Commemoration

CARDINAL HUME

Cardinal Basil Hume preached the Sermon in die Service at the Minster, which provided a memorable finale to the School year.

After the Service, Cardinal Hume blessed the memorial plaques in the ante-chapel. These record the heroism of two Old Peterites martyred at the beginning of the seventeenth century: John Mitchell gives details of their lives in his "Forgotten Fame" article on page 86.

THE HEAD MASTER'S SPEECH

Below we print extracts from the Head Master's Commemoration Address.

Review of the Year

There is an old Chinese proverb which states that the brain will only absorb what the seat will endure, and I use this rubric as a guide on these occasions not to bore you with too many details of this year's successes: scholarships gained, matches won, concerts performed and so on. These are more than adequately reported in the School magazine, and I wish to leave time this morning in order to share with you some of the concerns that have claimed much of my thoughts and attention over the last twelve months.

However, the achievements, even if touched on only briefly, cannot lightly be dismissed. There were our outstanding A-Level results last summer with a 93% pass rate and 65% of them at A, B and C grades. There were the nine successful Oxbridge candidates and the significandy improved G.C.S.E. record. Highlights of our sports programme have been the continuing success of the Boat Club, of the boys' and girls' tennis, of the girls' hockey and netball and the boys' squash; the Rugby tour of Portugal was worthwhile and enjoyable; and I am pleased that fencing is once again part of our options list. Two very intense and powerful plays have been produced — Ian Lowe's Dragons and Antony Dunn's Resurrection. The musicians have given us some splendid singing and playing in both me Minster and the Chapel, and a whole series of concerts through the year augurs well for the Choir and Band tour of Germany later this summer.

A glance back dirough my diary and files has reminded me of other particular areas and activities (the list that follows is necessarily selective): Comic Relief Day when me School thought (incorrecdy) tiiat I was going to remove my trousers in Chapel, the various meetings of our Amnesty International Group, our links at both pupil and staff level wim Selborne College in South Africa, die major Barry Daniel Fund Award to Matiiew Sumpton and Marc Mitchell for their coming trans-Africa expedition, the participation of Ann Hodgson and Charles Barlow in me north-east Schools' party to India and die continuing work of our voluntary service unit. Concerning mis last it was very gratifying for me to receive a letter from York City Charities thanking us for our help with die residents of Fotiiergill Homes during die February snow. The letter ended, "It must be said mat die association witii St. Peter's is most highly valued, and die many benefits which we enjoy through it are greatly appreciated. Indeed, die way community service is taught and also practised at St. Peter's is something of which you should be justly proud".

One or two otiier diary items of this last year: a farewell retirement party for Stan Shirreffs, our laundry manager, and John Hall, our head groundsman, after many years' fine service on the School's behalf; and inservice sessions for teaching staff which have covered such relevant matters as die role of die educational psychologist, alcohol and young people, and child abuse.

If my review of the year has been botii brief and sketchy it is because I wish to spend a short time sharing with you my reflections on a number of matters which have been at die forefront of my concerns during tiiis academic year. They are our current development programme; things academic including die National Curriculum, technology and the future of A-Levels; die importance of our boarding provision as an integral part of die School's life; and my so-to-speak constituencies of parents, staff and pupils.

First the recent improvements to our facilities. Appeal '89, through the generosity of so many parents, Old Peterites and other friends of the School, was a huge success, and donors received a report in January marking the achievement of reaching our revised target of £600,000. The results are visible around the School campus: the Chilman Building constitutes a junior School classroom complex, spacious, comfortable, utilitarian, aesthetically pleasing, surely as good as or better than any such provision elsewhere; the School Library, handsome, well-furnished, better serviced and stocked, attracting in particular our sixth formers with its quiet atmosphere for private study; the renovation of The Grove and Scott blocks as fine modern languages and mathematics centres, due to be opened on September 20th by Denis Hirst and Guy Shuttleworth respectively, an evening event to which in due course you will all be invited and hopefully come. These developments have significantly enhanced our educational plant. The Methodist Halls, in use currently for music and drama, have yet to be tackled, and I hope that sooner rather than later we can begin the work which will make them a worthy centre for the performing arts.

One other task is to be undertaken in the coming year and that is the renovation and partial rebuilding of the Chapel organ. Its present condition, after sixty years without significant attention, is both musically dire and electrically dangerous. This was not the ideal time for further financial outlay, but the Governors in their wisdom have recognised the importance of the organ and the part it plays not so much in our musical life but rather in the Chapel worship which lies at the heart of the School as a Christian community.

Academic matters

Now to academic matters. The National Curriculum and much that is related to it — A-Level reform, standard attainment targets, balanced science, technology — have been a constant and not always uplifting theme to my School year and that of the Second Master, the Heads of Department and other teaching staff. Two things are especially depressing: the confusions and uncertainties at the top with the Government tending to make policy 'on the hoof and the 'bleak-speak', the incomprehensible utterances of the two educational quangos, the National Curriculum Council (N.C.C.) and the Schools' Examination and Assessment Council (S.E.A.C.). I liked the Master of Haileybury's dig at S.E.A.C. which found its way into the columns of The Times. "S.E.A.C.", he said, "would translate those luminous words of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 'When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things' as, 'In the contextual situation of infancy I communicated in media appropriate to the age range, my comprehension was restricted to non-adult levels, and my cognitive processes were of only sub-adolescent equivalence. On the completion, however, of personal maturation I developed rejection tendencies towards primary hardware' ".

Our own particular concerns have been with balanced science and with technology. The National Curriculum balanced science has many virtues, and all our pupils embarking on G.C.S.E. either in 1992 and 1993 will undertake the new balanced science courses covering all three subjects — physics, chemistry and biology. This makes educational sense (and is indeed the only option open to us) but we continue to nurse the doubt as to whether our brightest pupils are being as fully stretched as in the former O-Level days. Concerning technology the educational gurus have yet to determine whether we are dealing with a specific subject or with a crosscurricular theme. C.D.T., in other words, may not be a full substitute for a discipline which is sometimes defined as embracing C.D.T., information technology, art, mathematics, science, business studies and home economics. Over the coming years I expect firmer directions and a more focussed philosophy to emerge. In the meantime Mr. Dawson has taken on the role of Head of Technology with a brief to plan, co-ordinate and implement this fresh approach through our eight to sixteen range. Suffice it to say that he has a challenging task. It will give the parents here this morning little cheer when they hear that we who are meant to be the professionals are so unsure and uncertain about these new departures and reforms. I give you just two further instances of confusion and muddle. The National Curriculum provides for testing of children at seven, eleven, fourteen and sixteen by means of S.A.T.'s (standard attainment targets). I am predisposed to follow the National Curriculum as closely as practicable (though we as an independent School are not legally required to do so). However, the procedure and proposals for the S.A.T. testing is in turmoil with pilot schemes having gone seriously wrong and different signals being sent out by the Government on the one hand and S.E.A.C. on the other. For the time being the prudent course for us will be to stand clear and wait and see. Watch this space! The other example of confusion and drift concerns ALevels, and the Government's recent White Paper on sixteen to nineteen education has done little to set a new agenda. Here is an examination attacked by the country's employers, by the heads of most secondary Schools, by the university vice-chancellors and even by the Prince of Wales. The response of the Government is to cling to it as part of England's eccentric genius. A-Levels from some points of view serve this School well: it is an examination which is sufficiently rigorous for the large majority of our sixth formers; it is relatively simple for us to staff and resource; it provides a well-practised if not always accurate selection test for entrance to degree courses. But its disadvantages are also clear: bright sixteen year-olds abandon all but three academic subjects, thus ensuring that scientists remain unread and arts pupils science-blind; and early sixth form specialisation narrows the pool from which university science and engineering departments are able to choose their students. The Government, in my view unrealistically, wishes to cling on to what it terms the gold standard of A-Levels while at the same time promoting the status of vocational courses. Perhaps a simpler or at least a first step would be to scrap A-Levels

and insist that university entrance should require five or six separate subjects, perhaps topped up with a specialist paper in one chosen discipline. If such a reform failed to increase the number of pupils staying in full-time education after sixteen it would at least ensure a more broadly educated sixth form product and a more satisfying and stimulating sixth form syllabus.

I must, however, add a footnote to leaven the lump of this curricular misery and show you that all is not completely doom and gloom in the classroom. A Headmaster of my acquaintance was visiting an English lesson for his eleven year-olds and, walking round looking over their shoulders at their poetry work, saw the following on one boy's page: Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow

Grief, grief, grief. The Headmaster was amazed and moved and said to the boy, "But that's marvellous, what a wonderful depth of poetic insight and feeling", to which the boy looked up and said, "But, Sir, it's not a poem; it's my spelling corrections".

Boarding

The issue of boarding education in general and boarding at St. Peter's in particular has been another continuing concern of mine this year. Currently boarding on a national scale is becoming less popular, and the Boarding Schools Association with I.S.I.S. (the Independent Schools Information Service) are organising a National Boarding Week in October to promote boarding and emphasise its worth to a new generation of parents who seem less inclined to consider this form of education for their children. At St. Peter's we have been working hard and successfully to buck the trend, and our boarding numbers are being sustained with a healthy strengthening in the younger age groups. This is something about which we should all be glad: I am convinced that our mix of boarding and day contributes much to the School's success. Our boarders and day pupils both gain by being educated here together: our sport, our music, our pastoral systems, our very ethos and educational philosophy benefit from our having a substantial boarding element. It is what makes us a community, and it is this sense of community which is such an important ingredient in what we are able to achieve. For all these reasons we shall be playing our part in the October National Boarding Week and putting resources and effort into seeing that the School remains a purposive, caring and happy community in which boarding continues to be significant.

People

It was once said that a Headmaster is paid to be unpleasant and he earns every penny of the substantial salary he is paid. I would take issue with several aspects of that statement but it does at least suggest that the Headmaster's role is dealing as much with people as with buildings, changes in the curriculum or the promotion of boarding. Parents, staff and pupils are the people with whom much of my working life is spent.

Parents are in some respects our customers. In one sense Prizegiving is the company's annual general meeting when the shareholders have the opportunity to consider the Chairman's and Managing Director's discharge of their duties. One of the particular rewards of my job at St. Peter's is the considerable and friendly support which you, the parents, give us. I would especially like to thank Ann Musgrave, Chairman of the Friends of St. Peter's, and all her committee for their efforts on our behalf. Noteworthy have been a most enjoyable Easter Ball and also the popular disco organised earlier this term for the School's pupils.

I.am conscious of the fact that parents want more for their children than academic achievement, the provision of which is clearly our responsibility as teachers. Parents have other concerns too, and we as teachers have obligations to meet these also. It is worth recalling the hopes of Tom Brown's father as he sent his son off to Rugby:

Shall I tell him to mind his work and say he is sent to School to make himself a good scholar? But he isn't sent to School for that — not for that mainly. I don't care a straw for Greek Particles or the digamma — no more does his mother. What's he sent to School for? If he'll turn out a brave, helpful, truth-telling Englishman, a gentleman and a Christian — that's all I want.

Today's parents do not express their hopes in quite those terms, but, like Tom Brown's father, they do have aspirations for their sons and daughters which go beyond the acquisition of G.C.S.E. and A-Level results, and it is in large measure the responsibility of us individually as teachers and collectively as a School to meet them.

How then do we discharge that responsibility? What is the essence of our task as teachers? Someone else has

Schoolmastering.... is 'iceberg' work. Very little, perhaps, appears on the surface, but deep down, under the surface, something is going on which is very, very important in a boy's life....

Boys are very perspicacious: they are very much more shrewd than we think, and they know whether the man who is looking after them or with whom they have dealings is genuine or not.

Little things can have a tremendous effect on boys.... It is the hundred-and-one things one says or does which have an importance and effect out of all proportion. That is why Schoolmastering is so worthwhile: for everything helps to building up a life. It is what we are that matters. It is the small things that count. That was said by the Abbot to his monks at Ampleforth in 1966.

It is the teaching staff's strong sense of commitment, in and out of the classroom, in and out of term, which makes me as Head and you as parents so fortunate, and I take this opportunity of acknowledging the staff's continuing and caring contribution to the well-being and success of the boys and girls of this School.

It is appropriate for me at this point to pay tribute to three members of staff. It should not pass unrecorded that John Bulcock leaves our C.C.F. contingent after twentyfive years' service, eleven of them as commanding officer. Doubtless he has both good and bad memories of countless parades, camps, field days, annual inspections and so on. He has served well and long, and the flourishing, popular, voluntary contingent which he hands over to Brian Jelbert is testimony of his achievements.

Commander Bulcock.

I only learned yesterday the sad news that Bill Riley will not be returning to his post as Head of Wind. He has made a well-nigh miraculous recovery from his severe illness of last summer and shown superb resilience and determination. He has been a full-time member of staff for eighteen years, having taught part-time previously for three. His contribution to instrumental teaching, the various bands and the School's music overall has been huge and we thank him and wish him a continuing return to full health and vigour. To both him and Margrit our warmest good wishes for their retirement and future happiness.

"strong sense of commitment. "

Also we say our farewells today to Keith Coulthard, forty-two years a member of staff, for some of which he has headed our geography department and for most of which — thirty-seven years — he was careers master. For a long time he ran the School's scout troop and its Young Farmers' Club. For seventeen years he was a boarding Housemaster. This is an outstanding record of service, and generations of Peterites have him to thank for being just that sort of Schoolmaster whom Cardinal Hume was describing at his monastic conference. I owe Keith special thanks for his quiet, wise help and advice in his capacity as Common Room Chairman, a role he filled with tact and effectiveness. Nor must Margaret be overlooked and the special importance of her part as Housemaster's wife during their many years in Dronfield. We give them both our very grateful thanks and our warm good wishes for a long, happy and active retirement.

I have mentioned two of my three human constituencies — parents and staff. I turn finally to the School's pupils. If I see them only infrequently in the classroom it is because the other affairs that absorb my time — our developments, our marketing, our curriculum and so on — are being pursued in the interests of their education and its enhancement. That relatively little of my time is spent on matters of discipline is, I believe, a reflection of our boys' and girls' overall high standards of responsibility and sense. Particularly rewarding for me as Head Master are the sometimes verbal, sometimes written indications from parents that their sons and daughters like School, that they have full School lives and above all that they are happy here. I hope that it is not just the rose-tinted spectacles of the academic year end which makes me think that the majority of our pupils actually enjoy their Schooldays: certainly not a few genuine tears are shed as our leavers say their final goodbyes and depart. To our pupils for all that they have done to make this another successful year and to make my task of headship the more fulfilled and satisfying my thanks. To you all my good wishes for a refreshing and restful summer holiday.