Commemoration

Commemoration 2016

Commemoration 2016: the Head Master’s address

On a train journey back from London over half term, I was looking at the letters section of a national newspaper – the sort of thing you can do in holiday time. My eye, which has become conditioned to notice things that relate to education, fell upon a letter from a gentleman who wrote in from the pleasant North Yorkshire village of Coneythorpe:

Sir – I was assisting my 16-year-old daughter with her homework when she received a text from Mum, which read: “What do you want from life?” This was an unexpected and profound question for an exam-sitting teenager. We debated various answers – wealth, fulfilment, love – all three.

Five minutes later, she received a second message from Mum, blaming predictive text for auto-correcting her intended question: “What do you want from Lidl?”.

A much more accessible question for an exam-sitting 16-yearold to tackle … but, what of that first, accidental question – the big one: what do you want from life? How might the pupils present answer that question? How might we adults respond? What answer would each of our 105 upper-sixth leavers give? Different ones, I hope: 105 individual responses from 105 individual young adults whose values, beliefs and hopes have been shaped and refined by their experiences at school.

St Peter’s School started life as a very small boarding community. In many ways, we still operate from a boarding culture: the house structure; the emphasis on the co-curricular as well as the academic; the six-day week that allows our pupils to pursue multiple interests.

Our 21st-century all-round education has its roots in the Christian monastic community founded on this very site by St Paulinus in 627 AD: a community founded to seek out the answers to the biggest questions in life; questions whose answers may indeed be found within these ancient walls.

As ever, we are deeply grateful to the Dean and to the Chapter of York Minster for allowing us to gather here to mark the passing of another year – the 1389th – in the school’s long history. Arthur Leach (in Fortnightly Review, November 1892) notably remarked that St Peter’s School is ‘older than the House of Commons, older than the universities, older than the Lord Mayoralty, older than the House of Lords, older even than the throne or nation itself.’

This year, the nation celebrated Her Majesty The Queen’s 90th birthday with street parties and the lighting of beacons across the land. A beacon herself – of dignity, integrity and constancy in a changing world – the Queen has reigned during a period of unprecedented change. The profound responsibility of a school is to act as a beacon: to guide and prepare children as fully as possible for the changes and challenges of adult life. We do this by making school life rich and varied; by instilling values that endure for a lifetime; by preparing our pupils’ minds for action.

In October of this academic year, our Careers department, which plays a significant role in this preparation, received the Career Mark 6 Quality Award, making us one of only seven independent schools to hold this accreditation. Undoubtedly, one of the qualifying factors was our annual Careers Convention, which this year attracted 67 advisors, many of them Old Peterites, who offered expert guidance on an extensive range of future pathways.

Our largest ever cohort of A-Level candidates, the 2015 vintage, achieved an astonishing set of examination results, with a quarter of all exams passed at A*, and some wonderful individual triumphs. At GCSE, the current lower sixth cohort passed 40% of their exams at the highest grade. A special mention must go to the Mathematics department whose pupils achieved 77% A/A* at A-level and 61% A* at IGCSE with a 100% pass rate at this compulsory level – for the second consecutive year.

No wonder that 83 pupils continued with Maths in the sixth form! Whilst we all know that examination statistics do not tell you all you need to know about a person – or a yeargroup for that matter – the 2015 results were nonetheless very impressive indeed.

One of the many fine characteristics of academic life at St Peter’s is the unabashed enjoyment of shared intellectual curiosity. The St Peter’s Challenge competitions (our version of University Challenge) were hotly contested and well supported. Pupil-led magazines, such as Peternomics and Keystone (the arts and culture magazine) provide outlets for exploration and lively expression. Colleagues in Science and Design have delivered dynamic outreach sessions for the public, for feeder schools and for our own pre-prep pupils at Clifton School. The tenth St Peter’s School Physics Olympics competition for Year-8 pupils attracted 35 school teams from across the north. Our York Schools’ Science Quiz was well attended, as was our conference for 90 science technicians from almost 40 different schools.

The English and Library departments gave us the Booker Prize Debate and a new creative writing competition. Debating has now extended beyond the mother tongue, with 33 schools

gathering at St Peter’s for our North Eastern Schools’ Languages Debating Competition. Academic societies have flourished, including the Alcuin History Society and the pupil-initiated Medical Society. Exploration Week offered our lower sixth a smorgasbord of intellectual challenges and team-building exercises.

During the course of the year, the Choir will have clocked up performances in St Paul’s Cathedral; Jesus College, Cambridge; Chartres Cathedral; Notre Dame in Paris; York Minster and Durham Cathedral – with Barcelona Cathedral and Westminster Abbey to come next year. Notable individual successes in music included Stephanie Frankland gaining a place to study undergraduate performance at the Royal College of Music and St Peter’s Award winner Max McLeish securing a seat in the ultra-selective National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Our vibrant Swing Band was one of only two school outfits in the country to achieve the Platinum Award in the National Concert Band Festival Final. The drama programme also gave us some memorable performances including a chilling centenary production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and a riotously inventive middle school play, The Odyssey.

Talking of odysseys, our pupils have been engaged in a broad array of foreign trips and tours this year: with the music tour to France; a space camp in Florida; skiers in Switzerland; a girls’ hockey tour to Holland; rowers in Belgium; tennis players in Portugal; classicists in Rome and Pompeii; separate modern languages trips to Rouen and to Berlin – I’m getting exhausted just listing all these – a CCF camp; artists in Edinburgh and various Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expeditions.

We continue to invest in girls’ sport to ensure that all abilities receive the best of coaching, encouraging top level performance, but above all, participation and life-long sport. We have increased our playing base to produce no fewer than eleven hockey teams and eleven netball teams across the age groups. The U14, U16 and U19 National Schools teams all won their respective York and District tournaments in both hockey and netball. Those six champion teams then represented the area in the county rounds of the National Schools’ competitions, with four teams making the regional finals – a first for our sportswomen. Special mention goes to the third XI hockey squad who enjoyed an unbeaten season – for the third consecutive year. In rowing, at the Women’s Head of the River Race, the Girls’ First VIII moved up 50 places in this seven-kilometre race on the River Thames. At the Ghent International Regatta, St Peter’s crews collected two bronze, one silver and two gold medals. Our Girls’ fifth form quad made the top eight at Henley Women’s regatta, a landmark quarter-final appearance for the Boat Club. OP Adam Janes rowed in the Harvard Junior Varsity crew at Henley reaching the final of the Temple Challenge Cup.

In boys’ sport, our hockey players were crowned U18 county champions; our U16 and U14 teams made the north finals and Freddy Heijbroek earned an England trial. Our first XI footballers enjoyed an unbeaten season and two trophy wins. Our tennis first VI also went unbeaten. A strong rugby season saw the school win over 80% of their fixtures at all levels, including a clean sweep of wins against local rivals Ampleforth College for the second year running. Sam Hudson captained the National Independent Schools First XV and was voted player of the tour to Argentina. Chris Wood, who scored his first senior century yesterday afternoon, is the first third-form pupil to play for the first XI cricket since Jonny Bairstow.

It is always good to hear of the remarkable achievements of our former pupils. Our school can claim no fewer than four former pupils who are currently serving Members of Parliament. Of that quartet, two have visited the school this year to speak with pupils. Alan Mak MP, who was a bursary pupil at St Peter’s, became the first person of Chinese and East Asian origin to be elected to the House of Commons. Neil Carmichael MP, who was a boarder in the Manor, this year became Chair of the House of Commons Education Select Committee. With Guy Fawkes still ‘alive and kicking’ in the nation’s collective memory, it is good to be able to point to Old Peterites who are actively, but legitimately, engaged in political life.

In their turn, our pupils have been politically active: the St Peter’s mock EU Referendum in May delivered a thumping 77% turnout. 31% of the pupils voted to leave the European Union. 69% wanted to remain. Sadly, the national turnout for 18-24 year olds is said to be a mere 36%. We sorely need the next generation to elevate the national discourse above its current level of grubby self-interest and ‘boo-hooray’ politics. Whatever our personal views on this most binary of votes – and whatever sense gradually emerges from the

current political upheaval – it is an inescapable truth that the young inherit the decisions of the old. How vital it is, then, that we educate our children be literate in politics, both national and local.

As a school we benefit greatly from being part of our local community. Several colleagues contributed to the City of York Independent State School Partnership masterclasses attended by more than 200 youngsters. Mr Vann has taught GCSE Latin to 28 pupils from the city’s state schools. Our Community Action programme remains a cornerstone of school life. Mencap Day and Volunteering Week are now firm fixtures; and we responded to the December floods by providing volunteers to help City of York Council with environmental work. The ever-popular St Peter’s Public Lecture Series has been further enhanced through a burgeoning partnership with the York Festival of Ideas and the York Festival of Literature. A host of speakers have spoken at the School, including the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Professor Steve Jones, Dame Margaret Drabble and Sir Vince Cable.

Looking to the future, I am delighted that the Board of Governors has unanimously approved the Campus Masterplan. Phase One of this Capital Projects plan will deliver a new Modern Foreign Languages block and a new Mathematics block. Learning is, of course, our fundamental purpose; it is very exciting to be able to invest very significantly in providing the best of spaces for these core subjects which every pupil in the school studies for some or all of their time at the school. We have submitted plans to build a new boathouse. And there will be a new dining facility for Clifton School and Nursery, our pre-prep, where several of today’s leavers started their St Peter’s journey fifteen years ago. I’m very grateful to our Board of Governors, led expertly by Chairman Bill Woolley, for supporting this exciting building programme and for all their work this year.

On a more personal note, it is a great privilege to become Chairman of the Boarding Schools’ Association, which represents over 500 state and independent boarding schools. I look forward to serving the boarding sector in the coming fifteen months and I hope that this role will also bring benefits to the school. Our guest of honour, Tony Little, has been Honorary President of the BSA during its Golden Jubilee year and I am very glad that he has joined us today. As a former Head Master, Tony knows well that one of the foremost responsibilities of headship is to recruit the very best staff to teach and care for the children. In 23 years of teaching, I have not known a more collegiate or dedicated staff. I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation for the commitment of all my teaching colleagues, to the office and administration staff; the catering staff; the ICT support team; the matrons and nurses; the cleaners, facilities assistants, grounds and estates staff; and all who have worked so hard to inspire, support and look after our pupils this academic year.

This year we say goodbye to four members of staff who have given generously to the school. Dr Jamie MacLeod has been leading our rowing for ten years, giving generously of his time and expertise. Mr John Armstrong retires from his post in the ICT support team, having also led expeditions to India and been a stalwart in the bass section of the Choral Society. In August, Mrs Penny Bollands retires from her role as Head of Careers and Higher Education. Since 2002, Penny has expertly guided many cohorts of Peterites to their next port of call. Finally, we say farewell to Mr John Darmody, who retires as Head of Art today, having inspired and directed our artists for fourteen years. In all, Mr Darmody has taught art for 43 years, with 34 of them as a head of department. A phenomenal record. His successor joins us from seven years as Head of Art at Tonbridge School and is well qualified to build on Mr Darmody’s magnificent legacy.

The St Peter’s community this year mourned the passing of two significant individuals. Sir Donald Barron died in December at the age of 94. Sir Donald served as a governor from 1966 to 1978 and was then Vice-Chairman from 1978 to 1981. He was awarded a Fellowship of the School in 1991 for his exceptional service and commitment to St Peter’s. Sir Donald is survived by his wife Gillian, together with their three sons, who all attended St Peter’s, and their two daughters. We are deeply grateful for all Sir Donald did for St Peter’s and we wish the family comfort in their loss.

Secondly, we heard that our oldest living Old Peterite, Allan Darton MBE, had died just two months short of his 100th birthday. Allan boarded at the school from the age of nine. He went on to enjoy a successful career in civil engineering, and no fewer than 72 years of happily married life. His fondest school memory was scoring the

winning goal in a house hockey match in which the opposing team was captained by Norman Yardley. I was told by one of his care team that Allan wore his OP tie even in the final weeks of his life.

This is a service of commemoration. As the nation marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, we remember those Peterites who gave their life for their country. Seven Old Peterites were killed in action during the Battle of the Somme. Robert Harpley; William Wilson; Harold Haworth; Peter Richards; Harold Windle; James Mortimer; and 2nd Lt Col Guy Reynolds, who was recommended for the Victoria Cross after losing his life in action on 18th November 1916, the final day of the Battle of the Somme. In all, 66 Peterites lost their lives in the Great War. Their names are recorded in the Roll of Honour in the ante-chapel. Their ultimate sacrifice is remembered each year at the school’s Service of Remembrance. We commemorate them now.

A hundred years on, St Peter’s School exists in a very different world. But the core spirit of the school endures. With 570 pupils in the senior school next year, 250 of them in the sixth form, and a foundation population of around 1,150 girls and boys, ours is a flourishing 3-18 co-educational day and boarding community. As overall pupil numbers in northern independent schools have fallen, our numbers have grown. But we do not seek further expansion. As Head Master, I want to know something about every child in the school. That’s why I teach each class in the third form.

We want to be large enough to be a vibrant community but small enough to ensure that each child feels that they are noticed and appreciated as an individual. I hope that our current success is because our school is understood to be a happy, thriving community, to which parents and children are drawn because of its warmth and diversity; a community with a clear identity in which children can feel valued and grow in confidence; a community in which children can show concern for others; a community which offers the very best teachers and resources to support, nurture and inspire each individual child to enjoy learning; a community which helps the young to work out where they want to go in life.

Today, our leavers, the class of 2016, say farewell to their familiar lives at St Peter’s. I thank each and every of them for their unique contribution to our community. I wish them fulfilment, love, happiness – all three.

I return to the question posed by our mis-texting mother from Coneythorpe. A question as simple as it is mysterious: what do you want from life? Today, our leavers will cross the threshold of the Minster’s great doors, and set out, over the ancient ways, to find their answers.

Mr Leo Winkley Head Master