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T
HE
E
NG L I SH
S
CHooL
Like similar publications at other schools are, I hope that this Eng-
lish School Annual Review is seen as a pro-active move. We wish to
communicate the successes of the past year, to lay out the essen-
tials of our position (including financials) at present, as well as to set
forth some pointers for the future.
As the Chairman notes in his message, this past year has seen the
usual catalogue of successes at the English School, in both academic
and extra-curricular terms. To add to the Chairman’s highlights, I
should like also to draw attention to our conspicuously high (nine)
number of offers from a certain windswept university on the Eng-
lish fens.
Rightly, also, the Chairman pays tribute to the continuing contribu-
tions to the work of the school made by its hard-working staff
(teaching and non-teaching), its loyal parents and, last but not least,
its endlessly surprising, fascinating and resourceful students. If I
may add a personal note to all such tributes, it has continued to be
a delight to work amongst, with and for you all; to conclude these
acknowledgments, though, one must not ignore the abiding com-
mitment of our Board of Management. As “the old order changeth,
yielding place to new” (Tennyson’s words, I’m afraid, not mine), I
should like to acknowledge the dedication and wise attention to
their duties of the Board, not to mention their unfailing courtesy
when faced with the headmaster’s awful jokes…
As we return to reflect on the last year, amongst the university of-
fers, the stellar academic performances, the concerts, the Med-
iMUNs, the plays and all the rest of it, there have been other less
conspicuous initiatives successfully proceeding. To these I wish to
draw attention, as they have the potential to make profound posi-
tive transformations to the ways in which we operate. Certain key
staff have visited leading British independent schools (Eton College,
City of London Boys’, Royal Grammar School, Newcastle Upon Tyne,
Stamford Endowed, Lady Eleanor Holles) and have been working
hard to lead and model the usage of information technology tools,
including the School Information Management System (SIMS), its
associated Learning Gateway and the RealSmart learning platform.
These projects are not new this year; we have simply built sustain-
ably on mechanisms that were brought in a little while ago. In a
short time, I believe we shall be in a position that parents, students
and teachers will be able to access and benefit from unprecedented
levels of information about our processes and learning resources.
There are many objectives in this venture but prominent amongst
them are our desires to make our ways of doing things as trans-
parent as possible and to encourage our students to become ever
more self-directed learners.
All of these harbingers of future seismic shifts bring us neatly to
consideration of other shapes of things to come. Since the very
moment of my appointment (and even before), all kinds of sensible
people advised me to tread carefully/keep mum/preserve a digni-
fied silence on matters relating to the school. “Whatever you say,
say nothing”, as Seamus Heaney coined it when speaking about
other disputes. On the other hand, another judicious counselor
enjoined me, not long after landing on the island, to “step on a few
toes”. So, with all due deference to my host at a memorable din-
ner, what you may hear behind the ensuing paragraphs is the sound
of some metatarsal fracture.
This school will, undoubtedly, need a strategy for the years ahead.
Whether this is an evolution of the strategy my predecessor worked
on a little while ago, or whether it is something else entirely, does
not particularly matter. What does matter is that the strategy is
one to which a large number of its constituents (perhaps even a
majority - it is impossible and unnecessary to achieve unanimity)
From the
Headmaster
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