All you need is character, effort and respect

This week Bryanston's Head of Performance Sport, Alex Chapman, takes a look at the thinking behind our Performance Sport Programme and the key values upon which it is built.

“Sports teaches you character, it teaches you to play by the rules, it teaches you to know what it feels like to win and lose – it teaches you about life.”

Billie Jean King

Sport, particularly in schools, is about more than purely winning. It is about the desire to improve and to build strength and stamina of both mind and body. At Bryanston we launched our Performance Sport Programme (PSP) in September 2016 with the aim of helping pupils achieve their personal sporting aspirations. It isn't only for high-performing sportspeople, but for anyone who wants to improve and get better. At its core, PSP is built on the values of character, effort and respect; these values and the behaviours that underpin them will help pupils in any endeavour they pursue, not just sport.

The environment created within PSP is critical to the development of these values. It is one where pupils are supported through challenges and helped to persevere through failures and adversity, which, in turn, breeds resilience and confidence. This process applies across all three strands of PSP: Senior (years 12 and 13), Junior (years 9 to 11) and Prep, where we invite prep school pupils to participate in the PSP programme and experience the basics of strength and conditioning and looking after their body.

While the resources available to the PSP programme are considerable and Bryanston pupils have access to facilities that would be the envy of most universities and professional sports clubs’ research facilities (dual triaxial force platforms and 10 camera 3D motion analysis suite), it is the people involved who are our biggest and most valuable resource. Our Sports Centre team (Ben Weldon, Drew Beaver, Andrew Jeffrey, Joe Davis and Myles Wheaton-Green) have been instrumental in the setting up and running of the programme since its inception, and sessions would not be available to the 80+ pupils currently engaged without them. Jack Phillips is our newest member of the team and is the first full-time PSP coach specialising in strength and conditioning. Jack has brought with him a new energy and a multitude of ideas which have already made a big impact on the programme. Last but by no means least we have our physio team. We liaise regularly with Clara and Mercedes to keep our pupils playing sport. They provide integrated (S&C and physio) rehabilitation sessions for our injured pupils and input into not only our rehabilitation sessions, but also the content of our CPD sessions. Injury prevention is a key priority of PSP.

The reason we go to these lengths is plain and simple: it is all for our pupils. They never fail to surprise, impress and inspire us every day through their effort and character. Through their hard work, determination and commitment we have celebrated the success of several current pupils who have been selected as junior internationals across multiple sports this year (rugby, equestrian and running) and we are honoured to help them on their journey, wherever that may take them. Of equal importance and merit however are the growing number of pupils who come to train every day just to get better at a sport they love. This takes no less effort and each personal success is important and valued by the programme. It is the development of an affectionate connection with sport which is the ultimate goal for every pupil and the lasting legacy of the programme.

Bryanston PSP affords all who have the necessary desire the chance to be better than they imagined they could be; acting as a catalyst for a lifetime love of sport and physical exercise. All you need is character, effort and respect.

A face-to-face place

This week we welcome our Deputy Head (Academic), Dr David James, who reflects on the importance of face-to-face relationships.
Evidence seems to grow each week that mobile technology could be playing a significant role in the rise of mental health issues among young people. Of course, being online is not in itself a bad thing: you could be on Google Art Project researching Caravaggio, while listening to Handel’s Messiah on Spotify. There are endless opportunities to be educated and uplifted on an iPad or mobile phone, and it should not be forgotten, in the rush to ban technology from our schools, that, as one teacher puts it, not all screen time is equal. This is complicated enough when one is an adult: we should know when to close the lid of the laptop, or to switch our phones to airplane mode in order to get some rest, or to read a book. Having said that, many parents are as guilty of modern social faux pas, such as phubbing, as their children. How many meals have been ruined because Mum or Dad simply has to reply to that email? But teenagers may be under more pressure to keep Snapstreaks going, or to move to the next mission in GTA without letting their friends down, than adults are to keep email correspondence alive. To adolescents, friendships and being accepted by others have always been of profound importance. And, like much of the world today, a lot of that has moved online, which in turn has made it - and the possible concomitant shaming - more public.

Such things shouldn’t surprise us. But what should alarm all parents and teachers (and indeed anyone with any interest in the wellbeing of young people) is that social media companies have deliberately made their sites as addictive as possible. When Sean Parker, an early investor in Facebook, claims that the company is deliberately “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology” then the laid-back West Coast mask that Mark Zuckerberg wears begins to slip a little; and when Parker admits that Facebook’s effect on children “literally changes your relationship with society, with each other...God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,” then the reality dawns that these new companies may be just as ruthless at exploiting human frailty, and addictive tendencies, as Marlboro, McDonald’s, and Jack Daniels. As Roger Daltrey once famously sang: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Where do schools fit into this? Well, we could go to one extreme and ban all technology from our site (just as a junior school popular with Palo Alto CEOs has done, which in itself raises some disturbing questions), but we suspect that teenagers, being teenagers, will find a way around that. In addition, parents understandably want to keep in touch with their children when they’re at boarding school, and so even asking pupils to hand over their devices for long periods of time (as is becoming popular in some US schools) presents certain problems as well. Plus, to reiterate what I said before, there is so much wonderful stuff out there that actively aids learning that only the most retrogressive and anti-intellectual educational establishment would contemplate switching it off at source.

But perhaps the solution to the challenges that technology is presenting us with now is, literally, staring us in the face. And what we’re looking at is another human face. An anecdote that might illuminate my point. When I was interviewing a pupil who wanted to join Bryanston from her day school last term, I asked her why she wanted to give up the 4.15pm finishes, and have lessons on a Saturday. Her answer has stayed with me ever since. She said: “I’m a face-to-face person, and I guess this is a face-to-face place.” She went on to say that the many arguments that teenagers have via WhatsApp and Snapchat tend to escalate after school. By the time the pupils return to school the next day, or on Monday, grievances have deepened because correspondence has occurred via text, not voice. We all know that a simple statement like “I hate you” can be spoken with venom and with humour, and how we modulate our tone makes all the difference. But as a flat, written text, it can be destructive. For my interviewee the answer was simple: she wanted to talk to people, and in doing so form bonds and friendships that are robustly independent of Zuckerberg’s nefarious network. For her, Bryanston would provide her with more opportunity to make real and lasting friendships. Through articulating our ideas to others we make sense of our thoughts to them, and to our own self, at the same time. For young people this is an essential part of establishing their own identities. In time, I have no doubt, the miracle that is the human voice will win out over cold digital dialogue. Ideally, both will add richness to our lives. But it is perhaps only in a boarding school that the time and space, and the opportunities, are so varied, and allow for such ongoing interaction, that our young people develop in a more fully human way.

Discovering potential

This week we welcome our Director of Admissions, Edrys Barkham, with her reflections on our introduction of the pre-test now that we have made our first set of offers. You can find out why we introduced the pre-test in a previous blog here.

We have just sent out our first ever pre-test offer letters for pupils entering Bryanston in September 2019. We collated the results at the end of last term, which happened to be during the Jewish Hanukah Festival of Light. At that time, I heard a timely ‘pause for thought’ on the radio on my way to school outlining the different approaches of the House of Shamai and House of Hillel for the lighting of the eight candles of Hanukah. The Shamai start with eight candles and decrease by one each day, whilst the Hillel start with one and work up to eight. Both approaches have their origin in the last century BCE and have their own philosophies. To be admitted to the House of Shamai pupils were judged and had to be considered worthy of learning the Torah. The House of Hillel, on the other hand, were prepared to admit all those who asked, as they saw the potential in everyone. It made me think carefully about whether we should take the judgemental and selective eight-to-one approach with the pre-test, or see the potential in all and look to understand how we can nurture it. I had this very much in mind as we analysed the results. Should we have a cut-off and exclude all those below, basing decisions on the ability of a child on one particular day, at one particular time, and judge them suitable or unsuitable, and keep a small group of children in limbo on the waiting list, hopeful but helpless, relying on the chance of a place becoming available?

We are, and always have been, a selective school, but more in terms of what we can do for a child rather than what a child can do for the school. We see potential in all the children who went through the pre-testing process last term and we will not be rejecting any of them purely as a result of the marks they achieved. The reports we have received from their schools tell us far more about a child’s potential.

Our focus now, therefore, is on the children who haven’t yet reached the point at which we feel comfortable making an offer. They are on our development list, so called because we really do want to see how they develop over the next months. They have the priority for interviews, so that we can get to know them individually and discover their wider interests and talents. The key for us is to discover whether we are the best educational environment for them. “Will they thrive at Bryanston?” is always our key admissions question. Whilst we have to be certain they will be able to achieve their academic potential within our (modified Dalton) educational approach and recognise that we won’t suit all children equally, we do also look for the talents that can be nurtured over their five years with us, in order to develop confident young people, aware of their strengths and ready to contribute to our wider society. If a child on the development list is not suited to our system, we will advise that it will be in their best interest to be at a school where they will flourish.

In this uncertain, increasingly populist world of the present, our aim continues to be to educate reflective young people who understand who they are, are comfortable in their own skin and recognise what they are capable of achieving. To deny them that possibility purely on the basis of one test result, when they are at an age at which they are just beginning to discover their individual strengths and talents, would seem to be a waste of potential. Our sincere hope is that all our young people will develop the confidence and creativity to shape positively the world in which they find themselves.

“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

“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

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.

Pre-testing

This week we welcome Bryanston's Director of Admissions, Edrys Barkham, who looks at why we are introducing pre-testing as part of our admissions process.

Can you tell all you need to know about a child’s academic potential at the age of 11? At Bryanston we don’t think you can. We think that many children are still developing in years 6, 7 and 8, when many senior schools undertake pre-testing, and by allowing them longer to mature and getting to know them as they develop, we can admit children who are likely to thrive at Bryanston and will bring to the school a breadth of skills that reach beyond the classroom.

So, why are we introducing pre-testing? In an increasingly uncertain world, we hope that the introduction of the ISEB Common Pre-test for children starting year 7 in September 2017 will remove a family’s anxiety about where their child might go to senior school, by giving a better indication of the suitability of Bryanston for their child earlier in the admissions process than we have hitherto been able.

The ISEB pre-test is age standardised, which means that a child who is young for their year is not disadvantaged and the questions are adaptive so that the answer to one question will determine the level of difficulty of the next question. This means that the tests should allow each child to feel that they have achieved.

However, we recognise that this standardised test evaluates a child’s performance on one particular day and does not take into account any other factors, and therefore the result of the pre-test is not the only criterion that will determine the offer of a place. For children who don’t perform at their best on the day of the pre-test, we will continue to talk to their current school and keep their name on the development list. It is important to us that we continue to admit children with a broad range of talents and interests into the school and we know that some children’s academic development is later than others. We will not want to lose a great sportsperson, musician, actor or artist because they get a low score on the day. We rely on the professional opinion of the heads of prep schools and other junior schools, most of whom know us well, through pupils they have previously sent to Bryanston, and they know their own pupils very well. We trust that they have a good sense of whether each individual child will thrive with us.

We therefore still firmly believe that children should be selected through a holistic overview of each individual and the result of the pre-test will form just a part of that picture. It is an additional strand, rather than a decider, but one we hope will provide reassurance for many families. Our new approach, which combines the pre-test with meeting the child on several occasions and an ongoing dialogue with their junior school, will give every child a genuine opportunity to reveal their potential.

Avoiding educational labyrinthitis

This week we welcome our Director of Sport, Alex Fermor-Dunman, who shares his thoughts on the importance of providing the balance in education. 

Balance: An even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady

At Bryanston we pride ourselves as being tailors of an outstanding education. This means that each pupil has a distinct and individual ‘balance’, which is always forefront in our thoughts as teachers and educators. Through regular one-to-one tutorials and correction periods we facilitate and ensure that each individual has an even distribution of weight to remain upright and that the elements of school life are equal and in correct proportions. It is one of the founding and fundamental principles of our educational philosophy.

In a sporting context, as coaches we preach about ‘proprioception’, or the ability to grasp and fully understand the relative position of parts of your body at any stage in a movement; in essence, sporting balance. You can observe and analyse this over hundreds of sporting channels on your TV. I urge you to watch a full-blooded Rory McIlroy drive, any All Black off-loading out of a rugby tackle, Christa Cullen drag flicking a hockey ball, the outstretched body position of Lindsay Keable whilst playing goal defence for England. My list of balanced and awe-inspiring athletes could be endless, the point of my argument is not. It is impossible to play any level of sport without balance.

The catalogue of crucial inputs to develop and improve balance in sport is enormous. World-class sportsmen and women strive their entire careers to conquer and master these, with help from head coaches, strength and conditioning experts, sports psychologists, sports scientists, physiotherapists, massage therapists and nutritionists: the list of the entourage becomes manifold. With David Brailsford’s ‘marginal gains’ theory on the lips of all elite coaches worldwide, it is no surprise that the search for an athlete’s or team’s perfect ‘balance’ becomes almost the holy grail of coaching.

But what of an individual’s balance? At the most extreme end of the sporting continuum we could analyse American swimmer Michael Phelps. In peak training phases, Phelps swims a minimum of 80,000 metres a week, nearly 50 miles. He trains twice a day, sometimes more if he’s positioned at altitude; sessions last for five to six hours a day, six days a week.

Phelps adds a punishing weightlifting regime to his dry-land work depending on training phases. He lifts weights three days a week, but prefers own body weight exercises which he feels keep him leaner and less likely to add muscle bulk. In terms of his diet, Phelps eats over 12,000 calories a day or approximately 4,000 calories per meal. This is his balance, his even distribution of weight, that which keeps him upright and steady. It is this balance, combined with a mind-boggling physical frame, intense focus and desire, alongside specific genetic attributes, which has played a large part in his becoming the most decorated Olympian of all time. It would appear that Phelps for the last 14 years has, in a sporting context, been pretty well balanced.

But what happens when your balance deserts you? Anyone unlucky enough to have suffered from labyrinthitis or the inflammation of part of the inner ear will be able to tell you: dizziness, vertigo, spinning rooms, nausea and the absolute urge to lie down, culminating in life grinding to a halt, until rest and medication restore the body to its usual state. 

So let’s cut to the chase: what is my point? It is simply this, at Bryanston an individual’s balance is precisely that, individual. We have no one in Michael Phelps’ sporting league at present, but we do have 677 pupils who need to find their even distribution of weight. They need their specific individual equilibrium of lessons, assignments, exams, drama, music, sport, tutorials, free time, tours, trips, of laughter and of tears. 

This is the Bryanston balance and, for some, sport and exercise will take up a greater percentage; for others, less so. It is our job, as tailors of an outstanding education, to realise this and to facilitate the individual’s balance at every turn, helping them stay healthy, upright and stable. To focus on one specific part of the educational balancing act at the expense or detriment of any other is a sure way for a failure in balance.

Perhaps we could refer to this failure in balance as ‘educational labyrinthitis’: this is a condition simply not on the agenda at Bryanston. A one-size-fits-all approach will not cut the mustard with regard to what we aim to achieve at Bryanston and is not the recipe for success in the classroom, recital room, concert hall, theatre or sports field. I know that all connected with sport at Bryanston will continue to strive to find our individual athletes’ and teams’ sporting balance. They will keep searching for the sporting holy grail, knowing that this time is well spent, not only in making sport and exercise fun and successful, but also in keeping each of our pupils educationally upright and steady; simply balanced.

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.

The lighting of fires

A million years ago when I was learning to teach we were set a question: why do we learn what we learn? It is a question that has haunted the teaching profession for as long as it has existed. Socrates, a teacher of aristocratic young men, thought education was all about asking the right questions so that one could live a good life. That didn’t go entirely well for him as the teacher; he ended up put to death. We didn’t push ourselves that hard at King’s College London in 1986.

Nowadays, what the government thinks we ought to teach in our classrooms (which might, I suppose, be the same as what they think pupils ought to learn) is called the national curriculum. Maths, Science and English are the core subjects. Modern Foreign Languages were taken out of that core some years ago and the numbers of pupils studying them nationally are now in something of a free fall (particularly in French and German). Teachers of Art, Music and Drama worry like mad, particularly in the state sector, because they aren’t compulsory and so may not attract the numbers of pupils required to sustain the subject. There’s every danger, in my view, of too few pupils doing anything more than the bare minimum if the curriculum is treated in this way. It is reductionist thinking and it is damaging.

Such reductionism does a disservice to all subjects. My first Head of Department, when I was a junior chalkie at Sevenoaks School in 1987, used to describe Maths at GCSE as a ‘licence to bore’, because pupils were compelled to study it and the teacher could assume there would always be an audience. Maths is so much more than that, of which I am now getting glimpses, thanks to assemblies from our Head of Maths, Alex Hartley, upon subjects as diverse as Alan Turing and Euler. How dreadful to reduce Maths to ‘you need to do this’ or ‘because I say so’. Stephen Winkley, ex Head Master at Uppingham School, used to like winding up those who taught compulsory subjects by suggesting that most 15-year-old pupils would far prefer doing Drama GCSE than being compelled to do, let’s say, Physics. In my view, the best response to this mischief is in explaining the joy of Physics, rather than resorting to the argument of ‘you have to do it’ or, even worse, the clearly meretricious argument that Physics is the more ‘useful’ subject.

At school we expect to learn those things we need to know to keep us healthy and safe; to enable us to do the things which matter to us; and, I would hope, to expand our minds. Some children find their minds expanded most in the undertaking of practical tasks; a design project, for example. (I can still in my mind’s eye see a current B pupil proudly wheeling his GCSE design coursework, a rather large drinks cabinet, into his hsm’s study at the end of last term!) Some find their world most enriched by the study of an ancient or modern language. Others will always prefer their intelligence to be fed by Art, or Music, or Drama; still others will find their talent best expressed on the cricket or rugby pitch, whilst very blessed souls will discover they can do, and enjoy, all of these things. The key to all learning however, is that most wonderful of human organs: the imagination.

We are more than mere drones who have to learn Maths so we can add up, or French so we can buy a baguette. Learning is about feeding our souls, our emotions and our imaginations. Maths is about big ideas, answering big questions, and seeing our world aright; French is about accessing a rich culture and literature as well as being part of a wider world than the Anglophone. And of course my own subject, Classics, is about it all. What is it to be a human being? How do you live a good life? And, to my mind, the best literature and philosophy in the world. All of these subjects, in their different ways, feed the mind, the spirit, the imagination. They allow us to glimpse the marvellous.

‘Nothing could be known about the world unless it was first pre-formed and transformed by the synthetic power of imagination.’ 

Kearney, Wake of Imagination

In the voyage of discovery that is teaching and learning, let us not forget the importance of the abstract; the importance of concept. To paraphrase W. B. Yeats, let’s not fill empty pails but light a whole range of different fires. Then our children might develop into the positive, creative, problem-solving adults the world needs them to be. And be happy, fulfilled souls too.



To find out more about the ongoing debate on creativity in schools, listen to the fascinating TED talk from 2006 by Sir Ken Robinson here.

Who needs friends?

Peter Hardy

This week we welcome Bryanston's Second Master, Peter Hardy, as a guest blogger.

A recent survey by the Church Urban Fund found that loneliness is increasingly the biggest social problem in England, regardless of class or income. Loneliness can affect anyone and not just those who are on their own.

It can be a common worry for pupils starting a new school, for example, that they will be without a friend (or a best friend). Our advice to pupils as they join us is to ‘be yourself’ and get involved – use every opportunity to get to know others, whether in the common room of the boarding house, playing sport or in one of the many extra-curricular activities on offer. Boarding school, or any environment where we live in close proximity with a wide range of people, helps to develop the key skills needed, not only for making friends, but also learning to get along with those we may not choose as friends.

The nature of friendships can be complex and, as well as the lifelong friendships we develop, there can be those that pose potential pitfalls and problems, particularly in adolescence. There are issues of exclusivity (or having just one best friend) and jealousy if we feel that we are losing friends to someone (or something) else. There are also friendships that arise for the ‘wrong’ reasons: the friends we have to impress others, or those with whom we know we will always get our own way. In addition, friendships change over time and dealing with these changes can cause young people anxiety and distress, as some friends drift apart and the dynamics of friendship groups alter.

With all these potential problems, virtual friendships, for example via Facebook, can seem an easier alternative, but they can make feelings of loneliness and isolation worse, as the status updates of others can increase the perception that everyone else is having a more exciting and enjoyable time. The bite-sized communication that this type of interaction typically involves can be superficial and we all, especially young people, can miss out on the interactions and depth of connection that can be made face to face.

While we all recognise the need for friends and friendship, it isn’t always easy to make, and keep, friends. Everyone learns to do so through trial and error; making mistakes and learning from them in a safe, controlled environment, such as Bryanston, with an experienced network of support to help them get back on track when things do go wrong.

Emotional intelligence and making and keeping friends go hand-in-hand; having one will usually improve the other and at Bryanston we seek to improve pupils' emotional intelligence, helping them to develop not only lifelong friendships, but also the skills necessary to do so.

Sporting reflections

We welcome guest blogger, Bryanston’s new Director of Sport Alex Fermor-Dunman, as he reflects on sport at Bryanston.

When talking about sport there is a tendency simply to list achievements, over-analyse individual triumphs and agonise over close losses. Highlights and lowlights will inevitably go hand in hand throughout a sporting term.

Of course there are successes, with teams winning county titles, qualifying for regional tournaments and marathon kayakers lifting titles (to name but a few from last term). These happen alongside many individuals pushing themselves toward club, county, regional, national and international representation in their respective sports and these individuals and teams are rightly lauded along the way. Equally important, however, is the need to take a brief pause every now and then for thought and reflection, to consider the vast scale of sport at Bryanston and the ways in which it has helped shape us and the school.

Sport has a perpetual nature; the constant planning and performing often leave little time for regular reflection, particularly on how sport has developed us. The injuries, bumps and bruises, the wins, draws and losses, the elation, despair, triumph and tragedy all develop the character required to be successful the next time. They shape the desire to be part of a strong, proud developing team whilst also being individually successful.

As with most terms, last term provided pupils with many sporting opportunities: 123 rugby fixtures, 156 hockey fixtures, countless riding competitions, rowing regattas, kayaking, squash, netball, cross country fixtures, pre-season cricket sessions, huge numbers of house matches and not to forget the two prep schools tournaments, which saw close to a 1,000 prep school pupils playing sport at Bryanston. All this, along with the sporting ECAs, adventure training and Duke of Edinburgh, make for as diverse a range of physical activity as could be shoe-horned into a 13-week term.

The fact that there is so much sport at Bryanston is no coincidence. It is to ensure that we, as individuals, teams and a school, grow, develop, enjoy, learn and continue to strive for progress and success. If everyone involved in Bryanston sport has managed some of this at some stage throughout each term then, leaving aside the trophies, titles and individual successes, we will have had a very productive sporting term indeed.

Greenhouse not hothouse

There’s been more still in the media in recent weeks about what teachers must do to satisfy the grinding requirements of some moved goalpost or other, with several of my HMC colleagues rightly cross about league tables. At Bryanston, we decided to come out of as many league tables as we could some years ago, partly because of the utter nonsense of comparing apples and eggs, but more systemically because we think they are of such questionable value in terms of choosing the right school for your child. It’s perfectly clear that some very famous London all girls’ schools will always do very much better than Bryanston in a certain sort of measurement and, given that we never set out to compete in that particular race, it seems meretricious even to put your running shorts on.

I write a lot about education in terms of metaphors and have, I think, told before of how when I first began at Bryanston parents of prospective pupils would occasionally ask me how I mould the pupils. I’m not into the plasticine metaphor, as I don’t believe you should treat children like that. Plenty of people do, and they can soon tell that Bryanston is not for them. And they take their children off to a character-building sort of place instead of here. And both parties are entirely relieved and delighted.

My metaphor has always been about riotous gladioli and shy daisies and about nurturing and allowing these wonderful flowers to thrive in proper measure by providing a safe and nourishing environment in which to grow. The Director of Admissions, who has been at Bryanston for 23 years and has had her three boys (to my two girls) thrive here, adds another metaphorical layer. She tells me Bryanston is a greenhouse not a hothouse, and I am now enjoying playing around with that new idea.

We believe strongly that you learn best in an environment with plenty of feeding for active young brains. That we, the adults, are not the only ones to determine how fast the learning process happens, though we shall train and gently support their tender stems throughout the amusing bumps of adolescence. And we will love each of them, and what they contribute to this special garden, regardless of their genus. I used to say of my own girls, when they were very much younger, that I wanted them to be strong and flourish like weeds. It’s perhaps why other, more determined, mothers looked askance at my dress sense when Ellie (now 23) would re-dress herself (I promise I dressed her nicely to start with!) as a makeshift pirate from some discarded clothes and the dressing up box. She looked remarkable and weird. But I was, and remain, strongly of the opinion that her character is hers, not mine to mould, and if she wants to dress as a pirate aged three, well go for it, girl! The only effect it appears to have had on her twenty years later is, besides a first class degree from a pretty decent university, an enviably balanced disposition and a love of the unorthodox.

Let’s not fall for any ‘weighing the pig’ arguments. Let’s instead encourage our children to be themselves in all their glorious technicolour and to be the best that they themselves can be. And love them for all they do to enrich our lives.

What is best for the children? Part two: Developing resilience

Edrys Barkham

Continuing on from her blog last week on the pressures of parenting, Edrys Barkham looks this week at how we can all help our children develop the life skills and resilience for a happy and successful adult life.

This week I look at how, in our aspirations to bring up our children safely and educate them for the future, we may be losing valuable opportunities for them to develop some of those important, but less easily measured, life skills, such as creativity, sociability and emotional resilience. If every hour of a child’s life is structured, that child might be busily engaged and learn a wide range of facts, but they may be missing out on their emotional development. Watching the recent Channel 4 series Child Genius suggests that minutely managing their learning doesn’t actually make them happier children.

In addition, stories in the media can make parents increasingly fearful about leaving their children unsupervised to play. Children pick up on these concerns and they can become afraid of challenge and develop a risk adverse approach to life as a result. Whilst it is essential to ensure that children are not put at unnecessary risk, it is important that they get the opportunities to develop a sense of freedom and responsible risk-taking. When toddlers learn to walk we make their environment as safe as possible but don’t stop them walking to avoid them falling over. When they inevitably do, we pick them up, rub their knees and set them off again. They learn through trial and error and rapidly gain confidence in taking steps towards their independence.

Around puberty another developmental milestone happens: the brain undergoes changes in preparation for adulthood. The changes disrupt executive function, so a teenager’s ability to plan, organise and prioritise is disturbed and they tend to take more risks, whilst lacking the ability to predict the outcomes of their actions. To acquire the executive function skills required for adult life they need to learn how to judge risk and to have the chance to put things right when they have gone wrong. These are important life skills that lead to the development of resilience and emotional robustness. It is important to provide opportunities that allow teenagers to explore their own limits and venture outside their comfort zone safely. At Bryanston these opportunities include the sports facilities, the outdoor education programme, Duke of Edinburgh Award and the wide range of extra-curricular activities, among other things. These activities are closely monitored and houseparents, tutors, teachers, matrons and other staff are around to step in and offer guidance and advice to get things back on track when pupils start to struggle. These timely interventions help to show pupils how to correct a situation and move on and, in so doing, develop the emotional resilience that will help them on their way to a successful and happy adult life.

Judith Carlisle, Head at Oxford High School for Girls, recently said that children learn more when they don’t get it right and that it is important to teach pupils to manage failure. By contrast, the recent government obsession with international PISA results is leading to policies of measuring children’s academic performance in a way that makes it appear the only value of a child is their academic grades. There is a danger that children, from an early age, learn to be fearful of making a mistake and there are children who prefer to say or write nothing for fear of getting an answer wrong.

Psychological research suggests learning through trial and error helps children realise they can improve. They understand that a wrong answer is not a failure, it is a step in the right direction. Reflecting on what went wrong with a teacher or peer can help a child learn more effectively than they can by just being indoctrinated with a series of correct answers. Through conversations with teachers, like the tutorials and correction periods we have at Bryanston, pupils can understand that they learn a great deal from having the courage to have a go, even if the outcome is not wholly correct. By discussing what went well and what didn’t, they learn how to put things right and how to avoid making the same mistake in the future, in both the academic and the pastoral areas of school life.

We believe our educational approach of encouraging curricular and extra-curricular breadth allows children to discover their whole range of talents; recognising their hard work and effort in all areas of the school helps children understand that they are valued for who they are rather than what they can achieve. We acknowledge that children realising their academic potential with us is important, but the education of the whole child is more valuable still, so that well rounded, confident and resilient young adults leave us at the end of their school days to become successful, well motivated and productive members of society.

What is best for the children? Part one: Emotional development

Edrys Barkham

We welcome Bryanston’s Director of Admissions and biology teacher, Edrys Barkham, as a guest blogger over the summer holidays. This week Edrys takes a look at the pressures parents face today.

As intelligent members of the primate family, humans are genetically pre-programmed to be obsessive about our offspring, as highlighted in the delightful BBC programme Monkey Planet. Like most parents, I really wanted to do my best for my boys when they were children and to get my parenting ‘right’. However, it can be difficult to know what is best for our children when we are bombarded with advice on how to bring them up, much of it conflicting. If you put ‘parenting books’ into Amazon you get over 69,000 hits. There are guides for new parents, guides for parents of toddlers and guides for parents of teenagers. There is advice on using reward and punishment, advice on how to develop the ‘whole brain child’, how to have well-behaved toddlers, how to develop your child’s intelligence and how to be happier parents. One book will tell you children should have the opportunity to make their own decisions and another will give instructions on how to be a ‘Tiger Mum’, directing you to structure every moment of your child’s time with learning experiences. It’s a minefield for parents to know which is the best way forward and what is the best they can do for their children.

A further pressure on parents, which often manifests itself when meeting other families on holiday, is that slightly competitive edge in the voice when discussing which school the children go to and its perceived academic standard, as well as the grades their children have, or are expected to have, achieved. As a result, some schools have become increasingly aware of parents’ perceptions of their academic status and, in order to maintain these, they only select the children they think will get the grades that reflect their academic position; this means that education becomes a process of maintaining the reputation of the school and this in turn puts pressure on children to achieve the top grades.

This level of pressure is not making children happy and there is a growing national concern about the mental health of our country’s teenagers. Self-harm, high levels of anxiety, depression and other mental disorders are all on the increase across the country and, whilst more children are achieving top grades than when I was at school, I have to wonder at what cost. At Bryanston we do encourage our pupils to aspire to the best grades they can get, but within an atmosphere that also encourages creativity, breadth and problem solving. This approach has benefitted my own three boys as they embark on life after university; I am grateful to the school for the balanced and creative approach all three now take to deal with the difficulties they encounter in their adult lives.

I am not proposing that we shouldn’t make our children academically competitive – I know I did as a mother and I do as a tutor and teacher – but I don’t believe that every experience in a child’s life has to be a structured learning one. Childhoods are increasingly dominated by a packed programme of clubs, societies, music lessons and journals. Extra tuition after school, at weekends or during the holidays is becoming the norm for some children. Activities are becoming prioritised by what a child will learn and if there is no academic outcome, it is often not valued.

There is a pressure for parents to order their child’s life and micromanage every moment in order to show they are a loving parent doing the best for their child. However, there is evidence that suggests children also need space to be themselves, to think about things independently and to discover and explore in their own way and at their own pace. Children should be encouraged to pursue activities in which they have curiosity, even if their passion is not the area you would have chosen: trust your child’s natural instincts. Old Bryanstonian Nigel Barker (H ’90) developed his enthusiasm for photography whilst at school. He was on course for a medical career but had the courage to follow his passion with global success. It was refreshing to read in the Telegraph recently the ‘Heads’ Holiday Hot List’ of recommendations for the summer holidays, which included building dens, visiting the zoo and getting sandy on the beach.

If a child doesn’t express any particular interest, then it really is fine to let them get bored. Boredom develops imagination and encourages a child to become content with themselves. Bored children start to explore in an open-minded way and it gives them the opportunity to challenge themselves and build their resilience to life’s frustrations. At Bryanston the pupils have a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities to tempt them to try new things and take responsibility for their own entertainment and, in doing so, develop really important life skills. So, when your child returns to school in September, know that with encouragement and the odd nudge when necessary he or she will develop new skills, build their self-esteem, and grow up happy and more likely to succeed in the adult world.

Look out for part two of Edrys Barkham’s blog next week.

Nothing is so beautiful as spring

It’s the time of year when you look out of the window and see sprouting green wherever your eyes alight. You can see why our ancient ancestors put so much energy into the rites of spring when you feel the joy of the return of green life to a dreary, grey world. It may not have been a cold winter but goodness, it was hard work getting through the Atlantic weather from October to February! On the campus we lost about 60 mature trees over that five-month period, and we got off lightly compared to our Somerset brethren. That we did not miss a single day of school is thanks to our superb support staff, not least Dave Jones, our woodsman of 40 years, who sees all this as part of his job and of ‘the circle of life’. The trees we have lost through the storms will allow new trees to flourish, and on we go.

In a school there is the natural cycle of a whole year-group departing each July and another whole year-group of brand new pupils joining us each September. And the five years spent in Bryanston in between are ones in which we hope every child will flourish, once their roots are properly settled in this new, rich soil. We hope that each will find the things they enjoy doing, discover what he or she is not so good at, learn from their mistakes and develop the continuing direction for their lives beyond Bryanston. Not all of this is easy and adolescence does tend to throw a few spanners in the works every now and again. But, to continue the metaphor of growth, the tender saplings we help to plant carefully in D become, we hope, the developing oaks of A2, through an immersion in the day-to-day activity and full engagement in this remarkably fertile and secure environment.

One of my favourite moments in Aeneid IV is when Aeneas must resist the understandable upset of his lover Dido whom he must leave. Virgil describes Aeneas as ‘like some stalwart oak tree, some veteran of the Alps, assailed by a wintry wind whose veering gusts tear at it, trying to root it up; wildly whistle the branches, the leaves come flocking down from aloft as the bole is battered; but the tree stands firm on its crag, for high as its head is carried into the sky, so deep do its roots go down towards Hades’, (C. D. Lewis). If your roots are firm you will be able to withstand enormous blasts of difficulty in life and not be overturned; be able to make the right choices and stick to them; enjoy the serenity you have won when the storm has passed, and continue to develop healthily: but only if your roots are firmly planted, if your annual growth has been sustained and increased, and if you are confident in yourself.

It’s what I hope for all our children. May they all flourish and be healthy, and in due course be as resilient and successful as stalwart oaks!