13 minute read
Presentation of Prizes
from Oct 1978
by StPetersYork
Mr. G. H. Hepworth, York City Solicitor and Deputy Town Cler gave a talk to the Sixth Form on June 13th.
Scenes from Bertolt Brecht's 'Caucasian Chalk Circle' were pe formed on June 16th in the Drama Centre.
*
The St. Peter's Procession took place in York Minster on July 2nd. * * *
The Duke of Edinburgh Award Presentation was made in Hall July 8th. * * *
The CCF Shooting Team was at Bisley from July 11th to 13th. * * *
The End of Year Service in Chapel was on July 14th. * * *
July 15th was Commemoration Day. The Preacher at the Commemoration Service was The Very Revd. Lawrence Jackson, Provost of Blackburn, who was also the Guest of Honour at the Old Peterite Club Dinner in the evening. * * *
We are very grateful to the Old Peterite Club for their generous gift of Floodlights for the front of the School. * * *
On August 13th Dr. C. W. Mackenzie died; he was a former Medical Officer of the School.
* * *
On August 14th Miss Rose McLoughlin died. She was Sister in charge of the sanatorium from 1946 to 1963. 'A very good diagnostician.' as Mr. John Dronfield said, she fulfilled a most important role in looking after the health of so many boarders.
OPINION
`Our youth loves luxury, has bad manners, disregards authority, and has no respect for age: our today's children are tyrants: they do not get up when an elderly man enters the room: they talk back to their parents: they are just very bad.' (Socrates)
8th October, 1977
The Chair was taken by Mr. W. R. Wilkinson, O.B.E., I.P., Vice Chairman of the Governors, and the prizes were distributed by Mr. T Devlin, Director of the Independent Schools' Information Service.
The Headmaster gave this report:
In this our 1350th year of continuous history, the Editor of The Peterite has compiled an impressive record of a year's doings. I do not 6
intend to repeat all that is recorded in that Peterite; so if I don't now mention your name, your interests, the activity you excel at, don't be offended. You have not been forgotten.
Our celebrations for this unusual anniversary have been planned to touch the life of the School at as many points as possible—
We have been reminded of our long past by the Historical displays shown each week at the back of Hall, which are eventually to be compiled as a book for each one of us, and in a more light-hearted vein by Mr. Cummin's witty, and hilarious, pageant at the end of the Summer Term.
We have seen, in tangible form, handsome memorials of the scar in Mulberry Hall's resplendent plate, the more homely mug given to each member of the School, and the healthily controversial hanging cross designed and executed by Mr. Brown for Chapel.
We have left to posterity our own record of school life in 1977 in the film shot by members of the School.
We have tried to stimulate work in the arts with exhibitions and concerts and prizes. We resuscitated the School Song at a concert last term, and came to the conclusion that on account of its dignified Latin, its sturdy four-square rhythm, and its generous proportions, it merited another performance—in fifty years' time. In the meantime, some of the celebration music composed by our present music students will be performed later this year.
We laid on a number of events for pure merriment—a sumptuous May Ball, a cricket match against a Yorkshire side of celebrities and a hockey match against a very strong side from the Hockey Association. Four cricket matches against schools in Kent made an enjoyable finish to our normal cricket season.
And the celebrations are not yet over—we are to hear a lecture on 1350 years of Science (though the term LECTURE does sparse justice to the methods of presentation that the Physicists have in store for us), a rugby tour is to be arranged, and we are being invited to invest in some 1967 port.
But all of this is the icing on the cake—icing that has perhaps ensured that the year has been an enjoyable year for all except Puritans. The cake underneath has not been so rich a mix as I was able to report last year. Academically, my colleagues have found that a proportion of our G.C.E. candidates took a perfunctory view of their academic work—regarding it as something that would be taught to them rather than as something that they would learn for themselves. The essence of a school is, I suppose, the complementary activities of teaching and learning. They aren't the same thing. One is no substitute for the other. This year I was aware of a larger number than usual who reckoned that it was enough to do the set work and leave the rest to their teachers, thus omitting a complete dimension of work—their own research, their own discovery for themselves, their own thinking, their own exploring, their own observations, their own power of discrimination—above all, their own initiative. That's learning.
So, to underline an obvious point, our central aim must be first to provide solid foundations—in language, maths, and thinking— secondly to provide opportunities for the imagination to expand—in writing, speaking, the arts, in making things, and thirdly to keep alive 8
,tandards of scholarship. That's teaching. The student, for his side, must bring the learning initiatives I mentioned a moment ago.
And if there is a mutual enthusiasm in the mixing of this cake, and if we feel that we are going places (to needed and useful jobs, to courses in Universities and Higher Education that excite our imaginations), then the School is thriving. There are areas in the School, in last year's Lower VIth and IVth forms in particular, where I have strongly felt this mutual enthusiasm, but there are areas where it has been assumed only by individuals, not the year group; or where the imaginative fervour has been directed not at the things of the School but towards an escapism of leisure, an entertainment that was an end in itself.
This may be a roundabout way of saying that our academic results were more praiseworthy in individual achievements than in mass results. For instance, the percentage passes of all "A" level papers taken in the School is down from 79% to 75%; on all "0" level papers taken in the Vth forms from 73% to 70.5%—not disastrous and, indeed, partly to be explained by differing ability between one year group and another. But I think they suggest where the main efforts of teaching and learning must be directed.
There is much discussion at present about our VIth form curriculum. A fresh campaign is being mounted by many teachers in Schools and University, on the narrowing of subjects that is caused by "A" level concentration on three subjects in depth, with only minor courses in General Studies, when the efforts of our Secondary and Higher education should be aimed at providing well-trained, versatile young men and women to bring their talent and energy to the nation's industrial and commercial performance. The dropping of, say, Maths or French or a Science, at 16, may be premature; able sixth-formers may be cut off from a know-how that may be needed in as yet undefined tasks of industrial recovery. The new dogma that is being urged is five subjects in the Sixth Form, not three.
If the criticism is accepted in the D.E.S., and the Schools Council, and in higher education and in the Secondary Schools, then we may expect considerable changes in VIth form curriculum in the next two or three years.
Our Heads of Departments are spending this year scrutinizing the curriculum from 11 to 18 in the light of the needs of the individuals (in an age of job shortage) and of the country (is wealth creation a higher priority at present than social service?). For myself, I believe that our present breadth of study up to 16 is right in principle, but that in the Sixth Form, sixth-formers should not feel obliged to restrict themselves to only three subjects. They should be encouraged, and the ablest ones positively urged, to tackle more than three (say four or even five). (In passing, I note that out of our 62 "A" level candidates last term, 17 in fact took and passed four "A" levels.) This line of thought points to a wider range of subject levels in the Sixth Form, but this is not the occasion to descend to detail, and I now pass on to areas of School life other than the academic.
In Sport this year, we had a fine overall Rugby season, particularly among the Colts teams who all had successful seasons-40 wins, 17 losses. Our hockey team was the most skilful and spirited for many seasons, and our Boat Club, brought up to a high pitch by Mr. Du Croz, whom we shall greatly miss, had various successes with virtually every crew. 9
The 1st XI Cricket was talented but lacked the cohesion for decisive success (the Senior Colts being our most consistent side, with their six wins and no losses). One is glad to see expansion in several sports— tennis, table-tennis, riding and golf—and the continuance of swimming, water polo and fencing. Our mountaineers have been very active, with, I think, four holiday expeditions—a deN elopment encouraged by the Climbing Wall in the Sports Centre. Squash, though not reported in the Peterite, is a thriving sport with about 20 in last year's squad (and many more playing just for fun), and matches throughout the dark of winter at senior and junior levels in all five teams. A word about Shooting: Mr. Le Tocq started running competitive shooting under C.C.F. auspices in 1938, and, War Service apart, he has continued to do so till this year; the pattern of .303 shooting that took our teams year after year to Bisley was started by him in 1952. In the heyday of the C.C.F., when it was easy and inexpensive to book ranges and obtain tip-top rifles and unlimited ammunition, he encouraged our Shooting team to a succession of resounding successes—especially in the Snap competitions. We shall not forget Mr. Le Tocq's long career as Master-in-Charge of Shooting— hundreds of Old Peterites are grateful to him for his benign but bracing encouragement to do well at a sport which lasts a lifetime.
The C.C.F. continues to provide for the energies and specialist skills of many individuals in the School—for instance gliding, seamanship, air navigation, military music, dinghy drill, flying experience and shooting.
The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, with its tentacles reaching out in all directions—the fells, Social Service, personal interests—continues to contain a programme of self-improvement attractive to very many in the School (14 Gold Awards, 12 Silver Awards, 39 Bronze Awards is an impressive total).
In the arts, we have had a gloriously self-indulgent year exploring the versatility of our new Drama Centre. When we converted it to its new use, we did not think that it would be more than a Drama teaching centre, Lecture Theatre, large classroom and rehearsal room. What I did not foresee was its success as a performing centre, in which performers and audience—in all about 160 people in one sitting—could interrelate in a most exciting way. The production of Henry IV Part I last December was a revelation of the Centre's potential, a production half on a conventional stage, half in the round. Since then there have been six productions there, musical and dramatic, and anyone who has acted and played in, or watched and listened there knows how it concentrates and compels one's attention and how manifold are its uses. Funnily enough, despite a larger number of productions than usual last year, there was a dearth of House Plays. Six were planned and two took place. Was this laziness on the part of producers and their casts, who crumpled when the difficulties cropped up, or was it that the traditional setting for House Plays—the Memorial Hall—is so difficult for actors and audience compared to the Drama Centre?
Buildings like this encourage special types of activity. Benjamin Britten used to plan a musical composition with a particular building in mind: the Drama Centre is ideal for small dramatic events. Next year in February we are planning a specially commissioned musical piece, part opera, part oratorio, from an Old Peterite composer, part of the inspiration for which comes from the Drama Centre itself.
Another building which would extend a needed activity is a proper Workshop. A generous response to our Appeal gatherings from parents
and well-wishers has put us on the way to planning a Centre for Design and Technology as our next major amenity, to take the place of our somewhat cramped Workshop that at present takes space in the Labs. Such building has to be financed by Appeals rather than by raising fees that are already uncomfortably high for everybody. Improvements to the boarding houses are financed partly by the income from the holiday courses and lettings which the Assistant Bursar arranges in the vacations. There is much to be done in keeping our buildings up-to-date, and the Governors at present have at the top of the list the necessary re-roofing and extension of the Swimming Bath, and then the building of a Centre for Design and Technology, on its own site. Parents who came to our Appeal gatherings seemed pleased by this development. I personally have always wanted the making of things to be a much larger feature of the curriculum and of our leisure time than it is as yet. This building would bring valuable creative opportunities to St. Peter's and St. Olave's.
But it is people not buildings that count in the long run. I would like to thank the Governors for their hard thinking and committed concern for the School in these financially tough times, and to thank my colleagues in the Senior and Junior Schools for their hard work in and out of classroom, in term and in holidays.
Schools reflect the needs of their times.
Throughout its 1350 years, St. Peter's has been reflecting the needs of a succession of ages, sometimes in a dynamic way, sometimes in a stale or decadent way, sometimes betwixt and between. It is up to all of us—Governors, parents, staff, girls and boys to ensure that our own little contribution to that evolutionary progress is dynamic and not stale.
I have tried to show that the School, though in no position to sit back complacently, is concerned to provide a broad range of activities to all boys and girls, to set and elicit high standards of teaching and learning, to contribute men and women of broad intellectual and practical resource and vision to the future of a country that remains unconvinced of its role in the world.
After the Headmaster's Report, Mr. Tim Devlin, Director of the
Independent Schools' Information Service, presented the Prizes, and there follows a summary of his address.
Mr. Devlin said that in the early nineteen eighties the falling birth rate was likely to make independent schools "physically expendable", although at present there were not enough places available in State schools, so no government could get rid of them now.
But he predicted that the independent schools were likely to face an "outright attack against their position" in a few years, and that it was no good thinking this would never happen because "it can and it will, as it could and did with the Direct Grant schools". Mr. Devlin said that government had already been attacking independent schools by stealth, and it was against these attacks that the schools must be specially watchful because they did not always get publicity. Mr. Devlin praised the Conservative Party for its "brave decision" L ' k to promise to restore state places in schools that had formerly received the direct grant: a brave decision in the light of the falling birth rate.