Moving on

There is change in the air here at Bryanston. At the end of term, a cohort of our pupils and some long-serving members of staff will be leaving for pastures new. Many of the pupils will have spent two, three, four or five years at this most amazing of places to live and work.

In many ways change can be unsettling. We ask ourselves ‘What is it going to be like?’ or ‘Will it be the same?’ At times of change we might look to the future with a sense of uncertainty or anxiety.

But there is no need to worry. Schools are experts at change. Every year at least one fifth of our cohort leave and another vast number, thanks to our amazing Registrar, Anne Megdiche, prepare to join us. Our academic curriculum at Bryanston is constantly changing; it is dynamic, and it is adapted and improved on each year. More often than not, exam boards themselves make significant changes to their syllabus. Our co-curriculum is similarly adaptable, with new opportunities being presented as requested, desired and/or according to staff expertise and interests. It is in the DNA of schools that they must and should adapt and change. Any organisation not willing to change is not fit for purpose.

Of course, there are things that do not change: things that will still be familiar to those leaving now as when they come back on their 10th, 20th or even 70th anniversary reunions. The main school building and the vastness of our grounds will remain the same. At a recent OB event, the significant building programme that has been undertaken over the past decade was noted but there was also a recognition that the positive ethos of the School remains unchanged.

The idea of change is embedded in our school motto: et nova et vetera. It reminds each of us that we should retain all the good about the old, and embrace the future with welcome arms.

Having et nova et vetera at the heart of our school community ensures that we prepare our most valuable asset, our young people, to be able to embrace change and be resilient when faced with it. This will equip them for life beyond these school grounds.

For me, the example of Jesus Christ is the ultimate role model when it comes to embracing change. He constantly challenged those around him to examine and re-evaluate the reasons behind the values and traditions of his time. As I write, the Church has just celebrated Whitsun, or Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’ disciples. From that moment they stopped becoming disciples or followers, and became apostles, teachers of the Good News of Jesus and the love of God. They helped change, transform and enrich (for the most part) the lives of countless people. Without embracing the Holy Spirit, the message of Jesus would probably not have spread so far and so quickly.

Whatever you may or may not believe spiritually, I am sure you appreciate the importance of being willing and able to face change, adapt and, where possible, make the most of any new opportunities that may arise.

After 11 very happy years at Bryanston, it is time for the Haviland family to embrace a significant change. We have been asked a number of times if any of us are anxious or nervous about leaving: it would be foolish to say we weren’t. However, we are also looking forward to a new challenge in a different context. To be Chaplain to a community like Bryanston has been very special. To be able to be alongside people at significant times in their lives is a huge privilege that I have never taken for granted. Building relationships has been key and moving on from these will be a massive wrench: I have got to know well many amazing people. In the school church, in these last 11 years, over 500 members of our community have been confirmed, 105 have been baptised, about 50 couples have been married or had their marriage blessed, and there have been a number of significant funerals or memorial services. For each one of these, I have had the chance to get to know each person or family really well. As important has been the valuable time spent being around for others in our community – to smile, chat and encourage where I can. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your lives.

Life as Chaplain is thoroughly enjoyable, but also demanding. I could not have carried out the role without the support and encouragement of the Bryanston community, led by Sarah Thomas. This has allowed me the professional time and space to carry out my duties. Just as important has been the love and care I have received from my wife, Jo, and my three boys, George, James and Charlie. Thank you.

Like all in our community who are leaving at the end of this term, the Havilands leave with many happy memories acquired here at Bryanston. These will stay with us in our new life beyond the school gates and we will cherish them. The vibrant Bryanston alumni community, which all leavers are invited to join, will allow us to continue to be connected with the wider Bryanston family.

So, let us embrace the change that is coming with hope, wherever it will take us. Rest assured that Bryanston is in good hands. The Revd Jo Davis will be taking the baton from me as Chaplain in September. I commend her to you. With those who are staying and those who are arriving, the School will continue to go from strength to strength. And may God continue to bless this community with His love, joy and peace.

Et nova et vetera!

Andrew
The Reverend Canon Andrew M J Haviland
The Chaplain, Bryanston School
June 2019

Speech Day reflections

As another school year comes to an end, Sarah Thomas looks ahead to the future with one foot firmly rooted in the past. Discover why she believes that Bryanston’s motto of “Et Nova et Vetera” – both the new and the old – is more apt than ever.

Back in January, Bryanston turned 90 and through OB Simon Wheeler’s (C ’93) extraordinary series of films, we are able to look back and remind ourselves of why this school is so special. The place, the people, the ideas and the principles that continue to guide us. In June, we were able to look forward, with the announcement of my successor.  I’m delighted that Mark Mortimer will be leading Bryanston onwards and upwards from September 2019 and look forward to having a year in which I can do whatever makes most sense to allow him, his lovely wife Anna and their three children, to get to know this wonderful school. 

Speeches in the Elder Concert Hall

At last year’s Speech Day, the Chairman spoke on the theme of necessary change and evolution within schools. Schools do change.  They must; they would disappear into oblivion if they did not.  But that does not mean that the things that matter must change.  Our guiding principles of creativity, breadth of ambition, individuality, the sense of a loving family, of humanity, and of resilience, have been embedded in our DNA since 1928 and will endure, I am certain, because of Bryanston’s collective good sense, the quality of the governors, and their choice of excellent headmasters. Those guiding principles will ensure that Bryanston continues to evolve boldly and positively, without losing the critical constituents of what makes Bryanston Bryanston.

Peter Tait, former headmaster of Sherborne Prep and a great friend of Bryanston, likes to torment us with this question: ‘What is a proper curriculum?’ Are we still, in effect, teaching what we taught 50 years ago, regardless of new, more relevant subjects, and without reference to what our pupils actually learn from them?  Teaching is not after all learning.  Then there are the real-world issues: funding for state schools and affordability for the independent sector; the fact that more overseas children are now educated in branches of UK independent schools abroad than here in the UK; and above all there’s the looming threat of AI. What kind of world are we actually preparing our young people for? And how do independent schools – how does Bryanston – stay relevant in the face of the fantastically significant changes that are coming our way? 

Duncan Emerson directs the orchestra

Sir Anthony Seldon in his book The Fourth Education Revolution challenges the model which most schools still adhere to – that of The Third Revolution: industrialised learning; schools as factories; chalk and talk, or its 21^st-century equivalent, Powerpoint and talk. Sir Anthony predicts we will meet the challenges of AI by adopting a new model and following a 5-point plan: (i) ending early specialisation in schools; (ii) investing in staff who understand learning and analytics and technology; (iii) emphasising the human in education, to produce competent adults who are better than any algorithm; (iv) personalising learning; (v) challenging and stretching young people, by making school more than about lessons.

Guests relax in the sunshine

This is precisely the model that Bryanston has striven to follow, and with some success, over the past 90 years, often in defiance of the conventional wisdom that academic success is the be all and end all. Ending early specialisation? Embracing personalised learning? Stretching our pupils beyond the classroom? Look at our tutorial system and the Dalton Plan, our correction periods and one-to-one attention to the individual.  Added to that, we have a curriculum that is particularly diverse in the formative D year, an extraordinary range of extra-curricular opportunities and an A level programme which always seeks to ensure there are no impossible subject combinations. And better still, the IB.

Tennis on the grass courts

Bryanston’s model has explicitly set out to help children to develop the human.  It’s why Bryanstonians invariably end up in such a range of careers and don’t necessarily trot off into those professions which, we are told, will soon no longer exist. At Bryanston we have always known that education is not about mere subjects.  It’s about an outlook, an attitude, a lifelong ability to learn and adapt; to work in teams; to influence and persuade; to direct and lead. To laugh at yourself and to put things right when you’ve gone wrong. The future requires real people, with real values and real emotional intelligence. And real education.

Whilst the changes technology have brought have been huge (both for good and bad) I am happy to predict that one of the longer terms effects might be that we refocus upon, and rejoice in, what makes us human, not machine. Because the world changes – we all know that – but what does not change is what it takes to be human.

Procrustes and his bed

Akshay Sanghrajka

This week we welcome Akshay Sanghrajka, teacher of Classics and D year coordinator, who looks at the positive impact of recent changes to the structure of the first year at Bryanston.

I recently chanced upon the word 'procrustean' in a novel I was reading and didn't know what it meant. It turns out that it's a great word, certainly in my pantheon along with the likes of ‘prolegomena’ (which is what these are - introductory words) and ‘smorgasbord’ (to which I shall come anon). Procrustes was some of kind of rogue bandit in Greece who assaulted people by forcing them to fit themselves into an iron bed that he hitched around the Greek countryside. So the word 'procrustean' comes to mean attempting to fit something of different size or proportion into one arbitrary standard; that is, attempting to diminish life's infinite variety by forcing it into one mould or framework.

Part of the reason I like this word is that it neatly encapsulates the precise antithesis of a Bryanston education. One of the things I think we as a school are very good at is nurturing a variety of individuals, creating the right conditions for a smorgasbord (there we are) of different pupils to flourish.

It was to this end that we recently made some changes to the structure of the D year, the first year at Bryanston. We made a decision to move the D exams from the end of the summer term to the end of the spring term. This may seem like a rather niggling procedural move but it was done in order to key into the centre of our educational philosophies.

The summer term now becomes a term in which teachers are freed from the shackles that exams necessarily impose. Our aim in this period, then, is to urge our pupils to make a step up from the initial D settling-in period to a more mature style of working. This happens in several ways, most notable among which is the requirements of assignments set. We try to elicit work from pupils which is of a more creative, independent nature. This might be by setting research assignments and encouraging pupils to use the Alexandrian libraries in our main school building; or by coming at a traditional subject from an oblique angle to provide our pupils with a fresh perspective. Thus, pupils feel more empowered over their own work and can complete it in a way which is idiosyncratic to their own style.

That fellow Procrustes, he naturally came to a sticky end. Panhellenic superhero Theseus happened to be passing by on his journey from Troezen to Athens and fitted Procrustes to his own iron bed.

Now, far be it from me to compare Bryanston to Theseus, who did all sorts of things from slaying minotaurs, to abandoning damsels in distress, to forgetting to change his sheets - with fatal consequences (as any matron of a junior boys' house could have told him). But as a self-declared foe of procrustean measures, Bryanston does have something in common with the wily old Athenian.

Embracing change

This week we welcome Bryanston's Chaplain, The Rev'd Canon Andrew Haviland, who shares his thoughts on the importance of change.

It always surprises me how so many people don't like change, with many thinking that keeping the status quo is the right way to go about things. We so often hear, 'If it is not broken don't fix it'. However, I do wonder how society would have managed to evolve if there hadn't been people who could embrace and look for change. Watching a repeat of Top Gear one evening, I saw Jeremy Clarkson talking to Ellen MacArthur, who was the guest in the 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car' segment. He summed it up well:

"What is it about some people that makes the human race so advanced? So many of us would still be in our caves saying, 'It is very nice here,' not wanting to go out and explore as it is quite comfortable here. If it wasn't for people like you wanting to explore, we would all be still in our caves eating deer and wearing fur."

It seems to me that embracing change is a vital part of our human development.

At school we are used to change. At this time of the year we start to prepare to welcome new pupils and colleagues into the school in September. This gives the place new energy, vision and opportunity. At the end of term we also say goodbye to those pupils and colleagues who move on to pastures new.

For those of us who remain, there are changes too. Pupils move year groups, new prefects are appointed, and our junior boys move to senior boys' boarding houses. For my colleagues exam boards change, schemes of work are altered, new colleagues are welcomed and we value the new insights and ideas that they will bring into how we can make Bryanston even better. As reflective practitioners we are constantly looking at how we can deliver what we teach more effectively. The motto 'et nova et vetera' is at the heart of how we operate.

The very basis of Christian living should be to embrace change as well. At times it can seem that new ideas and new ways of thinking are not welcomed: change seems to take an awful long time. The issue of women bishops in the Church of England is a case in point. And I for one thank God that at last we have a number of women who have been appointed to be the episcopate.

Being flexible and open to new ideas is something that I encourage pupils interested in being confirmed to do regularly. Good faith should be a living, dynamic, challenging and, at times, controversial way of life. Bad faith happens when one thinks one knows it all and is resistant to listening or embracing change. In his ministry Jesus criticised those who did not embrace new ideas and wanted to keep their feet firmly in the comfort of doing things as they have always been done.

We all recognise that change can be uncomfortable – going into the unknown can be unsettling – but that can be offset if we have around us a community who support and encourage conversation and recognise our anxiety. And at Bryanston we strive to do just that.