Summer Term Update

What a fantastic first half of term! As some schools prepare to break for half term we are ploughing on in preparation for Common Entrance which is now just around the corner.

ACADEMIC LIFE

The CE boys have already had three exams, Maths listening, French listening and French speaking. They have got off to a good start which I hope will calm some nerves.  we have had the results from the UK MATHS CHALLENGE and the boys have done brilliantly. One boy has qualified for the Maths Olympiad and one missed out by one point! 6 boys qualified for Gold awards, two for silver and 9 for bronze. This is a terrific effort.

SPORT

It has been excellent that so little of our CRICKET season has been affected by rain. We have seen some excellent matches with very good performances throughout the school. The U11 age group have been the most successful so far and it is so good that we are putting out three teams at this age group and winning! A large number of boys also played cricket with the girls from Heathfield which was a huge success. 

The TENNIS team have been fairly dominant with three wins and one loss. They play with great continental flair. The Mothers and Sons tennis was also a great success.

The ATHLETICS team have had one match so far in which the u12 and u14 age groups narrowly lost but the U10 age group recorded an excellent win. They do battle again this afternoon.

MUSIC

As always, the music department has been very active. We had a wonderful organ recital from Mark James from St. Peter's, Ealing. The Informal Concert was a great success and tonight we are looking forward to the Solo Singing Competition and the House Singing Competition. One of the highlights of the term must be the joint choral ensemble with Heathfield. This was a very special evening and I hope it will be the first of many.

AOB

On top of all of this, two forms have been to La Vacquerie, the Monitors had dinner with us and were great company over cheeses fondue(!), next year's leavers had a Camp Out in the grounds, we had a brilliant Science Talk by the head of science at Bradfield, Va have been to the National Gallery, the Possibles went to Legoland and Thorpe Park, we have had chess matches, table tennis matches and golf matches and let's not forget the wonderful Charity Day.

Life in a boarding prep school is never dull!

A tale of two twins (2)

The photograph.

A tale of two twins

Flicking through the Old Etonian Association Review, I came across the following article which made me chuckle! I have quoted from the article.

Timothy Lee writes, "I was lucky enough to play in the OEAFC centenary mach at Highbury (courtesy of the then chairman Denis Hill-Wood) in May 1970, the night after Young England beat the England side before they went to the World Cup in Mexico. I attach a photo of our line up that day in front of the North Stand goal. I am the smallest in the line-up, considerably thinner than I am now, but one of my few claims to fame is that I scored our only goal at the Clock End in our 4-1 defeat. The team included two former headmasters of prep schools, Gerald Barber of Ludgrove and Nick Dawson of Sunningdale. Nick pulled up with a hamstring injury after about 20 minutes and hobbled off to be treated by the Arsenal masseur (later manager) Bertie Mee. It was in the days before substitutes, so we were very pleased that about 15 minutes later he came back on and ran up and down the wing with no problems whatsoever. It was only after the game had finished that we all realised that it wasn't Nick but his identical brother Tim who had come back on!"

Common Entrance. The gold standard at 13 plus

Exams and the way they are set and marked are a constant source of debate amongst teachers, heads and successive governments. The public exam system changes so regularly that it becomes nigh on impossible to compare the performance of different generations or to say whether standards of education are rising or falling.

The Common Entrance exam was introduced in 1903 to provide an examination for entrance into senior independent schools. The papers and the material covered now are, naturally, vastly different to then but the fact that Common Entrance represents the gold standard of independent prep school education has not.

Some have criticised Common Entrance for being too heavily based on factual learning and not allowing candidates to demonstrate a wider range of skills. In fact, the syllabi do allow for a far broader range of skills to be taught and tested. The style and content of CE papers is under constant review and pupils have ample opportunity to demonstrate creativity and analytical skills. They do also test the more able candidates who are just below scholarship level. There is a range of papers in different subjects and at different levels and the way in which the pupils are tested is also frequently discussed. The ISEB is currently looking at the possibility of online testing in Mandarin which is an exciting innovation.

It is essential that there should be a rigorous exam at the end of year 8. The pupils enjoy having something to work towards and they feel a huge sense of achievement when they receive their results.

The last two years at a good prep school, however, are about far more than just the Common Entrance exam at the end of it. It is down to the schools and the teachers to make sure that pupils receive a rounded education. Good teachers will use the Common Entrance syllabus as a foundation for their teaching and planning but will not be limited by it. They will give their pupils the opportunity to learn in different ways and in different environments. Schools will provide plenty of scope for music, drama and sport and they will encourage pupils to take on leadership roles and learn about themselves in the process.

What we must not do, is lower our expectations of our pupils. We need to give them some credit and allow them to be challenged so that they can show us, and themselves, what they are capable of.

Qualified Teachers

Much has been written on whether only qualified teachers should be allowed to teach in free schools. In the state sector, only teachers with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) are permitted to teach in schools. In the independent sector this is not the case. So which is the right approach?

I have always believed that good teaching is all about the personality of the teacher. Yes, it is essential that teachers have the appropriate subject knowledge but if they are unable to transmit that to their pupils, they are going to struggle. 

What is required is passion and enthusiasm for the subject and a desire to engender that enthusiasm in the pupils that you teach. A good teacher encourages their pupils to be involved in the learning process and to get excited about learning new things. Teacher training does not guarantee this. Teacher training can help hone skills but it cannot turn a boring teacher into an inspiring one.

At Sunningdale we look for the right people, whether or not they have. Most of the staff do have QTS when they join but in the last few years we have put a number of members of staff through teacher training while they have been with us and it has been hugely successful. 

I would encourage the government to leave the decision down to individual heads. No headmaster or headmistress wants a poor teacher on their staff so they are not going to employ just anyone. They should, though, have the freedom to find the best people for the job.

Private tutoring

There has been a lot of debate in the press about private tutoring. I thought it might be an idea to make Sunningdale's position clear.

There is no doubt that over the last few years there has been a significant rise in the amount of  pupils receiving private tutoring. There has also been a significant increase in the cost of such tutoring.

Tutoring can be a very successful way of supporting a child who is struggling to grasp a particular topic or a particular subject. It certainly has its place and one to one tuition can make a difference.

The problem occurs when tutors are asked to hothouse pupils to get them in to certain schools. I don't see how this can be a good idea. What matters is that pupils attend the right schools for them, not the schools that certain parents feel have the right name. 

If a child can only get into a school with the help of a tutor then they will need the support of a tutor to remain at that school. If this is the case, they will miss out on so much of what the school has to offer. Children go to independent schools for more than just the academic side of life and if they are spending hours with tutors then there is little point in them being there in the first place.

So my thoughts are simple. Use tutoring wisely but overuse it at your child's peril.

Dangers of advertising

Today's telegraph has a very interesting article on advertising to under eleven year-olds.

Ban advertising aimed at primary school children

I think that this is so valid. Today's children are too obsessed with possessions and there is so much competition to have the latest gadget, wear clothes with the 'right' brand names and go on holiday to the smartest places. 

It is so sad that children need to be thinking like that so young. We should be providing memorable experiences for them, not disposable gadgets that will be long forgotten when they look back on their formative years.

This is one of the reasons that we do not allow all these things at Sunningdale. We want them to have the chance to have proper childhoods, we do not want them to be subject to peer pressure and we want them to develop lasting friendships and have enduring memories.