Moving on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Et nova et vetera!

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

Learning happens when we listen: what’s the point of the Bryanston Education Summit?

”We need to create environments in which teachers embrace the idea of continuous improvement… an acceptance that the impact of education on the lives of young people creates a moral imperative for even the best teachers to continue to improve.” (September 2014) – Dylan Wiliam

As education establishments, it is our responsibility to help facilitate continual professional improvement. Events like the Bryanston Education Summit are excellent for bringing together a number of different professional development strands under one roof. Attendees can curate their own, bespoke programme for the day and hear from a wide array of expert speakers on a number of topics. The event is intended for many teachers from many schools and we cannot know what those particular schools or teachers are specifically interested in improving. Therefore, we lay on a variety of topics in the hope that there really is something for everyone.

That is not to say that an event like the Education Summit is not good for Bryanston. It creates tremendously good-value professional development for our own staff. They attend sessions where their teaching commitments allow and so digest many talks during the day. The knock-on effect is that it provides a frame of reference for our staff: they can discuss what they have heard and learned with others from the same context, which in itself adds a layer of benefit. To some extent, any school that is able to send more than one teacher to the event could benefit in a similar way.

Sustained CPD, as research has concluded, is one of the only truly effective ways to make professional improvement lasting and genuinely impactful in the classroom. At each Summit, we align at least a few talks and speakers with our own pedagogical focus for the year. That way, we can lay on a number of preludial pedagogical events in the months leading up to the Summit, send teachers to hear relevant talks at the Summit itself and then host follow-up meetings to truly embed some of the concepts discussed. This year, for instance, our pedagogical focus as a school is literacy. It is no surprise, therefore, that there are a good number of talks and speakers at the 2019 Summit specialising in that very topic. Among them, Alex Quigley will be giving a talk entitled ‘Where does literacy fit in the secondary school curriculum?’; Debra Myhill will be speaking about ‘Writing in subject disciplines’; and Marcello Giovanelli will be discussing the importance of ‘Knowing about language: what, why and how?’ By directing our own staff to these particular talks, I can guarantee that literacy will continue to gather momentum within our specific learning community.

Under the umbrella of our overall summit focus, ‘Revolution: the future of learning in a changing world’, we strive to provide an array of subjects. It is also important to us not to shy away from some of the more challenging issues facing us as educationalists. This year we have Robert Plomin summarising his 45 years of research on how ‘DNA makes us who we are’. This will not be entirely comfortable listening for some teachers. Anthony Seldon will be speaking about Artificial Intelligence and how it will change your world – whether you like it or not, again, possibly not making for the easiest of listening. We intend to begin debate, but not necessarily settle it. First and foremost, we aim to get teachers thinking and reflecting.

In Dylan Wiliam’s talk at our inaugural Education Summit in 2017, his final presentation slide was the following:

His first bullet points for both teachers and leaders concern the need for high expectations of continual professional improvement. Our Education Summit provides a focal point for such a requirement, both for ourselves and others. Learning happens when we listen, and our Summit has, at its heart, a desire to connect teachers, to spark debate, and to promote the idea that the best teachers – irrespective of age or experience – are always ready to listen, learn, and share their experiences. 

“All change please, all change” – well, not quite: the transition from a junior to a senior boys’ house

Growing up in London and venturing onto the London underground system, I was always anxious about the need to change lines to get to my required destination. Was I aiming to head north or south, east or west, and what was I to do when the tannoy announced “all change please, all change”?

From the outside, moving up to a senior boys’ boarding house at Bryanston might seem a little like this. While a sense of anticipation, even some concern, is perfectly understandable, it is important to remember that it is not “all change” by any means. The grounding of a year in a junior house is already in the bag, so pupils know where to go when asked to meet in Main Hall, or realise that having an assignment in Dorchester is basically working on prep in the maths subject room rather than working on some undercover operation in Dorset’s county town.

Similarly, as Year 9 boys transform into Year 10s when they arrive in their second September at Bryanston, they have the immense comfort of returning to the guidance of their existing tutor. While the new academic year represents a clean slate, a tutor will knowingly ask about the summer break in Cornwall perhaps, or a particular theme from the previous term’s reports, and then of course, how their charge is settling into their new senior boarding house. The continuity provided by the Bryanston tutor system is one of the key elements that eases what might otherwise be a more fundamental transition.

The move has also been smoothed by the hard work undertaken in the summer of Year 9. The process starts with a senior housemaster receiving a confidential list in their common room pigeon hole; it is like Christmas, except we have no real idea at that point who is coming our way. There follows a rapid round of enquiries about this list of names, where we know there is no randomness or partiality at all – the list has been carefully crafted to meld together a group who will live under the same roof for the next four years of their school life. The boys themselves have suggested who they’d like to be with, the junior housemasters have balanced this against the need to share talent around the five senior boys’ houses and an honest assessment of what is best for each boy, and the alchemy is completed by a dash of careful social engineering. The senior housemasters then receive a ‘dossier’ on each new boy coming their way. All in all, it equates to the planning we might all make before embarking on a tube journey across a capital city.

I (and the other senior housemasters) then meet our new boys, inviting them to visit their new boarding house for a quick look around; in the following weeks there is also an overnight camp by the river, team-building, story-telling, a group BBQ perhaps, and a ‘graduation day’ when I also get to meet the new parents. Finally, before the summer holiday begins, the dorm combinations for September are arranged, i.e. the boys know who they’ll be in a room with in the first term of the next academic year, avoiding the peril of a tenterhooks return to school in September.

Once in the senior house, like all tube journeys, there is not one route that fits all, so the journey to the Leavers’ Ball at the end of Year 13 can take various detours with stops along the way, and the route each pupil decides to take is pretty unique to them. Some will take the Circle Line all the way from South Kensington to King’s Cross, while others will opt for the Piccadilly, Central or Victoria line, and that’s because a pupil will have different skills or preferences. It matters not because they all reach their final destination in the end and with their personal confidence pretty well complete. Some might take the circuitous route for a while, or pass through many more stops along the way. Some may even go south on the Bakerloo when they should go north; but between the housemaster, tutors and teachers, we will nudge them in order to get them going back in the right direction towards Baker Street.

During four years of travel, there is plenty of guidance offered so that any pupil should know what’s coming up and when they need to react. “The next station is Paddington. Change here for the Bakerloo line and National Rail services”. And then there is my own personal favourite – ‘Mind the gap’. Nobody aims to put a foot wrong, but it does occasionally happen, even if the warnings have been made clear. Unlike the junior houses, the adolescence card is in play rather more, and this is part of growing up – but we are on hand to avoid the ‘gaps’ or to pull the emergency handle as required.

Finally, unlike at some schools, the senior house does not alone define an individual at Bryanston, rather it is what they achieve in the milieu of the whole school which does. Yes, the friends and experiences they have in their house are deeply personal and unique to the surroundings, but, like each and every tube carriage, they will spend so much time with other people, each with their own individual personalities, that it is the journey through school as a whole which has the greatest resonance.

So, for those of you reading this who are curious or even a little uncertain about Bryanston’s transition of house for boys between Years 9 and 10, it is far less a matter of ‘all change’ than might seem. More like a little change, at the right time, at the right station, and onto the right line with plenty of comforting continuity.