“I wanted to see what would happen!” part one

This week Simon Vincent shares his insights into teenage boys after 12 years as housemaster of a junior boys’ house at Bryanston. The first in his three-part blog looks at communication, or the lack thereof.

I need to come clean at the start – I have never parented a teenage boy. I have three girls (which presents its own issues!), but I have stood in loco parentis for nearly 440 13- to 14-year-old boys over the last 12 years and I hope that this has put me in a position to offer some insight.

“I wanted to see what would happen” is a phrase that I heard many times over the last 12 years when questioning boys about something particularly stupid and thoughtless that they had done. This ranged from spraying deodorant at close range onto their nipples to see if they would freeze, to drinking the contents of a glow-stick and then standing in a loo with the lights off and waiting to see if their wee would glow in the dark! Indeed, these are some of the more explainable ‘experiments’ and when, during the course of an investigation into an incident, I would ask “What were you thinking?” the answer would often be “I don’t know.” This was an honest answer – they really didn’t know what they were thinking, but just did it anyway to “see what would happen.” This is part of both the frustration and charm of teenage boys; they live in the moment, sparing little thought for consequence or caution. They are natural risk-takers and, if harnessed, this can be a great route to success, but the path is a dangerous one also.

I find most teenage boys eager to please, loyal almost to a fault, and endlessly entertaining. To see this, however, one has to accept the inevitability of failure. Teenagers will let you down, they will make errors of judgement, they will do stupid things and once you have grasped this reality, you can get on with the business of building relationships with them.

Of course, my generic teenage boy does not apply to every child, but almost all that I have looked after display some of the traits I am about to describe. I have no qualifications other than experience for these thoughts and please feel free to ignore them as you wish.

Most boys are not great communicators – at least not with their parents. They tend only to see the point in communicating when there is something they want or need to offload. The key to this is that they do not see their parents as human beings in the strict sense of the word, more as simple conduits for their own desires. This is precisely what we as parents have been encouraging for the previous 13 years, delighting in the fact that these are ‘our’ children, who we take pride in caring for. Teenage boys coming to boarding school are starting to think of themselves less as ‘ours’ and more as ‘theirs’, but the apron strings still pertain when they cannot make something happen on their own. This needs to be borne in mind when having telephone conversations with teenage boys – there is usually a reason for the phone call, and it is rarely just to have a nice chat!

My advice for dealing with the above is as follows:

If they want something, try to resist giving it to them straight away (be it something physical or your support to make something happen). They have come to boarding school to become more independent and there are channels within the school to sort out any issues they have. If they do not have something, or are not able to do something, there is usually a credible reason for it (bad organisation, rules etc). Most teenage boys have an over-developed sense of injustice and a complete inability to see things from any point of view other than their own. I lost count of the irate calls from parents claiming that a member of staff had ‘unfairly’ prevented a boy from going down to Blandford or that ‘everyone’ had a new pair of Beats headphones and it was ‘social suicide’ not to have them. These were the teenagers’ words being projected back to me. In these cases, the purpose of the call home was evident: they wanted their parents to put pressure on the school to allow the trip to Blandford or they wanted new headphones. Simple. All the surrounding hyperbole was aimed at tugging at the parental heartstrings. There is a danger here, for the moment the teenager senses that parents are ‘on their team’ against the school the slippery slope becomes precipitous.

When it comes to your son offloading negativity, please try not to worry too much. This tends to be something that lands on mothers and makes them feel wretched. If boys have worries they are not great at talking them through with their friends. They phone their mothers, offload all their negative thoughts, then get back to life as normal, happily relieved of the burden. This is a coping mechanism for them and they spare not a single thought for the worrying that is going on at home. In my experience, most boys do not phone up when things are going well, or if they are having a good time with their friends. In these cases their emotional needs are already being met so why bother to seek any added validation from their parents? This may sound harsh but, from what I have seen, it is truly the way that most of their minds work.

This treatment of parents by teenagers shocks some at first. We at boarding school are in the privileged position of seeing the very best of the teenagers that we look after. This is because they know that they have to work at gaining our trust and liking (or that of their friends) and pour all their efforts into this. A parent’s love is unconditional, and they know that, so often by the time they get home they have exhausted their reservoirs of pleasantness. I think that as long as we parents can be sure that our teenagers behave well with other adults, then we can celebrate that.

In part two of his blog Simon will look at Snowplough Parents, the importance for teenagers to learn self-reliance and the need for consistency from parents and other adults around them.

• "I wanted to see what would happen!" part two
• "I wanted to see what would happen!" part three

“I wanted to see what would happen!” part three

Following on from parts one and two of his blog, Simon Vincent continues to share his insights into teenage boys, gained over his 12 years as a junior boys’ housemaster.

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." - James Joyce

Most boys have an innate desire to find things out for themselves and, given the opportunity, will do so despite the best advice that they are given. Certainly, the consequences can seem terrifying, but I would contend that the consequences of not allowing them to do so are worse. The well-known observation “Why, when someone tells you that there are 100 million stars in the universe do you believe them, yet when you see a sign saying ‘Wet Paint’, do you have to touch it to check?” is one that applies particularly to teenage boys. What makes this worse is the extent to which they wind each other up and challenge an arms race of bravado. Among young teenage boys unused to each other’s company this forms an essential part of early interaction. Boys are not great at having meaningful conversations about themselves, as they are all terrified that others will find them boring and immature. They are so desperate to show their credentials to their peers that they exaggerate to an amusingly ridiculous degree. In an overblown social version of the card game Liar, the stakes of calling each other out are raised by the prospect of being called out in turn. What is left is an environment where boys think that others may not be telling the entire truth, but recognise that they, in turn, have perjured themselves so they all just go along with the illusion. I have overheard the most ridiculous (and often shocking) claims of boys earnestly telling others that their dad invented the SAS or that they have been to a pool party with Rihanna or other such nonsense! I remember clearly the horror when I saw a (not very gymnastically-talented) boy in the house garden standing on the fence, surrounded by a cheering crowd, and clearly about to do a back flip off it. Time seemed to slow down as I rushed for the back door to try and stop him, but flip he did, landing flat on his back on the hard ground. I had images of A&E flashing in my head. Thankfully he was unhurt, but what emerged was that he had told other boys so many times that he could do it, that he had actually begun to believe that he could. This is a fairly benign example, but it is at the root of many that are less so.

The world is changed and it is an inevitability that our risk-averse culture has arisen (especially with the paperwork at schools). This is all very sensible and helps to keep the lawyer from the door, but I am not the first to recognise that organised fun is often no fun at all! My best memories of boarding school are not the wonderful school trips or the coaching sessions we had but those where we went freestyle, took charge of our own leisure time and tried to do something different. Pupils still do this, thankfully, and in a much more controlled environment the thrill of doing something for themselves has added piquancy. The boys, when left to their own devices, are often much more sensible and risk-averse than we give them credit for, but our inability to give them enough leeway makes them all the more committed to challenging action. I completely understand the desire to keep children safe, but the teenage years are a time when the mantle of ‘child’ is starting to shrug from their shoulders and they are looking (albeit through rose-tinted, psychedelic spectacles) at the fact that they may be a viable individual in their own right. I see our role as giving them advice and a road map, whilst always being on standby to jump in with roadside breakdown cover if really needed in case of failure.

Failure is probably the most important learning process in a teenage boy’s development, so let’s not deny it to them. Some years ago I coached an U14 rugby team with a colleague. Our season statistics by December read Played 15 Won 15 and County Cup Champions. Amid all the celebrations at the end of that autumn term, my colleague and I both voiced our misgivings. Most teenage boys have pretty high opinions of themselves and, if not slightly tempered, can cross over from confidence into arrogance. Don't get me wrong, I love my teams to win but when they start to believe their own hype about themselves there are problems coming. In this instance, rather predictably, the rugby team refused to listen to the advice that they were given to change the way they played at U15 level or to work on core skills. As a result they only won five matches out of 12 at U15 level. A quote from a classic film best summarises this when Commander Stinger tells the well-nicknamed Maverick (Tom Cruise), “Son, your ego is writing cheques that your body can’t cash.” This is spot on. In order to become better young men, boys must experience failure and disappointment and test themselves against that, rather than success. I do not suggest that we should create losing situations for them, rather that we allow them to fail (gently) more than trying vicariously to exorcise our own past failings by attempting to solve all issues for our children. This is to deny them the very learning opportunity that makes us seek to help them. Again, this is totally understandable and I am sometimes unable to resist with my own children – but I try.

And so ...
I have been enormously privileged to welcome so many wonderful young men into Bryanston over the last 12 years and I have been truly proud of the way that they have progressed and moved on. The fact that my first intake of boys is now 26 years old is terrifying but such is the march of time. As I have said, my main motivation in writing this is to provide some kind of balance to the emotional turmoil of parenting that is all the more accurately felt if your current teenager is your first. There is no blueprint for success here, just some observations about how to make a really difficult job as a parent a little bit easier and to make interaction with the school more straightforward.

A former Headmaster of this school is reported to have told new parents that “A boarding school education is like cooking a casserole. Put all the parts in and as long as you don't lift the lid or stir it for five years it will turn out delicious.” This is probably apocryphal, but it does sum up a now-outdated attitude towards boarding. The reality these days is very different, but there is an essential point in the quotation. The whole point of these five years is a move towards adulthood – our children’s adulthood. Up until this point we have been their major guides through life, but this will probably not be the case in five years’ time and we need to learn to let them go a bit. This is a transitional period when teenagers are looking for other role models, other sources of advice, other sources of love and friendship. It is difficult for the boys, but far more difficult for the parents. Good luck!

• “I wanted to see what would happen!” part one
• “I wanted to see what would happen!” part two

“I wanted to see what would happen!” part two

In part two of his blog, Simon Vincent looks at the pitfalls of Snowplough Parenting, the need for teenage boys to develop a sense of self-reliance as well as the importance of consistent boundaries. You can read part one here.

Some years ago the Headmistress of St Paul’s Girls’ School wrote an article bemoaning the rise of what she called ‘Snowplough Parenting’. Many were familiar with the concept of Helicopter Parents, but I was struck that her use of the snowplough was more apposite. The model that this reflects is where parents ‘attach’ themselves to the front of their child’s life and act like a snowplough, clearing all obstacles out of their child’s way. These children are never allowed to be disappointed, or to fail to make a team, or to fail to win a prize of some sort, or cope with any kind of setback. I totally understand the deep-felt desire to see one’s child happy and successful, but have seen enough of this to conclude that this kind of action is not an effective preparation for life. The wonderful opportunity for boys at boarding school is the opportunity to take some control over aspects of their lives and to do this by developing dialogue with a number of adults and peers who are not their parents. This encourages honesty, negotiation, consistency and a focus on the importance of cause and consequence.

This is where mirror-gazing comes in. My Platoon Sergeant at Sandhurst (CSgt Broad Grenadier Guards) had a habit, when officer cadets came to him with problems or complaints, of making them stand in front of a bathroom mirror. “Whenever you think that you are having a bad time,” he would say, “whenever you think that the world is against you, that life is unfair, just look in the mirror and say ‘50% of my problems are looking back at me right now.’ Once you accept that the only person you can rely upon to sort your problems out is you, then you can move on.” Now obviously CSgt Broad was interacting with adults, but his belief was that you cannot control what other people do, only what you can do, and that time reflecting on the unfairness of life was wasted. This takes years, but I believe that a central part of growing up as a teenage boy is to at least have the impression that you are sorting things out for yourself. There are, of course, many people in an institution like a boarding school to support teenagers in this, but the confidence gained by teenagers when they start to take control of providing their own solutions is invaluable.

Possibly my most important words are about something that is the most difficult to demonstrate. In dealing with boys, and men, consistency is key. Boys don't really do ‘mercurial’, they get confused by mood swings and they often don’t read social situations appropriately as a result. Boys welcome boundaries. It doesn't really matter where they are and it doesn't mean they won't push them, but the knowledge of a boundary puts boys’ minds at rest. If you are consistently harsh then fine, consistently relaxed equally so, but flipping from one to the other puts boys on edge. Life is easy at school. There are clear rules, clear sanctions and we can enforce them unencumbered by the massive handicap of loving the children in our care. We like them, of course, but attempts to play the guilt card or tug at the emotions are easily rebuffed, because they are the children we look after, not the children that we brought into the world. The main thing from a school point of view is that, despite what the boys may say, we do not treat them unfairly, have favourites or ignore them in favour of other children – it is profoundly not in our interests to do so.

I hope that this insight gives parents the ability to take an objective view of telephone reports of ‘unfairness’.

In the third part of his blog, Simon will look at the important part experimentation and failure have to play in teenage boys’ development.

• "I wanted to see what would happen!" part one
• "I wanted to see what would happen!" part three

Playing like a girl

This week we share a post written by one of our departing A2 pupils, Tilly C, on her experiences of playing cricket through the years. Tilly is currently playing for Hampshire Women's 1st XI squad.

The day I distinctly remember falling in love with cricket was on a family and friends camping holiday in Cornwall at the age of about nine. It was a holiday tradition to have a huge cricket game on the first night between the fathers and sons, but for once I was allowed to join in. I remember being passed the ball to bowl against the campsite superstar, who was the renowned cricketer in the school year above me. I felt it was a huge honour (at the time) to be able to bowl at him. It was like bowling against Kevin Peterson or AB de Villiers in my eyes, but my first ball I clean bowled him. Nobody could believe it, and I loved it! From that moment, I knew cricket was going to be my passion and the sport that I love to play.

At St Katherine’s Primary School, playing from year 4 to 6 in both boys’ and girls’, softball and hardball teams, I was fortunate enough to have an extremely supportive Deputy Headteacher and cricket fanatic, Mr. Booth. He, alongside my father and grandfather, taught me the fundamentals of the game, which gave me a great starting point. The support they collectively gave me was massive; giving me belief that being the only girl on the team was a normality, my acceptance was never questioned. As a result, I was predominately friends with the boys in my team, who accepted me as an equal and still do today. With hindsight, I realise how important it is for all players to accept their team mates, irrelevant of gender, and that these barriers have to be broken. It is very clear to me now who the boys are that grew up playing cricket with me, or other girls, as they are far more accepting and supportive than those who have never experienced a girl in their own team before.  Unfortunately, I realised the hard way that being accepted like I had once been wouldn't always be the case. I was unaware that for me to be able to get to where I am today I would have to shed so many tears, bear frustrations and break barriers that certain people willingly and unwillingly put in my way.

My dad is one of the main reasons I am still doing what I love today. Throughout the years of secondary school, I struggled to play the amount of cricket that I would have wanted to. I was repeatedly told, by both pupils and teachers, that cricket was only for boys and that I simply wasn't ‘tough enough’. But, thanks to my dad, I became heavily involved with Dorset Cricket, and was lucky enough to be given a lot of support from coaches who really pushed me in my early years, making my county women’s debut at the age of 12, and being the youngest female to score both a 50 and a century. In addition, they allowed me to train and be part of the boys’ teams, as it was more developed than the women’s, which again meant that I was able to push myself physically and mentally by training alongside the boys.

I will forever be grateful for that Dorset experience, as I wouldn’t be where I am today without them. However, excelling at county level didn't stop the offensive comments that I would receive. I would often turn up to training where the boys would find it hilarious to have a competition between themselves to see who could hit me whilst bowling and make me cry first (or the most), which, as you can imagine, significantly knocked my confidence and I still suffer in some elements of my game today as a result of this ‘banter’.

I understood fully that my passion was for a predominately male dominated game, so there would be challenges on the way, yet I never believed that these challenges would be planted by grown adults or, in certain cases, my own coaches. It was bad enough coming from your own peer group, but coming from adults, who should have been role models to me and been nothing but supportive towards my cricket and achievement, was at times almost too much of a psychological burden to bear. Having a grown man yell at you because you were a girl, or having a coach exclude you from a team on the basis of gender is something that I will not and will always refuse to grasp or accept. Yet what really upsets me is that even today some attitudes toward female sport have remained unchanged; even those of teachers and coaches, who we assume would be positively influencing the next generation. This worries me greatly as to how the attitudes of my generation and even my team mates may change because of these coaches’ personal problems and poor attitudes. I never want another girl to experience the barriers and issues I have had to face, playing like a girl is nothing but 100% positive and sport should be the ultimate level playing field. In my experience of being coached by many male coaches this simply isn’t always the case.

Having carried several injuries and a nasty illness, which really set me back in my early teens, I remained determined to reach my dream of playing for England and this became a reality when I played for the England U16s in 2015. It reinforced that my hard work and dedication was worthwhile and only gave me more ammunition to prove the doubters wrong. With renewed vigour, I have missed out on parties and outings with friends, and have never been seen as the ‘girly girl’ due to the hours spent in the gym, doing rehab and prehab as well as building my strength, but also committing to extra training sessions to ensure that I was making the progress I wanted.

I have felt, at times, that I have missed out on a lot in terms of my social life and I have worried that I would lose my friends over it. However, I realise that this was just merely a test for who my real friends are. Who will make plans around my training, and who will stick up for me against the horrible comments I receive. I am extremely lucky to have surrounded myself with some very true and encouraging friends who I have relied upon and who have really picked me up after an upset, or even stood up for me when I really needed it. This just illustrates how important your peer group must be, crucial especially when at school. 

I received sport scholarships for sixth form to Bryanston, Millfield and Canford and decided to take up the offer to come to Bryanston. I stand by my decision and can honestly say it is one of the best that I have ever made. The school facilities are out of this world and the extra help and support that you receive, in terms of pastoral care, has been phenomenal. My housemistress, Mrs Scott, has always been there to help with any problems that may arise, including enabling me to leave school for my training and matches but maintain my academic studies too. The coaching that I have received from both Mr. Morrises has been amazing. They've made every one of my sessions fun and enjoyable as well being very technical, so that I can improve as well as overcome many of my fears within my game. Mr. Chapman, the Head of Strength and Conditioning, has worked tremendously close with Clara (one of the school physiotherapists) to make sure that I am still able to play and train this year to the best that I can through the several reoccurring injuries that I have come up against.

Following all of the setbacks I have faced, through negative and nasty comments about being a girl, and not being included in teams or training with the old-fashioned opinion that girls can’t do what boys can do, even within the school system, all those mentioned have reminded me of my love for the game and the reasons why I am playing. But all credit has to go to Mr F-D, the Director of Sport at Bryanston, for everything he has done these past two years as my tutor. Any small problem that may have arisen, any upset, through all the ups and downs, he has always found a way to fix it or, more importantly, helped me to find a way to fix it. He has been unbelievably supportive, never ignoring the smallest or largest achievements that I have made in the past year or so. I can truly say that he has made my time at Bryanston imperative for my cricketing career as well as for my personal development. I believe this sort of care could not be offered anywhere other than at Bryanston. Without the extra help from all the above, and others, I truly believe that the barriers, frustrations and negative comments would have beaten me and I wouldn’t be where I am now; playing for Hampshire alongside some of the greatest female cricketers in the world in Charlotte Edwards and Suzie Bates, going to Loughborough next year and still aspiring to become an England cricketer.

I would encourage any aspiring female athletes to come to Bryanston. It was, and always will be one of the best decisions I have ever made. I would like to thank everyone who has been a part of my journey, for all that they have done for me in my past two years at school as they have reinforced my love for cricket and reminded me of my goals and targets for when I leave. Playing like a girl will never be a bad thing and the way to break the barriers for all other aspiring female sportswomen is just to keep smashing through them till nothing stands in your way.

Why we should be encouraging our children to read more

In celebration of World Book Day, Louise Boothman, Teacher of English reflects back on a time before digital distractions and explains why we need to be encouraging children to read more... 

Back in 1980 something, the Casio Databank really was a thing of wonders. With its red numbers, tiny-but-functional calculator and reassuringly Space 1999 aesthetic, it really was the birthday present of choice. We were confident that there was more technology on our wrists than went into getting Neil Armstrong to the moon. We were probably right. The flashing 24-hour clock – no hands for us, thanks – was a taste of the future and unpinned a lot of our spy game antics; press the back light and talk into your Casio, imagining that it had a walkie-talkie function, press the other button and a zip line would emerge. One friend sagely predicted that the little digital screen would one day be a tiny telly! As if. Imagine being able to watch Grange Hill on your wrist and radio your friends via your Casio…

Had I been given a sneak preview of the wristwear habitually sported nowadays, I think it would have blown my tiny mind. Everything and anything, that flashes, beeps and distracts, is available – if not on your wrist, then certainly on something that fits in your pocket and is little bigger than a match box… Had I had a smartphone at 13 would I have been quite so interested in books? The internet is full of endless rabbit holes to fall down, with click leading to click, so easy, so passive. Is it any wonder that reading for pleasure seems to be becoming something of a lost art, side-lined as niche and antiquated against such alluring technology? The first generation of tablet-savvy children are coming through our doors and it’s increasingly hard to match the lure of the smartphone, the laptop, the tablet or the smartwatch with the printed word. If I had a penny for every time a parent has lamented: ‘My child does not read anything, they used to love reading at prep school’, I would currently be mulling over this thorny perennial from the deck of my super yacht, but as it stands, we are all trying our best to work out how we make analogue sexy in an almost entirely digitised world. It’s tough.

Books are enchanting, they can take you anywhere, all from the comfort of your armchair, but they don’t sing for everyone. The allure of children’s fiction, with their gorgeous illustrations, all too soon ebbs away as the text grows denser, the pictures vanish and the pages contract down to the size of a house brick. This progression to ‘young adult fiction’ usually chimes with a move to senior school, the arrival of a new mobile phone and the marvel that is puberty. There’s a lot going on. Couple this with the boarding environment; deliberately busy and full of hustle, there’s not always time and space to be quiet and reflective. Besides which, when you do wind down of an evening, some well-meaning adult will bang your lights out at 9.50pm, so that thwarts most potential bookworms…

Reading requires time and space and quiet. It also requires a text that really grabs you. It seems a long time since the reign of the Goosebumps series, where obsessed children had resorted to stealing the next exciting edition of the horror series from bookshops. In the 2011 riots the only shop to remain blissfully ‘unlooted’ was Waterstones. The windows were fully intact, as nobody wanted to lift the contents. Not even the Moomin pencil cases. To be considered a ‘big reader’ (i.e. someone who reads a lot), Waterstones have set the bar at four books a year.

So how do we turn this around? It seems to me, that just like the resurgent vogue for vinyl records, ‘The Book’ is ripe for a hipster makeover. E-readers are all very well, but I have little truck for reading a book on your laptop or phone. I like paper in my grubby mit, I like to be able to flick back and read a favourite passage, and I like knowing how many pages I have left for the unknotting to unfold. So, let’s go old school and have a real, actual, physical book. We also have to model good reading habits; if you are endlessly noodling on your tablet, why should your children not do the same? Let them catch you reading. To that end, if you spot a member of staff reading in main hall, it’s all part of our ‘Visible Reader Scheme’, as spearheaded by our very own Will Ings. Designed to set a good example and flag the importance of reading for pleasure, we hope to get some older pupils onboard too in the coming weeks.

 

Emma Minter, our librarian, is full of plans and schemes to encourage reading; do visit Ashmore and see the work she has done. Now open to all, not just the preserve of sixth formers, there are some beautiful books to borrow; Emma has a wonderful eye and her displays are vibrant and carefully curated. Welcoming and cosy, the range of non-fiction she has brought in is particularly strong. In addition, Emma has also ploughed ahead with the introduction of the Accelerated Reader scheme, which places the emphasis on at least five, half-hour reading sessions a week. Hsms have been instrumental in facilitating this, while the English department are chivvying away to ensure that our Ds complete the accompanying comprehension quiz every time our pupils read one of the recommended books. 

While there is a satisfaction to reading everything by a particular author, the Accelerated Reader homes in on the pupil’s reading age and encourages stretch and challenge, to help the reading age ‘accelerate’. We also have a Reading Passport, where D, C and B pupils are rewarded for reading x number of books in a term. Equally, in English we are pushing the Bedrock vocabulary builder to help give pupils the academic vocabulary they need to succeed; if you don’t have the vocab, you really can’t access the curriculum.

But reading is not just the key to academic success, it’s about your mental health, too. Reading to escape, reading to understand how other people tick and putting a hand across time to make a connection with someone from a different age is a most powerful thing. Reading shouldn’t be like taking your medicine; it’s good for you, but you don’t really like it. Being lent a book by someone you respect is a tremendous incentive to read it; it’s great to see some of our pupils reading challenging material that has been recommended by their tutors and I always enjoy having recommendations from my tutorial pupils. Thanks to one notable, I have just read my very first Agatha Christie. What can I say? I’m a late adapter.

In such a busy environment, it sometimes seems decadent to sit down with a book. And there is also the delightful contradiction that while reading is an activity that requires some form of isolation, it is also the very thing that helps you feel connected. I’ll leave my summation to F. Scott Fitzgerald: ‘That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.’

Books are wondrous, have your fill.

Soft rules

This week we welcome Bryanston's Head of Pastoral, Dr Preetpal Bachra, as he examines the 'soft rules' of social interaction.

The Head recently blogged about the core school rules. I always consider these to be the ‘hard rules’, i.e. those which tell you where you stand. In this blog I want to examine some of what might be termed the ‘soft rules’, especially those relating to social interaction and how these are evolving and changing.

As a general rule of thumb, I try not to forget what it was like to be a teenager and perhaps I should share a few observations from my own teenage years because, as Maya Angelou observed, 'we are more alike than we are unalike.'

At the age of 14, I became attracted to Eastern philosophy, but that may have been because I thought the yin and yang symbol was ‘cool’. John Bellaimy gives a simplistic view of it as the yin being the dark swirl and the yang being the light swirl, and each side has a dot of the opposite colour illustrating the concept that everything contains the seed of its opposite. I used to think the symbol was about balance in life but it is more to do with things not being complete opposites. Rather, things are relative to each other. We can act in certain ways but there is always the seed of the opposite that can extend from it. 

My life and how I saw the world at 14 may not be so different from how pupils see the world today, but there is a difference in how they interact with it. In my teenage years, I had one key aim, one key aspiration, and that was to be Bruce Lee. He starred in one of my favourite films of all time, Enter The Dragon, and there was one particular scene that I wanted to replicate. I would practise with my nunchakus and there were plenty of accidents. In fact, if people had videoed me then my outcomes may have found their way into the litany of ‘YouTube fails’.

The important difference is that my life was private and all those stages that I went through, I explored on my own. There are records of these stages, of course, housed in family photo albums, but none of them are in the public domain. I didn’t, and still don’t, honestly think anyone else would be interested in the goings-on in my life. Banksy, in an interview for Time Out in 2010, summed it up well, “I don't know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower.”

Today so much more of young people’s lives is on public display, and this isn’t without consequences. For example, in 2015 ChildLine conducted over 11,000 counselling sessions nationally with young people regarding online issues. And in a 2013 study for Northwestern University 29% of Facebook users surveyed reported ‘losing face’ from embarrassing content posted by friends. As a school we alert pupils to the dangers of putting themselves and their friends on public display through PSRE lessons, reminders of the support available, lectures about protecting themselves and so on.

This use of digital communication can lead to embarrassment and humiliation. The distinction between embarrassment and humiliation is that the former we bring on ourselves and the latter is brought on us by others. In 1998 a scandal broke in the US when Monica Lewinsky admitted relations with Bill Clinton, the then president. She did something that embarrassed her, but the response was intense because of how people commented.

From a psychological point of view, the comments Monica Lewinsky endured can be partly understood by the process of disassociation, i.e. the person commenting is separated from the victim and understanding the implications of their comments: they cease to remember that those people have feelings. And here is our soft rule: don’t put yourself out there. If pupils (or any of us) choose to share things that others do not want to be shared then it will humiliate them, and we take a very dim view of that.

Of course there are positives to the use of social media: the messages of support to each other; ensuring people are not left out; sharing happy times with loved ones; contact with family; the sharing of ideas to make us think and broaden our horizons, and we should remember that this is why technology has a place in our lives. It can be an incredible force for good and it should be used as such when appropriate.

However, we should all be careful what we post, be careful with other people’s privacy and not put ourselves in a position where we or our feelings, or those of others, might be abused. It is these soft, unspoken rules, along with the hard rules, that go some way to ensuring we can flourish and thrive within our own communities and the wider society in which we find ourselves.

Academic Bryanston…a new boy’s impressions

This week we are delighted to welcome our Deputy Head, Academic, David James, with a guest blog on his first impressions of Bryanston's academic system.

David James

Every independent school in the UK likes to see themselves as unique: they might market themselves as distinctive, but the language used on websites, or in glossy brochures, often has the same buzzwords and phrases (‘holistic education’, ‘well rounded individuals’, ‘self-confident’ and so on, as if there are any schools in the country who would not endorse these). The reality is that most schools have more in common than they would care to admit (and I would include state schools in that): teachers teach their pupils, mark their work, enter examinations, and then send them out into the real world. Bryanston, however, really is different: the modified Dalton Plan, upon which Bryanston’s academic system is based, puts it into a tiny minority of schools worldwide. When I worked at Dauntsey’s I knew of Bryanston from afar, and ever since then have wanted to know more about it: did it really work in practice, rather than in theory? What results did it get? And so after nearly a term of being here I think I’m beginning to get a sense of the school’s academic system. It’s been an education!

We know from the recent ISI inspection that Bryanston is officially ‘excellent’ in every category. And I know from conversations with the inspection team that one of the (many) things that impressed them about the school is our academic system: it was seen as a unique and integral part of the school’s identity, and something which clearly added real value to the quality of our pupils’ learning. The inspectors noted that:

In line with the school’s original founding aims, teaching is effective in promoting pupils’ progress through learning to work independently, guided by individual tutoring.

It was Bryanston’s ‘one-to-one’ support that was singled out as a means of ‘promoting the pupils’ personal development’. This progress is at the core of every pupil’s experience of Bryanston: there is an emphasis placed on individualised care and support, so that everyone, regardless of their ability, is able to meet with an adult (either a tutor or their subject teacher) to discuss their studies, as well as their extracurricular commitments. It is this ‘close connection’ that, the inspectors said, contributed to the ‘rapid progress’ they make in their subjects, and it also explains why so many OBs retain such a strong bond with the school.

Key to this is the tutor. In most schools tutoring is unevenly delivered: in boarding schools tutors usually have a group of about 10 pupils whom they see once a week; usually, they give this group up after one year. It could not be more different at Bryanston: here, a tutor has individual tutorial pupils whom they meet, one-to-one, every week. There is no group because we view everyone as an individual. And this selection of tutorial pupils is governed not by house, but by a careful process of selection. Crucially, the tutor remains with their tutorial pupils throughout their school career, ensuring a mutual, and deep, form of understanding and trust.

Correction periods build on this: at Bryanston each sixth form pupil will see their subject teachers one-to-one once a week to discuss key areas of their course. This can be transformative for the pupil who can quickly go from a sense of uncertainty about a topic, to one of insight and understanding. Again, the key here is that personalised care. Compare and contrast that with the increasingly depersonalised, screen-driven ‘interactions’ that dominate our digital lives. Little wonder that the system is so valued, and felt by many to be authentic, have academic rigour, and the pupils’ interests at its heart.

I have visited a lot of schools in my career, both as an inspector, and as someone interested in different school systems. Among those that have impressed me most are the fully IB schools in the Netherlands and Germany, the Harkness schools in New England (such as Philips Andover and Philips Exeter), and the Core Knowledge schools in New York. These are very different, but equally world class, institutions. But Bryanston’s academic system is equal to them because, like them, we have an academic philosophy that works and an ethos that supports it. More importantly, we know that the academic system we have works for us, rather than because a new government initiative says it should. That’s not to say it cannot improve: it can and will, but I hope that the school continues to remain true to its founding principles, adapting its approach on its own terms. That is the value, and measure, of true independence.

Diverse community

This week our Head of Sixth Form, Ian McClary, shares his thoughts on diversity and inclusivity and the importance of being accepted as yourself and of accepting others for who they are.

What does it feel like to be included? To be able, honestly and openly, to be yourself and know that you will be welcomed, encouraged, supported and cared for because of that which makes you individual, distinctive or different? The answer is, it feels absolutely amazing - knowing that you are accepted because you are you and not because you are some edited version of yourself; that your perspective, experience, knowledge and skills are valued and can contribute towards the life and growth of the community of which you are a part, for as long as you are a part of it. It is just this kind of attitude that Bryanston seeks to foster.

Society at large may raise an eyebrow at the claim of a school like ours that we consider ourselves to be diverse, viewed, as we often are, as an ivory tower filled with the perfumed elite. Nothing could be further from the truth, either in reality or how we see ourselves. We tend to take for granted and consider normal the range of nationalities, backgrounds, interests, experiences and views to be found at Bryanston. But what is more important and what really makes us diverse, I think, are the ways, as a community, in which we genuinely value the individual. Whether a pupil or a member of staff, one doesn’t feel the pressure to fit in and conform; rather there is a willingness to move the furniture around to make sure no one bumps into it.

And so, when the school conducted its first LGBT survey last term to explore and learn more about this aspect of the human condition at Bryanston, it came as no surprise that it was received with warmth and thoughtfulness. Not only was it a census of a kind to show our LGBT pupils and staff that they are included and valued, but it also served to prompt our whole community to think about how well we treat LGBT people. Do they feel welcomed, valued and able to be themselves? While there are areas of school life we need to continue to think about, by comparison with the national picture of young people and teachers in schools nationally, the results were extremely encouraging. Incidences of homophobia at Bryanston are extremely low and there is a genuine acceptance and inclusion of LGBT identity and expression as a normal part of life’s rich tapestry. Questions were raised, naturally, about why this area merited particular focus when surely it is just an accepted and integrated aspect of society nowadays. An admirable assumption to make, but we wanted to make sure it was borne out by the experience of pupils and staff, as indeed it largely was.

Of course there are other areas surrounding equality and diversity which merit further scrutiny as we ask ourselves how inclusive a community we really are. These can take place in a variety of ways, most recently the development of a pupil-led Equality Society which has responded to the impulse to reflect, as any healthy community should, upon the various needs and perspectives of its members.

What has always struck me since I came to Bryanston five years ago and as I prepare to say goodbye to the first group of pupils that I have seen through the school, is that Bryanston is an unusual school for the way it embraces flexibility and change, both in the way it thinks and the way it operates. It is open to new ideas, reminding me of the Quaker idea of being open to new light, from whatever source it may come. This culture of openness and enquiry is a real strength, as well as an enjoyable one in which to participate, and it makes for an inclusive school which embraces diversity for the enrichment it inevitably brings.