June 2010

Any association organising a regular annual conference must occasionally stop and ask itself: What exactly is it for?

There could be many answers.  It is of course for like-minded people in an association which represents them and their shared interests to get together to, well, confer about those shared interests, and shared pasts and proposed futures and imminent threats and delightful opportunities.  The chat between old friends, and the late snooker games with new ones, is a major reason to hold the conference at all. 

But it’s also to hear great speakers, and to be informed, inspired and entertained, in about equal measure but not necessarily in that order.

The Boarding Schools’ Association Annual Conference for Heads in Torquay in early May was blessed with its speakers, and in the most serendipitous way.  The original programme intended to end with an address by Sir Roger Singleton, familiar to member Heads because of his review of safeguarding in boarding and independent schools published in March 2009, but speaking on this occasion in his role as Cheif Adviser on the Safety of Children and Chairman of the Independent Safeguarding Authority on the knotty subject of vetting and barring, a subject, sadly, on which there was likely to be more information than entertainment.

However, the timing of the conference, ending on Election Day, meant that Sir Roger was unable to participate at all, and delegates were sorry to miss what would have been an important session with him.  The serendipitous consequence was that at the last moment two member Heads stepped into the metaphorical breach and onto the actual stage for the last session of the conference, to inform, entertain and inspire royally those Heads who were able to stay till the end of a great two days.

John Dunston, Head of Leighton Park School and retiring this summer, and Jonathan Hughes D’Aeth, Headmaster of Milton Abbey School and about to take up the headship of Repton Dubai, brought their skills as raconteurs and the wisdom of years in boarding schools to an audience which was genuinely inspired by their reflections on the nature of  the job of leading boarding schools today.

‘You do not save a child from drowning by stopping him swimming,’ said Mr Hughes D’Aeth, ‘You  save him by teaching him to swim.’ Few who heard it will forget his account of his own school’s party of young people out in the storm on Dartmoor which claimed the life of a student at another member school, and how they managed when one of them was injured, and found their way back to safety and then went back on the moor a week later.  Knowing what to do, when and how to do it gave them the courage to keep going in real adversity and return to complete their interrupted expedition just days later.

John Dunston’s reflections on being Head of a Quaker school, with a serious interest in the spiritual welfare of all its pupils in an increasingly secular world, chimed with the Act of Worship held at this particular conference.  It is a regular feature of the BSA conferences for Heads, but seldom takes the form of a Quaker Meeting for Worship.  There is no doubt that those who attended appreciated the half hour of ‘attentive waiting together in silence’, in which there is an expectation that ‘Quakers can find peace of mind, a renewed sense of purpose for living, and joy to wonder at God’s creation.’

Dr Christopher Greenfield, himself a Quaker and now Principal of the International College, Sherborne School, and Chairman of the BSA for 2009 – 10, spoke rousingly in his Chairman’s address about the need for a ‘bonfire of the regulations’ now binding boarding schools to a growing number of regulatory bodies with the power of life or death over schools which transgress by a tick in the wrong box or, in his case memorably, by a tick where a ‘n/a’ was expected.

Both Dr Greenfield and Tony Little, Headmaster of Eton, spoke of the value of boarding: Dr Greenfield cited the recent ISC census figures, with international student numbers up by 7.4%, as proof of British boarding schools beating the world in the battle to attract the very best international students, who themselves may choose from the best schools in Australia, New Zealand, America and Canada as well as in Britain.

Mr Little acknowledged the challenges to boarding education – rising costs, a social sea change which simply made boarding less acceptable, the difficulties of managing the Working Time Directive and providing 24 hour care and supervision of children – but he was adamant in affirming its undeniable values.

‘Recognisably at the heart of the distinctive style of British boarding school education,’ he declared, ‘are the belief in the virtue and effectiveness of an holistic approach to education. . .a belief that strong pastoral relationships are at the heart of effective education, a belief in the value of high contact time for pupils with boarding professionals (and) a belief that focusing on individuality within the community leads to self-confident contributors to society.’

And this too is one of the purposes of the conference: it allows the association a moment in the media spotlight to remind the world that it is there, and to say loud and clear what it stands for and what it believes. In the days before the conference, and in the midst of Election week, journalists clamoured for clues to what Dr Greenfield and Mr Little would be saying.  Many of course wanted a soundbite upon which to hang a headline – ‘bonfire of the regulations’ had legs, it was thought, as did, ‘Inspection must not be a nit-picker’s paradise’ and ‘We now seem to inhabit the Age of Measurement.’

Others hoped for a comment which was overtly political – where would boarding  schools if the government changed? What did senior people in the boarding world expect?  Or hope for? And lo, by the end of the week – or a week later at least –  Michael Gove, the Conservative Minister of State for Education, was both in power and still talking about releasing schools from local authority control, and being allowed to start boarding if they chose.  Heads of independent and state boarding schools alike, many of which already offer places to vulnerable children in difficult circumstances, are likely to approve.

So did it work? Were delegates informed, inspired and entertained in equal measure?

Absolutely, with three serious academics also on the programme, discussing adolescent brain chemistry, the perils of living in a really unequal society, and the dangers of neglecting the concept that hard work is as important as innate talent, and a presentation from Sam MacDonald of Farrer and Co on ‘Boarding Schools and Public Benefit, as well as other workshops on guardianship, ISI inspections and how to cater better for international students.

And, like the icing on the cake of an excellent conference, an after dinner speech from Justin Webb, presenter of the Today programme on Radio 4, ex US correspondent of the BBC, and old boy of Sidcot, a school of which Dr Greenfield had been Head.  Mr Webb was a natural and fascinating speaker, with material to die for: they don’t come much better than, ‘As I said to Mr Obama. . .’

Hilary Moriarty is National Director of the Boarding Schools’ Association.

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