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Speech given by Mr. Melvyn Roffe, BA FRSA, Principal of Wymondham College and Chairman of the Boarding Schools' Association at the opening of the 2009 BSA Conference for Heads at the Oxford Belfry Hotel, Thame, Oxfordshire at 1330 on Tuesday 5th May 2009.
Ladies and Gentlemen it is my great
pleasure to welcome you to our Conference this afternoon - thank you for taking
the time away from your schools to be here.
What I hope we can offer you in return is
an opportunity to reflect and take stock, to catch up with old friends and to make
new ones, to learn a few new things - or at least to see some of the things you
thought you knew in a different light or in a different context.
Take for example our hotel. If you didn't know, you might have assumed
that the Oxford Belfry Hotel would be
a. In Oxford
and
b. Have either a golf course - or failing that, I suppose, an actual
belfry.
Well, as you now know, neither of the above is true.
But what I know is that you will be impressed by the quality of the
facilities here - and particularly by the attentiveness and the professionalism
of the staff.
So we meet, if not actually in Oxford,
then just a few miles away from it - and I suppose that the title of our
conference could be seen as only a slightly tortuous nod to Matthew Arnold that
most famous son of that most famous boarding school Headmaster, Thomas Arnold.
For it was he who coined the description of Oxford as:
"that sweet city with her dreaming spires".
And similarly it isn't too far from dreaming spires to: "Inspiring
Places - Inspiring People".
I adopted this title for our Conference simply because I have
always held the view that schools generally, and boarding schools above all, should
be places of inspiration. And it is clear to me that the schools that I have
worked in and most that I have inspected or otherwise visited in both the
independent and state sectors are just that.
But it is a sad reflection on the public discourse about
education that so little is ever said that reflects the inspirational role of
most schools.
On the contrary. As a state school Head, I am constantly
told that I must accept my share of the vicarious blame for the delinquency,
rudeness, political apathy, pregnancy, binge drinking and knife crime that are
allegedly rampant amongst young people in this country. The collapse of
capitalism is clearly my fault too, as schools, we are told, have not done
enough to educate children in financial literacy.
And all this on top of the annual blame fest which starts
every August when a Minister spends at most thirty seconds praising the
achievements of students gaining GCSE and A level results and carries on with
three weeks of depressing introspection in the media about the decline in
standards represented by the higher grades awarded, unless by any chance the
grades are not higher, when of course there are three weeks of depressing
introspection about the decline in standards anyway.
Contrast all that with the visit of Michelle Obama to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
School in Islington
during the G20 Conference last month.
Jo Dibb the Head of EGAS and I are currently working with a
charity to establish and build a new boarding school in southern Sudan and so I
was delighted to see her school and her girls feature so strongly in the news
coverage.
Michelle Obama speaks with the same aspirational rhetoric as
her husband:
"If you want to know the reason I'm standing here, it's
because of education. I never cut class. I loved getting As. I thought being
smart was cooler than anything in the world."
Inspiring stuff. And her audience loved it. Interviewed on
the radio the next day one of the girls said:
"I loved her. And what she said about being smart and
everything. It made me feel so proud."
And I asked myself when was it, exactly? When was it that we
heard a British politician, or politician's spouse or partner, or a broadcaster
or a celebrity talking publicly about education in those simple,
straightforward, unequivocal, inspirational terms?
"I never cut class. I loved getting As. I thought being
smart was cooler than anything in the world."
We are privileged as Heads of boarding schools to have a
better chance than most of shaping the ethos of, and discourse within, our
schools. We are not diffident of celebrating success in all its forms and by so
doing inspiring and supporting children to do more and do better.
We don't have to accept the prevailing dreary orthodoxy
about education, schools and young people. We know from our own experience that
given proper opportunities, faced with challenging expectations and surrounded
by effective support, young people are the most inspiring people of all.
And so this Conference is about our Schools - Inspiring Places
and the Inspiring People who make them what they are.
Above all, our young people, but also the governors and
staff - from Heads to Matrons and support staff, whom it is the role of the BSA
to support as they undertake the routine miracles they perform term by term, week
by week and day by day in our schools.
The role of boarding school staff in taking care of children
and of sharing with parents the responsibility for their education and
upbringing has never been more complex, more difficult - or more vital.
There are many good reasons for this. Boarding schools are
better places for the fact that boarders are no longer isolated from the world
around them. More than ever they and their parents expect their time at
boarding school to be complementary to family life rather than a replacement
for it. And it is right that they should. In fact, the BSA National Survey of
boarding parents published in January confirmed what we already instinctively knew
- that well over half of parents responding see their boarding children at
least once a week.
Just as our students rightly expect to be part of a wider
circle of family and friends when they are at boarding school and have the
technology to ensure that they can be so, they can no longer be sequestered
away from the dangerous and malign influences to which young people in all
schools are subject. The 3G mobile phone which keeps a fourteen year old
boarder in touch with her mum may also be the tool of the cyber-bully, or
worse.
Boarding schools can take considerable pride in the way in
which we have adapted to new challenges. I was delighted to read in Sir Roger
Singleton's report on safeguarding in boarding schools, his official
recognition of the good practice that now exists in our sector - in contrast,
perhaps to residual public perception.
Some people have doubted in recent years whether boarding
education was any longer sustainable in a culture with which it seemed superficially
to be so poorly in step. The financial crisis has added economic uncertainty to
the threats which boarding has faced - but nothing like to the extent which
certain newspapers would have us believe.
However, our parents' survey not only showed the extent to
which boarding parents (and their children) value the distinctive qualities of
the education which we offer, but also confirmed that the vast majority of
parents think that boarding represents good value for money.
To those still predicting the demise of boarding education,
I would point out that this year's ISC census showed that this year there are 1,000
more boarders in British independent schools than last year. Add that to the hundreds
of new boarding places in the process of being created in the state sector and
any rumours of the demise of British boarding education look distinctly
exaggerated.
In fact, boarding in 2009 is strong, diverse, high quality
and confident in the future.
But there is never room for complacency and it will be part
of BSA's role in the coming years to continue to support the improvement of
standards in all elements of boarding, through training, through consultancy
work and by working with other organisations, the inspectorates and government
to achieve common objectives.
We must do even more as a sector to reach out to even more
people and help them to see how boarding might suit their families.
To those who could afford boarding we have to show how our
schools are contemporary and relevant to the aspirations that they have for
their children and that their children have for themselves;
Whilst to those who think that boarding would be too
expensive, we have to prove that boarding does indeed represent good value for
money - and demonstrate the range of options that can reduce the cost to
families.
And we have to continue to engage in the public debate about
boarding which has shifted considerably in the right direction in recent years.
However, all is not as good as it should be.
And this afternoon, I have messages for two government
ministers who have the power to make it just a bit better.
Firstly, to Phil Woolas, Immigration Minister:
Minister, will you please expend at least as much effort in
encouraging students from other countries to contribute to the British economy
by coming to British boarding schools, as you do in putting bureaucratic
hurdles in their way?
British Boarding Schools are world leaders, British Education
is a strong brand in a highly competitive international market. People want to
come here because they like it here and value what we have to offer.
But they won't come if you treat everyone who applies as
though the very fact of their making an application makes them a potential
benefit scrounger or terrorist.
And the whole country will be the poorer - in many different
ways - if those students choose to go to America
or Australia or Canada as a
result.
And my second message is to Sarah McCarthy Fry, who took
over from Andrew Adonis as Schools' Minister:
Please, Minister, will you ensure that the commitment that
has been shown by schools and charitable trusts to the provision of boarding
places for vulnerable children is matched by the willingness of Local
Authorities to enable children to take them up.
Over 70 boarding schools offered to participate in the
Boarding Pathfinder Scheme. More would do so if the scheme was developed. We
know that up and down the country there are hundreds, if not thousands, of
children whose life chances would be transformed by having a place at boarding
school.
And what's stopping them? Despite the excellent work that
has been done by Denise Eacher and other colleagues in DCSF and in Local
Authorities, there remain too many people in the system who reject on the basis
of ignorance or prejudice the very idea that a child might thrive at a boarding
school.
And too many others who mean well but find themselves
incapable of doing the right thing for a child because of time served bureaucratic
procedures which, whilst purporting to serve children's interests, too often
condemn them to an ever diminishing circle of failure.
Every child matters? It often doesn't look that way.
We know that boarding school isn't the answer for every
vulnerable child. Of course not. But it could be the answer for a whole lot
more.
And if every child really does matter, I would challenge any
party hoping to form a government after the next election to commit to paying a
grant to every child from a vulnerable background who gains a place at a
boarding school.
Let's say this grant was £10,000 a year. This could either
be used to pay the boarding fee at a state boarding school or it could be added
to the Designated Schools Grant to which Local Authorities already have access to
pay for boarding at an independent school along with school bursaries and
grants from charitable trusts.
Such a scheme would transform the chances of thousands of
vulnerable children at a stroke. Local Authorities would still have the job of supporting
the process of finding a boarding school place, but the decision about the
suitability of a child for boarding would take place firmly where it belongs -
in the discussion between parents or carers, the school and the child.
And the cost? Suppose there were immediately to be as many
as 1,000 eligible children - far more than could currently be accommodated by
the sector - the cost would be around £10 million a year.
A lot of money? Just drop in the ocean of government spending
on children's social care and a figure which would be magnified in its value by
the amount of charitable funding from school bursaries and trusts which it
would bring with it.
And a small price to pay to sweep away the barriers to
success which lie in the way of too many of the most vulnerable children in our
country.
So, Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome
indeed to our Conference. We have a great deal to discuss and absorb in the
next 48 hours. I hope that when you will leave here you will feel that you have spent your time profitably and will return
to school inspired, at least in some small way, to face the challenges that lie
ahead.
And, Ladies and Gentleman, if you haven't
been in the least bit inspired by a line up including, amongst others, a poet,
a policeman, a polar explorer, a bishop, a psychologist and Kevin Roberts - CEO
of Saatchi and Saatchi who is waiting in the wings now - frankly, I'm not quite
sure what else we could have done to help you!
Finally, before I invite Andrew Jarman to
introduce Kevin Roberts, I'd like to say a particularly warm welcome to our
Conference guests - and to our sponsors.
It is absolutely no exaggeration to say
that this conference could not happen without our sponsors. In difficult times
our longstanding sponsors have been steadfast friends and have been joined this
year by several new enterprises.
Please reciprocate their support by your
kind attention to their stalls during the coffee and meal breaks - and by your
patronage of their products and services - but only if, of course, your bursar
would approve.
Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen - enjoy the
Conference. |
