Introduction to Grindon Hall School
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2011 League Tables
Once again, Grindon Hall has performed outstandingly well in the 2011 GCSE league tables, published today (26th January).
In what Government ministers rightly describe as the “Gold Standard” in terms of results, we outperformed all other schools in Sunderland by a considerable margin. The “English Baccalaureate” is a way of identifying those students who achieve at least 6 Cs in the key subjects of English, Maths, two Sciences, a language and a humanity. We achieved 48% on that measure, well ahead of the school in second place (33%) and way ahead of other independent schools. This shows that we continue to teach a rigorous curriculum, which will prepare our students extremely well for the next stage in their education and beyond.
We always acknowledge that league tables only reveal one aspect of a school and they can vary quite considerably from year to year. But this is the second year of the English Baccalaureate and in both years we have performed excellently. It is revealing, as it is intended to be, that many schools who perform respectably on the old measure (5 A-Cs) do very badly in the English Baccalaureate, often achieving 1 or 2%. Understandably, they have focused over the years on easier, less academic subjects, as this has enabled them to move up the league table. This government has introduced the E.Bacc measure in order to clarify for parents which schools are doing well in “proper” subjects. It is clearly now the most important measure and we are delighted to be well clear at the top of the city’s league table.
As we move towards Free School status, we will continue to build on this excellent foundation and we will aspire to join the very top schools in the country – mostly selective private schools – who achieve 70% or more. That is achievable and we are determined to get there.
NEW WEBSITE COMING... We are currently developing a new website for our opening as a FREE SCHOOL in September 2012!
FREE SCHOOL APPLICATION ... On 10th October, we learnt that our Free School application had been successful. We now move into the "pre-opening" phase and there is a great deal of work to do to ensure that we are up and running for September 2012. Exciting times!
Wallsend Boys’ Club is famous for producing great footballers – amazingly, there are over 30 managers and coaches currently working professionally who were products of the Wallsend system – including Steve Bruce himself. Shearer and Beardsley are possibly the two greatest players the club has produced. Over many years, the club has operated without special facilities – apparently a few huts and a bit of grass has been enough for them. What they have had, of course, is a very strong ethos and great coaches. Now, we read in the Daily Telegraph this week, they are to have a major injection of money to help them build better facilities.
Will this make a difference? Sadly, there are many examples of schools, clubs and other organisations of various kinds who have had large amounts of money spent on them – but it appears to have made very little difference at all.
Wallsend Boys’ Club will no doubt continue to produce great young footballers. But this will probably have much less to do with their shiny new facilities than with the culture and ethos which has made them so uniquely successful over the years.
The fact is – as we all know – that it is not the quality of facilities which makes for success. Take Grindon Hall’s gymnasts for example. They have achieved remarkable success over several years, regularly dominating the North of England schools competition and then going on to compete very well at national level. All this without a Sports Hall and indeed without any “facilities” to speak of. Would they have been more successful with better facilities? Mrs Henderson might think so, but I suspect that, whatever conditions she was given to work in, she would continue to do great things with Grindon Hall gymnasts. Her ethos, constant striving for excellence and sheer enthusiasm would still be first class.
To be honest, some of those things apply to Grindon Hall as a whole. Anyone taking a tour of the school will see decent resources but certainly nothing “glitzy” or opulent. Most of the schools around us are better equipped than we are.
But in 2010 none of them achieved the same success in examinations as we did.
That success, and that ability to achieve so well without huge resources, has meant that the government now want us under their umbrella. We understand that we were the only independent school in England (out of over 40 who applied) who won Free School approval. We must be doing something right! And whatever it is (and I think we know what it is), it hasn’t been achieved on the back of vast expenditure on resources.
Most of us now know something about the challenges that lie ahead. It may well be that we will receive some funding to invest in our facilities. Great – we welcome that. But we know that that investment won’t achieve very much on its own. Our challenge is to maintain everything that is good about Grindon Hall, and make sure we use any extra investment to that end – not as an end in itself.
That’s a challenge that we are 100% determined to respond to!
The education world does go round in circles doesn’t it? Until recently, we were told that teachers must not even think of touching a pupil. This was never enshrined in law, contrary to public opinion and the “back room lawyers”, but it was the widely-held perception. Now we are told that many parents and, surprisingly, even some pupils are demanding that the cane be reinstated. The media has reported in the last few days that in a survey of parents, half wanted the cane brought back, and a fifth of children did too.
Would Grindon Hall ever wish to see caning re-introduced? The answer is no. One significant reason is that the job would presumably fall to me as Principal, and I simply could not do it. I’m just too nice.
Of course, at Grindon Hall we try to live by the instruction and guidance contained in the Bible. In Proverbs 13:24, we read, “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”
Does this not mean that a Christian school should be campaigning for the right to physically chastise children?
I think the answer, again, is no. This verse seems to be directed towards parents, and that is a quite different matter.
Personally, I believe that parents should have every right to exercise appropriate discipline, including smacking. Any attempt to outlaw the smacking of one’s own children firstly contradicts, it seems, the plain teaching of the Bible; secondly, it constitutes appalling interference by the state into family affairs; and thirdly, it undermines parental authority at a time when that authority is desperately needed.
Many would say – and I would agree – that the failure to properly discipline children has contributed very significantly to what most agree is a decline in respect, behaviour and attitude among many young people. As Proverbs implies, a society which prevents parents from acting as parents should act is not helping children, it is harming them.
As those involved in running Grindon Hall have always said, love involves discipline. Children are children: we love them, but if we fail to discipline them then that love becomes somewhat twisted and self-defeating, and isn’t really love at all.
But the cane in schools? No, I don’t think so. Many might believe that our society is in crisis and be tempted to over-react – and this call to restore corporal punishment in schools seems to me to be exactly that: a knee-jerk reaction.
A far healthier situation would be one in which parents were free to exercise appropriate discipline within their own home – including smacking in proportion and where necessary – and where schools supported that commitment to decent, disciplined behaviour in ways appropriate to a school. Not beating children with canes, but setting out clear boundaries, helping children to see why those boundaries are important and then applying sensible, consistent and fair punishments as needed. But those punishments should not, in my opinion, include corporal punishment. That, in a school, is going too far.
Indeed, it seems to me that if parents played their part, no school would ever need to use the cane at all, even if were legalised (which I think is most unlikely).
This debate, of course, is not really about caning or corporal punishment at all. It is about our profound concern about the lack of respect for authority generally in our society. We need to address not the symptoms but the causes: those causes are essentially to do with a world which has turned its back firstly on God and secondly on the traditional authority structures which previously gave our society structure and meaning.
It seems to me that the following article, written a couple of weeks ago, might also be relevant.
During this summer we have witnessed disturbing scenes of rioting and looting in various parts of our country. Britain, we hear, is in crisis. How do we respond, and is there anything we can do about it?
It has to be said, of course, that rioting of this kind is nothing new. Throughout the centuries, we in these islands have seen a great deal of it. What seems to be different this time is that it has not been inspired by a specific issue. The Gordon Riots of 1780, for example, in which over 300 people were killed, were ostensibly inspired by a specific anti-Catholic grievance; so-called Bread Riots were common all over England in the 18th century in response to rising bread prices; the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, during which the Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered, was primarily a reaction to the poll tax; the Kent rebellion of 1450 (Cade’s Rebellion) was also inspired by excessive taxation; and of course we have particular cause to remember the terrible murder of P.C. Keith Blakelock, a native of Sunderland, in the anti-police Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. But the recent riots do not seem to have been “about” anything in particular. They seem to represent a general malaise which now runs deep and penetrates the very fabric of our society. As “Prospect” magazine put it rather gloomily, whilst in the 1980s there might have been genuine issues to riot about, “today there is just a sullen disaffection connected to an excessive, and now violent, consumerism. These are truly post-political riots, style riots, boredom riots, feel-good riots, look-at-me riots, riots at the end of history.” Oh dear.
Some involved in the rioting conceded that many were participating in order to achieve their “15 minutes of fame”. It was Andy Warhol who said, with remarkable insight, that “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”. In our celebrity-driven culture, the sound, solid virtues which hold civilised societies together have been left far behind, and replaced by selfishness, superficiality and meaninglessness. The unreal, unhealthy and mirage-like world of “celebrity” is held up for a younger generation to aspire to; and that younger generation is, as Os Guinness has said, “amusing itself to death”. Not their fault entirely, of course; and I, a member of the generation responsible for bringing them up, must take my share of responsibility.
Mr. Cameron claims to be determined to put right this malaise. How he proposes to do it is uncertain, but he talks about “a major problem in our society with children growing up not knowing the difference between right and wrong”.
In a world completely dominated by political correctness, that diagnosis is inevitable. It is not children’s fault that they grow up with no moral compass. The heart of poltical correctness is the deep, ideological conviction that nothing is better than anything else and that therefore nothing is good or bad, right or wrong.
Any civilised society will treat minority groups fairly and kindly; but a society driven by political correctness will insist that minority groups can do no wrong (whatever they do) and that the “oppressive” majority can do no right (whatever it does). So the authority structures which have given shape to our society are being gradually destroyed.
The authority of the parent has been so drastically diluted that mothers and fathers are now afraid to chastise their own children by smacking them, in case Big Brother is watching them (so to speak). The authority of teachers in the classroom has never been at such a low ebb as it is now (Grindon Hall being an exception, I trust). Police, politicians, the royal family, the Church – all have had their authority and credibility severely undermined by irresponsible far-left liberals in the media, the social services, those at the heart of successive governments and, tragically – as we all know - by the publicly-funded BBC.
The result? A society without boundaries, without examples to look up to and without any sense of right and wrong – we have allowed our corporate conscience, in other words, to be eroded and dismantled. If there is no authority, who are you to tell me what I’m doing is wrong? If there is no authority to be found anywhere, what does “wrong” mean anyway?
It is too easy for people like me to blame New Labour for all of this. It isn’t all their fault, although the sad fact is that Mr. Blair’s legacy to us – well-meaning though he might conceivably have been - has been a faulty war, the deliberate creation of a hugely-damaging gambling culture and, of course, “spin” of a kind nobody believed possible. That will be the verdict of future historians, and we had better leave it to them. But Mrs Thatcher, and her equally well-meaning insistence on individualism, “greed is good” (which she did not herself say but seemed to encourage) and “no such thing as society” (which she apparently did say) is just as much to blame.
Katharine Burbalsingh is worth listening to and reading. She is the lady who was brave enough to tell the truth about our education system at the 2010 Conservative Party Conference. It got her the sack from her teaching job and she has since become an education commentator and blogger. A recent blog on the Daily Telegraph website was interesting. She debates the recent riots and, like Mr. Cameron, bemoans the lack of morality in our society. She discusses it with a Russian journalist who asks where morality comes from. Ms. Burbalsingh explains that she doesn’t believe in God. Ah, says the Russian, so you believe in the state. No, I don’t believe in the state either. So where does your morality come from? asks the Russian. A good question. Over to Ms. Burbalsingh: “I try to explain that I don’t believe in either the state or God, but back and forth we go for what seems to be forever, locked in this gripping cultural clash. When I talk of my objective morality, she continually cries out, “But where does it come from?” I have no answer of course. “I just know what’s right and wrong,” I say. “Someone taught me when I was young. You don’t need God to have morality.” Quite literally, she is unable to understand what I’m saying and as we go on, I’m beginning to wonder whether I understand it myself. As I walk away from the journalist, I begin to think. Is belief in God part of the solution? Are we having all of these problems these days because no one believes in God? Perhaps we think we can live without Him, but that simply isn’t the case.”
I don’t think Ms. Burbalsingh is yet persuaded, but she makes a profound point. If we are to have an agreed, shared sense of morality, it must come from somewhere outside of ourselves.
It won’t do to claim that morality is a matter of personal opinion. If I believed that cannibalism should be legalised, would that make it morally defensible? (I don’t, by the way, that was just an example.) If a person believed that child abuse was legitimate, would that make it morally good? What if a thousand people thought that? Or a million? Would it be right? Personal opinion doesn’t really work.
Some might say that those examples are ridiculous – the measure of morality is how much good something does to or for the largest number of people. Everyone knows that cannibalism is unacceptable, as is child abuse. It would be hard to argue that they did anybody any good, other than cannibals, who are presumably a fairly small and specialised group. Fair enough. But what about an issue such as euthanasia? Many people will genuinely claim that euthanasia is morally good because it is best for the world as a whole and often for the victim also. How far might that go? The next step might be compulsory euthanasia at, say, 75 years old. Logan’s Run, only older. Would that be morally good or right? It might help the pension crisis we’re all faced with. Was Hitler’s treatment of the Jews in 1930s Germany morally right because, it seems, a majority of German people thought it best for the greater good? If a society decided that every abnormal foetus should be aborted by law – to save medical costs, for example – would that be automatically right or good?
(The frightening, but not quite impossible, picture emerging from that line of thinking is of major moral issues being decided by television voting presided over by a grinning Simon Cowell. Don’t laugh; just watch this space.)
The so-called “utilitarian” view of morality, as has been shown by many critics, simply doesn’t work.
Morality, our Russian journalist insists, must come from somewhere. It doesn’t come from within us – that’s for certain. So, she concludes, it must come from outside: either from God or the state. Her reference to the state presumably reflects her Russian background. But what is the state if not a collection of flawed individuals whose collective wisdom may be no better than their individual wisdom (often it’s worse, as we know)? Totalitarian, 1984-style, state-imposed morality, however close we got to it under New Labour, will never work.
Christians believe, quite simply, that God, the sovereign creator of the universe, has told us very clearly how we should live. He has given us the Ten Commandments, a moral framework, a blueprint for human life – a set of common-sense principles which, if observed, give structure and meaning and dignity to human life. They have, by common consent, never been bettered. They form the backdrop to our legal system and our shared sense of morality has been shaped by them for centuries. Of course, whatever we rather foolishly try to do with them, they will survive.
We seem as a nation to be in the position described in Psalm 2 in the Old Testament. If so, then God’s reaction presumably applies to us.
“Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.’ The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, ‘I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.’”
At Grindon Hall we believe in these things. We believe shackles are good if they are God-given; good because they are there for our benefit. Every civilised society knows that it needs boundaries; young people especially need them, indeed cry out for them. Without them, we see the kind of things which have been all over our TV screens these last few weeks.
We therefore try to uphold God’s laws. We teach them as worthwhile virtues and principles. We believe our pupils will not grow into rioters and looters; but instead will become leaders in their spheres of influence and exemplars of all that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. We aim to give our children meaning and a sense of the significance of the world around them, of others within it and of their unique place in God’s creation.
Instead of “Who cares?” we want our students to say “God cares; we care; I care.”
Boris Johnson wrote this a week or so ago, referring to the Education Secretary’s strong stance on the role of schools in addressing our problems. I hope parents will feel that he might have had Grindon Hall in mind: “But Michael Gove is right to insist it is also about a culture of discipline; of standing up when any adult walks into the room; of taking your hands out of your pockets when you are talking to an adult; of addressing your teachers with respect.”
More Success for Grindon Hall Gymnasts! Click here for details and photos
The remarkable achievements of our gymnasts continued in early May in the National Schools Finals at Stoke. Several very strong performances were recorded. Please click on the link above for further details. Especially noteworthy was the silver medal won by David Richardson and Aaron Ray in the Under 13 Mens Pairs - second in the country - not bad for Year 5 boys!
The announcement of our Free School Proposal was submitted on 1st June 2011, we were selcted for interview in August and have now learnt that our application was successful. For those who wish to know a little more about our scheduled conversion to free school status, the original information issued to parents back in March is shown below.
Announcement
On 17th March the Directors of North Eastern Christian Schools Ltd were pleased to announce that Grindon Hall Christian School was intending to apply to the government for Free School status. If successful, we would retain our independence and remain very much the school that we are now – but we would be funded by the government and parents would therefore not have to pay fees. We are aiming, if possible, to convert to Free School status in September 2012.
The benefits to everyone in our school community would be, we believe, very significant. Since our beginnings back in 1988, our founder, Mrs Elizabeth Gray, together with other Directors, has been a strong advocate of high quality, Christian education which is free to all. For obvious reasons, we have never been able to offer a free education, although we have tried to keep fees as low as possible. The new government’s free school policy enables us at last to see that vision as a possibility.
Parents have received a letter explaining the proposal in more detail. A Parents’ Group, led by Mr Neil Kell and comprising Mrs Helen Liddle and Mr Eric Southwick has been established. A Parents’ Meeting was held at school at 6.30 pm on Monday 28th March and was attended by over 140 parents. The feedback was very positive indeed, with many parents saying they had found it helpful and encouraging.
The letter can be found below.
Dear Parents
Since starting out at Fulwell Grange in 1988, the Directors of North Eastern Christian Schools have been committed to a fairer way of funding education. As our parents will all agree, it is tough – and even unfair – that they pay their taxes and then have to find school fees as well.
Choice in education is important, and the current system restricts that choice to those who can afford fees which, across the board, are increasingly moving beyond the range of many.
We are therefore very interested in and excited by the new government’s policy of “free schools”. These are schools which are established on the basis of parental demand and are wholly funded by the government, whilst remaining outside local authority control. Many of you will have heard of “Academies” – free schools are very similar.
This means that a free school can retain its particular ethos, make its own decisions regarding curriculum, employ and pay teachers directly, invest money as it wishes and insist on the highest standards of behaviour.
The government have decided that existing independent schools are able to apply for free school status.
I am writing to let you know that Grindon Hall is considering becoming one of the first independent schools to convert to being a free school. We have already had provisional discussions with the government and have had a positive response. There is still much work to do but, if successful, we would look to September 2012 as the start date.
However, the most important thing we must now prove is that there is strong parental demand for this move. We will not be able to move forward unless that is clearly shown.
Our task, therefore, is to establish demand from our existing parents and also from potential new parents. To help with this, we have formed a Parents Group, led by Mr Neil Kell.
Moving to free school status will have many benefits. In fact, there appear to be no losers. Parents will receive the same education for their children, in the same school, run by the same people – but will not have to pay fees. Children will continue to be taught to very high standards in a successful school whose ethos will not change in any way. The school will be able to make better long-term plans based upon known levels of income – it is possible, for example, that government funding may allow greater investment in the school than would otherwise be possible in these difficult, recessionary times.
Most important of all, moving to a free school would mean the freedom to operate as an independent school without compromising our values, ethos or approach to academic and behavioural standards. The school will continue to be run by the same Directors and senior staff, classes will remain the same size and all that makes Grindon Hall what it is will continue.
The Parents Meeting will take place at 6.30 pm on Monday, 28th March. This will give everyone the chance to find out more about this exciting opportunity. Please do come if you can. It would help if you could indicate your intention to come by telephoning the school office or emailing info@grindonhall.com. Mr Gray will lead the meeting and the Parents Group will be represented as well as Directors and senior staff.
In the meantime, Mr Gray is ready and willing to speak to any parents to discuss this further if required. If you feel you wish to discuss things before the meeting, please feel free to ring, make an appointment or email him on c.gray@grindonhall.com.
Yours sincerely
J Murray C J Gray
Secretary Principal
North Eastern Christian Schools Ltd
Examination Results 2010
We are delighted to see that Grindon Hall came top of the examination league tables in Sunderland for both GCSE and A Level in 2010 (to be exact, joint top for GCSEs). We do not play the league table game and I know how spurious they can be, but we are obviously very pleased to have come out so high once again. Congratulations to our students and to the staff who taught them so well!
My comments on Latin (below) first appeared on Tuesday 1st March. Already some feedback has been generated, including the following from a Grindon Hall parent. Interestingly, I note that the word "cretaceous" is derived from the Latin word for "chalk". It is unclear whether the reference here is to the geologic period in history sometimes known as the chalk period (about 100 million years ago. I doubt it - the parent concerned does not look old enough) or to the era in schools, which some of us might remember, when teachers actually used chalk to write on blackboards. An interesting question and I will seek clarification. In the meantime, here are the very helpful comments:
"Of the subjects I studied at A Level (back in the Cretaceous period) I would say that Latin has been by far the most useful. It was invaluable in my career as a lawyer, it has been of considerable assistance in my command of English spelling and the derivation of words, and was most useful when my job involved considerable worldwide travel and I was trying to make sense of words in languages with which I was unfamiliar. I think it is a great shame that the teaching of Latin has declined to such a great extent within the state system, and feel that this is at least partly responsible for the general decline in the quality of written English used by many young people today, something I notice frequently when perusing application forms.
So thank you for sticking to your guns!"
Why Study Latin?
Some people have asked me why on earth we include Latin in the curriculum here at Grindon Hall. After all, they might say, no-one speaks it, you can’t use it on holiday and it is to all intents and purposes “a dead language”. Sadly, in some ways it does indeed appear to be on its way out. A case, perhaps, of exeunt omnes. Only 15% of state schools now teach it (compared with almost 70% of independent schools), the supply of Classics teachers is little more than a dribble (a dribble of Classics teachers? – is that a suitable collective noun?) and the recently-departed Education Minister, the not-very-lamented Mr Balls, publicly ridiculed the subject before he was sent packing at the last election. This is all very sad, but there are glimmers of light.
If Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, can be described as being in any sense a “glimmer of light”, then he certainly is in this respect. He has campaigned fiercely for a number of years for a return to Classics teaching, and to Latin in particular. Mr Gove seems to be at least to some extent on his side. That is good news, and bodes well.
Dorothy L Sayers, the famous crime novelist (author of the Lord Peter Wimsey books) and incidentally a lady of firm Christian conviction, said this: “I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar. I say this not because Latin is traditional and medieval, but simply because even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labour and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least 50 percent.”
Her point has nothing to do with whether people still speak Latin – that is irrelevant. Latin, she claims, makes everything else clearer and more straightforward. Learning Latin is really hard – that, I suspect, is at the root of its decline – but mastering its grammatical complexities trains the mind in such a way that other subjects can be tackled more readily.
Is there evidence for that? I think there is, and it is not all anecdotal.
In America, for example, students who have studied Latin consistently perform far better than others in examinations and are highly sought after by competitive colleges. As a result of increased vocabulary and facility with English grammar, students of Latin consistently outperform their peers—including those who have studied modern languages. Between 1997 and 2006, Latin students outscored the average by 157 points.
Law Schools in both the USA and Britain report that their top students come from Maths, Classics and Literature backgrounds. Those who have studied subjects such as Politics, Law, Legal Studies or Economics rank much lower. Twenty years ago, the Times reported that “… shrewd employers, including many in the City, still prefer job-applicants whose minds were formed by Aeschylus or Horace". I doubt that that has changed; if anything, it may have become an even stronger factor. At a time when the competition for jobs and University places is so fierce, it will often be those who can demonstrate a knowledge of Latin who stand out from the crowd.
In the early 20th century, the great German Chemist, Bauer, was asked by one of his colleagues whether his best students came from the Real-Schulen (a modern school where Chemistry was taught as a subject) or from the Gymnasien (a traditional liberal arts school where Latin grammar was stressed). His colleague's assumption was that the best science students would come from the Real-Schulen. "Not at all," Bauer replied, "all my best students come from the Gymnasien. The students from the Real-Schulen do best at first; but after three months work here, they are, as a rule, left behind by those coming from the Gymnasien." The colleague wondered at this because the Real-Schulen students had been especially instructed in Chemistry. "Yes," he replied; "but the students from the Gymnasien have the best trained minds. Give me a student who has been taught his Latin grammar, and I will answer for his Chemistry."
The man or woman who has conquered Everest should have no difficulty in climbing Cheviot. That, I think, is the point.
It is very satisfying for me to see over 25 students attending after-school French Grammar Clubs every week. Perhaps I delude myself in thinking they are there voluntarily, but at least they come. Studying grammar can be enjoyable – not least because mastering the grammar of a language opens up the language so much more easily than anything else.
Boris Johnson says this: “The reason we should boost the study of Latin and Greek is that they are the key to a phenomenal and unsurpassed treasury of literature and history and philosophy, and we cannot possibly understand our modern world unless we understand the ancient world that made us all.”
So, we will continue to teach Latin, as long as we can find the teachers to do it. If necessary, I will do it myself! By doing so, we are giving our children a great education and they will thank us for it in future years.
Mark Zuckerberg is the youthful founder of Facebook. Yes, I know we at Grindon Hall have reservations about Facebook, but I am trying to make a point, so bear with me. Zuckerberg is, on a purely financial basis, rather successful. It is said he is “worth” $10 billion. You know where I’m going with this. What did Zuckerberg study at University? Computer Science? No. He studied Classics at Phillips Exeter Academy. Latin, he says, is one of the keys to his success.
“Willy, Willy, Harry, Steve …”
At last, the National Curriculum is to be reviewed. Mr Gove, Education Secretary, announced in January that, as Britain plummeted down the international league tables, it was high time to remove all the politicised nonsense and get back to traditional values in education. Amen to that. New Labour, sadly, was so riddled with political correctness that we slipped from 8th to 28th in Maths and from 7th to 24th in Literacy during the period of the last government, amid a glut of centralised attempts at social engineering. This is a disaster every bit as serious as the economic recession and it will take even longer to recover from. In contrast – although as yet unproven - Mr Gove is as a breath of fresh air.
We will, he tells us, go back to learning the dates of our Kings and Queens. Perhaps he might use Lower School pupils at Grindon Hall as examples of how well that can be done. We have been doing it for several years – thanks largely to Dr Shambrook’s famous “Willy, Willy, Harry, Steve …” We will, he has announced (Mr Gove, this is, not Dr Shambrook), return to “Our Island Story” in History lessons – that, of course, is the title of the very book which many of our children have used and enjoyed at Grindon Hall since 2005.
Mr Gove will, he assures us, encourage a move away from the strangulating obsession with making everything “relevant” (whatever that means) to children. Instead, the time has come for a return to rigorous, knowledge-based learning – the type of learning which might begin to enable our young people to compete with those Asian students who have been doing tough stuff for years: the kind of stuff which at the moment would see most of our young people glaze over. For them, academic life has been dominated by indulgent, undemanding “non-subjects”. They have not been allowed to cultivate real thinking ability and they have not been encouraged to learn difficult things. Digging ourselves out of economic crisis is a doddle compared to this one.
That is one reason why we at Grindon Hall are delighted to have done so well in league tables. It is good - let's be honest - to be top, even of league tables which are fundamentally flawed. But what is even more pleasing is that the Government’s “EBac” measure (English Baccalaureate) shows us to be among the best schools in what is really important. Sadly, you will see that many schools, motivated understandably by little more than league table success, have scored as low as 0% on that important measure. In other words, they are not really teaching the subjects that matter, because they know it is far easier to teach easier subjects. The trouble is that their pupils suffer because they are not gaining the most valuable qualifications and, in many cases, are seriously underachieving. That is often no fault of their own. No wonder so many schools were outraged to find that the government were introducing this very revealing measure without telling them!
We are determined to continue to teach rigorous subjects, to impart knowledge and to give our pupils the chance to do proper subjects that will stand them in good stead for the future, whatever they do.
Spare a thought, though, for Mr Gove. He is opposed by the dark forces. There will always be those who will attempt to scupper his every move. It will be little consolation to him to know that he has at least one supporter here.
Mr Gray (whose views as expressed here are not necessarily those of anyone else at Grindon Hall!)
Per pietatem ad gaudium
(Thoughts from the Principal's office on a cold Thursday evening in November ...)
Mr Cameron, we hear, wants us all to be happy. Very nice of him. And of course he is quite right in claiming that GDP (gross domestic product) is a very poor index of general well-being and happiness. That has been used by governments for generations and is based on the wholly inadequate idea that material wealth makes everything okay. It most definitely doesn’t, and it is good that the prime minister is, even in these straitened times, prepared to voice his thoughts about how we might measure “happiness”. It was, I think, one of the Kennedys who said that GDP measures everything except the things that make life worthwhile. A perceptive comment, it seems to me.
As we reflect on the history of the last few hundred years – and perhaps especially the last hundred – we surely cannot escape the conclusion that wealth and money are not the answer to our search for happiness.
The great journalist Bernard Levin once said, “Countries like ours are full of people who have all the material comforts they desire, together with such blessings as a happy family, and yet lead lives of quiet, and at times noisy, desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there is a hole inside them and that however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motor cars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it…it aches”
The American Declaration of Independence was no doubt an excellent thing, but it seems to me that at the heart of its most famous clause lies a deep and significant error: an error which has perhaps influenced our thinking in the West more than we might think. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” it says, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The pursuit of happiness? History, life and experience teach us that happiness cannot be pursued. Pursuing our own happiness as an end in itself inevitably leads to dissatisfaction, as Levin suggests in the above quotation. At its worst it leads to a glut of over-indulgence and excess, and ends in pain and despair.
Happiness is not a goal. It is a by-product. The famous theologian Augustine of Hippo prayed to the God of the Bible in these terms: “Lord, you have made me for yourself, and my soul can find no rest until it finds its rest in you.”
Firstly, then, happiness is a by-product of a proper relationship with our creator.
Secondly, happiness is a by-product of doing the right thing. How many parents longingly tell me that all they want is for their child “to be happy”. I fear that in many cases what I see is the exact opposite. When we pursue happiness, the one thing we guarantee is that we won’t find it.
I wish more of us could say that what we really want for our children is for them “to be good”. Not good in the sense of being well-behaved in lessons! But rather, good in the sense of doing good, virtuous and wholesome things: being unselfish, generous and open-hearted.
That is the well-spring from which true happiness flows. Not as a goal to be pursued – that’s like chasing shadows – but as the by-product of knowing God as our maker and, with God’s strength, striving to “be good”.
That’s why Grindon Hall will soon adopt as its motto the following - per pietatem ad gaudium. This literally means “through duty to delight”. Doing our duty, doing the right thing, fulfilling our obligations. These are not particularly popular ideas today when self-indulgence, self-expression and self-fulfilment are the buzz words.
But if you really want to be happy, they must come first.
We would love to receive feedback on our website. Is it helpful? Interesting? Or neither? Let us know by emailing r.nurse@grindonhall.com.
Please do read the Parental Undertaking document - essential reading for all prospective parents - and I would also encourage you to view our 'uniform' page for Primary and Senior pupils.
We are always pleased to welcome visitors to our school and indeed it is the only way to get a real sense of the thriving, happy educational environment we provide. Please contact the school office if you would like to arrange an appointment to speak with me and look around the school.
Christopher J Gray, Principal
