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.

Managing the move from junior to senior school

This week's blog is from our Director of Admissions, Edrys Barkham, who looks at ways to manage the move from junior to senior school.

As nervousness for the Common Entrance (CE) starts to take hold for some children, parents, who are always ahead of the game and have already worried about CE for many months, will now be feeling twinges of nervousness about their child starting at senior school. Will they manage the workload? How will they organise themselves? How will they cope with the older pupils? Will they sleep? Will they eat? Will they wash? Once you start worrying, the questions go on and on!

The transition from junior to senior school can therefore be a stressful time for both children and parents. What can you expect as your child settles into their new school? The change in routine, food, and activity can lead to feelings of dislocation and being a bit lost. Interactions with new people can result in unexpected reactions, which cause uncertainty and can result in a loss of confidence. Identity is defined by the roles we play and the responsibilities we take on; the transition from the top of a junior school to the first year at senior school involve change in roles and responsibilities. Whilst this can promote feelings of excitement and anticipation it can, at the same time, trigger feelings of pressure and defensiveness. New relationships have to be established and new support structures developed. Change affects the way children think about themselves and as they develop new habits, vocabulary and ways of thinking, a new self-identity emerges. The transition process can take between 6 -12 months and there is much that can be done to make this process as easy and successful as possible.

Adopting a new school routine is one of the key ways in which new pupils start to feel they belong to a wider community. At Bryanston tutors meet their new tutorial pupils every day for the first couple of weeks to go through the daily timetable and help them plan out their extra-curricular activities and preps. In the junior boys’ houses the housemaster can focus entirely on their new charges and remind them of what they should be doing, when they should do it and where they should be. With small numbers of new girls in each house, the housemistress is able to help the girls individually and notice if they are struggling to cope. Housemasters/ housemistresses (hsms) and tutors both play a vital role in helping to explain the culture of the school, allowing children to understand the reactions and behaviours of those around them. Peer mentors and house prefects are important in helping new pupils make sense of the school’s expectations of behaviour. Through all these regular conversations, new pupils learn how to communicate effectively, which, in turn, helps to establish trust so that they know where they can go for help and advice. In tutorial, tutors identify the positives in their tutorial pupils’ lives, help them discover their strengths and talents and, through conversation, clarify their roles and responsibilities at the school. Establishing good relationships with staff and making new friends help new pupils to develop resilience and build confidence.

However, the process of settling in is not always smooth and parents are often the first to be told this, sometimes in a tearful conversation. Whilst this conversation is likely to leave your emotions in tatters, the fact your son or daughter has unloaded on you often means that they feel better and they head off to be with their friends, leaving you thinking you have a distraught child. Usually, the reality is they have bounced back and feel fine; a quick conversation with their hsm can reassure you all is well.

Allowing children to learn their own strategies for coping with change is a necessary skill for future life. If they learn how to deal with issues of identity, relationships, roles and responsibilities and reactions of others, with the help and guidance of their tutor and hsm, they will be better prepared to manage the multitude of transitions they will meet in future life.

The move from junior to senior school can be challenging, however, it is important to remember it also brings with it an exciting array of new opportunities and challenges. Each year we survey our new D pupils (year 9) at the end of the autumn term, partly to help us understand how they are settling in and also to identify any areas for improvement. Among other things, they are asked which three words best described their first term at Bryanston. The results of this year’s survey show that although they found it interesting, challenging, different, exciting and tiring, most also said it was fun!

Individual breadth

This week Edrys Barkham, Bryanston's Director of Admissions, explains the need for a balance between breadth and depth in education.

One of the defining characteristics of the primate family is intelligence. Juveniles of all species have an innate curiosity and a propensity to innovate. Learning is achieved through copying adults; there is some fascinating research showing that young bonobos take years to learn the skill of using stones to crack nuts, with varying degrees of success, by imitating their mothers.

Humans have finessed the transmission of culture from one generation to another by using language to pass on information as well as skills and this has been at the foundation of our cultural evolution. Many societies have developed formal education systems to ensure the transmission of knowledge. In Ancient Greece pupils (only boys!) were expected to gain information across a wide range of subjects by questioning their mentors. In early Islamic civilisation the purpose of education was to equip an individual to be an upstanding citizen, aware of their responsibilities to the world, society and God, and only through knowledge could an understanding of their own talents be realised. To be considered well educated in Europe during the Renaissance required knowledge of a broad range of subjects and the polymath was celebrated. Increasingly, the scope of our modern education system seems to be becoming more focused than ever before with a prescriptive and narrow choice of subjects, particularly post-16.

The new A levels appear to be enforcing a sort of intellectual monogamy on sixth formers with the majority nationally studying just three subjects, each of which is closed off and taught in isolation. This specialisation at A level has led to education in some schools becoming a quest for top grades and with the emphasis on the academic outcome at the cost of the co-curricular. We believe that by encouraging our pupils to explore their full range of talents through a breadth of activities and opportunities, our pupils are able to explore what they are really capable of achieving. Through the co-curricular programme, children can discover their own particular strengths and enhance their natural skills, helping them to develop confidence. Knowing they are good at a range of things gives them the confidence to tackle the areas they find more difficult and to develop grit. It is not possible for everyone to accomplish this level of self-knowledge and confidence solely in the classroom.

There is a fine balancing act between breadth and depth: a pupil with an academic bent will naturally be encouraged to study hard and explore a wide range of subjects, but not at the expense of playing sport, learning a musical instrument or taking up a range of hobbies and interests. At Bryanston, it is not unusual to the see a first team player take the leading role on stage, or for a musical soloist to compete in national academic competitions. The abundant life is celebrated and intelligence thrives.

The breadth of opportunities encapsulated in the concept of the ‘abundant life’ advocated by Thorold Coade (Bryanston Headmaster, 1932-1959) can reveal hidden talents and interests. A combination of compulsion and choice ensures all children gain insight into themselves; learning to play a musical instrument (which all Bryanston pupils in D do), having three afternoons of sport timetabled per week, getting involved in House Drama, writing for the school magazine, helping at charity events, all these activities develop a child’s confidence and belief in themselves.

Through tutorial conversations, pupils reflect on these varied activities to determine what was successful and what wasn’t and they discover what works best for them. This is a powerful tool for the future. Encouraging an adolescent to think about not only what they did, but where they did it, how they did it and how successful was the outcome further adds to their repertoire of understanding what makes them tick. The reflective process helps develop the pupil into a self-directed learner, able to focus on improving themselves and encouraging a problem-solving approach to learning in all areas. Engaging in a wide range of activities, academic and co-curricular, broadens the mind, encourages creativity and builds confidence for tackling new problems.

In an increasingly complicated and multifaceted world, creative and innovative thinkers are needed to solve global problems with new ideas, or to use old ideas in new ways. A wide-ranging education where pupils are able to develop their own individual breadth of talents and interests will, we hope, result in broad-minded, independent thinking, creative citizens for the future.

“Be who you are meant to be and you will set the world on fire!”

At the start of this new academic year these words of St Catherine of Siena, quoted by the Bishop of London when he married Prince William and Catherine in 2011, seem particularly apt. Like Catherine who is expecting her second child, the new school year is full of excitement and possibility, opportunity and dreams. And I have on various occasions used these words to focus our minds on what the real job of being in a school like Bryanston is all about.

Each year I speak to the new Ds (year 9) at the end of assembly on Monday of week 2 and give them some ‘top tips’ about settling in and making a success of a new school. One of the list is about being yourself. This week Peter Hardy, my irreplaceable deputy, and I spoke to the C year group (year 10) about the year ahead for them and I asked them which of those top tips had, as Ds, proved the most difficult to achieve over the course of the year. A particularly brave young man answered, “To be organised”. I was so pleased that being yourself had not proved a problem for this cohort of Bryanstonians and I hope it never will.

How do you find out who you are meant to be? How can we allow our young men and women to be themselves? It’s about offering a goodly amount of opportunity and encouraging engagement. It’s about making sure that individuals are understood and recognised and that each can contribute to the larger body of the house and then school. We want all our 682 individuals to feel that they belong: that they are recognised and valued. It’s no use, in my view, being an individual if you are also lonely. It’s about seeing where you fit in to something worthwhile. Are you going to be a supersonic runner? Or a fantastic friend? Or a genius Germanist? Thorold Coade (Headmaster from 1932 to 1959) believed that it didn’t matter what you chose, as long as you engaged with and contributed to the abundant life of the school.

I agree with him, not least because I found my niche when I discovered first Latin and then Greek, and then because I saw my own two daughters flourish at Bryanston in the hands of the Classics department and on the river as devoted rowers. Keep the curriculum wide and rich and offer an outstanding co-curriculum and we can at least get our pupils and children close to St Catherine’s rallying cry. For us as adults too it is no bad thing perhaps to remind ourselves, though long past adolescence and the school curriculum, of the imperative to be authentic and of using our full range of talents. To aim to keep on learning. To be who we are meant to be so we too can set the world on fire.

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.

The changing of the guard

Peter Hardy

We welcome Peter Hardy, Second Master, with his guest blog on the role of Prefect at Bryanston.

The role of Prefect is a long-standing tradition in schools, particularly in independent schools, and has evolved over time. It is a tradition that Bryanston has always kept as part of the et vetera, in my opinion, for good reason.

During this term the current School Prefects step aside from their duties to focus on their exams. It is at this time, as forty A3 pupils acquire the role of Acting School Prefect for the term, that I often reflect on what the role of Prefect means for both the school and for the pupils concerned.

At Bryanston being selected as a Prefect is not about popularity, but is more about being well esteemed and respected by both the staff and pupil bodies. The selection process involves separate rounds of voting by the whole school, A3 pupils and staff and it is interesting to note that there is rarely a significant inconsistency between those nominated by A3 pupils and those nominated by staff. For me, there are a number of key qualities that a Prefect needs and these include efficiency, reliability, understanding, empathy, objectivity and knowledge. This is not about fitting a particular mould or style; it is about the individual and what they can bring to, and gain from, the role. Our Prefects have a variety of styles and strengths which combine to make an effective team, contributing to the smooth running of the school and the pastoral support of other pupils.

Most Prefect responsibilities carried out at Bryanston take place within the boarding houses, but there are also responsibilities at the school level. Some of these are relatively straightforward and include helping to organise the Dining Hall queue, helping with Prep duties and helping to ensure pupil compliance with punctuality by issuing early morning reportings (EMRs). Prefects need to learn how to enforce their will with only limited sanction to support this. This takes a certain amount of natural leadership, self-belief and presence, as well as the ability to assess a situation quickly and pick up on any nuances before reacting. During this term the current Acting School Prefects are developing the skills they will need to be successful if they are chosen as Prefects for next year.

Becoming a Prefect does mean additional responsibilities for those concerned. It also benefits pupils in that they learn key skills needed in the wider world, as well as gaining an insight into how their school is run, as they attend weekly meetings with the Head and myself, as well as getting involved in organising various events, including Charities Day and the Leavers’ Ball.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing Prefects for their commitment over the past year and wish the Acting School Prefects all the best for the rest of this term and into next year – I am looking forward to working with you.

“Men maketh the city, not the walls”

Living and working in a boarding school one inevitably slices up time according to terms and holidays. I think teachers must be some of the worst offenders in the crime of wishing your life away to the next holiday. And yet when a holiday arrives, whilst the first days, for me at least, are a relief as I don’t need to wear a suit and can wear antique jeans and sweaters, I soon find I miss the busy-ness of the school full of pupils and I start measuring the time until they return. The place seems empty without all that youthful vim.

A school needs to be full and active. There should be noise and energy and activity. This term we returned to find the new music school inhabited and ready to go in its teaching and learning functions. And what a joy it has been! Richard Baker, our remarkable percussion teacher, has had a smile as broad as the Mersey Tunnel (as they say where I was brought up). Duncan Emerson is patiently adding to his roles of maestro conductor and Director of Music that of tour guide around this new box of delights. Pupils are eager to get into the practice rooms, classical and pop. The place is, as I suppose befits a music school, humming.

But this is not about the fact that we have a very expensive, very beautiful, very exciting, very well-equipped building. This is all about what can be done therein. And what it will allow our – and I very much hope other – pupils to achieve musically because of the facilities and the opportunities to learn which the building allows.

Preetpal Bachra, Hsm of Connaught and old boy of Bradford Grammar School (a fine nurse of men), and I were talking of school mottos recently. He told me that his school motto was ‘hoc age’, which might be translated as “Get on with it!” A fine motto, not just for ambitious young Yorkshire men, but for us all; and not least with the opportunities we have afforded to us here at Bryanston. But it’s the Bradford Grammar School Speech Day creed which I think really hits the spot. It is, gratifyingly, a piece of Thucydides: “Men maketh the city, not the walls”. A memorable creed and not just because of the classical root. A school is indeed about its pupils and what they can achieve, and categorically not about bricks and mortar. At Bryanston we strive to give our pupils the ability to achieve remarkable things and it is this aim that is at the centre of all we plan. hoc age!

Thrift and adventure

We welcome Ian McClary, Head of Sixth Form at Bryanston, with his guest blog on the importance of the co-curricular Current Affairs Programme.


In the current educational climate, in which we chase ever higher grades at traditionally respected

Ian McClary

universities, it can look like something of an extravagance to devote two periods each week to a co-curricular, non-examined lecture for a year group preparing for essential IB and A level exams (especially with no January exam session as a safety net). Nevertheless, the A2 Current Affairs programme remains a mainstay of the sixth form academic enrichment programme because, as Winston Churchill's mother put it, thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand. And these talks are, in a way, mini adventures. They provide the pupils with insights into worlds and realms of experience perhaps unthought of or unreflected upon, and they broaden their moral and cultural horizons along the way.

As well as being very well received by pupils, providing an enjoyable and stimulating feature of their weekly timetable, their real value lies in the questions raised by this series of talks. Questions which, very often, we don't realise need asking, for example: why are there around 500 cults operating in the UK and how might we be vulnerable to their influence? Does Britain now hate men? Why, through examining the bizarre life cycle of a jellyfish, should we have more respect for our oceans and take marine conservation much more seriously? How easy is it to end up in prison and what challenges might face us on the inside? How have we lost touch with our musical heritage and why are we the poorer for it? Is Britain really broken? How do failed states abroad impact upon our lives at home?

As well as being thought provoking, I have also found that these talks can give direction and focus to future aspirations and plans. At the end of a talk about the world of marine biology, everything fell into place for one pupil as she realised exactly what she wanted to study at university and, more importantly, why. Another pupil, lacking confidence in his abilities as a writer, found great inspiration in a man who managed to hone his skills in one of America's toughest jails, smuggling out his work on pieces of toilet paper written on with a pencil sharpened on his cell wall. It was also touching to see a group of budding musicians remaining behind after a talk on the history of popular music to sit at the feet of a master and hang on his every word.

And some of the talks are also just plain fascinating. From an exploration of how exactly hypnosis works, to an explanation of how police forces solve major crimes, to a personal account of what it was like to be a spy in the Cold War, the A2 Current Affairs programme is enriching in so many ways. It is an extravagance but it is also, I believe, a necessity. It is a welcome prospect at the end of a busy week and year on year the pupils ensure that the next cohort approach this compulsory lecture on a Saturday morning eagerly and with an open mind, for which I am extremely grateful.

Time and space

If you ask Old Bryanstonians about what they remember of their school days the reply is always pretty much the same: the people and the place. The people you might think speak for themselves, and to some extent they do, given that you really would hope that the people who have had a profound effect upon your educational and emotional progress as a teenager and the friendships made would rate highly on any school leaver's list of strongest memories. But the place at Bryanston ranks almost equally highly; the two, people and place, are to my mind inseparable.

The thing about a boarding school education that no day school, however exceptional, can emulate is the provision of time and space. The boarding school day seems barmily long to a child of 13 who wants to be home at 3.30pm or even 6pm eating peanut butter on toast and watching CBBC. The day at boarding school, where boarding is done properly, finishes at 9pm or later. The week finishes on Saturday afternoon after sport and starts the following morning on Sunday when, during whole school weekends, there is a choice between Sunday service in church, with our incomparable Chaplain, or a non-religious but hopefully entertaining Sunday Assembly. On those weekends when a good deal of the boarders may go home, there is the option of a long lie-in on Sunday and cracking food when you get up, thanks to the award-winning Mike Thorne and his team of caterers. Busy weekends are full of activity, from balloon debates to battle of the bands; quiet weekends might take the form of time with friends in the house, trips to the cinema, or even, mirabile dictu, work.

This activity, high octane or low key, is what allows people to forge friendships with each other. It is far easier in my experience to make real and lasting friendships if you are working alongside someone in house drama or playing alongside them in house football, than if you sit together, passively, at a 'social event'. And at boarding school you really do find friends who stay friends forever.

And then there is the place. The place at Bryanston is 400 acres of Dorset countryside, which allows for all kinds of sporting activity. The obvious ones take place on pitches and courts and change according to season. But there is also a range of other activities allowed by the place such as beekeeping, bell ringing, kayaking, climbing, horse riding, rowing, playing in the grounds, climbing trees and camping.

If you are going to make the most of all of these opportunities, you need the time in which to do it. And we come back to the beginning: 'time and space'. The place itself and being happy and active in the place are inextricably linked. Bertie Wooster puts it succinctly in his flawless schoolboy Latin when he talks of 'the jolly old genius loci'. The campus at Bryanston adds to the opportunities on offer and provides the space in which these opportunities can be enjoyed to the full. Few people leave Bryanston without favourite memories of the countryside in which the school is set, be it the river, the playing fields, or Beechwood Lawn. And even fewer leave without memories of the Coade Hall, where we all meet at least twice a week, or of the Main School, the glorious original house, once a grand home to the Portman family and their household and now a comfortable home and school for 670 pupils. Generations to come will continue to remember Basement Corridor, the Cafe, and the social area of this warm and friendly house because it is here that they made their friends for life.