Institutions

“Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes." Henry George

I have been in institutions for practically all of my adult life. Sounds worrying doesn’t it? I mean this in the best possible way. From Bryanston School to Birmingham University (then a brief period of ‘finding myself’) to Sandhurst, followed by a career in the British Army, to my PGCE and Loughborough Grammar School and finally back to Bryanston, in all of that I have worked as part of an institution. And yet I think that my time as a boy at Bryanston between 1982 and 1987 gave me a rather different view of institutions from many of my contemporaries that I think is even more valid when applied to the world today than it was then. Thankfully nobody ever tried to turn me into anything that resembled a typical Bryanstonian when I was at school (or an Old Bryanstonian when I left), and as a result I’m afraid that the whole idea of shared institutional values, this need for institutional conformity, leaves me rather cold.

My time in the British Army gave me an insight into perhaps the most closed and intense of all institutions - the Regimental Family. Now the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment is a fine unit of fighting men and I totally ‘get’ the historic need for a deep sense of belonging in a fighting unit where your life depends upon those around you. The seams of ingrained identity run very deep from learning all five verses of the Lincolnshire Poacher (the Battalion’s nickname is The Poachers) to memorising battle honours and from the badges of identity to the fierce protection of and pride in the Queen’s Colour and Regimental Colour. And yet, as deep as my pride is at having served in The Poachers, I find the regular statements posted by my former soldiers on Facebook stating ‘Once a Poacher, always a Poacher!’ to be rather curious. I left the Army in 1998 and, having narrowly escaped having a Regimental crest tattooed on my backside, all I have left are good memories and some old uniforms that no longer fit. 

My time with The Poachers has given me some friends for life, some life-changing experiences and a deep affection for the Battalion, but I cannot say that it has changed my essence as a person. What it did do was encourage me to shed some of my teenage/early-20s immaturity and encourage me to approach life in a more disciplined and open way. I have moved on the better for, not defined by, my time in the Poachers and I think that this should be the aim of any educational institution also.

The issue of conformity versus creativity in schools is nothing new, and in many ways, it has been the least conformist pupils who have achieved the most in spite of the search for a collective identity. Whether it be the awkward Arthur Wellesley (future Duke of Wellington) failing to fit in with the routine of Eton life or Winston Churchill whose Harrow report opines: ‘He has no ambition. He is a constant trouble to everybody and is always in some scrape or other. He cannot be trusted to behave...He is so regular in his irregularity that I don’t know what to do with him!’, educational establishments have always struggled to enforce conformity on some of their pupils. Partly this is an eternal generational conflict, of course, but in respect of some British public schools there is something more - a tacit promise of a traditional identity that can be bought into and which subsequently gives access to a world of institutional connectivity. It promises to take a raw product and form it into a recognisable shape. Again, nothing new. In 1807 Napoleon Bonaparte announced his educational policy stating that: ‘It is essential that the morals and political ideas of the generation which is now growing up should no longer be dependent upon the news of the day or the circumstances of the moment. Above all we must secure unity: we must be able to cast a whole generation in the same mould.’ Most would react against this form of centralised, state-controlled educational manipulation of children’s destinies yet is ‘..cast(ing) a whole generation in the same mould.’ really so different from what many schools promise to deliver on a smaller scale? 

Education for me should be about celebrating individuality rather than enforcing conformity. I do not apply this to school rules of course, which need to be consistent if they are to work, but to the expectations of what the children that we teach should be like. I understand that this is a counter cultural concept to broach as the search for a magic wand that will turn our children into something different is long-established.

I think that it is fair to say that in all bar a few professions people are no longer defined by the institutions that they previously attended. The ‘old school tie’ still carries influence in some quarters, but is slowly dying out as the light of fairness, social mobility and increased openness is shone on institutions of all types. All of this means that we cannot rely on ‘buying’ a package of educational identity, which will see us right in the wider world. Views abound about the innate personality traits of school alumni, but I think that this is massively overstated. After all, do we not want our children to ‘leave’ school and move out into the rest of the world to mix with, and work with, people of all backgrounds?

One thing that I have heard many times over the last three decades is of people’s experiences of meeting Old Bryanstonians. Almost universally they comment upon a rather pleasing lack of conformity, but they also all seem to agree upon their personality and confidence, whilst insisting that they are not ‘arrogant’. This, it seems to me, may be a product of the way in which a Bryanston education is delivered. Pupils are held accountable to their own standards and skills rather than that of a traditional set of institutional standards. If they are confident, then that confidence is built upon their own journey through school rather than having conformed to an expected stereotype and expecting an automatic kudos from simply having been a member of the tribe.

Stock self-evaluation of personality based purely upon belonging to a particular school, institution, region, race, star sign or other such nonsense is always bogus, I believe, and can be positively dangerous if it continues into adulthood. A school’s job is to enable, not to indoctrinate, and I think that we do children and parents an enormous disservice by leading them to expect otherwise in a constantly uncertain and changing world.

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.