Headmaster’s Statement

WELCOME

Headmaster’s Statement

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair’.

Dickens’ eloquent and moving depiction of the divisions underpinning 18th Century Europe seems particularly apposite as I reflect on this past year. A year of such great contrasts: highs and lows, cast from a time of crisis, bringing out the best of our community and yet asking so much from it. It would be wrong of me not to acknowledge the enormous suffering faced by so many of our number at St Dunstan’s. For some, the disease of Covid 19 has struck directly, causing illness and loss of life within families near and far. For all of us, the indirect impacts of the pandemic have been significant. Lockdowns for the young have been shown to be particularly egregious. To be deprived of the social affirmation and interaction so necessary at a young age, has been an enormous psychological burden to bear. When coupled to an internet-age, where social media becomes the crutch onto which growing hands must grasp, we see the perfect storm for the sort of problems we are now seeing as a country. Forget the third wave; I see a new pandemic for the nation, and one that needs more than lockdowns to keep it from our door. It needs a creative, compassionate and courageous approach to the care of our young, to educational thinking and its leadership. Fortunately, it does seem as though the DNA of St Dunstan’s has been particularly well programmed to respond to the challenges the pandemic has thrown at us. I have long championed the importance of a values-driven education. An education that, first and foremost, roots outcomes in the development of good character, open-mindedness, creative-thinking and resilience. An education that is academically ambitious and stimulating but not at any cost. An education that develops young men and women who can cope with the vagaries of life and in an increasingly uncertain world. It is an education like this that has been shown to come into its own during the pandemic. Any school can create a narrow-minded and self-satisfying culture that drives for academic attainment as its sole goal. It takes a brave and integrous school to say that everything else matters just as much. The Forder Programme, The Festival, Adventure Week – we do these things not because they are elaborate extras that can be delivered by a well-resourced school, but because they genuinely matter. They matter because they scaffold the enlivenment of our values and as such help develop young men and women with the skills required to withstand the challenges of life.

I want at this point to thank my staff. For a team used to change management, overseeing a school amid an international crisis does somewhat play to their strengths, however, I do not believe it is going too far to state that they have excelled. At every point of this pandemic, the staff at St Dunstan’s have wanted to keep one step ahead. They have always sought to do everything within their power not just to survive the pandemic but to thrive throughout it. And at the core of all the planning, all the necessary response to changing guidance, all the complex decision making, at the centre of it all, has always been the pupils. What can we do to help the pupils weather this unsightly storm? For their grit and humanity, the staff have my enormous gratitude. Of the many things this pandemic has taught us, fundamental perhaps is the emerging view that society needs to change. The societal backlash in light of this pandemic, as we have seen throughout history in the wake of other great crises, has made us all ask questions of ourselves and of society at large. The Black Lives Matter movement and Everyone’s Invited will both become milestone events in our contemporary history. Important, fundamental signposts for change and to recognise the need to cherish diversity and to ensure that equality is at the forefront of our thinking. Schools have been exposed as being far off the mark in this regard – part of the problem; inward looking institutions that have become hubristic as a consequence of narrow definitions of success. But schools can be part of the solution, too, and it is my great hope that the steps we have already taken at St Dunstan’s, and all that we have planned for next year, will lead the way in showing our sector that it is possible to have an ambitious academic education which is not divorced from values of inclusion, respect and openmindedness. For the independent sector, in particular, we must also do more to show that we are part of the social healing which will now necessarily follow this pandemic. Partnerships with our local communities are a fundamental part of this next chapter, showcasing that schools like ours can be of significant charitable benefit to the communities in which they are situated and for whom they were established to serve. And so to the Chronicle – our annual celebration of life at St Dunstan’s, and I am delighted that there is so much to celebrate despite the continued restrictions and difficulties of the last twelve months, as I hope will be evident through the pages that follow. Moving into our new Junior School, STEM and Sixth Form Centre has to be the highlight of the year. To have completed a 25 million pound project on time and to budget, in the middle of a pandemic, is a miraculous achievement and my sincere thanks (and admiration) go to the Bursar and her team. The new facilities have been simply transformative and the impact they have already had on the students is tangible. In a most unusual year for those students due to sit public examinations,

they have my considerable admiration. Students worked so hard to evidence what we know to be their considerable abilities, and they were rewarded with an excellent set of results. Ambitions are certainly high in our Sixth form, with 96% of students holding offers at Russell Group universities, and all of our medics and vets being successful in their applications, as well as other ambitious pathways to conservatoires, art schools and other specialist institutions, we have much of which to be very proud from our sixth form community. Demand for places at the College continues to increase every year. We saw another increase in registrations of over 20% for next academic year, at all entry points, and this undoubtedly affirms the view that expanding our pupil roll to 5 forms of entry in Year 7 is the right thing for us to do. We had an excellent write up from the Good Schools Guide, which really conjured up the essence of our school. The concluding sentence ‘a great school for unstuffy polymaths’ does make me smile! It was also very gratifying to learn that St Dunstan’s has once again been shortlisted for Independent Coeducational School of the Year 2021, which is quite extraordinary given our successful win last year. We have also been shortlisted for Prep School of the year. The St Dunstan’s Diapason was shaped by both the Black Lives Matter movement and Everyone’s Invited. At its core, it is about putting strategy and action into the hands of the students, and forging proactive and positive dialogue between them and staff. The task of the Diapason is clear. They are to consider how we might improve the celebration of diversity in our school, and also to ensure that we are doing everything possible to promote a culture of equality for all. I have been delighted by the enthusiasm shown for it. We have now established our five student

and five staff leads for sex and gender, sexual orientation, religion and belief, disability and race. I have no doubt that the Diapason will have a particularly exciting year next year as they begin to enact the changes they have planned. After several years of developing various projects and initiatives for the enhancement of our unique educational offer, we now believe we are in a position to better structure and articulate the St Dunstan’s Curriculum model, and what we seek to achieve from its constituent parts. Now named around the four imaginative and courageous first Heads of the College, we are particularly excited for the developments that have been made in our Usherwood (Pastoral Curriculum) and Stuart (Additional Curriculum) programmes to be introduced from September 2021. Pupil voice continues to be a defining feature of life at St Dunstan’s. Our Pupil Parliament worked hard this year, despite the challenges of the pandemic, culminating in our annual pupil conference. Pupil voice has played a fundamental role in implementing gender neutral approaches to sport and uniform, as well as shaping the designs of our new buildings and Sixth Form café, and taking a lead in steering our food offer within the Refectory. I want to thank The Friends of St Dunstan’s, who have had their work cut out trying to put on social events for our parents this year. The remote coffee mornings, Christmas film nights and virtual quiz, were all a great success, and I know we all look forward to a little more normality next year and the return of some of the ‘greats’, including, of course, the cheese and wine evening and the summer fete. This year just wasn’t the same without them! We were fortunate to end the academic year once again with the joy of our Summer Festival, able to happen against all the odds; from the most moving production of Our Land, directed by year 13 student Willow, to the brightness, energy and colour of the Year 6 production of Madagascar and Lower School production of Once on this Island. I have to admit that I found watching those children, many of whom were performing for the first time in nearly two years, very moving indeed. To see them courageously bounce back, ensembles finding their feet again, and parents braving the elements to be a part of it all, it says a great deal about our community and our collective spirit. And the Festival wasn’t the only wonderful feature of this year. I look back with great pride at the way our Forder programme was able to triumph virtually, in person and, in some cases, as a hybrid of the two. I think of Remembrance Day and the sea of black silhouettes, all the more poignant this year. I call to mind a determined St Dunstan’s. An indomitable spirit. A spirit determined to make the very best of it and do all that could possibly be done to carry on presenting the very best of ourselves whatever the hurdle in front of us.

Albam Exorna!

Mr N P Hewlett

Headmaster