7
Robin Fletcher Chief Executive BSA and BSA Group
Come fly with me… In 1921 the aviation world
increase if and when the awaited
training continue to expand, as it has
Supermarine Seagull, an amphibian
Standards for Boarding are finally
mental health and safeguarding in the
witnessed the launch of the
biplane flying boat designed and
produced by the British aircraft
changes to the National Minimum introduced.
manufacturer Supermarine. A
So, if modern pilots are required to
community is welcoming to the
tasks than their ancestors, it suggests
century later, and the same
skies the Dassault Falcon 6X, a
large, long-range business jet under
development by Dassault Aviation
in France. Both aircraft describe
the evolution of powered flight and
there is no doubt that the skills and
training required to fly the Falcon
6X will be longer and more complex than that experienced by 1920s flying boat pilots.
Aircraft and boarding houses are not
the same, obviously, but there is some comparison in the skills and training
train longer to perform more complex the boarding sector should think
tomorrow still, in the main, be
teachers who take on boarding duties or will there be more (by necessity or design) who enter the profession
from other career paths, such as
health care, youth services or the military?
Will house staff continue, like junior
doctors, to be expected to juggle a
care for boarders with little or no
health and safety of dozens of young
least that house staff receive annual training. And this requirement will
external support from expert providers?
disruptive effects of COVID-19, we
to students, parents and the
requirement of schools in England at
on-line, in person and/or with
10 or 20 years. Will the house staff of
are going to need over the next five,
and Housemistresses at boarding training, whereas today it is a
development be accessed – internally,
At this point, as schools continue to
huge range of competing demands
schools usually delivered pastoral
past decade? And how will skills
ahead to what sort of ‘pilots’ schools
of those who pilot them. One
hundred years ago, Housemasters
since the advent of courses on drugs,
every week, while being accountable government for the professional people in their care.
Will the range of topics to be covered as part of their initial and ongoing
dust themselves down from the
don’t know the answers to many of
these questions. But these questions need to be addressed and answers discussed.
There is some irony that despite the
advances in aviation technology and pilot training, the phrases ‘boarding an aircraft’ and ‘boarding pass’
endure. Thankfully ‘boarding’ remains
the enduring word of our schools, but underneath that constant we must recognise that pastoral care for
boarders in 2021 is technically more
advanced than a century ago and the demands on those at the cockpit controls greater than ever.
