Which School? Helps Your School Stand out from the Crowd
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ConferenceVolume 53 Number 2 Summer 2016 common room The magazine for independent schools A4sportsadnovember.pdf 3/11/15 10:41:38 C M Y fashion CM a MY Winningteam CY CMY XXV is the exciting new K performance sportswear brand from respected uniform suppliers Stevensons. Available year-round, its combination of cutting-edge technical fabrics and striking design give your students the edge before they have even left the changing room. So if you’re upgrading your sports kit challenge us to raise the bar. engineered by Stevensons t: 01727 815715 www.stevensons.co.uk e: [email protected] Volume 53 Number 2 Summer 2016 Contents Editorial 5 Survival Managing a crisis and avoiding a disaster, Jeremy Gladwin & Sarah Gowans 7 From Convent School to College, Andrew Colpus 9 Teaching How to get results, Hugh Wright 12 7 Great teaching, Kris Spencer 13 UCAS – Universal Chasing After Statements, O R Houseman 17 Books or eBooks? That’s the question, Stephen Burley 20 Let’s shake the darling buds of May, John Weiner 22 Abroad Umoja Africa 2016, Liz Dillarstone 24 Services Focus on fundraising in readiness for regulation, Mark Jefferies 27 Caveat Head-Hunters! Anthony Millard 29 Compliance, Simon Henthorn 30 24 Faith and community What religious education really looks like, Ronan Head 33 Only connect 35 Noye’s Fludde and anti-elitist collaborative art music, David Lawson 37 Heads When theory becomes practice, Peter Ireland 41 Bring on the tweachers, Tim Jefferis 42 History From Weymouth to Wellingborough – a band of brothers, Neil Lyon 46 World War One week by week, David Hargreaves 50 Book reviews 31 Tom Wheare reviews Two cheers for Dr Arnold 53 Endpiece Letter from America, Jason Morrow 57 Volume 53 Number 2 Summer 2016 Volume Volume 53 Number 2 Summer 2016 The choice of champions. Conference common room The magazine for independent schools Conference & common room The magazine independent for schools Putney High School’s new Tideway boathouse. See page 19. England cricket star Matthew Hoggard and Olympic hockey quality sportswear for ambitious young athletes in schools player Chloe Rogers know what it takes to be a winner. across the country. Technology, protection, style, Skill, hard work, dedication – and sportswear that’s Squadkit’s stylish range comprises advanced fabric designed to help produce peak performance. That’s why technologies, designed to both enhance performance and they choose Squadkit, the performance range of sports kit offer maximum physical and psychological protection for from Schoolblazer, the UK’s leading supplier of school young bodies and determined minds. uniforms and sportswear to over 100 of the UK’s top schools. Like Chloe and Matthew, your students deserve the best. There’s no substitute for young talent. But it helps if the Help them reach their full potential, with Squadkit. athletes of the future receive the best possible preparation to fulfil their potential. Squadkit is dedicated to providing Squadkit exclusively available from Schoolblazer, UK leader in stylish schoolwear and sportswear Call 01832 280011 [email protected] www.schoolblazer.com 4677 Squadkit A4 Advert.indd 1 18/09/2013 10:56 37 Summer 2016 3 Make the educated choice of lawyer... Issues in the education sector are complicated, DATA PROTECTION constantly changing and potentially damaging • Access requests to reputation. • Pupil records • Security EMPLOYMENT DISPUTES Our experienced education team can help • Disciplinary processes • Grievances your school to navigate its way through the • Managing employment tribunal claims challenges it faces and plan in advance for any • Terminations HEALTH & SAFETY key developments. • Audits • Compliance • Policies and procedures • Risk assessments HR • Contracts of employment • Outsourcing and TUPE • Policies • Restructuring To discuss how our education team can help you, please contact: IMMIGRATION • Sponsorship licences Simon Henthorn • Tier 4 and Tier 2 visas [email protected] PARENTS Head of Education • Claims 0207 778 7228 • Complaints • Fee disputes SAFEGUARDING • Compliance • Disclosure obligations • Policy reviews www.doyleclayton.co.uk [email protected] Editorial Summer 2016 Editor Writing in the TES on 21st March, John Dunsford drew attention to ‘eleven odd things Tom Wheare about the education White Paper’. This irresistibly suggests the White Queen in Through Managing Editor the Looking Glass – “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things Derek Bingham before breakfast” – which may account for some of the other ‘odd things’ that regularly Production Editor emerge from Whitehall. Scott James He suggested that announcing the education White Paper via the Chancellor’s Budget Advertising Manager speech may have been a diversionary tactic designed to obscure bad news elsewhere. Gerry Cookson Email: [email protected] As it turned out, internecine strife totally eclipsed education and several other issues as the Conservative Party turned its attention and its knives inwards. But Lewis Carol’s Conference & Common Room is published three times a year, in whimsical humour is quite inadequate to describe the shenanigans currently on the bill in February, May and September. Sanctuary Buildings, which call for the pen of Dickens and are ominously reminiscent of ISSN 0265 4458 Orwell. Two ‘odd things’ should engage our special attention: the proposal that all schools Subscriptions: should become academies; and the withdrawal of the parent category from the £25 for a two year subscription, post paid; discounts for bulk recommended template for a school’s governing body. These represent a double blow orders available. to local involvement, neither immediately fatal but both precursors of a degenerative Advertising and Subscription weakening of the relationship between schools and their communities. enquiries to the publishers: As things presently stand, the expression of local opinion can, at least in theory, change John Catt Educational Ltd, things in County Halls and in schools. The fact that this doesn’t often happen and that 12 Deben Mill Business Centre, localism doesn’t always produce good outcomes is not the point. What matters is that Old Maltings Approach, schools should be part of their communities and that communities should be engaged with Melton, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1BL. their schools. A remote academy chain cannot achieve that; nor can central government. Local responsibility for a wide range of welfare issues will continue, but it will become Tel: (01394) 389850. Fax: (01394) 386893. increasingly challenging to fulfil this if the service providers are market-driven. Local Email: [email protected] authorities are left with a duty of care for all children including, of course, the problematic ones. They have a responsibility to find school places for all children, but they will not be Managing Director Alex Sharratt running any schools into which to place them. In this, as in many other areas, they have responsibility without power. Publishing Director Derek Bingham Local education authorities may have had their critics, but they have also been responsible for some inspirational thinking. The Cambridgeshire Village Colleges and the ISSN 0265 4458 extraordinary music provision in Leicestershire led by Eric Pinkett were prime examples Editorial address: of locally inspired initiatives. By the same token, although there cannot be a single head Tom Wheare, teacher in England who has not sometimes found their involvement a mixed blessing, 63 Chapel Lane, Zeals, parents are an integral part of the school community, qualifying, if any group does, for the Warminster, Wilts BA12 6NP repellent management-speak title ‘stake-holders’. Email: [email protected] It is well-established good practice to seek a wide range of talents on a governing body, Opinions expressed in and the AGBIS guidelines identify education, finance, law, property, IT and HR as key Conference & Common Room areas. Parents may well provide expertise of this kind and, in addition, their presence as are not necessarily those governors demonstrates that there is indeed a whole school community. It is important that of the publishers; likewise a core of governors live near the school and that they are all committed to the school’s advertisements and editorial are printed in good faith, and ethos, criteria that parents tend to fit. their inclusion does not imply Their lives will also take account of the school’s daily and annual timetable and they endorsement by the publishers. are the most likely to be willing to give up the considerable amount of time now required, No part of this publication especially in maintained schools. It is true to say that governing bodies must plan for may be reproduced, stored in a the future, sometimes the quite distant future, whereas parents will inevitably have more retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic, short-term aims in view. But at least they are not backward looking, as that worst of all mechanical, photocopying, governors, the sentimental former pupil, is inclined to be. recorded or otherwise, without The governors’ responsibilities now enshrined in legislation are daunting. An ever- the prior permission of the Editor increasing list of welfare, protection and safeguarding issues affects every member of the and/or the publishers. board, and they need to attend regular training sessions to make sure that the school is Printed in England by 100% compliant on all things. Micropress Printers, Suffolk, IP18 6DH Schools simply cannot afford to overlook governor candidates who, while they may lack certain specific skills, are committed to the school because it is educating their children John Catt Educational Ltd and who are willing to carry their share of the management burden. Parents cannot be is a member of the hired in, but good advice can. Mark Jefferies, Anthony Millard and Simon Henthorn all Independent Publishers Guild. represent organisations that are there to help schools flourish. Continued overleaf Summer 2016 5 Editorial In the end, the most important quality of a good governor is sound judgement, which, some might say, would rule out politicians.