Clifton College Website

Head Master's Commemoration 2009 Speech

Please download or view the Commemoration Programme of Events

See the
Commem 2009 Gallery

Ladies and gentlemen. I don't know how many of you have had a chance to read the current issue of Private Eye but there is a very good cartoon depicting closing time in the Commons bar with the landlord declaring "Haven't you got any second homes to go to?” In a week in which we have learned about the dark arts of flipping second homes and other extraordinary MPs expenses claims from dog food to moat clearance, loo seats and pergolas it is good to be reminded that as well as the nose in the trough there are also the ayes in the right. One such is Vince Cable, MP for Twickenham and formerly Chief Economist at Shell. Mr Cable was described by the Mail on Sunday as “Everything a politician should be and everything most politicians are not”. Earlier this year he published a book which is the definitive guide to the Credit Crunch. It is titled “The Storm; The World Economic Crisis and What it Means”. In it he writes as follows:

“Economic storms, like those in nature, come and go. They cannot be abolished. But, as with hurricanes and typhoons a well co-ordinated emergency response can mitigate the misery. They also test out the underlying seaworthiness of the vessels of sate. How many ships will finally make it back to port in good order is what we don’t yet know”.

Reading that, I thought that exactly the same is true of schools. Last Sunday’s Observer ran a story claiming that private schools are closing at the rate of one a week and although that may be journalistic license, there are definitely shock waves battering the good ship independent school. So how are we faring in the storm? Well with over 1300 pupils across the College and more than 700 in the Upper School, with 191 full time teachers and a further 350 employees and with an annual turnover equivalent to a mid -sized company, I can reassure you that Clifton is a very robust vessel and we are cruising the high seas. As we felt the first winds of the storm we acted quickly to make sure that our balance sheet would see us through any downturn over the coming years. This year we have undertaken a number of major capital projects: the refurbishment of the Science school, the new 3G pitch at BB and the new Music School, built within the shell of the old one but unrecognisable from it. The new Joseph Cooper music school is finished and you are welcome to look around. It will be officially opened in September. These capital projects have significantly added to the school’s provision for its pupils. And there is more to come but I am sure that you will not be surprised to learn that we are taking a rest from such large projects as part of that careful protection of our balance sheet in anticipation of difficult times. But, extraordinarily and perhaps counter-intuitively, we have not experienced any downturn at least not in terms of demand for places in the school. Last September we opened with 708 pupils in the Upper School. Our capacity was 680 and last summer we had to add studies in the basements of both West and East Town to cope with the additional pupils. Recruitment for next September is so strong that we are very likely to be over 700 again. Why is it that Clifton is so strong at the moment, a fact recognised by the 2009 Good Schools Guide, whose professional school watchers have written in that influential book that “these are exciting times for Clifton”. Well, I believe that one of the main reasons is that Clifton’s ethos is the inverse of many other schools, certainly in one respect, which is this. Success is not necessarily the key to happiness but happiness is most definitely the key to success and Clifton is built on that principle. Our focus is therefore on creating an environment where the pupils are at ease, where a framework exists where happiness is not in the distance but grows under our feet. The happy child is the successful child and that is the principle we work to from Butcombe to The Pre to the Upper School. The happy child is not the indulged child: the happy child likes a challenge, relishes a challenge and thrives in a framework of high expectation in every aspect of their lives and not just in terms of exam grades. But it would be a mistake to think that the education of the whole person did not include the highest possible exam grades. You might be surprised to learn that last year over forty of the Upper Sixth achieved three A grades or better and nearly 100 achieved ABB or better. Over 80% went on the their first choice University, including 24 who went on to the UK universities ranked in the global top ten, namely Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Imperial. There is no question that Clifton is an academic school, perhaps increasingly so, but it is of course, so much more than that. Thus we have pupils who excel in so many areas of their lives and one of the purposes of a day like this is to recognise and celebrate the achievements of the pupils As is right and proper. We will begin with those who have achieved particular intellectual distinction in their studies and then move on the those who have excelled in other areas of school life. The President will present the prizes.

Prize Giving

Two years ago I introduced a “world premiere” at this point in the proceedings in asking the Head of School to speak to you. Last year saw a world “deuxieme” and so with compelling logic this year is the “world troisieme”, and therefore now a much loved Clifton tradition. And this year all three of this year’s Heads of school will speak, namely Grace Annan-Calcott, Charlotte Pierce and the current Head of School, James Couzens.

The Head of School

As we reflect on the rites of passage of the Upper Sixth so we must also pay tribute to their teachers and especially those who are moving on.

At the end of 2008 Mrs Lesley Hill, Housemistress of Worcester House until 2002, and teacher of Biology took well deserved retirement, and a number of other members of the Senior Common Room are moving on at the end of this academic year. Mary Illes came to teach science at Clifton having completed a DPhil at Oxford and after a year of lion taming in the schoolroom she has decided she would prefer to become an accountant. Charlotte Graveney, former Head Girl, Assistant Housemistress of Hallward’s, and girls games coach, is tearing herself away from Clifton after two very productive years in which she qualified as a teacher, to a post at The Cheltenham Ladies College. I have a suspicion that she will be back for like a stick of rock she has Clifton written through her. Also after two years of entertaining service, Harry Newington, juggler, windsurfer, skier, hockey coach, Glastonbury regular, and teacher of Philosophy and RS, spreads his wings to travel the world, and Hugo Besterman, schooled at the same Cambridge College as me, though a far, far better soccer player, and a superb Head of Biology continues his glittering career as Assistant Head at Red Maids school. To achieve such high office at just 28 is remarkable. That is the problem with appointing such talented young teachers: they move on but Clifton has benefited hugely from their presence.

Gillian Donald, part time teacher of Chemistry retires this summer, as she rather charmingly wrote to me she feels that “a somewhat easier life beckons”. Gillian is well known locally, at Christ Church and as a former Liberal Democrat candidate for Stoke Bishop. Her warmth and good humour characterise her approach and we wish her a more than somewhat easier life.

One of our more senior teachers is moving onwards and upwards too. Julian Noad House Master of Watson’s House since 2003 and formerly Assistant Director of Studies takes up the post of Deputy Head of Rydal Penrhos School. Julian, a Physics teacher, is an engineer at heart and he spent hours last summer working on some of the finer details of the refurbishment of the Science schools but his main legacy to Clifton will be making such a success of Watson’s move to its new home alongside School House. This was not an easy transition, in many ways; the fact that Watson’s is now such a happy, secure and successful House is a great tribute to Julian and Jane. Not content with that, Julian has busied himself with sailing, cross country running, squash and rugby. He will be greatly missed across the school but he has done an excellent job in training his successor Simon Heard and the future of Watson’s is secure.

Lastly, but most definitely not least, we say a fond farewell and wish a very happy and well deserved retirement to Alan Brown. Alan’s association with Clifton extends over 50 years when he first arrived as a boy in the Preparatory School. Alan moved through Wollaston’s, North Town and then to East Town in the Upper School and after university and qualifying as an Accountant, Alan returned to Clifton in 1976 to teach English which he has done for 32 years. Alan was of course Housemaster of Dakyn’s, from1985 to 1993, a House described to me by those who knew it before it merged with Brown’s to create Moberly’s as “free-range” and most difficult to run, where Alan’s sensitivity and slight folksiness clashed with some rowdy boys. As he pointed out to us all in his final address in Chapel, Alan has seen a number of changes at Clifton, but two men who taught him as a boy and who know him still concur in the theme of their recollections of Alan, as, essentially, the quintessential English teacher. David Reed writes that “Alan is a constant reader: a book is never far from his hand and his range seems to be expanding all the time”. Tom Gover recalls him as a boy, “a thorough assiduous scholar and Public Schools Fives Champion”, and as a man, as “an old testament prophet trundling along reading a novel”. But do not be deceived for Alan is still very active on the Fives Court, and he hates losing, as I know to my cost as I have taken on that mighty left hand and been left floundering by its enduring accuracy and power. Alan will be remembered as a kind, scholarly man who has given generously to Clifton as man and boy for over 50 years. Finally, there is one re-retirement. Dudley Fromant, who long since retired as a teacher, is, on the cusp of his 9th decade, retiring from the print room where he has worked with such distinction since hanging up his mortar board. Please join me in thanking Alan in particular and all of the leavers, for their contribution to Clifton and wish them well for the future.

There are 8 newly appointed teachers joining the Senior Common room in September and a number of other internal changes too which I will set out for you in my end of term letter. One major and significant change is to the weekly pattern. From September we will abandon the two week cycle of fifty minute lessons, and put in its place a weekly timetable with more and shorter lessons. I have been convinced of necessity for this change since I arrived in Clifton and Antony Spencer has enabled it. Shorter, more frequent lessons, will add a sense of business like urgency to the day and far better corresponds to the learning styles of the pupils who are far better than we ever were at processing large amounts of information very quickly and who work in shorter, sharper bursts than previous generations. There is no question that we have seen and are seeing is a rapid evolution in the way that children think, and possibly even in the way that their brains work, as Professor Susan Greenfield describes in her book I-D. This is not worse (contrary to the views of many commentators on education) nor is it necessarily better; but it is different, very different, and we have seen a seismic shift in the last few years, particularly in terms of processing information visually, through images rather than through words, as any of who have taken on your children at any Playstation or Xbox game, and been soundly thrashed, will have discovered. We need to react to change, and adapt to it, not to turn the clock back or sing hymns to a lost age of higher cultural values, or to deplore the modern ways; instead we need to harness the incredible energy that it brings. And we should not be frightened of that nor of the fast pace of change.

One of the privileges of youth is the capacity for change and indeed rapid recovery when things go wrong. Teenagers will always make mistakes: after all schoolboy errors are so called because schoolboys and girls habitually make them. This term some mistakes have been made by some of our younger pupils, serious mistakes, but one should not lose one’s sense of proportion: no-one was hurt, the sun still came up in the morning and life carries on. These things happen periodically in schools such as this; one should not be either surprised or alarmed, and the school is more than strong enough to cope. Those of you, and there are a good number, who sit in Magistrates’ courts or criminal courts, will know that one has to tread a very fine line between punitive action and salutary warning, particularly with young teenagers, and a full and complete knowledge of all the facts, including personal and family circumstances, needs to be brought to bear in each and every case. It is a truism, but worth saying, that every pupil in the school is somebody’s beautiful baby, somebody’s adored son or daughter. It is also a truism that those parents who call for the firmest possible sanctions against other parents’ children are the very ones most likely to demand leniency and forgiveness when it is their child who has erred and strayed like the lost sheep. So before you are inclined to leap to judgement, look before you leap and when another child stumbles and falls let your reaction be “there but for the grace of god go we”. Without exception, in any school the Head Master is the person best placed to know how to proceed when these things happen; whereas there are many, very many, who can and do express an opinion, only the Head Master can decide what is right. It is one of the most difficult things that Head Masters have to deal with; the aftermath of things going wrong creates so much fall- out. But the most difficult thing I have had to do this year was to stand before the school and let them know of the cruelly premature death of our good friend Charlie Colquhoun. At the conclusion of today’s cricket match his widow Jean will present a silver salver to the winning captain in Charlie’s memory: cricket and OC cricket meant so much to Charlie.

The mark of a great school is that it can take difficulty in its stride and march on to further greatness. This year has amply demonstrated that; I talked of our academic achievements at A level earlier and would add that last year’s GCSE results saw an 8% rise in the number of A*/A grades, a very significant rise, which we believe from the evidence of their mocks, this year’s Fifth form can match and possibly even better. In boys rugby we had not one but two unbeaten Junior Colts teams and across the school won a very high percentage of matches against the toughest of opposition schools; yet again a girls hockey team went to the National Finals, this year it was the turn of the Under 14s; boys hockey, especially, and soccer go from strength to strength and we have the best First XI cricket team for many years. Add to that a quite extraordinarily high standard of drama, as demonstrated in the House Drama Competition, and winning entries, for the third year in a row in the Bristol schools Art competition and the artistic flair of the pupils is much in evidence. Above all, the standard of music at Clifton is quite breathtaking as any of you who were present at last week’s summer serenade would have witnessed. The new Music school can only encourage even more pupils to enjoy and excel in their music still more. Ladies and gentlemen, Clifton is, unquestionably, a great school and there is much to celebrate. Let us join together now to do so in another world “troisieme”: drinks in the Quad.

Please download or view the Commemoration Order of Service
Please download or view the Commemoration Concert Programme

© 2006-10 Clifton College