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Volume 47 Number 3 Autumn 2010 PRODUCED BY THE HEADMASTERS’ & HEADMISTRESSES’ CONFERENCE Contents Editorial 5 Letter to the Editor 7 Looking in Stretching one’s sails to the wind, Matthew Jenkinson 8 Independent? Only just, Peter Cantrell 10 The future of inspection? Bernard Trafford 11 HMC’s AGM, 1910, Geoff Lucas 13 The Roman Spring of Mr Mobs, Roger V Mobs 15 16 Looking out Surviving appendectomy and other maladies, Ian Beer16 “I can.” Nick Barrett 18 Dewey decimalisation at Dedza, Alistair Bounds 21 Heat, dust and ashes, Nick Hewlett 23 A very special Queen’s Birthday, Chris Alcock 23 Recovering from natural disaster, David Bamford 24 Looking on Sporting alumni, Tim Lowe 26 Left-handers: creative thinkers and trendsetters? Antony Clark 27 Chocolate sponge and custard, Esther Spence 29 Not Ascham but ASCL, Geoff Lucas & Bernard Trafford 30 18 Ospreys or Tigers? Brian Lightman 31 Noble Hanlon’s closing account 33 Looking after Barnaby stays at Harrow! Kirsty Shanahan 35 Deus dat incrementum, Colin Swainson 36 Coursework arrives in style 38 The art of venery and other skills, Simon Timbrell 39 For your information, Miles Petheter 41 Bespoke professional development for HMC, Simon Letman 42 Rugby versus fluffy kittens, Sue Bricket 43 Book reviews Pastoral symphony 45 27 Boss a nova 47 The naked Headmaster 49 New faces, changing places 51 Endpiece Teaching and the seven deadly sins: Wrath, Alistair Macnaughton 54 Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, and President of the Board of Trade, generates power for Hampton School’s carbon neutral policy in 2008. 36 Autumn 2010 3 Developing successful students Cambridge Pre-U is an exciting post-16 qualification for UK schools. It prepares learners with the skills they need to make a success of their studies at university. s $EVELOPSINDEPENDENTSTUDYSKILLSANDIN DEPTHSUBJECTKNOWLEDGE s 4WO YEARLINEARCOURSESGIVETEACHERSmEXIBILITYTOEXPLORETOPICSIN DEPTH s 2EWARDING5#!3TARIFF s $ESIGNEDWITHSCHOOLSANDRECOGNISEDBYUNIVERSITIES Learn more! Visit www.cie.org.uk/cambridgepreu or email [email protected] STEERING GROUP Autumn 2010 STEPHEN COYNE Chairman Editorial Head of Foundation, The King’s School in Macclesfield TOM WHEARE Editor ELIZABETH CAIRNCROSS Head, Wells Cathedral School Niche market magazines – and this is one – sometimes take a CHRIS EDWARDS rather limited view of things. Witness the reviewer of Lady Headmaster, Bromsgrove School Chatterley’s Lover in Field and Stream who found the account JAMES PRIORY Head, The Portsmouth Grammar of a gamekeeper’s duties on a Midland shooting estate of School considerable interest but concluded that the many pages of BERNARD TRAFFORD Headmaster, ‘extraneous material’ meant that the book would never replace Royal Grammar School, Newcastle J R Miller’s Practical Gamekeeper. EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS So C&CR might be expected to comment on the number of DAVID LEVIN former pupils of independent schools prominent in the current Headmaster, City of London School Chairman, HMC Parliament. During the election campaign much was made of GEOFF LUCAS the solid phalanx of Old Etonians in the Conservative Party Secretary, HMC IAN POWER leadership and the Cabinet lump is scarcely leavened by the Membership Secretary, HMC fact that Nick Clegg went to Westminster. But do schools, or JONATHAN EVANS Managing Director, universities for that matter, really exercise the kind of John Catt Educational Ltd influence over their former pupils that will shape their Business Managers DEREK BINGHAM behaviour in adult and professional life? Probably not, but Publishing Director, journalists like labels, painstakingly though not always John Catt Educational Ltd accurately giving someone’s age in brackets after their name, or quoting a school’s motto and fees when popping the cork Publication: Published three times a year, February, June, September. of the latest jeroboam of bad news. Editorial Board: A steering group of members appointed by Schools are partly to blame for this as, understandably enough, the Headmasters’ & they like people generally and prospective parents particularly to Headmistresses’ Conference. Opinions expressed in Conference know which famous former pupils they can lay claim to. & Common Room are not necessarily Particularly helpful in this regard are rogues who later made those of the Headmasters’ & Headmistresses’ Conference; like- good – the real high fliers in this group can single-handedly wise advertisements and editorial are printed in good faith, and their boost the self-esteem of three or four schools simultaneously. inclusion does not imply endorsement by the Headmasters’ You can read within of a new method of matching famous & Headmistresses’ Conference. sportsmen and women with their schools and see if your No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval experience bears out Antony Clark’s developing theories about system, or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, left-handers. photocopying, recorded or other- wise, without the prior permission There are Heads who have had a lasting and widespread of the Editor and/or the Publishers. influence. The philosophy Kurt Hahn developed at Salem and Subscriptions: £25 for a two year subscription, Gordonstoun, expounded in his talk at Ellesmere College in post paid; discounts for bulk orders 1963, led directly to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme available. Advertising and Subscription enquiries to the and the Outward Bound project, affecting literally millions of Business Managers: John Catt Educational Ltd, young people. On the other hand, it would be stretching things 12 Deben Mill Business Centre, Old Maltings Approach, Melton, too far to suggest that the current enthusiasm for animal Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1BL. husbandry at Harrow owes anything to the visitor they dubbed Tel: (01394) 389850. Fax: (01394) 386893. ‘Old Sheepfolds’ when Edward Thring was given the courtesy Email: [email protected] Printed in England by Wyndeham of their pulpit. Grange, Butts Rd, Southwick, West Sussex, BN42 4EJ. In general, however, schools must make modest claims about ISSN 0265 4458 the effect they have on their pupils. School is a crucial part of Editorial address: Tom Wheare, 63 Chapel Lane, the socialising process and should develop in individuals Zeals, Warminster, Wilts BA12 6NP awareness of and concern for others. Teamwork is something Email: [email protected] schools can teach, along with leadership and application to the Autumn 2010 5 It’s about being Smart with your school Management System BOXintranet Parent Digital Portal Signage isams Alumni Portal VLE Student Portal iSAMS is trusted by some of the most prestigious Accounting and Fe e s 3rd Party schools in the World Databases A complete system driven a single database solution – Simple! One System + One Database + One Interface + One Supplier + One Solution = iSAMS www.isams.co.uk To discover how iSAMS can revolutionise your schools information management tel: 0845 257 2741 | email: [email protected] task in hand. Schools give their pupils the chance to learn about and experience other cultures via the multitude of trips they still undertake despite the necessary burdens of risk assessment. Finding out more about diversity within our own society is harder, perhaps because all schools hope to instil in their pupils a sense of corporate pride and identity. Now that the enterprising and conscientious school leaver heads to Africa or India to make a difference, the inner city missions, once such a strong feature of our schools, are less well supported. Shrewsbury House in Liverpool is a fine but rare surviving example of the institutions that led Clement Attlee, for example, to devote the first part of his working life to the East End of London. Widening access to our schools will go some way towards redressing the balance, but nothing can beat first hand involvement on the ground. The outcome of the General Election has prompted frequent use of the word ‘unprecedented’. A return to consensus politics is, however, greatly to be welcomed. Just as inflation became accepted as the norm despite its rarity as an economic phenomenon in the longer historical perspective, so a confrontational and polarised political scene seemed to be the established modus vivendi at Westminster even though it was, in its nastiest manifestations, a recent phenomenon. Worse still was the downgrading of Parliament, the demoralisation of MPs and the simultaneous weakening of both Cabinet and Civil Service responsibility in the business of government. As Geoff Lucas points out, 100 years ago members of HMC were expected to consult their common rooms before attending the annual meeting, held surprisingly near Christmas. Working together, investing time and good faith in consultation, learning from others, accepting that the middle way is often the best or, at least, only practical way, is something that Heads become aware of more rapidly than their pupils, their staff or their governors. If David Cameron and Nick Clegg did learn anything from their schools or their teachers, it may have been that. They have shown that national needs are more important than the devices and desires of political parties. They have, in fact, shown a remarkable degree of imagination and self-denial in the formation of the government and, although Vince Cable is not Chancellor of the Exchequer, he has been handed a portfolio of huge financial importance. A previous Trade and Industry Secretary, Norman Tebbitt, was famous for praising those who got on their bike to find work. His successor, Vince Cable (67), also believes in pedal power as we saw when he visited Hampton Grammar School, meeting the global energy challenge with his characteristic directness. We may be on the threshold of a period of good government. Letter to the Editor Dear Sir Serendipitously, in my current task of sorting out the Wellington Archives, I came across a Harrow Mark Reducer just yesterday. I vaguely registered what it was, recalling I might have seen a master at my prep school using one 50-plus years ago and telling me what it was for.