Spectator Schools March 2015

SCHOOLS March 2015

Alex Massie Are Scottish schoolboys superior?

Ysenda Maxtone Graham Getting in and getting on Sophia Waugh The myth of ‘teaching character’ James Delingpole An anatomy of parents’ evening In association with

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Uncommon entrances Getting your child into a decent school has long been high on a parent’s list of priorities, and British parents now have to compete with foreign parents for whom £30,000 a year is small change. It is for people like these, Will Heaven explains, that many of our top schools are opening branches as far afield as Seoul, Kazakhstan and Shanghai.

Even if you can afford the fees, getting your child into a good private school is hard, because the best ones are vastly oversubscribed, as Ysenda Maxtone Graham writes. What can you do about it? Lydia Hansell suggests the new ‘super-tutors’, who do far more than your child’s maths homework.

If you have managed to get your child into the school of your choice, then Lara Prendergast is on hand with a run-down of the uniform tribes they might be expected to conform to, while James Delingpole explains what to expect at your next parents’ evening. And if you haven’t, well, it’s not the end of the world. Sebastian Payne tells the story of his recovery from rejection by the school he applied to at the age of ten.

We’ve also included a handy guide to Easter revision courses, Ed Cumming explores the wilder shores of the school trip, Mark Palmer sings the praises of school reunions and Edward Bell and I discuss choir schools.

I hope you enjoy reading all this and more, and do keep an eye out for the next issue of Spectator Schools, out in September.

Scottish schools Alex Massie

Editor

Camilla Swift

5

Writers’ reminiscences Daisy Dunn

20

Teaching character Sophia Waugh 8

Britain’s educational empire Will Heaven 23

How to get in Ysenda Maxtone Graham 10

In praise of reunions Mark Palmer 24

IGCSEs vs GCSEs Ross Clark 13

The new school trips Ed Cumming 26

Dress codes decoded Lara Prendergast 14

Parents’ evenings James Delingpole 28

Learning and IT Constance Watson 15

My schooldays Sebastian Payne 31

Super-tutors Lydia Hansell 16

Easter revision colleges 32

The ‘diamond’ model Eleanor Doughty 19

Choirs Edward Bell; Camilla Swift 34

Drawings

John Jensen Supplied free with the 14 March 2015 edition of The Spectator www.spectator.co.uk The Spectator (1828) Ltd, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP, Tel: 020 7961 0200, Fax: 020 7961 0250.

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Caledonian contradictions Scots public schools are a tribe apart, says Alex Massie

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n 1919 the literary critic G. Gregory Smith coined the term ‘Caledonian antisyzygy’, by which he meant the ‘zigzag of contradictions’ that so dominated the national literature that it might be reckoned a useful summation of the Scottish character itself. ‘Oxymoron,’ Smith observed, ‘was ever the bravest figure, and we must not forget that disorderly order is order after all.’

Perhaps so. Certainly, the Scottish public schools endure an often ambivalent, even awkward, relationship with their native land. The most prestigious are outposts of England in Scotland, custodians of an idea of Britishness that’s increasingly out of favour north of the border.

Schools such as Fettes, Loretto, Glenalmond and Merchiston generally follow the English curriculum, entering

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their pupils for GCSEs and A-levels. Their students learn more about Tudor England than Stewart Scotland. They play rugby and cricket in a land much more obsessed with football. Above all — and most perniciously — they are unashamedly ‘elitist’.

No wonder they are easy targets for politicians with an axe to grind (a category of politician of which Scotland has no shortage). Their status as educational charities — and the consequent tax advantages conferred by that status — has been a matter of some controversy. Radicals at Holyrood would, if only they could, rather like to go further than stripping the public schools of their charitable status.

The great boarding schools in particular are perceived to be in Scotland but scarcely of Scotland. Real 5

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Scots, you see, don’t swank around in tweed jackets and red trousers. Paradoxically, the products of the public schools lie firmly outside the Scottish mainstream even as their alumni also dominate large swathes of Scottish society, most notably the law.

But for many left-wingers, the handful of Scottish boarding schools are bastions of privilege and evidence of what the wilder kind of radical deems a form of ‘internal colonisation’ in which the native elite is taught that Scottishness is unavoidably inferior to Britishness. An unfair accusation — these days, anyway — but one with just enough historical accuracy to wound. Once, they groomed pupils for the task of imperial administration and even today the Scottish public schools are fertile territory for army recruitment.

Only in Edinburgh, and to a lesser extent Glasgow, is a private education considered ‘normal’. One in four children in the Scottish capital attend the city’s great private schools: George Watson’s, Stewart’s Melville, Mary Erskine, George Heriot’s and the Edinburgh Academy. The oldest of these, Heriot’s, was established in 1628 by the eponymous royal goldsmith and philanthropist, whose bequest established a hospital for the education of the city’s orphaned children. (To this day the children of any Edinburgh-resident widow or widower qualify for scholarships to attend Heriot’s.)

Overall, however, a private education is rarer in Scotland than in England. Fewer than one in 20 Scottish pupils attend fee-paying schools. The Westminster political establishment may be dominated by public schoolboys but its Scottish counterpart is overwhelmingly comprehensive-educated. None of the leaders of the Scottish political parties were educated privately. SNP politicians, in particular, are vastly more likely to come from smalltown, provincial Scotland than the large cities in which private education is more normal — that is, less unusual.

These days, like their counterparts south of the border, the Scottish boarding schools sell the idea of a classical British education to the international market. Gordonstoun led the way but Fettes has for a long time excelled in attracting Asian students, while Glenalmond’s location on the border of highland Perthshire has proved appealing to German parents attracted by a traditional British education in a glorious Scottish setting. Without foreign students some schools might find themselves in financial difficulty, since rampant fee inflation has made it harder for farmers, GPs and other members of the affluent middle-classes to afford a private education. In real terms, boarding schools are £10,000 a year more expensive than they were 20 years ago.

In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that the public schools are the stoutest strongholds of an increasingly unfashionable brand of unionism. Strathallan, in 6

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How Scottish are they really?

Perthshire, hosted a BBC Scotland debate during the campaign; 197 pupils voted to maintain the Union and just three favoured independence. No comprehensive school produced any such lopsided result. In this instance, the rich really are different.

In general, however, Scotland’s ‘timid posh folk’, as Hugo Rifkind (George Watson’s and Loretto) memorably described them in this magazine, generally preferred to keep a low profile during that rumbustious campaign.

The landed and New Town classes had the most to lose from independence but were painfully conscious that protesting too much must damage the unionist cause more than it might help it. If it is modestly simplistic to say the Murrayfield crowd voted ‘no’ last September while the Hampden crowd voted ‘yes’, there is some truth None of the leaders of the in the observation.

Scottish political parties Again, it would be foolish to insist were educated privately too strongly that the products of the Scottish private schools are foreigners in their own land. Nevertheless, they are a clan — an easily identified one at that — whose members stick, and club, together. A surprising, even disconcerting, proportion of them have relatively few friends who were not schooled at Watson’s or the Glasgow Academy or wherever. If, as has become fashionable to observe, there are many Scotlands, the alumni of the great private schools are a tribe apart. Secure in their advantages, certainly, but also aware of their vulnerability and the extent to which they are unusual. Scotsmen — and now women — with an English education, the better to serve and promulgate an idea of Britishness that many of their compatriots now suspect has long since outlived its usefulness.

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A question of character Do public schools really teach it? By Sophia Waugh

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n tough times, we have to be persuaded to buy the non-essentials in life. While no one would deny an education is essential, many parents are beginning to question whether paying tens of thousands of pounds for a clutch of GCSEs is really worth it. Therefore public schools are having to come up with ever more selling points to draw in the punters.

Anthony Seldon, the never willingly underquoted Master of Wellington College, has a new reason to encourage you to send your children to his school. He claims that his establishment, and others like it, can offer to teach your children ‘character’ in a way that no state school can.

What is ‘character’ anyway? Can it really be taught by a bunch of soldiers coming in and telling you about their time in Afghanistan? The word coming as it does from the Greek charakter ‘engraved mark’, or ‘symbol or imprint on the soul’, we should immediately raise the questions a) whether a school can and b) whether a school should be imprinting our children’s souls. Are they not meant to be educated — led out — rather than stamped upon?

Yes, there is such a thing as an (invisible) Eton hallmark, 8

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but do we really want our children hallmarked so young?

The phrase ‘character building’ is not a new one; it is usually applied to difficult, stressful situations, to rejection or failure, to sorrow or strife. It suggests that your character is strengthened through your experiences, not through listening to a talk, however moving or inspiring that talk may be.

Those of us who work in state schools become increasingly frustrated with this kind patronage from the public schools, who pat us on the head and tell us there, there, they know it’s hard for us, but we don’t really work with the same material, do we? What can we expect? Well, we expect very much the same as you do, Mr Seldon. We expect our children to be well mannered and to work hard. We expect them to show courtesy towards each other, not to mock those less fortunate than themselves, to show restraint in times of anger and understanding in times of trouble. We may tell them again and again that education is the way forward, but we also try to show them that respect garners respect, that kindness will be met with kindness.

Seldon says, with some reason, that a lack of social mobility is a modern curse, but I would question his assertion that giving children free places in expensive public schools is the way forward. I for one would not want a child to be the poorest in a rich society. There might be the opportunity of learning Latin (which has alas vanished from the state sector) and the lovely soldiers to listen to, but won’t it be hideously isolating in the holidays to watch the others scamper off to the Val d’Isère and Mustique?

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Mixing with richer peers is as likely to foster resentment and revolution as it is to teach character.

State schools used to focus their PHSE (personal health and social education) on the mechanics of sex and drugs. If you have unprotected sex, you will get pregnant or… and a series of pictures of hideously diseased genitals is put on to the board. If you take drugs, you will die or… and some of those frightening before and after pictures appear. We did not seem to address morals, indeed seemed to shy away from any suggestion that there was such a thing as right or wrong. My cupboard was full of plastic blue penises and lesson plans on how to put on a condom, but while we could suggest that maybe children (and most of them are still children) should think before having sex, we were discouraged from telling them it was positively a bad idea to do so.

However, things have changed since then. PHSE still covers the mechanics, but pays much more heed to the morals of which Seldon implies we in the state sector are ignorant. With much more open discussion (and it is amazing how much children, in the right atmosphere, join in) we do now cover more contentious issues than ‘how to’.

While this might reassure the public schools’ view of state school morality, I would still argue that morality and character are not anyway the same thing. Character, to me, implies moral courage rather than morality — something completely different. A solider who follows orders into battle does not necessarily have a fine character; it is the soldier who refuses to follow orders which go against his conscience who has character.

Children who go to public schools are of course very lucky in many ways, and the public schools have much to offer that we cannot. Public schools have better facilities and smaller classes; they often teach subjects that we have lost. A public school child is still more likely to make friends with a future prime minister than is a state school child in County Durham. They are also more likely to have the superficial charm and good manners of the ruling classes — but isn’t that as much because those are A soldier who follows learnt at home as well as at school? orders does not necessarily The school in which I teach is have a fine character a very successful comprehensive. We are not, however, entirely middle class; indeed we have a very wide socioeconomic intake.

We also have children of every ability, from those who can barely read to those who could sit an A-level. While not for a moment suggesting that there is no suffering among better-off families, I would say that the children in our school will have much more awareness of social differences, of the terrible effects of bad choices, of the need we have to look after each other. Our children do not leave school expecting life to be easy, far from it. Even those who have not experienced much trouble or sorrow are more likely to have seen it at close hand.

I would suggest to Dr Seldon and his like that maybe some of his children should go and spend a term or two in a comprehensive school. Even one like ours, where respect and support are the norm, would open their eyes and, just possibly, give them a little character.

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Frank admissions Your child may not Get In, says Ysenda Maxtone Graham

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n recent years I’ve started putting the verb ‘to get in’ (when it refers to the action of being offered a place at a sought-after school) into capital letters: ‘To Get In’. It seems to merit capitals, so much has it become the defining verb of one’s child’s success and therefore future happiness, as perceived by the desperate parent. ‘He Got In to Eton.’ ‘She Got In to Latymer.’ Or (whispered only to one’s most trusted friends), ‘He didn’t Get In to St Paul’s.’

I suppose it’s quite amusing that being able to Get your child In to the private school of your dreams is the one prized item that the fee-paying middle classes cannot simply buy. The Getting In system is a meritocracy. Fee-payers are up against bursary-receivers: private schools these days are proud of their bursary schemes, wishing to be seen to be socially inclusive. Good for them; but this keeps ever-growing numbers of paying parents awake at night for decades in an agony of anxiety about their children’s prospects in what the director of admissions at St Paul’s calls ‘the white-hot market’. It keeps tutorial firms and the publishers of the Bond Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning Assessment Papers in business. Because, of course, the schools of our dreams are vastly oversubscribed — especially the ones in London and the south-east.

When demand outstrips supply, both parties resort to playing games. Parents’ weapons are (a) to have the child heavily tutored, (b) to apply for six or seven schools and (c) to pay acceptance deposits for more than one. The schools’ ­weapons What parents most dread are (a) to devise exams which you can’t prepare for and which can tell is the ‘thin envelope’ of whether a child has been overtutored rejection landing on the mat and (b) to demand a dauntingly large deposit on acceptance of a conditional place. The parents’ agonised wait for the letter of acceptance or rejection is followed by the schools’ agonised wait for acceptance or rejection of the offer.

If you would like to know exactly how oversubscribed the top schools in London and the south-east are, read on.

The statistics might make your nights even worse; but the consolation is that if there is only a one-in-eight chance that your child will Get In, it will not be a disgrace if he or she doesn’t. You can just blame the absurd mismatch of demand and supply. Apparently, no child has ever been found roaming the streets in mid-September with no school to go to, though this always seems an all-too-likely outcome to the sleepless mother, who foresees acrossthe-board rejection. What parents dread most is the ‘thin envelope’ landing on the mat. A thin envelope means: ‘We are very sorry to have to give you the disappointing news that we are unable to offer N a place. We wish him the best 10

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of luck in his future schooling.’ (‘No, you don’t,’ thinks the fainting reader.) The coveted thick envelope contains a form for you to fill in and send back with the four-figure deposit cheque.

Many top boys’ public schools have for years required boys to sit a ‘pre-test’ in Year 6 — a process whereby 11-year-old boys are offered places for Year 9, on condition that they get a good enough mark in Common Entrance. But the numbers of applicants for Westminster and St Paul’s have grown so much that these schools now require boys to sit a pre-pre-test to see whether the applicants are even allowed to sit the pre-test (or, at St Paul’s, have a pre-test interview). This test, the ISEB Common Pre-Test, is done at the prep schools, on computers.

John Curtis, the registrar of Westminster, explained, ‘We have 95 places for non-Westminster Under School boys; 500 register for the process. When I started 14 years ago it used to be 300. Of the 500 who sit the ISEB pre-test, 250 are invited to go on to the next stage.’ Andy Mayfield, director of admissions at St Paul’s School for boys, said, ‘About 600 apply for 90 places. When we saw the numbers jump from 400 to 600 recently, we decided we just couldn’t interview all those children. We needed to find some way of reducing the numbers down to 350.’

That’s what the ISEB test does. It’s a way of bidding an instant, polite goodbye to 250. The lucky survivors then go on to the next stage: at Westminster, a day of written tests plus a half-hour interview; at St Paul’s, an interview laced

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with academic questions. The numbers show that you now have a one-in-three chance at Westminster and a one-infour chance at St Paul’s.

I put it to Andy Mayfield that this system gives no chance to life’s late developers. He disagreed. ‘We have a reserve list. We offer a number of places on that list, and you’d be surprised how in this market the reserve list can become very short, as parents decide to take their sons off it and go to a school that is perhaps geographically closer.’

Adding to the London madness is the fact that many of the best senior day schools have become 11+ schools, while many of the best boys’ prep schools are 13+ ones.

If you dream about your son progressing seamlessly at 13+ to the excellent Latymer Upper down the road, forget it. ‘Last time we had a 13+ entry exam,’ said the registrar Catriona Sutherland-Hawes, ‘we had 68 applying for just eight places. So we’ve decided to drop the formal 13+ entry. For our 11+ this year, we had 1,100 candidates sitting for 170 places. That has grown from 650 candidates in 2007.’ Latymer has given up setting verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests because children were being overtutored for these. ‘So now it’s just English and maths. Children are dropped off and collected in staggered slots on exam day, so no one sees how many other candidates there are, and there are no more that 24 candidates in a room.’

I happened to speak to Sutherland-Hawes on the very day Latymer were to decide to whom they offered places.

‘We’ll sit down at 2 p.m. and we probably won’t ­finish the

Few shall be chosen… perhaps only one in eight

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meeting till nine. I’ll always say a short prayer for guidance before the meeting.’ The school does not have a siblings policy. ‘I disappoint as many siblings as I make happy.

But I do believe there’s the right place for everyone.’

At Alleyn’s in Dulwich this year, more than 100 candidates sat the 13+ exam for just 11 places. ‘It’s a very difficult entry,’ admits Antony Faccinello, the senior deputy head. ‘At 11+, the ratio is more like five or six to one. Whoever applies is allowed to sit the exam: we don’t put a cap on numbers.’

Emanuel School in Battersea has an extra form in Year 9, providing 20 to 25 new places at 13+, and applicants are flocking there. ‘We limit the number of applications we accept at 11+ to 600,’ explained the headmaster, Mark Hanley-Browne. ‘We interview every child on the list: that is why we have to limit the length, because this is so staff-intensive: 20 minutes per child, and individual interviews.Demand has increased hugely over the past few years… the date in the year when we hit 600 registrations is getting earlier and earlier. One of the reasons is that a lot of students from London used to go to boarding schools, but given the high cost, many parents are switching their attention to London day schools.’

If it’s boarding you are looking for, try Eton’s computerised pre-test, which takes place in Year 6: boys come to the school in batches of 16 for the test and a short interview. There are a great many testing days, as Bob Stevenson, the lower master and designer of this test, explained.

‘We have 1,300 applying for 250 places. The test is a cognitive test, designed to give an indication of a boy’s underlying aptitude. It’s different from other tests, so boys can’t practise for it: there are no questions anywhere else that would resemble the test’s questions.’

How do they whittle the numbers down? ‘It would be easy,’ said Stevenson, ‘simply to take the top 250 in the test, but we don’t. We interview every boy, to find out whether what the prep-school or primary school have told us about them is accurate. We’re looking for a spark in lots of ways. We’re not just looking for the brightest boys.

We go through each candidate and rank them, comparing five rankings. It’s the most difficult thing we have to do, as there are huge numbers of boys who would fulfil the criteria. But sometimes we have to say no. If there were another couple of Etons, it would be OK.’ Another couple of Etons: exactly. That’s just what we need; plus another couple of St Paul’s, Westminsters, Alleyn’s, Emanuels and Latymers. One enterprising school, Wetherby Prep, has responded to this dire need: Wetherby (which already has highly oversubscribed boys’ pre-prep and prep schools) is opening a new senior school for boys in Marylebone in September. On entrance exam day in November there was a long queue at the door. ‘We had about 250 applying for 90 places,’ said Nick Baker, the headmaster of Wetherby Prep, who is also going to be headmaster of the new senior school. He intends to make it ‘a centre of excellence’ and is looking for normally bright boys, not only hyper-bright ones. ‘The value of a school,’ he says, ‘is what you do with the middle and bottom third.’ Quite.

Meanwhile, on doormats across the country, envelopes have landed on mats. The vast majority (the thin ones) fluttered quietly downwards.

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‘I’ is for independent

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IGCSE exams widen the divide between state and private sectors, writes Ross Clark

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always thought that rugby was invented so that there was no chance of public schoolboys having to meet grotty kids from football-playing state schools on the playing fields. But until recently all children, whether in the state or independent sector, did at least take the same exams. Until, that is, there emerged a great divide between GCSE and IGCSE. In January, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan confirmed that international GCSEs, or IGCSEs, will no longer be counted in school performance tables once the first reformed GCSEs start to be taken in 2017. The new courses, like IGCSEs, will be examined at the end of the course, not in modular instalments. The move, which reverses a decision by her predecessor, Michael Gove, is the latest instalment of a long saga which has driven a wedge between the state and independent sectors.

GCSEs, introduced in the late 1980s, had long been criticised for their modular structure and for the large amount of coursework they involve. A decade ago some independent schools decided to do something about it.

They noticed that the IGSCEs still offered by examination boards for the benefit of English-language schools abroad had retained the structure of the old O-level: pupils were taught for two years and then examined at the end. Moreover, they discovered that your school didn’t have to be abroad to be able to offer the exam.

There was one problem, or maybe it wasn’t a problem at all. The exam performance tables produced by the Department for Education failed to recognise the IGCSE, with the result that schools taking them would appear at the bottom of the tables, with a score of zero. Highly selective independent schools sank below the worst-performing comprehensives. Independent schools could enjoy the marketing Some teachers have said benefit of offering a ‘more rigorous’ that the English Language exam — while simultaneously not IGCSE is an ‘absolute doddle’ having to compete with state schools in the league tables. An appearance at the bottom of the tables came to be worn as a badge of pride: far better that your £30,000-a-year school is a principled outcast than appears sort of near the top of the league tables but embarrassingly below a few state comprehensives.

In one of his first moves after becoming Education Secretary in 2010, Gove decided that IGCSEs would count towards the league tables, and encouraged state schools to take them too. He perhaps imagined that grammar schools plus a few academies and free schools would rise to his invitation, risking a fall in grades for the higher purpose of subjecting pupils to greater intellectual challenge.

Gove’s initiative went well. Too well, in fact. By 2013, state schools were switching to the IGCSE in droves.

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Test match: revamped GCSEs versus IGCSEs

That year, entries for IGSCE English soared from 18,000 to 78,000. Trouble was, they weren’t doing it to give their pupils a greater challenge but rather for the opposite reason. State school teachers conversing on the discussion boards of the TES were adamant that far from being more rigorous, the IGCSE in English language was ‘super-easy’ and an ‘absolute doddle’. While the comments referred only to the English language exam, this did unquestionably damage the IGCSE brand. Morgan’s reasoning for kicking IGCSEs out of the league tables again is that she claims they may be less rigorous than the revamped GCSE, as exam boards tout for business and some teachers hunt for whatever exam will flatter their pass rate.

But then that potentially takes us back to the situation we were in before: a divided exam system, with many independent schools disappearing off the performance tables. So will independent schools make the switch?

Three quarters of pupils in their GCSE year at independent schools this year will take at least one IGCSE. One per cent will take nothing but IGCSEs. Morgan shouldn’t count on that changing all that much, and on her new GCSE becoming the ‘gold standard’, as she hopes.

Of the three new GCSE courses being introduced this autumn, for example, pupils at Cheltenham College will be taking just one, English Language.

‘The new English language GCSE is a huge improvement,’ says Duncan Byrne, deputy head. ‘But we want to continue to offer the best exam and we will continue to take English literature and maths as an IGCSE. The official league tables are not terribly important to our parents, who are more interested in the league tables compiled by the newspapers.’ One man’s ‘gold standard’, in other words, is another man’s brass. The ‘I’ before your school qualifications will go back to meaning that you have attended an independent school. The worthy aim of trying to reduce the divide between state and private education is unlikely to be fulfilled.

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05/03/2015 12:26

Tribal dress explained Why they wear it, by Lara Prendergast

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here’s no better way to improve character and cure self-consciousness than to insist your child dress like a fool during their formative years. Distinct fashion tribes exist at some of Britain’s top schools and a boring old blazer simply won’t do. You can never be overdressed or overeducated, suggested Oscar Wilde. But why not at least aim for both by using this guide to school style?

ly love these witchlike skirts; when it’s cold and wet, nobody can tell they are wearing pyjama bottoms and wellies underneath.

The Eccentrics The Boaters Harrow insists their students wear boaters at all times while outdoors. Flouting this is cause for punishment.

Entrepreneurial types make a quick bob by flogging their hats to Chinese tourists, before buying new ones at a cheaper rate from the school shop.

Christ’s Hospital provides a Tudor-style uniform to its pupils for free, which includes a long blue coat, knee breeches, yellow socks and a neckerchief. A few years ago, when the school was thinking of updating it, 95 per cent of the pupils voted in favour of keeping it.

The Free Spirits The Witches Girls at Marlborough and Downe House wear long black skirts in the sixth form. Rumour has it this puritanical garment was introduced to stop male teachers becoming distracted by short hemlines. Pupils secret14

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Bedales doesn’t have a uniform, which fits with its ­laissez-faire vibe. Model Cara Delevingne was ‘discovered’ there and other gamine girls dream of the same fate, so dress accordingly. Other characters one might spot in the average classroom include punks, goths and new romantics. They’re all secretly sloanes, of course.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH BREWIN DOLPHIN | SPECTATOR SCHOOLS | 14 MARCH 2015

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05/03/2015 12:27

Five children and IT Online education pros and cons, by Constance Watson

The City Blenders London schools like Westminster and St Paul’s don’t want their boys to be duffed up, so ask them to blend into the city with an urban uniform of suit and tie. An extreme take on the look includes a briefcase.

The Tails David Cameron’s school uniform has haunted him throughout his political career. The iconic tailcoat, falsecollar and pinstriped trousers worn by Etonians is hardly a subtle look. Still, there’s much to be said for knowing how to dress for an occasion.

The Scholars Winchester ingrains a sense of intellectual superiority in its star pupils from a young age. The Scholars stand out from the fee-paying Commoners thanks to their black gowns. A thick skin is as much of a genetic advantage as a good brain.

The St Trinian’s Tribute Act Cheltenham Ladies’ College insists the girls dress in shirts, pleated skirts and blazers. Ronald Searle would recognise the desire to untuck, hitch up and generally loosen this look.

Is internet technology turning our brains to mush? For those born after 1990, it is a constant fear. Most of us struggle to read a poster, let alone a book. We’ve overstimulated our prefrontal cortexes to near death through incessant multiscreening. Our brains aren’t wired to do anything except be wired.

But technology fans tell us to be positive. We should embrace the new world and its limitless possibility. In education, in particular, there is a sense of optimism. When I started secondary school at the turn of the millennium, we had just one interactive whiteboard.

It immediately became the epicentre of the school. By the time I graduated from university, all students were equipped with their own laptop, and essays were uploaded electronically.

The students of the future will increasingly use virtual classrooms, whereby learning is delivered to them wherever they are. But will they learn more as a result?

Distance learning is nothing new. Harold Wilson outlined plans for a ‘University of the Air’, and the Open University was founded in the late 1960s, with students enrolling early the following decade. Development in communications technology, however, means that distance learning has been greatly enhanced in recent years.

It is easy to get excited.

Educational techno-utopians claim technology will ‘democratise’ learning. The barriers of educational privilege can be torn down. Courses are free or cost very little. Everybody can have access to the best teachers.

You can delve into subjects that hitherto you could never have known about. Cryptology or canine theriogenology tickle your fancy?

One click and away we go.

It’s big business too. The number of virtual learning ‘solutions’ is on the rise. CloudRooms, an American virtual learning school, ‘are here to help you with the transition’ from bricks and mortar to computers.

A British education provider is currently working with the Malaysian government to connect

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the entire country through a cloudbased learning platform — the first of its kind. Last year marked the founding year of Minerva Schools at KGI, an online undergraduate programme. These courses are extremely attractive to bright young things: Minerva admitted only 45 students from the 1,794 applications.

So what’s not to like? A lot, it turns out. Guiding students towards screens draws them away from each other. Why does the current curriculum emphasise sport? Not because every Tom, Dick and Fatima is a Pelé in the making, but because it teaches competitiveness and teamwork. Video games, on the other hand, isolate rather than encouraging co-operation. The same applies to the classroom.

Virtual learning can be useful when employed alongside classic teaching methods. Language teaching can be greatly improved by connecting international students. In the developing world, too, virtual learning on mobile phones gives disadvantaged people more educational possibilities. In 2005 the Open University launched TESSA, a programme that equips teachers in Sub-Saharan African schools with techie resources. More recently, USAID established the research initiative M4Ed4Dev (Mobile for Education For Development).

But let’s not pretend that the virtual classroom can be a substitute for the real world. ‘Every time I see some bright young nerd chanting about the future of education online, my heart sinks,’ says Sophie Cooke, a Somersetbased teacher. ‘If technology is really enabling children to learn more, why are their attention spans ever more diminished? What we need is the same as it always was — smaller classes and face-to-face interaction with pupils.’

Virtual learning misses the point of education, whereby a teacher should bring out of the student questioning, reasoning and critical enquiry. Think of the great teachers — Socrates and Jesus: they gathered people around them and spoke. You cannot do this from a cloud.

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05/03/2015 12:27

The rise of the ‘super-tutor’

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They teach more than passing exams, says Lydia Hansell

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ill Isis really use migrants as a weapon of mass destruction?’ asked one Common Entrance pupil in a tutoring session. Where such a profound question emerged from is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was a cunning ruse to avoid analysing an especially tedious Wordsworth poem. But for a 13-year-old to feel comfortable enough to initiate a discussion about so politically sensitive a topic is becoming a rarity.

We desperately encourage our children to ask such questions and then, when they do, tend to answer them with vague platitudes. It would be easy to blame ‘timestarved’ parents, or vilify the ‘pushy parent’ brigade stereotyped so brilliantly in Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, so often condemned for maintaining that relentless testing is the only way their children can sprint up the educational ladder.

It is becoming clear that such politically or ethically sensitive questions are being ignored so as not to cause offence. Children are being held back from questioning, thinking and exploring out of fear that curiosity be confused with politically incorrect bigotry. As Education Secretary, Michael Gove introduced the concept of lessons in British values in the wake of the Trojan Horse scandal in Birmingham. His successor, Nicky Morgan, seems keen to continue with this, stating earlier this year: ‘Every school regardless, faith or none, should be promoting British values, because it’s the right thing to do.’

However, perhaps the answer lies not in teaching children British values but in equipping them with the tools to articulate difficult positions in a complex world. In classrooms of 30 children, this is pure fantasy. But in a more intimate one-on-one setting, it becomes a desirable possibility. Enter In some parts of the globe the private tutor. tutors regularly command Recent headlines have charted the rise of the ‘super-tutor’, profesupwards of £1,000 a hour sionals who in some corners of the globe regularly command upwards of £1,000 per hour. But such media focus detracts from the true value of a tutor in a world filled with digital distraction, information overload and a growing attention deficit.

Absolutely, children should be taught about coding, apps, programming and anything else needed to put them at the cutting edge of technological innovations. But when can they find those moments of quiet reflection in which, in the words of Cardinal Newman, they can truly ‘disentangle a skein of thought’?

Some would argue that retaining a tutor for any longer than the time necessary for exam preparation is detrimental to a child’s ability to learn independently. Certainly it is if the child in question is essentially having their home16

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Welcome to the world of learning

work done for them. However, tutors who are able to engender in a child the confidence to address adult or taboo issues are increasingly sought after. Most tutoring websites trumpet the ‘confidence-building’ of private tuition, but this is generally in relation to exam prep. Only the top tier agencies have access to really gifted tutors.

Will Orr-Ewing, the founder of Keystone Tutors, selects only 30 tutors out of an application pool of 3,000 while others including Bright Young Things, Osborne Cawkwell and Quintessentially Education conduct rigorous interviews and background checks.

There will always be a market for exam preparation, just as there will hopefully always be one for a British education. But tutoring is no longer the preserve of a wealthy international elite who view tutors as an accessory as much as the latest Lamborghini Aventador. Increasingly, they are being hired to stretch the ablest of minds as much as they are to strive to boost the confidence of others.

That the ability to analyse complex questions is something we are in danger of losing is underlined by the furore surrounding a question pitched at 13-year-old scholars sitting an Eton entrance examination. The question laid out the following scenario and instructions: ‘The government has deployed the Army to curb protests. After two days the protests have been stopped, but the Army killed 25 protesters in the process. You are the Prime Minister.

Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to the nation in which you explain why employing the Army against violent protesters was the only option available to you, and one which was both necessary and moral.’ The tale of the question spread like wildfire, with people appalled that children would be asked to ‘justify’ killing.

Teaching a child how to organise and express their views is something teachers have been doing for decades. That hasn’t changed. But unless children feel able to express and explore their own opinions without the risk of censorship, they will have no views to organise.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH BREWIN DOLPHIN | SPECTATOR SCHOOLS | 14 MARCH 2015

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Separate but together: sexes interact in the diamond model

Schools of life ‘Diamonds’ are for everyone, says Eleanor Doughty

I

magine a school that you could send your son and daughter to. A single school that fitted your ideal for both single-sex and co-ed education, operating from nursery to sixth form, covering all bases. One school — not three or four. A school that, for the final two years, allowed young adults of both genders to share lessons and facilities.

But imagine no more, for these schools exist, and they’re called diamond schools. (So-called because of the shape of the structure: genders together at the beginning and end, but apart in the middle.) There are just 13 of them in the country. Blending singlesex and co-ed teaching in the same The basic idea is co-ed junior institution makes them stand out as school, single-sex senior shining beacons in a fairly conservative landscape. Offerings vary, but the school and co-ed sixth form basic idea of co-ed junior years, single-sex for senior school and a co-ed sixth form prevails throughout. As the fashionable preference swings from single-sex to co-ed and back again, diamond schools occupy a unique compromise.

There are two types, the two-site model and the single-site. The two-site model, as Mark Steed, principal of Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire explains, ‘usually came about because of the merger of two schools in the same town’. At these schools, boys and girls are taught on separate sites from the ages of 11 to 16, allowing each to retain its single-sex character. During the sixth form, pupils move between the two schools for lessons.

The other type, the single-site model, sprang from the admission of the opposite gender into single-sex schools.

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Instead of merging in full, boys and girls are taught in the same buildings separately, but can eat lunch together.

But why go diamond? Single-site ‘diamond schools are very convenient for parents,’ says Steed. ‘They provide a “one-stop drop” for the school run — children of both sexes from nursery to sixth form can be dropped off together.’ This ‘one-stop’ idea is echoed in the shared ethos. Because both brothers and sisters attend the same school, there is no pastoral discontinuity; parents can be assured that their children are being taught in a way that suits their gender, but that the core values of their sons’ and daughters’ education will remain the same.

The pupils also benefit from the physical model. ‘Each part is often of a size that will allow pupils to know everyone in the school, while benefiting from the infrastructure and economies of scale of a much larger school,’ Steed explains. Those benefits include facilities: at Berkhamsted and most other ‘all-through’ (three-to-18) schools, sports and drama facilities are shared across age groups, allowing the individually small schools to feel like larger entities.

As facilities are shared, so are social hours. Unlike a handful of unlucky single-sex set-ups, there is no scrabbling to find a partner school for bops and sports dinners.

‘The boys and girls grow up knowing each other,’ Steed explains. ‘They have friends of the opposite sex, they just don’t have academic lessons with them, and are able to maintain an appropriate level of social contact that means it is possible to develop friendships with the opposite sex.’

While this might sound heavy-handed to those accustomed to a co-ed environment, the academic-social mix can be compelling. ‘We offer the right combination of single-sex and co-education that helps the child to progress academically and socially in the best possible way,’ says Tricia Kelleher, principal of the Stephen Perse Foundation in Cambridge.

Dr John Hind, principal of Dame Allan’s School in Newcastle, also believes that the system combines the best of both worlds by providing ‘all the benefits of single-sex education, combined with the social advantages of coeducation’. He explains, ‘There was a time when the boys and girls were kept separated for the whole of the school day. Those days are long gone and students benefit from being allowed to mix during break times.’

The benefits of separation are seen inside the classroom, argues Lynne Taylor-Gooby, headmistress of the Royal School in Surrey. ‘Generally boys and girls show distinct characteristics. In the case of boys, shorter attention spans and greater physicality are significant and in the case of girls, their ability to concentrate is often undermined by the needs of the boys.’ It’s important outside the classroom too. ‘Pastoral staff appreciate the different challenges faced by boys and girls,’ Hind says. It is easily argued that this applies in fully co-educational set-ups too: staff of both genders may find it easier to connect with one type of pupil than another.

Diamond schools thus occupy a distinctive position in the school system, and it’s a position that might just catch on. Combining separateness and togetherness, they cater, ostensibly, for all. For those that might have second thoughts about a co-ed move after five successful singlesex years, Mark Steed has the answer. ‘Life, after all, is coeducational.’ You can’t argue with that.

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05/03/2015 12:30

Tales told out of school Writers’ reminiscences terrify Daisy Dunn

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om Brown’s Schooldays is a depressing book. It’s hard to see why anyone would encourage their child to read it before starting school, particularly Rugby, where the story is set. Tom Brown’s peers stand in the window near the school gates, surveying the town as if they own it. They fight behind the chapel, where the masters cannot see them, and bully and fag, day and night.

Writing in The Spectator in 1956, Richard Usborne, the great scholar of P.G. Wodehouse, cursed the novel for inspiring fear in young boys. A present from his father, he read it shortly before starting prep school and, needless to say, understood why he’d been forced to take up boxing. With time he forgot how terrifying it was and, to his immense embarrassment, gave his own son a copy. Only when he reread it later in life did he come to the conclusion that its influence on teachers, parents, new boarders and writers ‘in all cases has been for the bad’.

Lynn Barber’s early memoirs An Education (which

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inspired Nick Hornby’s screenplay of the same name) were published some years after I left school, but would no doubt have filled me with a similar sense of dread. At 16, you see, I joined the Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hampton, where Barber found herself surrounded by girls who owned ponies and never asked questions, which she found tolerable only because questions were ‘bourgeois’, and she wanted to be Existentialist, or at least French.

The school she described was dull and conformist, while the boys’ school next door, Hampton Grammar (now the independent Hampton School), was full of ‘little squirts’ who ‘turned into octupuses in the cinema dark, clamping damp tentacles to your breast’. I laughed when I read the book after leaving school, for parts of it rang true. My generation of LEH girls retained a (shamefully unfair) sense of superiority over the Hamptons, were as keen on ‘lax’ (lacrosse) as Barber recalls, and had Latin homework graded with an old-fashioned ‘alpha’ — or ‘beta plus plus’ if there were a few ‘howlers’. But so opin-

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Radio 4 listeners voted Miss Pym a Literary Heroine of 2014. In life as in literature, it’s often the teacher who makes a more lasting impression than the school itself.

Unless, that is, the teacher is the school. James Hilton probably based Brookfield in his classic novel Goodbye, Mr Chips on his former school, The Leys in Cambridge.

In the book, he describes how the wonderful Chips educated the darling rascals for around 40 years until he was Brookfield — the greatest compliment a school Lynn Barber’s could have. Then there’s that terribly An Education sad moment where Chips looks on as rang a few bells Speech Day turns into Ascot, and the headmaster rounds up prospective parents in London clubs to persuade them that Brookfield is the next big thing. And ‘since they couldn’t buy their way into Eton or Harrow, they greedily swallowed the bait’. The Leys is nothing like this today.

It’s more enjoyable — and less perilous — to read these books after leaving school than before starting it, but one can always allay a child’s fears and false expectations with the caveat that the stories are fictional, as many of them indeed are. But far better, I think, to listen to Mr Chips, who said that even great schools suffer vicissitudes, ‘dwindling almost to non-existence at one time, becoming almost illustrious at another’.

Pupils who visit Rugby or The Leys or LEH today would do well to tell themselves that these great schools were merely going through bad spells when the more horrid tales were set down.

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ionated were we that, on a trip to the Houses of Parliament, an MP told us we were like lions unto Christians. If only Ms Barber had been there then.

I doubt we’d have been any less inquisitive if we had read her memoirs before starting. Call me biased, but headstrong girls are, I think, less prone than boys to turn a book into a self-perpetuating prophecy. Even at university, many boys were attracted to the idea of the Bullingdon Club because it meant ‘being a part of something’, and that something was what they had read about in the novels of Evelyn Waugh. There were Old Etonians who seemed convinced that they were re-enacting the antics of Bertie Wooster, and already had Wodehousian sobriquets when they came up. Few girls, by contrast, cared to consider themselves offspring of St Trinian’s (said to have been inspired by the former Perse School for Girls and St Mary’s School, Cambridge).

Looking back, the charades of boys so wedded to the literary traditions of their schools made life more colourful than it might have been in the drab noughties. Ridiculous, yes, but such fun!

If such a prospect does little to temper the often intimidating act of finding your school in books, there are at least some brilliant teachers to discover. The wonderful Miss Jean Brodie nurtured vivacious girls in her school, based on Gillespie High School in Edinburgh. Miss Pym, of Josephine Tey’s 1946 novel, Miss Pym Disposes, might well have been on the staff of Anstey Physical Training College, where Tey was a student. Though the college was dissolved into Birmingham City University in the 1970s,

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BUILDING A NEST EGG FOR YOUR CHILD It is natural for any parent to want the best start in life for their children and putting money away for their future – perhaps to help with their education, career choices or buying their first home or car – is an important goal. But choosing the best way of saving for your child needs careful consideration.

USE AN ISA TO INVEST FOR JUNIOR The best way to ensure you are able to fund your child’s school fees is to start saving and investing as soon as possible, in a tax-efficient manner.

One of the main options available to parents is investing in a Junior Individual Savings Account (or ‘Junior ISA’). These allow parents to invest up to £4,000 a year for each of their children, which will be able to grow tax free. Investing regularly in a Junior ISA could reap handsome rewards – if you were to invest £4,000 a year into a Junior ISA for a new born child, when they reach 18 the ISA could be worth £131,996.

This assumes that the fund grows at 7% per annum with inflation at 2.5%.

This capital will be accessible once the child reaches the age of 18 and so could be

used to finance them through university, covering fees, accommodation and maintenance.

Alternatively, the Junior ISA can be converted into an adult ISA with the full annual allowance available to continue to grow free of taxation.

Other options can include directly held investments in the parent’s own name, which can be used to take annual gains tax free if within the capital gains tax (CGT) allowance.

Capital can also be invested via an offshore bond. This allows a portfolio to be invested without taxation (deferred rather than tax free) and allows withdrawals of up to 5% per annum to be taken, again without a tax liability at the time. This can be useful when it comes to paying annual school fees.

If grandparents want to contribute, there are inheritance tax benefits. Each person can gift up to £3,000 a year completely free from inheritance tax. It may be possible to set up a discretionary trust so that grandparents can help fund school fees, with the income being treated as the child’s own for tax purposes.

START THEM EARLY WITH A STAKEHOLDER PENSION Parents taking an even longer term view about their child’s future could consider investing in a pension that might make them a millionaire by the time they come to retire. If parents and grandparents were to invest £300 a month (£3,600 per annum – which is the maximum allowed) into a stakeholder pension for a new born child, they could have a pension fund worth £1,670,000* by the time they reach the age of 55.

Overall, there is much to consider when looking at putting money aside for your children. While some private investors feel they have the knowledge to make their own choices, getting expert advice is a good idea if you are not as well-versed in the ways of the investment world. Putting your investments in the hands of a professional can be an ideal solution – particularly when saving for something as important as your child’s future.

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state-of-the-art facilities and a 500seat theatre, surrounded by the same green playing fields. This one, however, is in Tianjin, China, about 90 miles south-east of Beijing. It’s a replica, but with genuine British roots.

Wellington College International Tianjin was set up in 2011 to offer expats and Chinese families the option of a ‘first-class British education for two- to 18-year-olds’. The imitation of the original Wellington runs deep: pupils wear the same uniform as their UK peers, including tartan skirts for the girls, and experience the same distinctive ethos. Fees aren’t cheap (up to £23,000 a year) but parents are Shipping out: Harrow led the charge, opening a school in Bangkok in 1998 eager to pay. The school is so popular that Wellington last year opened a second outpost in Shanghai and plans to open a third in Hong Kong.

For parents in the UK, the revolutionary thing is that these schools British satellite schools are everywhere, writes Will Heaven are already starting to send profits back to Britain to fund bursaries and scholarships. Sir Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, tells me it’s ‘not huge sums’ yet, but he ate last year Britain’s independent schools hopes that within five years £3 million could be fed back received a wake-up call. Andrew Halls, head- from China to his school every year. That could make a master of King’s College School in Wimble- huge difference in terms of affordability, which he agrees don, delivered it. Far too many of them, he is a major issue for independent schooling in the UK. said, have become the ‘finishing schools for the Wellington is not alone. Dulwich College realised it children of oligarchs’ because of an ‘apparently endless was so popular with Asian parents that, a decade ago, it queue’ of wealthy foreigners who have pushed fees sky- began to move the mountain to Mohammed. It now has high; there’s a ‘fees time bomb ticking away’ and one day, seven schools in Asia teaching more than 5,000 children: when it explodes, a lot of these schools are going to be there are Dulwich Colleges in Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, screwed. It really was that blunt. Cue cheers from strug- Suzhou, Zhuhai and Singapore. It’s the Starbucks of Britgling parents all over the country, and squeals from school ish public schools — a massive international franchise. governors, who’d rather no one asked too many questions Harrow also has satellite schools abroad. In fact it was about the £30,000 price tag on a child’s yearly education. the first, with a school in Bangkok in 1998. Its straw boatMartin Stephen, the former High Master of St Paul’s ers amused the locals, who associated them not with playSchool, once issued a similarly forth- ing fields but paddy fields. Again, profits in Asia equals right warning about extortionate fees bursaries in the UK. Andrew Halls recently revealed that There are Dulwich Colleges in the pages of the Daily Telegraph: his own school also hopes to raise money from China. in Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, ‘I was rapped so hard on the knuck- KCS is reportedly signing a deal to help establish ten les that I nearly lost my hands,’ he schools in China over the next 20 years — which would Suzhou, Zhuhai, Singapore remembered recently. bring in £7 million a year in bursary funding.

But could it be that the answer to The scale of this Asian expansion is astonishing. It’s this problem — rich foreigners pricing out British families a new British Empire of education. The Independent — is staring us in the face? If there’s an ‘endless queue’ Schools Council says there are now 29 outposts of UK of aspirational foreigners for our top private schools, why independent schools across the world, educating some not go to the source, educate them overseas and then use 18,784 pupils. There’s even a Haileybury in Kazakhstan the profits from this to fund bursaries and scholarships and a Sherborne in Qatar. The great risk is that the market for pupils in the UK? It’s a progressive idea, and one that reaches saturation point — or that British schooling simply goes out of fashion. Foreign parents suddenly decide a handful of independent schools are already trying out.

The famous red-brick buildings of Wellington College that actually they want their kids to head to US universibelong to the village of Crowthorne in Berkshire. That’s ties and they’re not convinced the straw boaters will help.

At the moment, however, that day seems very far off. where Queen Victoria herself laid the foundation stone of the public school in 1859. But scroll down a few pages on There’s an enormous and growing appetite for this great Google and you’ll find another Wellington College. It has British export. In time it could be the thing that makes an identical look: the same classical buildings, including independent schooling in the UK affordable once again.

Our educational empire

L

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Churchill returns to Harrow, his alma mater, in 1960

State of the reunion Going to an old boys’ gathering can be great fun and really rather cheering, says Mark Palmer

T

hank goodness for name badges. There comes a time when they are indispensable — and none more so than at school reunions.

Big lettering on the badges helps, too.

It means you can read the name of Perkins minor at a distance before shuffling over to offer a friendly handshake or scurrying behind a pillar before the bastard spots you.

Of course, there are those who resolutely refuse to go to reunions on principle. After all, if you really wanted to re-establish contact with that boy or girl you sat next to in Mr Winter’s history class, you would have done so ten, 20 or 60 years ago. Facebook, LinkedIn and suchlike can all help trace people who were part of your life as a student.

So why bother?

I’ve not bothered many times but have also bothered quite a lot over the years. Not long before Christmas an email arrived from my prep school, Sunningdale, inviting old boys to the Rifles Club near London’s Grosvenor Square for a 140th anniversary drinks party.

There was no mention of buying a ticket or any suspicion of an auction to raise funds for a new science block.

Just turn up, find your badge and fill your glass. And that’s what a couple of hundred or so of us did.

The current headmaster, Tom Dawson, gave a good speech; his father, Tim, and uncle, Nick, who were joint headmasters before him, were in sprightly form; and even

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Mary Sheepshanks, wife of Charlie, who was the head from 1953 to 1967, turned up at the age of 83, kissing all the ‘boys’ as if they were eight-year-olds on their first night in the Lower Dorm.

One of the highlights was hearing that earlier in the day Sunningdale had beaten Ludgrove at Fives. Sunningdale beating Ludgrove at anything was always cause for unbridled celebration. If you ever wanted to appeal to the Dawson twins for leniency over some minor misdemeanour, the moment to do it was just after Sunningdale had held Ludgrove to a draw on the football pitch. And on the rare occasion when we beat them, you could ask for pretty much anything you wanted.

Sunningdale, I grant you, has always been an acquired taste. My brother, who was hopeless at games, struggled, and Ferdinand Mount was disparaging about the place in his memoir Cold Cream. But I loved it from the moment I turned up shortly before my eighth birthday in 1962 — and so I loved those couple of hours at the Rifles Club.

Five or six from my year were there, all charming, some rich, some without a bean. We drank a lot of bubbly and then moved next door to the pub for burgers and Merlot.

We might never see each other again but a circle had been completed.

During the evening I found myself chatting to a bearded man even older than me. He was not wearing a badge.

That’s because he was HRH Prince Michael of Kent. He told me what a ‘great occasion’ it was, and although he has to say that wherever he goes, I think he meant it.

I’ve also been to a few reunions of my house at senior school. In fact, although my housemaster, Martin ‘Bush’ Forrest, died some years ago, dinners are still held in his honour. The speeches are normally terrific. Yes, you might easily find yourself sitting next to someone you’ve spent decades avoiding, but there’s no denying the camaraderie.

Forrest was a kind and forgiving man (once, when he had to beat me, he made such a rotten job of it that I almost felt I should have asked him to try again), and the dinners always seem to be imbued with his gentle spirit.

Forrest was replaced as housemaster by a classicist called Alastair Graham, who was a very different character. He didn’t much care for me and, frankly, the feeling was mutual. A couple of years ago I was invited to attend a dinner at White’s to celebrate his 80th birthday. I went because a couple of friends persuaded me to do so. Then, to my horror, I was asked to give the speech, because apparently I was one of the oldest who had signed up to attend.

Politely, I refused. ‘Well, would you say grace?’ asked the fellow who was organising the bash. A pleasure, I replied.

I then spent the next couple of months learning by heart the longest Latin grace I could find. It went on and on and on. The ‘Amen’ at the end was thunderous, a mixture of relief and bemusement.

Graham looked down the table at me, the stroppy teenager who failed Latin O-level first time round and only just scraped through in French. ‘I always thought Palmer would be a late developer,’ he said.

A week or so later Graham wrote to me warmly, and I wrote back just as warmly. I feel good about that. Reunions are better for the soul than they are for the liver.

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IBSTOCK PLACE SCHOOL

SENIOR SCHOOL OPEN EVENING 5.00-7.00pm Wednesday 6 May 2015 PREP SCHOOL OPEN MORNINGS 9.30am Wednesday 22 April 2015 9.30am Wednesday 10 June 2015 For further information please contact the Registrar, Miss Catherine Voysey IBSTOCK PLACE SCHOOL, CLARENCE LANE, LONDON, SW15 5PY Tel: 020 8392 5803 email: registrar@ibstockplaceschool.co.uk www.ibstockplaceschool.co.uk ADVERT - Ibstock_09-Mar-2015_Spectator Supplements 210x260 25

03/03/2015 16:57

Trip adviser School outings have been transformed, says Ed Cumming

T

o an older generation a school trip was something to be endured as much as enjoyed. It meant an expedition to peer at frogspawn in Epping Forest or, for the recklessly profligate, maybe a coach to Skegness. Over recent decades, however, as top schools have raised their fees in line with the international oligarchy’s ability to pay them, school trips have come to resemble the work of chichi travel agents. Designed to build character, they now build air miles.

The trend was already well under way when I was at school in the austere early noughties. Twice a year we went on ‘expeditions’. Some were to the traditional sodden youth hostels in Wales, but there were also such tests

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of young manhood as ‘swimming in the south of France’ and ‘culture break in Marrakech’. Good preparations for life, if the life you have in mind is that of an ageing gay aristocrat from an Alan Hollinghurst novel. There was one trip to Skegness, but it was to play golf rather than the bracing seaside trials of yore.

At any rate, the real preoccupations on these missions were smoking, drinking and chasing girls. By the time we hit sixth form and went to Florence and Paris for history of art (there’s no art in London, seemingly) we were to be ‘treated like adults’. This meant that the preoccupations were still smoking, drinking and chasing girls, but the teachers no longer had to pretend to care. Bliss for all concerned.

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I have since come to realise that compared to what some other schools got up to, these outings were a model of parsimony and restraint. A girl I know went on a threeweek creative writing trip to South Africa in her final year of school. This involved lying in the bush waiting for ‘the Muse’, presumably while her parents lay awake at home waiting for the bill. ‘We weren’t allowed our mobile phones,’ she recalls, ‘or any other technology. But it was quite fun. The stars looked amazing. I guess it was quite good value — it wasn’t my money, after all.’

South Africa is a mere hop compared to some voyages. A close relative went on a biology field trip to the Galápagos. ‘It was good,’ he says. ‘A lot of guys got action with these American girls at the hotel in Ecuador. We went swimming with giant sea turtles and sea lions. Then we went to a hummingbird sanctuary, which was cool but this boy killed one by accident and looked like the most cruel man in the world. It was very unlucky. He just spun around with his arm and happened to kill it.’ The boy has apparently made a full recovery.

Even in this era of profligacy, most beanos still require an excuse. Sport and drama have long been the most obvious — especially cricket, which is played mainly in places — aside from England, of course — where it doesn’t rain.

But there are other admirable ruses out there. Catherine went on a school camel ride across the Sinai desert ‘for Religious Studies’. ‘I was 17,’ she says. ‘We had to keep loo roll in a plastic bag so as not to pollute. We trekked and slept literally on the sand. No tents. One day we had to go off and meditate. I fell asleep and was nearly left

stranded by the camel fleet. It didn’t help that our teacher was nearly 80.’

Other destinations mentioned by those I spoke to included Canada (wildlife), Iceland, Greenland (aurora borealis), New York (culture), China (culture), Japan (singing). The whole globe covered, more or less, by a tiny selection of British schools.

What do the teachers make of all this gallivanting around? They are hardly blind to the cost, and unless they went to Hogwarts, it’s unlikely that they were exposed to the same calibre of outing during their own childhood.

Is the modern school trip the independent schools’ version of the spurious ‘conference’ in Hawaii? ‘I think ‘All these kids run round there is this perception that the trips getting drunk so it’s quite are a big jolly,’ says one departmental hard to do so yourself’ head at a top public school. ‘But actually they’re very hard work. You have all these kids running around getting drunk so it’s quite hard to do so yourself.’

Still, it’s hard to see the trend reversing soon. Britain’s best schools represent a large and expanding global industry. School trips, like the Festival Hall-style concert facilities and Olympic-standard swimming pools, are part of the package offered as compensation for the inability to guarantee little Johnny’s IQ. School-leavers have always been asked, ‘Where are you going next?’ It used to be a polite question about university or career plans. Increasingly it is a desperate inquiry about whether they have anywhere left in the world to visit.

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rather be doing whatever boring thing you’ve just been invited to, but you can’t, you simply can’t, because little Johnny and his teachers would never forgive you.

And I love it because parents’ evenings are one of the few events in the school calendar you can really enjoy. Unlike with plays or concerts, you don’t have to sit there for hours, alternating between boredom (at having to watch other people’s kids do their thing) and terror (that your child might fluff his lines or play a bum note).

Unlike with remembrance services you don’t have to be solemn.

Unlike with sports days, no one gets to see how crap your car is or how basic your picnic. Unlike the rest of the time, you don’t have to be embarrassed about forgetting all the teachers’ or other parents’ names because the teachers are labelled for you at their desks and the parents wear badges with names on (usually their kids’, which isn’t perfect but does at least get you into the right ball park).

Also, they’re such brilliant occasions for people-watching. Here are some stereotypes I’ve encountered over the years. See how many of these are familiar.

‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not at bloody Eton. I’m a girl. Idiot!’

Parent-watching You see all sorts at school evenings, says James Delingpole

O

ne of the most satisfying phrases in the English language is: ‘Sorry. I’m afraid I have to go to a parents’ evening.’

I love it because it’s such a perfect excuse for turning down dreary social engagements: you come across like someone who takes his parental responsibilities seriously but at the same time, if you use the right tone, as someone who’d much

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Miss Squib Wet primary school teacher. All you bloody want is to hear how well your child is doing.

But she can’t or won’t tell you a) because she’s drippy and useless and b) it seems the rules in the state system forbid any form of grading or criticism. Instead, she shows you a form your child has filled in outlining his ‘goals’ for the year. They consist of crap like ‘writing more tidily’ and ‘listening more to other people in group discussions’.

Miss DeKlerk Heavenly colonial.

She’s usually Antipodean or South African and because she hails from a tradition where they haven’t quite fallen for all that dumbed-down, PC crap, she breaks all the state primary rules by talking knowledgeably and enthusiastically about stuff like times tables and grammar and how well your child is doing in spelling tests. You come away feeling smug and happy over the £5,000 a term you’re saving because she’s easily as good as you get in the private sector. Next year, unfortunately, your child’s class teacher is Miss Squib.

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Miss Yummy Mmmmm. Miss Yummy has the most dar-

ling, exquisite freckles on her sweet nose and a fetching blush to her cheeks and eyes like pools of — what? — molten dark chocolate infused with essence of wild rose, maybe, and lips so tender and pouty that you really must stop staring in case she notices. For some reason, the wife can’t stand her.

Mrs Push Mrs Push is the mother of Quentin Push who is

in the first XI, doing grade VIII piano and flugelhorn and is expected to get the top scholarship to Winchester. Like all the other mums who can afford not to work, she spends so much time at Quentin’s prep school watching matches, organising the organic fayre, etc that she knows all the staff members by name and hovers round them proprietorially at parents’ evening, making you — and your wife especially — feel like shit.

Barry Hedgefund Barry is sleek, expensively dressed

and is buggered if, what with the money he spent on the new sports hall and his time being so valuable, he is going to stick to the strict five minutes per pupil that has been allotted for each parent. As his time overruns and the parents whose slot it is now shuffle from foot to foot and make coughing noises, Barry leans forward more intently the better to concentrate on what the teacher is saying.

Time slots are for the little people.

Jeremy Celebrity Jeremy Celebrity is the most famous

parent in the school but today he is just a parent like all the others. Except for the permanent rictus grin — designed simultaneously to reassure and ward off. All the other dads go to extravagant lengths not to make eye contact lest they give the impression that they are impressed.

ash_qp.indd 1

Emily Blush Emily’s headmaster has given her the job

of ringing a little bell to mark the end of each five-minute slot which is, like, so totally embarrassing because it means that she’s standing in the same room as her parents and her teachers at the same time. Which is, like, so never meant to happen and she just wants to die. Later her dad tells her it could be worse. At Eton, you actually have to sit with your parents, listening together to what your teacher is saying. ‘Yeah,’ says Emily. ‘But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not at bloody stupid Eton. I’m a girl. Idiot!’

inspiring

8/7/14 11:07:16

independent minds

Ivo Fforde-fforde-d’eath Because more than three gen-

erations of Fforde-fforde-d’eaths have been to ‘School’, their names are inscribed on the wall, which Ivo loves.

Another great thing about having been at School is that on parents’ day while you’re hanging around in Bekynton, you get to see all your old schoolfriends and check out who has bagged the most rogerable wife.

A leading boarding and day school for girls aged 11-18, offering an outstanding all-round education.

James Embarrassment James is here for three main rea-

sons: to goad the lefty teachers; to encourage the sound teachers to restore his faith in the world by getting them to slag off the crap poetry gobbets in the English syllabus which are probably only there because the authors are black; and to embarrass his children. In the car home he gets ticked off by the wife for being so appallingly behaved. Job done, then.

Scholarships available at 11+ , 13+ & 16+ Daily transport available

Come to an Open Morning: Saturday 25 April 2015 T: 01747 857111 or visit www.st-marys-shaftesbury.co.uk

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Seb Payne’s schooldays

GETTY IMAGES

How it all went right, by Sebastian Payne

T

he 17th of December 1999, nothing more than an ordinary school day close to the Christmas break. But to my family, it was a devastating moment. That morning a letter dropped on to the doormat informing us that I would not be attending Emmanuel College for my secondary education. Places at Emmanuel, one of the original city technology colleges, were the most coveted in Gateshead.

It’s easy to see why: a school with no fees offering a topnotch education. It was such a successful venture that it inspired Andrew Adonis to start the academies programme during his time as schools minister.

Five years later, the Paynes were waiting for another communiqué on the future of my education. This time it was from a small private school across the river in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Thankfully, it was good news. The sixth form at Dame Allan’s Schools accepted my application and I waved goodbye to the state sector. Making this rare switch for the last two years of my schooling was an unsettling and costly move, especially for a single-parent family.

My mother and father were both educated at grammar schools, something they would have wished for me. But like many families in the latter half of the 20th century, we were stuck in the middle-class quandary of choosing between the local comprehensive or doling out money.

After failing to get a place at Emmanuel, I had spent the first five years of my secondary education at St Thomas More Catholic High School, an excellent comprehensive in a suburb of Gateshead. Thomas More was marked ‘an outstanding and inclusive school’ by Ofsted in 2013, after becoming an academy in 2012. But my time there was far from smooth. I was dumped in the third-from-bottom stream in my first year and had to work my way up to the top tier. Being labelled the most nerdy boy in the year (undeniably true) does not make for an easy existence among a group of 200-odd teenagers vying to fit in. And in retrospect, the lack of anything computing or technology-related on the As a prefect in Dame Allan’s curriculum was appalling. junior school I was attacked So by the time I reached the end with metal rulers every day of Year 11, it was time for a change.

Emmanuel was out of the question — too much resentment — so we opted for the smaller of Newcastle’s main private schools: Dame Allan’s. Compared to the Royal Grammar School, it is friendlier and less of a hothouse. My first few days were terrifying and a tad lonely, just like starting any new school. The primary, secondary and sixth-form schools of Dame Allan’s form a diamond structure, as described

by Eleanor Doughty on page 19, so most of the students knew each other already. Our band of newcomers stuck together until we drifted into different groups of friends.

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Stairway to heaven

It’s hard to pin down exactly what I found so wonderful about Dame Allan’s. The facilities were not spectacularly better than those at Thomas More. Nor did I feel I was being worked infinitely harder. It was probably the ethos and being surrounded by like-minded people. The camaraderie of a smaller school makes it easier to be more individual yet still feel part of something. The school had a different spirit, and focused on achieving greater things.

From the Young Enterprise society to being a prefect in the junior school — where I was attacked daily with sharp metal rulers — Dame Allan’s did everything possible to turn me into a well-rounded individual.

The teachers in my core A-level subjects of politics, computing and business were highly experienced and not overly concerned about sticking to the curriculum. I was encouraged to dig further into topics I found of particular interest during my spare time — something I continue to do now. When I moved to Dame Allan’s, friends from the state school would ask whether it was really worth all that money, and what I thought of the people, assuming the private school was full of unsavoury characters. In fact it was the opposite. I was happier than I had ever been, with a group of friends I still remain in regular touch with almost a decade after we first met.

As my two short years came to an end, there was one moment that had a very definite impact on the rest of my life. While mulling over whether to study politics or computer science at university with my tutor Robert Oliver, he offered me some sage advice. ‘Sebastian, if you want to get a job after university, I’d advise studying something other than politics. Go and do computer science and you can rediscover politics later.’ I did just that and a few years later, I landed my dream job of becoming a political journalist for The Spectator. Were it not for the teaching, advice and encouragement of a small independent school, that would not have happened. It was the best decision of my life.

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05/03/2015 12:53

A guide to Easter revision colleges College

Courses

Av. class Dates size

Fees

Website

Ashbourne College 17 Old Court Place London W8 4PL 020 7937 3858 admin@ ashbournecollege. co.uk

All main subjects offered at all levels. Specific individual unit revision courses offered in mathematics; otherwise AS or A2 for specific sessions restricted to Ashbourne’s exam boards. Useful course pack provided and end-ofcourse report.

7

Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April

£500 per course (15 hours’ tuition)

www.ashbournecollege.co.uk

Bath Academy 27 Queen Square Bath BA1 2HX 01225 334 577 revision@ bathacademy.co.uk

Small group tuition and bespoke one-to-one tuition available in all major A-level and GCSE subjects.

Half-day courses run Monday to Friday (20 hours). Students study four hours per day per course, including assessment with written feedback. End of course report.

2/3

Monday 30 March to Thursday 2 April; Tuesday 7 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April

Small group £620 (fiveday) or £500 (4-day). Oneto-one tuition is £192.50 for four hours, Single hours £55

www.bathacademy.co.uk

Cambridge Centre for Sixth-form Studies 4-5 Benet Place Lensfield Road Cambridge CB2 1EL 01223 707942 admissions@ccss. co.uk

All main GCSE and A-level subjects. Intensive revision of core topics and exam practice.

Individual tuition available for some subjects. We can provide boarding for AS/A2 students.

Courses run in 3.5-hour sessions with option in maths and science to take sessions on specific units.

6

Monday 30 March to Friday 10 April (excluding bank holidays)

£125 per session; courses run for two to six sessions.

Option to take several courses over one or two weeks

www.ccss.co.uk

Carfax Tutorial Establishment 39-42 Hythe Bridge Street Oxford OX1 2EP 01865 200676 admissions@ carfax-oxford.com

All subjects offered at A-level (AS/A2) and GCSE. Subject tutorials one-to-one, study skills and exam technique taught in groups. Formal mock exam practice included. Morning and/ or afternoon sessions. Post-course report. Half days: 22 hours total per week. Whole days: 38 hours total per week.

1

Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April. Tuition possible on other dates.

Please inquire

Half days £515 per week. Whole days £945 per week.

Acommodation from £200 a week

www.carfax-oxford.com

Chelsea Independent College 517-523 Fulham Road, London SW6 1HD 020 7610 1114 enquiries@cic.ac

All main subjects offered for AS, A2 and GCSE. Twenty- or 40-hour sessions. Intensive tuition in small classes, comprehensive revision of exam syllabus, focus on exam technique, daily exam practice on past papers, takeaway course notes. Boarding accommodation available.

6

Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April

Full A-level £1,050 per subject (40 hours); AS or A2 £600 per subject (20 hours); GCSE £475 per subject (20 hours)

www.chelseaindependent college.com

Collingham College 23 Collingham Gardens London SW5 0HL 020 7244 7414 easter @collingham.co.uk

All main subjects at A-level (A2 & AS) and GCSE offered.

Homework set throughout with reports at end of course. GCSE combined science (28 hours) £770.

Examination skills day £160, or £80 when in conjunction with a full revision course.

5

Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April (GCSE: Monday 30 to Thursday 2); Monday 6 to Friday 10 April (GCSE: Tuesday 7 to Friday 10); Monday 13 to Friday 17 April (GCSE: Monday 13 to Thursday 16)

A-level (17.5 hours): one subject £520, two £1,000.

GCSE (14 hours): one subject £410, two £780, three £1,150

www.collingham.co.uk

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College

Courses

Av. class Dates size

Fees

Website

Duff Miller College 59 Queen’s Gate London SW7 5JP 020 7225 0577 enqs@duffmiller.com

All main subjects offered for AS, A2, GCSE or IGCSE levels. (combined science counts as two GCSE subjects.) Individual tuition often available for subjects that will not have a class. Boarding accommodation available.

6

Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April

Full A-level £1,050 (40 hours). AS or A2 £600 (20 hours).

GCSE £475 (20 hours)

www.duffmiller.com

Lansdowne College 40-44 Bark Place London W2 4AT 020 7616 4400 education@ lansdownecollege. com

All main subjects at A-level (A2 and AS) and GCSE are offered.

Combined science counts as two GCSE subjects. Individual tuition available on request. All exam boards offered. Boarding accommodation available

6

Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April

Full A-level £1,050 (40 hours). AS or A2 £600 (20 hours); GCSE £475 (20 hours)

www.lansdownecollege.com

MPW (Birmingham) 17-18 Greenfield Crescent Birmingham B15 3AU 0121 454 9637 enq@birmingham. mpw.co.uk

All major A-level and GCSE subjects offered. Half-day specialist modules (e.g. in history and English literature) available for £138 per session.

4

Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April

£509 per course (17.5 hours)

www.mpw.co.uk/ birmingham

MPW (London) 90/92 Queen’s Gate London SW7 5AB 020 7835 1355 london@mpw.co.uk

All main subjects at A-level (A2 & AS) and GCSE offered.

Forty-hour A-level mathematics course available for £1,095. Eighthour seminar courses in classical civilisation, English literature and religious studies for £312. Thirtyhour combined science GCSE course for £943. Board-specific.

7 (max 9)

Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April; Monday 13 April to Friday 17 April

Per course (20 hours): one subject £708; two £1,416; three £1,928; four £2,407

www.mpw.co.uk

Oxford International College Oxford Centre for Innovation 1 London Place Oxford OX4 1BD 01865 240637 info@oxss.co.uk

All main subjects at A-level, GCSE, IGCSE and IB. Weeklong residential or non-residential courses. Study skills included. End of course reports provided.

3 (max 6)

Monday 23 March to Friday 27 March; Monday 30 March to Friday 3 April; Monday 6 April to Friday 10 April

£730 for fiveday course (30 hours of timetabled study).

Additional £315 for full-board

www.oxcoll.com

Oxford Tutorial College 12 King Edward Street Oxford OX1 4HT 01865 793333 info@otc.ac.uk

All main A-level and Pre-U subjects offered; GCSE mathematics, English and science offered on half-day and full-day basis. Fully residential A-level and Pre-U courses available for £1,040.

6

Sunday 29 March to Thursday 2 April (GCSE: 30 March to 2 April); Tuesday 7 April to Saturday 11 April (GCSE: 7 April to 10 April)

A-level £680 (21 hours); GCSE £275 (12 hours) or £500 (24 hours)

www.otc.ac.uk

All the above colleges are members of the Council for Independent Education (www.cife.org.uk), a national organisation of independent colleges which specialise in preparing students for university entrance.

14 MARCH 2015 | SPECTATOR SCHOOLS | IN ASSOCIATION WITH BREWIN DOLPHIN

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05/03/2015 14:19

An acquired taste Happy memories of singing at school

Boys, by Edward Bell

B

oy or girl, it isn’t easy being a full-time chorister, but the rewards are vast. For me, it was a good two years before the homesickness fully dissipated, and I was a veteran nine-yearold before I started really having fun. A year later the school became co-ed and our elite band had to adjust to the sudden arrival of girls. For a brief moment I thought they were even going to infiltrate the ranks of the choir. I couldn’t articulate why, but I remember thinking that would have been a bad thing.

Very aware of the limitations of my own voice, I developed an obsession with the voices of others. Singing with the girls at school, I noticed that while their voices lacked the individuality of boys’ voices, they had a natural purity and sounded cleaner. There’s a lot to be said for that purity. I’d postulate that — for trained singers — girls’ voices blend more naturally than boys’.

Beyond that there really isn’t much between the two. It’s like being asked to comment on the difference between two types of Rioja. Many can’t and, as per girls and boys voices, wouldn’t notice if you mixed the two together.

Chris Gray, director of music at Truro Cathedral, is in the process of setting up a girls’ choir and says the difference between voices reminds him of the Pepsi Challenge, but that despite the vocal similarities Truro’s choirs will sing separately. Truro’s girls’ choir will be drawn from 13to 18-year-olds since, as Gray says, it makes sense to work with emotionally maturing young women, rather than girls. Voice breaks mean that boys, on the other hand, must be trained from a comparatively immature age.

Given the vast difference in rehearsal needs between a seven-year-old boy and an 18-year-old woman, the decision to keep the choirs separate is understandable.

Even if mixed choirs aren’t going to be a reality yet for our top cathedrals, it’s right to encourage girl choristers. Britain has a strong choral tradition, which has been going for longer than you’d think. The midpoint between now and when my old school started to educate boy trebles for the choir at Windsor Castle predates Haydn and Bach being born. Astonishing when you think about it.

Girls, by Camilla Swift

U

ntil the age of eight I attended a very nice school for little girls, in Windsor. We wore pinafores and cardigans; straw boaters in the summer, felt ones in the winter, and when there was a state visit to Windsor Castle we all lined up along the Long Walk, like the wellbehaved little girls we were (well, sometimes at least).

Then everything changed. Our local choir school, after

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644 years of educating young boys, decided to admit girls, and I became one of their first ever intake.

My new school was very different. The houses were named after Royal Navy ships, Latin grammar was taught from the age of eight and blackboard rubbers were regularly thrown around the classroom. Slowly but surely the school adjusted to girls. We got our own PE teacher, which meant we no longer played football and cricket with the boys, and in my final year we even got our own dormitory.

But there was one aspect of the school where girls were never going to be accepted; the choir. In every year group there were six or so boys who wore a red tie rather than a blue, all of whom boarded. They got up early every morning for choir practice, practising again every afternoon before their Evensong service.

While they did that, we ‘supers’ — as non-choristers were called — had plenty of other things to do. German lessons while the choristers did their morning practice, and prep and after-school activities during the school day, while they had to do theirs after Evensong. But perhaps most important musically, we also had our own choir, which girls could join, and sang at places including Long­ leat House, St Bartholomew the Great, Windsor Castle, and Eton’s Sunday chapel services.

Was being persona non grata in the choir proper such a bad thing? I think I did jolly well by it. The musical experience I gained served me in good stead all the way to music A-level and Grade VIII singing. I didn’t miss out on German classes or after-school activities, and although our choir didn’t have the prestige of the Chapel Choir, it was a far sight better than most school choirs. Perhaps some girls will still feel left out by being prevented from auditioning by their sex, and no, it’s not ‘gender equal’.

But rightly or wrongly, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Voice trials for the boys’ choir at Truro Cathedral can be arranged through Polwhele House School. Auditions for the girls’ choir are through Truro School.

IN ASSOCIATION WITH BREWIN DOLPHIN | SPECTATOR SCHOOLS | 14 MARCH 2015

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Sculpture produced by Dunhurst Art scholarship group and Art teacher Andy Cheese

Bedales Prep, Dunhurst 8 -13 “The quality of academic and other achievements is excellent.�

ISI Report, 2014

Flexi boarding | Main entry points to Bedales Schools available at Nursery, 8+, 11+, 13+, 16+ To book a place on an open morning or to arrange an individual visit, please contact Janie Jarman, Registrar T: 01730 711733 E: admissions@bedales.org.uk Petersfield, Hampshire

www.bedales.org.uk

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04/03/2015 15:57

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03/03/2015 16:59