Welcome

The OU Team at the London Dinner

Richard Boston, OU Association Secretary, Jo Franklin, OU Coordinator, Lisa Gilman (nee Menzies-Gow), Development Manager, Patrick Mulvihill, Development Director.

Secretary’s Messa ge

Anniversaries come and go like the seasons, but none are more poignant than those where we honour and remember all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country.

The cover of this year’s edition of the magazine shows members on the OTC marching down the Cinder Track towards the Middle for training during World War 1. On looking at the photograph one reflects with immense sadness that many of those young faces left School to join up, never to return. Uppingham suffered one of the highest casualty figures of any school at the time with 447 killed or missing in action, in short a whole generation. During World War II a further 250 made the ultimate sacrifice. We remember all those who died in the service of their country each year on Remembrance Sunday with a moving Chapel service and members of the CCF laying wreaths in the School’s permanent memorials in the Chapel and New Library. It may not be widely known, but we have a third memorial, in the form of a brass plaque, in St George’s Church, known as “The English Church” in Ypres, which has our losses inscribed on it together with the names of the five OUs awarded the Victoria Cross. When Fourth Form battlefield tours are organised we honour the fallen when visiting the church. A tour is being planned for 2014 in which we hope to be able to invite OUs who may be interested in joining us. In addition plans are evolving to renovate the Memorial Chapel which contains all the names of those who died in the conflict. We need to be mindful that OUs continue to serve with great distinction in the Armed Forces. Currently there are a number on active service all round the world, including Afghanistan where at least four are serving with the CCF’s affiliated Regiment, the 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales). I wish you all a peaceful Christmas and New Year with your families and friends.

Director’s Messa ge

OUs are always welcome at Uppingham and we have a regular stream of visiting alumni who want to share nostalgic memories of school days or to see some of their old haunts. During their tours these OUs also take an opportunity to see what has changed since their time at Uppingham and the area which brings most amazement is certainly the new Western Quad.

We are very close to completing this transformation of an unsightly part of the campus and the benefits to the pupils of Uppingham will undoubtedly be felt for many decades to come. The scale, quality and attention to detail of the Sports Centre and Science Centre and their surrounding environment is remarkable and I do recommend a visit by any OUs passing through Rutland. The final stage of this dramatic development will involve the adaptation of the Leonardo Arts Centre so that it too will look out over the new quad. As part of the work to the Leonardo we are delighted that a new gallery will be created and that a decision has been taken to name it in memory of the late Warwick Metcalfe. Many OUs will remember Warwick for his thirty-year career of establishing art and design at Uppingham and the naming of this gallery is a fitting tribute. Finally I was recently sent a copy of a newspaper article from July 1890 featuring the speech given by a Lord Norton on the opening of the Tercentenary Classrooms and the ‘new’ School House. As we approach the completion of the new Western Quad, Lord Norton’s words remain remarkably true today:

“I see no end to the development of the spirit of this place and when these buildings are completed and at last the curtain falls and the green and buildings of the whole quadrangle are open to the thoroughfare of this old town, I believe then that Uppingham will have as it deserves, the finest buildings of any Public School in England”. We look forward to welcoming OUs to see these fine buildings in 2014. I am sure you will not be disappointed.

Richard Harman on the roof of the new Science Centre

Messa ge from the Head mas ter

One of my key jobs in 2013 has been to plot a clear course for Uppingham for the next few years, beyond our current developments. Strategic plans can be rather dry documents, but as this one evolved, a few key themes emerged. The first was that everything we do here must be driven by our core values of kindness, respect, honesty and selflessness, compassion and service; these might sound a little old-fashioned but nonetheless, these virtues will always be integral to an Uppingham education.

The second theme was that, whilst academic success is essential and a flourishing extra-curricular programme vital, these are not in themselves sufficient to an outstanding 21st Century boarding school. We need to become a School for Life, preparing our pupils to become whole people, highly employable and resilient with flexible skills to face an uncertain future. Things may have changed since the days of Edward Thring but his transforming idea of a truly holistic education is more important now than ever; our job is to reinterpret and apply his vision to life in our fast-changing global village. You may have seen the front page of The Sunday Times earlier this year when I was quoted in an article that focused on the issue of hothousing. This formed but a tiny part of a three hour interview, but the journalist clearly felt it would strike a chord with her readers; and so it proved. Over the following week it also sparked a lot of comment from opinion columnists in the daily papers. Robert Crampton in The Times, for example, confessed that until about a decade ago he shared a perception, not uncommon among the chatterati, that private schools were full of “Flashman, bullying, toffs, snobs, a narrow focus on rugby, rowing and Latin, braying voices”. More recently, he says, it dawned on him that “these places weren’t like that. Many had, rather, become the guardians of a liberal education ethos that was being eroded in state schools” and that “if you send your children private, you’re buying privilege alright, but not necessarily the marginal privilege of an extra A*; more likely, the immensely more valuable privilege of a child enabled to develop whatever talent they have”. A sentiment, it seems to me, straight out of the Edward Thring song book. Of course if you are planning to send your children to Uppingham in the future then they will also benefit from some of the best facilities built in any school in recent years. The Western Quad vision, which was launched in 2006, is now almost complete and we will soon have an outstanding Science faculty to complement the Sports Centre which was opened in 2011. Next summer, once the last remaining work on the Leonardo Arts Centre is finished, we will have successfully transformed this part of Uppingham for ever. We are already planning a suitable occasion to celebrate this achievement and I believe that this will be an opportune time to reflect upon the progress that Uppingham has made over the last decade. Despite the global recession I believe the School is in a stronger position now than it has been for many years. With a teaching and management team of the highest calibre, with facilities that would be the envy of many a university, and with the core values that are in the DNA of every pupil and OU, I know that Uppingham will continue to offer a world class education of which we can all be very proud.