Growing up in London and venturing onto the London underground
system, I was always anxious about the need to change lines to get to my
required destination. Was I aiming to head north or south, east or west, and
what was I to do when the tannoy announced “all
change please, all change”?
From the outside, moving up to a senior boys’ boarding house
at Bryanston might seem a little like this. While a sense of anticipation, even
some concern, is perfectly understandable, it is important to remember that it
is not “all change” by any means. The
grounding of a year in a junior house is already in the bag, so pupils know
where to go when asked to meet in Main Hall, or realise that having an assignment
in Dorchester is basically working on prep in the maths subject room rather
than working on some undercover operation in Dorset’s county town.
Similarly, as Year 9 boys transform into Year 10s when they arrive
in their second September at Bryanston, they have the immense comfort of
returning to the guidance of their existing tutor. While the new academic year
represents a clean slate, a tutor will knowingly ask about the summer break in
Cornwall perhaps, or a particular theme from the previous term’s reports, and
then of course, how their charge is settling into their new senior boarding house.
The continuity provided by the Bryanston tutor system is one of the key elements
that eases what might otherwise be a more fundamental transition.
The move has also been smoothed by the hard work undertaken in
the summer of Year 9. The process starts with a senior housemaster receiving a
confidential list in their common room pigeon hole; it is like Christmas,
except we have no real idea at that point who is coming our way. There follows
a rapid round of enquiries about this list of names, where we know there is no
randomness or partiality at all – the list has been carefully crafted to meld
together a group who will live under the same roof for the next four years of
their school life. The boys themselves have suggested who they’d like to be
with, the junior housemasters have balanced this against the need to share
talent around the five senior boys’ houses and an honest assessment of what is
best for each boy, and the alchemy is completed by a dash of careful social
engineering. The senior housemasters then receive a ‘dossier’ on each new boy
coming their way. All in all, it equates to the planning we might all make
before embarking on a tube journey across a capital city.
I (and the other senior housemasters) then meet our new
boys, inviting them to visit their new boarding house for a quick look around; in
the following weeks there is also an overnight camp by the river, team-building,
story-telling, a group BBQ perhaps, and a ‘graduation day’ when I also get to meet
the new parents. Finally, before the summer holiday begins, the dorm combinations
for September are arranged, i.e. the boys know who they’ll be in a room with in
the first term of the next academic year, avoiding the peril of a tenterhooks
return to school in September.
Once in the senior house, like all tube journeys, there is
not one route that fits all, so the journey to the Leavers’ Ball at the end of
Year 13 can take various detours with stops along the way, and the route each
pupil decides to take is pretty unique to them. Some will take the Circle Line
all the way from South Kensington to King’s Cross, while others will opt for
the Piccadilly, Central or Victoria line, and that’s because a pupil will have
different skills or preferences. It matters not because they all reach their final
destination in the end and with their personal confidence pretty well complete.
Some might take the circuitous route for a while, or pass through many more
stops along the way. Some may even go south on the Bakerloo when they should go
north; but between the housemaster, tutors and teachers, we will nudge them in
order to get them going back in the right direction towards Baker Street.
During four years of travel, there is plenty of guidance
offered so that any pupil should know what’s coming up and when they need to
react. “The next station is Paddington. Change
here for the Bakerloo line and National Rail services”. And then there is
my own personal favourite – ‘Mind the gap’. Nobody aims to put a foot wrong,
but it does occasionally happen, even if the warnings have been made clear.
Unlike the junior houses, the adolescence card is in play rather more, and this
is part of growing up – but we are on hand to avoid the ‘gaps’ or to pull the
emergency handle as required.
Finally, unlike at some schools, the senior house does not
alone define an individual at Bryanston, rather it is what they achieve in the
milieu of the whole school which does. Yes, the friends and experiences they
have in their house are deeply personal and unique to the surroundings, but,
like each and every tube carriage, they will spend so much time with other
people, each with their own individual personalities, that it is the journey
through school as a whole which has the greatest resonance.
So, for those of you reading this who are curious or even a
little uncertain about Bryanston’s transition of house for boys between Years 9
and 10, it is far less a matter of ‘all change’ than might seem. More like a
little change, at the right time, at the right station, and onto the right line
with plenty of comforting continuity.
