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real problem for the government was
getting the maintained sector firing properly
so that every child in the country has the
opportunity to perform to the best of his or
her ability. “We want your DNA”, he said;
“what that means is that we want your
intellectual property” – “we want your
schemes of work and your academic plans”.
Right there and then in the room I
understood what was – at least in part
– wrong. It’s not our intellectual property
that sets us apart as an independent school,
nor is it even the excellent value-added
scores in our academic results; these things
are important and impressive and real; but
they are only a fraction of the story. It is the
value we add to the academic programme
by the rich, diverse and vibrant co-curricular
programme – something set solidly into this
boarding community in Oxford – and most
important of all, it is the addition of
ethical
values in all that we do.
Even if we just look at knowledge, which
these days is so instantaneously accessible to
everyone at the click of a mouse, this is
useless unless we have the cognitive skills to
interpret it and the emotional intelligence
to use it. We have been working hard in this
area – not just in the IB Sixth, with its core
component of Theory of Knowledge, but
much more broadly – to assist our pupils in
understanding the nature of their own
knowledge and their own processes for
learning.
In Howard Gardner’s book
Five Minds for
the Future
– a prophetic look forward to the
types of thinking our pupils need to develop
in order for them to cope successfully with
the world that
they
will live in – he says that
we need to foster in our pupils:
…the kinds of minds that are
particularly at a premium in the world
of today and will be even more so
tomorrow. They span both the
cognitive spectrum and the human
spectrum—in that sense they are
comprehensive, global.
So, I would return to today and all that has
gone so well to get us here and in such good
order. And by today I mean both Gaudy as
the end of the academic year, and also Gaudy
as the final day of Gaudy Week. For Gaudy
Week is a microcosm of the school year; in
the past seven days or so we have lived
through all of the joys and pressures of the
past twelve months – and what a great
triumph this has been. Indeed I am ever
grateful to Alex Tester (and those many
others helping him) who have made this
week’s astonishing confection of Music,
Drama, Art, Dance, Science, Cricket and
Rowing – and so much more – the most
spectacular ever. And I am also hugely
grateful for Mrs van der Heiden’s wonderfully
creative Gaudy Programme. Finally, of
course, I am immensely proud of what our
pupils have done this week.
So, as I have enjoyed the great variety of
all that is best at Teddies, I have re-lived the
whole year again. I have watched the 1st XI
cricketers winning the John Harvey Cup for
the third year in a row by crafting a great