Arnold House Winter Assembly 2015

ASSEMBLYWINTER 2015 From the Headmaster

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t is customary in school newsletters such as this for Headmasters to focus on the pupils; their enthusiasm, good attitude and behaviour, together with mention of their many achievements. Whilst I am certainly never short of this sort of material at Arnold

House, there is no doubt in my mind that the boys here do especially well because of the unfailing support they receive.

This comes firstly, from parents who truly value a traditional rounded prep school education, and secondly from staff, who

enjoy the boys’ company and are happy to go the extra mile for them. It is a potent combination, guaranteed to bring about bags of enjoyment and success for all concerned…me included!

Viv Thomas

Head boys cut the birthday cake, Year 8 trip to Burgundy, Christmas Concert at ASL, Year 3 trip to London Zoo, Armistice Day service at St John’s Wood Church, Year 4 trip to the Verulamium, Classics trip to Rome, Year 1 Nativity Play, Charity Day in aid of Mercy Ships.

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Shakespeare Schools Festival ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’

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hese are some of Shakespeare’s most famous words and an apt quotation to set Year 7 forth into the world of the Bard in their preparation for this year’s Shakespeare Schools Festival performance of Henry V.

Originally with only 8 schools in Pembrokeshire, the SSF has billowed outwards across the UK and this year over 1,000 schools took part in well over 130 professional venues. Our Year 7 boys contributed to a festival that now encompasses a wide range of schools and invites over 35,000 young people to experience a direct engagement with Shakespeare.

Joseph Wragg, who played Exeter, the King’s uncle, writes: “The first minute I found out that we were going to be performing ‘Henry V’, my heart jumped into my throat!”

My own heart certainly jumped many times during the build-up to the big day, October 20th. As this was a full month before the anticipated performance date, we had to begin preparing in the summer term by casting the boys and asking them to learn their lines over the holiday.

With line-learning well under way, the rehearsals became much less stressful than is sometimes the case; we could concentrate ASSEMBLY

on blocking out the play, thinking more about meanings and conveying the boys’ energy on stage. This latter task, of channelling energy into a powerful performance, was a constant challenge, given the passion and the fervour with which the Y7 boys approached their acting. My original task of casting the boys was not a simple one, for the role of Henry, in this abridged version lasting 30 minutes, carried the weighty responsibility of learning 169 lines of Shakespearean poetry. Giving the part to Freddie Rhodes was a great success, as I watched him grow in stature and confidence throughout the rehearsal schedule once we had returned

to school in September.

Early in the new term, it quickly became clear that the original onceweekly rehearsal on a Monday afternoon would be insufficient; we soon expanded this into a much longer rehearsal on a Monday, as well as extra rehearsals dotted throughout the week and, as the performance night neared, we arranged a weekend rehearsal and a morning at Canons Park to sharpen the roughened edges of the boys’ acting and my direction.

I must commend the boys who performed this year for their dynamism, their sheer vocal energy and their love of ‘play’, so vital whenever you go near the stage. Thanks, too, to Dr Aristidou, our Production Manager who organised some stunning costumes very much in the medieval style. Props were designed by the Art Department; music was chosen by Mrs Dupont, including medieval drums and Holst’s ‘Mars’. So the boys looked and sounded stunning for their big night at the Pleasance Theatre, Islington. There, they were joined by two other schools,

performing ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.

On the technical side, a couple of boys had the chance to be in charge on the night, actually taking over from the professionals and masterminding the operation. In control for our performance were Cookie Padam Mehta and Niki Ponticos, the latter commenting: “My favourite part was to get to the end without any glitches at all.”

On their performance night, Arnold House had the eldest cast of children performing.

The pressure was therefore on them to stop the show with an electrifying effort. This they did and they were later applauded for their confidence on stage as well as the overall ‘look’ of the play.

Perhaps the last word should go to our ‘Henry’, Freddie Rhodes, who played the part with aplomb: “I loved ‘Henry V’ and felt really

pleased when the play was planned. Every week, when you arrived at the rehearsal, you could tell something exciting was going to happen. I wish I could do the whole thing again.”

David Moss-Marks Head of English & SSF Director

The Arnold House Old Boys ’42 Club Reunion Dinner

old boys

Will take place on

Monday 23rd May 2016 At Arnold House School

Thursday10th March 2016 at 7pm

The American School in London

ARNOLD HOUSE SCHOOL

A Night at the

RACES

The dinner is for old boys who are 18 and over.

Invitations and booking forms will be sent out in the New Year.

Auction in aid of the Bursary Fund

Tickets £35pp Including dinner and drinks

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The Arnold House Bursars 1983 to 2015

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here have been five Bursars at Arnold house since 1983 when the Governors realised that the world was changing and more administrative help was needed.

Prior to then the School Secretary dealt with day-to-day matters and external accountants made sense of invoices and handwritten pieces of paper to construct the termly/annual accounts.

Each Bursar has had an individual style which has added greatly to the ethos and standing of Arnold House and helped develop and keep up with ongoing change.

John Allain (1989–1997)

Captain Dennis Roe (1983-1989) Prior to joining Arnold House, Captain Roe was a Naval Meteorologist specialising in Oceanography and spent months at a time away at sea. He was posted to Hong Kong, Malta and later to Belgium to work for NATO. As the first Bursar, Captain Roe’s duties included the responsibility for regulating the number of admissions to the school after Johnny Clegg had been overly generous with offers one year! He was renowned amongst the staff for refusing admission to the son of a very famous pop star and enjoyed joining the boys for lunch and listening to their chatter. His daughter Maggie Mills recalls that “he was particularly amused at Harvest Festival when a small boy referred to it as Harvest Vegetable. The name has stuck in our household to this day.”

Captain Roe liked things to be in good order and when he became Bursar he was involved in a number of refurbishments. He also disliked waste and Maggie remembers him coming home one evening with two discarded old wooden benches carved with boys’ names and stained with spilt ink. They were promptly installed in his greenhouse and remained there for many years.

Captain Roe admired the work and commitment of the teachers at the School and it was sad that he did not live to see his own grandson start at Arnold House.

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John Allain’s responsibilities as Bursar increased with the acquisition of Canons Park and an in-house accountant was recruited to support him. With the growing demand for places and the admission of more boys, recruitment and registration became much more taxing and eventually became the responsibility of a Registrar alongside the Headmaster and the Bursar.

Former member of staff George Lester remembered John as being “a very modest, unassuming gentle man with a wry sense of humour – very approachable and likeable.

You would never have guessed his highranking status (Superintendent) in the Metropolitan Police. As Bursar he was a very careful and logical steward to the School.

Beneath all that bonhomie everything had to be scrupulously accounted for, down to the last penny, but he carried out his duties with such charm and good humour it never grated.”

John was very generous with his time, and continued to run the hugely successful chess club for many years after his retirement. After he died in 2007, his daughter Jan found his diary of his first few weeks at Arnold House. In it, he described the semolina at lunch, and how one of his most unpleasant tasks, delegated to him by the Head, was to make sure all the boys ate it. More difficult, he said, than most things he had had to do at Scotland Yard!

In 1995 personal computers (PC’s) became a way of life in industry and the Bursar’s role changed. The armed services ran special up-to-date Bursar courses to prepare their men for life in ‘civvies’ and produce men like our next Bursar.

Geoffrey Simm (1998 – 2008) Geoffrey was educated at Bryanston and after graduating in engineering at Oxford, spent four years with the guided weapons division of BAC. He joined the Royal Navy serving as a meteorological and oceanographic officer from 1972 to 1996 where he travelled the world and completed two Antarctic surveys aboard HMS Endurance. During his 10 years at Arnold House, Geoffrey managed a comprehensive refurbishment of Loudoun Road and was closely involved with the development of the Activity Centre at Canons Park. At the same time, he continued with the normal duties of looking after the School’s finances and non-teaching staff, reporting to the Governors and dealing with the everyday problems that arise in a busy school.

Geoffrey was responsible for taking control of the School’s accounts with a regular accounts’ assistant. The Victorian methods of accounting had been a source of discussion for many years. It had been difficult for the Governors and Nicholas Allen, the Headmaster, to have a simple view of the School’s financial situation when interim accounts were not readily available.

Geoffrey’s control of the accounts was a great step forward that not only gave the Governors the confidence to plan ahead but also helped to attract some outstanding candidates for future vacancies on the board. Stemming from this, the Governors agreed that a building programme could be financed by further increasing the number of boys in the School in combination with limited borrowing, and an appeal.

they ticked, so that he could help when needed to improve facilities for staff and boys to complement developments to the curriculum. Nothing was too much trouble despite his long daily commute from Ashford in Kent.

Richard Fletcher (2008-2015) Another era, another type of Bursar evolved.

The meticulous black and white approach that Geoffrey Simm had brought to Arnold House to regulate matters enabled Richard to apply his softer skills to management whilst having a wider appreciation of the finances with Viv Thomas.

Unlike the other Bursars, prior to his appointment, Richard had dipped his toe in the education finance scene on retirement from NatWest; initially helping his local foundation comprehensive school as Director of Administration and Finance whilst completing a Diploma in School Business Management and then becoming Bursar at the Skinners’ Company School for Girls at Stamford Hill.

On arrival at Arnold House, Richard was keen to get to know all staff and how

More classrooms were needed so the roof space in number 3 was converted. This enabled boys to be taught in 3 sets for Maths and English and provided an extra tuition room and a small office. The building works at Canons Park needed managing and new ground staff needed appointing.

Catering issues led to new contractors and a separate cleaning company. Change management, which had been the industry buzz word in the 1980’s, was coming to Arnold House both educationally and administratively.

Greater involvement with local and national bursars spawned ideas and suggestions to maintain AHS as one of the premier prep schools in the country.

As John Hill recalled on Richard’s retirement: “... born in George VI’s reign Richard embodies all that was best in that period: service before self, pride in appearance, seeing the job through.....I’d say it’s better to have a loud voice of a man of the world directing us than the tiresome whimpering of a dull technocrat who hides behind the rules and regulations of a nanny state.

Richard’s contribution to Arnold House was sincere, profound and successful...as in his own words... ‘We are Arnold House you know!”

Paula Vanninen (2015- ) In September 2015, the first female Bursar of Arnold House was appointed. Paula was educated at Millfield and graduated from Peterhouse, Cambridge in Economics; she is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Previously Paula worked in finance management roles for a variety of media companies such as Condé Nast and the television division of Universal Studios; prior to joining Arnold House she worked as an A level Economics tutor at Collingham College in Kensington.

We are sure Paula will enjoy taking the School forward in her own style, continuing the hard work and dedication of her four predecessors.

Compiled & edited by Richard Fletcher & Stephanie Miller

Interview with AH old boy Tom Gibbons (1989~1997)

What have you done since leaving AH? On leaving AH in 1997 I went to The Oratory School in a place called Woodcote just outside Reading. This was a lovely place to be between the ages of 13 to 18, especially in the summer. The local pubs were friendly ASSEMBLY

and had a pleasingly relaxed attitude to the age a person needed to be to purchase alcohol! At The Oratory I met people I would be friends with for life, played lots of music and sport and left with 3 A levels in Geography, English and History. After a year out in the Pacific Islands I went to Oxford Brookes University to study Music and Publishing and had a great time there for two years, making more friends for life and playing drums in a reassuringly mediocre band. It became apparent, however, that my idea of a successful 2 years differed slightly from that of the university, and in 2008 I returned to London to start at The Central School of Speech and Drama. At Central I studied for, and received, a BA Honours degree in Theatre Sound, which put me on the path to becoming a Sound Designer for theatre, film and other live events. This is what I have been doing since graduating in 2011 and I am currently lucky enough to be working at places like The National Theatre, RSC, Young Vic and abroad.

What are your overriding memories of Arnold House?

My overriding memories of AH are based mostly around sport. Hours of football in the gravel playground, vaulting like lemmings in the gym as ‘Walk of Life’ by Dire Straights blasted out from RM’s stereo and countless coach trips to the Heath extension/Canons Park. I will always remember Miss Leslie Ralphs’s art room at the top of the building as a good place to be, along with the music hut and the strange attic computer room, and watching films and reading books in Jane Darcy’s form room was always very enjoyable. I’ll never forget watching ‘Stand

By Me’ for the first time in her English class.

History with Alistair Newman was always an event if I remember correctly. When he wasn’t waving bits of blank paper around (“There will be peace in our time!”… “Sir there’s nothing written on the paper”…

“Quiet you duffer it’s a demonstration!”), he was sending one of his pupils out into the front garden to steal the gardeners’ hat.

What was your favourite subject at School and why?

Music, Art and Sport were always my favourites, but I remember always liking Geography in particular. Mr Faulkner was a very nice man and I think the countries and capitals test was the only test I ever looked forward to. For ages I thought I wanted to be a hydro-engineer because of a class we did in Geography. My complete lack of natural ability in Maths and Physics sorted that out.

Tom in 1994

(“Get me Sid’s hat Gibbons, immediately!”).

Off we would scamper. I’m sure the nice gardener wasn’t called Sid. I don’t remember his name sadly. Great hat.

Alex Oldershaw pulling on Mr Prosser’s moustache must get a mention. We all wanted to know and fair play to Alex he went for it. It was real.

How has being an Arnold House pupil impacted your life?

I would have thought the overall diversity AH offered when I was there perhaps encouraged me into a less traditional career path. I was certainly very lucky to go to a friendly school in a leafy north London area where I was able to do as much art or music or cricket as I wanted. I’m sure the junior school nativity play was the first time I knew what theatre was. I also remember watching a senior school production of the Mikado in the American School theatre when I was very young. That must have had some impact on me.

Class of 1997

Have you stayed in touch with any of your fellow pupils?

Jamie Hendry works in the same sort of circles as I do but I don’t see him as much as I perhaps should, our families are very friendly. James Dacre runs a theatre up in Northampton but again I see him very infrequently.

What has been your greatest achievement?

Having and continuing to have a little baby girl has to be up there with my greatest achievements, although the credit must go to my lovely girlfriend Rufio. Together we’ve managed to keep Dot alive for 5 months now, which is pleasing. Owning our own house must also be seen as a great achievement considering the state of the country over the last few years, but again other very generous people share in this. There have been a couple of shows I have designed the sound for, of which I am very proud. Being nominated for an Olivier Award last year was very nice.

Describe an average day in your role?

They can be hugely varied. If I am in full-time rehearsal I usually do 10-6 in a rehearsal room with the director and cast, playing back sounds and programming the show ready for the technical rehearsal

Tom & Trefor Simmonds (Grandfather) at Sports Day in 1993

in the theatre. I could also be doing cast recordings in rehearsals, or going to studios to record musicians, as well as out recording things like road works, fridges or power stations. When we get into tech at the theatre we do long days, usually 9am–10pm. It can get slightly stressful but it’s certainly the most interesting part of making a theatre show. All the elements come together (light, set, automation etc.) and we’ll do that through previews until a press night perhaps 10 days later, after which the show’s run begins properly and I go off to the next show, which has usually been in rehearsal for 2 weeks already. On quieter days I’ll be at home with Dot and Rufio, listening to something for research perhaps or reading scripts. I enjoy being freelance a great deal, especially when I’m at home drinking tea at 11am on a week day thinking about all those people in their offices worrying about things.

What advice would you give someone who would like to follow in your footsteps and pursue a career in sound design?

It’s a very difficult career to get into with any success I think. I’ve been very lucky. When starting out in theatre generally there just isn’t any money. You don’t earn any money and you don’t have any money to spend on what you need to make a show. Working on small fringe shows is a great way to get to know directors and theatres, but it’s not going to pay your rent. Finding someway of earning money while starting out is important. Once you’ve got your name established and larger shows are coming your way it gets slightly easier. Sound Designers are lucky in that we can perhaps work on 3 projects at once, although if people who work in theatre were paid properly this wouldn’t be necessary. Buying the first round in the pub after a show is always a good idea, the director will get you back for the next show for sure!

Arnold House School 1 Loudoun Road, St. John’s Wood, London NW8 0LH Telephone: 020 7266 4840 Facsimile: 020 7266 6994 Email: office@arnoldhouse.co.uk Website: www.arnoldhouse.co.uk Arnold House School Ltd (Limited by Guarantee). Registered in London Number 889424. Educational Charitable Trust Number 312725

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