as it were, we let an audience in, I try to see what we look like from outside. Almost every time, I feel proud; proud of our boys, whose relaxed and diffident charms are unselfconsciously apparent, and proud of our staff, even - especially - when I know they would rather be anywhere but the Clarke Hall on Speech Night...

Year 8

My goodness, it's a long time between entries. The excuse is to have found a mountain of work up with which to catch if you'll pardon the refinement, after the HMC conference. A large portion of the time was spent writing references for medical and Oxbridge applicants and ensuring that their UCAS forms were properly filled in. No matter how many references I write, how many forms I read, there is always just a little tremor before I click on the button which sends them out into cyber space. That click may be the moment that begins the rest of their lives, determines their fates, a virtual bungee jump into the future.

While I was away, it was a good time to be a Year 8 pupil. They all had two days doing vigorous things in Ardnabannon, getting soaked and smelly in the process. I wish I hadn't been away and had had the opportunity to visit them because the excitement was still palpable when I talked to my own Year 8 class. Stephen Robinson came back with a mountain of clothes left behind and I was there when he emptied them out on to the Assembly Hall floor for the perusal of the few boys who actually realised they had lost something. The smell lives with me.

And there was also a most exciting robotics day for a few classes, when they had the heady experience of writing computer programmes which gave life and movement to small robots. I think back to my time in first year and to a past which really was a foreign country.

Speaking of fateful moments, we will welcome 210 P7 pupils and their parents into the School on Saturday next for our orientation day in preparation for the AQE tests. I don't relish it and the first thing I say to the parents is "Sorry! Sorry that we've found ourselves in a stand-off with DE; sorry that we are sticking to our selective guns; sorry that we have to put you and your children through this." And, of course, much else they need to know. For the children, it's a chance to introduce ourselves and to say that it won't be as bad as you think and that we'll make it as easy as, in the circumstances, we can.

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!

Minister of Education

The word ‘historic’ can only ever be applied after, sometimes long after, an event has occurred. We need the perspective of time to allow a proper judgement to be made. I wonder if, over the next decade in education we shall look back on last week’s statement by the Minister of Education and say, “That’s when it all started; that’s when the sea change in Northern Irish education really began”.

The Minister’s statement to the Assembly on Monday last was long and, although accessibly written, on the surface rather dull, as only ministerial statements can be. Through it all, however, I had the sense of a clear mind and a visionary strategy. I use the word ‘visionary’ neutrally, because there are visions which are hallucinatory and hellish, as well as those which show us how to reach the Promised Land.
For the first time in my memory, the Minister chose to speak  directly to teachers by means of a video sent via the internet, and this, I guess, was meant to be reassuring and friendly. Its effect was peculiarly unsettling. He spoke about ‘working together’ and I wondered how that applied to the possibly hundreds of teachers about to be made redundant; I also wondered what part in the ‘working together,’ schools and teachers would play and whether the relationship would be quite as collaborative as the words suggest. When politicians speak, sharpen your sceptical pencil, reach for the code book and translate as you transcribe.

One of the things the Minister said he was going to do was to give boards of governors more power to exercise the ‘challenge function’. If there is one thing of which we may be sure in the Grammar School, it is that our Board of Governors exercises that function very ably indeed. A good school needs good governance and that is derived from good governors. In this the School is well served.

Abaana Project

The week just past has been bookended by two expressions of community. The first was last Monday when we held a whole-school awards ceremony in the Clarke Hall. Day-to-day, it is impossible to have the whole school in one place, so our assemblies are varied: sectional (junior, middle, senior or a combination), year and house. This works well and allows us to tailor our messages, but an assembly when the whole school can join together has a particular value; all the more so, I guess, because it's special.

Anyway, the whole school was gathered to celebrate the talents and achievements of our boys in sport, music and the CCF. It was an expression of pride in ourselves and, yes, in the School as a whole. It is easy to be jealous of others' success, but so long as a boy has something in his life he knows he's good at, something which allows him to be proud of himself, then he can share comfortably in the applause for others.

It's also a celebration of our staff, whose commitment to the boys goes far beyond anything I could ask or for which the School could adequately pay. At the end of the assembly, I always point this out and ask the boys to acknowledge it , which they do, warmly and at great length. That in itself is a proper celebration of community; not 'them and us' - simply 'us'.

The second expression of our community came in the Sponsored Walk on Friday. This is one of the very few occasions when every member of the School, boys, teachers and support staff, can engage together with a single common purpose. I felt especially strongly this year that it was a common effort because the principal cause for which we were raising money was our ambitious Abaana project. This has been launched by Scott Baxter of Abaana who, over the last fortnight, has spoken about it  to our junior, middle and senior schools. I say it's ambitious; that may be an understatement: the target is a sum of £60,000 and our objective is to build a school, a proper, secure building to replace a wooden structure which is blown down in every storm, without walls, nearly without roof,  near Gulu in Northern Uganda.

Why this project? Why Uganda?

BGS will move into brand new premises in about seventeen months. Most of it is being built with public money, probably, in the end, something around £24 million pounds of it. That's good; a country needs to invest in its future and ensure that its young people are being properly prepared for assuming responsibility and authority in their turn. At the same time, it's a privilege and we should be thankful that even in these straitened times, the money to allow us to move is available and willingly provided. It is for us, therefore, a moral imperative that, somehow, in some way, we demonstrate an awareness of how fortunate and privileged we are by sharing in the joy of a new school. How do we do that? Why, by providing the means for those  without public subvention, without the comforts of western society, without even shoes on their feet and, above all, without access to proper sustained education, to build a school of their own, to build a future bfor themselves in which they have some measure of choice in how they will live their lives.
Why Uganda? Four years ago, we became involved with Abaana and, on the occasion of our sesquicentenary, raised £30,000 to help refurbish the primary school of Christ the King. A group of staff and pupils went out one summer and actually engaged in its construction. Abaana is, by international standards, a small charity, but is is very much a part of our Bangor community and the extent and quality of its work is astonishing.  Its focus is Uganda and since we have already, in a sense, got a stake in this country, it is appropriate that we secure and strengthen it.

I think that, being all together part of this fund raising project, a project of which we hope we shall be a part for many years, developing the link with the area and its people, we are giving thanks for this great blessing of a new school. Joy needs to be shared.

New Staff

September is, I think, my favourite time of the school year. We are all at our freshest and most enthusiastic as we meet new pupils, new teachers and sometimes new subjects. It is my eleventh year as Head and the thirty seventh of my career and as I write these numbers, I can scarcely believe them. The ten years I have been in post in BGS have been the fastest of my life and the most fulfilling of my career. I remember vividly my first day as a paid teacher and most particularly that sinking sense as I realised how consistently early I was going to have to get up in the morning. I am no slouch now; it gets easier as I get older, but I cannot match the self-discipline of some colleagues, one in particular, who come in to School well before 7.00am, even in the darkest depths of the winter.
So now is a singularly appropriate time to introduce our new staff. They are formidably gifted and among the most talented intakes I have met, of course in their pedagogic skills, but also, and in some ways more importantly, in their enthusiasm, attitudes, values and generally humane qualities which are what in the end truly define the great, the memorable, the influential  and inspirational teachers. So, in scrupulously alphabetical order, let me present our new colleagues.
David Creighton has been appointed for one year to the PE and Geography departments. An old boy of Campbell College, David comes from a distinguished teaching family and is a graduate of the University of Ulster in Sports Studies. He has wide experience of working in schools as a classroom assistant and as a highly regarded rugby coach. David began his time with us during the summer holiday when he accompanied one of the Scripture Union house parties to Moffat in Scotland.

Rachel Douglas has been appointed for a year to the Modern Languages Department to teach French and Spanish, covering for Schanelle Chapman, who is on a career break. A former pupil of Sullivan, she is a graduate of QUB and has extensive experience having taught in the Royal School, Dungannon, and in Our Lady and St Patrick’s College. Among her many accomplishments is music: she has a grade 7 in piano and a diploma in flute and I suspect she may play an important part in our musical life.

Janet Gray joins the RE department to cover Sarah Crawford’s maternity leave. A former pupil of Grosvenor Grammar School, and another new member of staff with teaching in her DNA, she graduated in Theology and Religious Studies from Glasgow University. After a PGCE at Strathclyde, her probationary year within the Scottish system was spent in Woodfarm High School. Returning home, she taught in Bloomfield and Strathearn. Let us hope that she will not find it too much of a gender culture shock adjusting to the all-boys classroom. She too started her BGS career at Moffat during the summer.

Another graduate of Glasgow University, also trained in Strathclyde, joins the English department in a permanent capacity. Hamish Matheson was educated at  the John the Baptist School, Woking, and taught for two years at the Oasis Academy School in Coulsdon, part of Greater London. There he was the co-ordinator of the Gifted and Talented programme, experience we shall, no doubt, be able to draw on. Apart from his enthusiasm for rugby, Hamish plays the bagpipes, which suggests that his contribution to our extra-curricular life may be wide and varied!

Katy Megaw joins the Modern Languages department for a year to teach French and Spanish in pace of Mary Sheeran, who, when her maternity leave is finished, will be joining the staff of BRA. Like Rachel, Katy is an old girl of Sullivan, a tribute to the quality of languages teaching there, and a graduate of QUB where she also did her PGCE. She has had much experience with young people, having worked with street children in South America, as a boarding mistress in Methody and as a youth fellowship leader. She comes to us with a wide range of interests, including sport, especially hockey, the Scripture Union and community action.

The already extensive Robinson franchise on the staff is extended by one in the person of another Stephen Robinson, who, somewhat confusingly, joins the first, and we thought unique, Stephen Robinson in the Maths department to cover Claire McGilton’s part of the job share with Sally Forbes. Stephen is a Grammarian and the third of our new staff with teaching as their birthright! He graduated from, and did his PGCE in, QUB. He will be able, in his short time with us, to contribute to the work of the Hockey Club.

Claire Taylor has been appointed permanently to the Geography department, replacing Jeff Shields, who has decided to make his home in New Zealand. A former pupil of Wellington College, Claire had a glittering academic career in QUB. With a PGCE from Ulster, she has had wide teaching experience in Sullivan Upper and Bangor Academy. She is a qualified hockey coach and is working towards her hill walking qualifications, which suggests that she may well have a part to play in our outdoor pursuits programme by way of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme or World Challenge.

While Jonathan Rea pursues his extensive musical interests on a career break, his capacious space on the conductor’s podium is filled by Andrew Thompson. Andrew is an Instonian and his first degree was in mathematics. Subsequently graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music, his musical abilities are impressive, with expertise and qualifications in piano, saxophone and clarinet. He has taught in London and in the City of Belfast School of Music and has performed in a wide variety of ensembles and orchestras, not least the New Irish, in which Jonathan has a large interest.
I welcome them on behalf of the School as a whole, colleagues, boys, parents and governors, and wish them success, fulfilment and happiness during their time with us.