Week one of the new academic year. 8 am. After 10 miles on the exercise bike (necessary) I have just finished my seventh online compliance course of the term. Health and Safety for Managers, Fire Awareness, UK GDPR, Keeping Children Safe in Education, Prevent, Cybersecurity Awareness, Safer Recruitment. Just three to go. Did Evans, Jones, Brown, Grose-Hodge envisage this?! Admittedly, Jones could have written the Fire Awareness course by 1981; and Grose-Hodge’s tenure, spanning as it did, the Second World War puts anything else into firm perspective; but the regulatory requirements these days can occasionally seem all-pervasive. Add to this a 51-page safeguarding policy, roughly 200 other school policies, the national minimum boarding standards (23 nowadays, with many subsections; reduced mercifully, and rather surprisingly, from 52 about ten years ago) and so on, and you can get the picture of a rather different job to the one that (for instance) Michael Barlen took on in 1988.
But curiously, and whether it is because of this regulatory landscape or despite it (and I strongly suspect it is because of it), I do feel we have come a long way to creating happier, safer and more positive schools these days. I myself left boarding school in 1987, and it was a time when one had (I feel, looking back) about a 50/50 chance of enjoying it – and that is NOT good odds, when you are away from home. These days, to my own joy, the vast majority of boys enjoy school – and they have as much chance of enjoying boarding as day. Schools should not be wishy-washy places: they should challenge, confront, cajole, ask questions, and demand thought. But they should also do all they can to enable childhood to be a safe, enjoyable and happy experience, acknowledging that we all only get one go at it. The responsibility we bear at school, therefore, is both phenomenal and a very great privilege; and worth every online course they throw at us!
Thank-you, once again, for all you do for and on behalf of your old school. And if you have not visited for a while, do please consider a visit soon; we would love to welcome you back.