Bromsgrove School Prospectus

bromsgrove

Welcome and be wa r e Welcome because Bromsgrove, fizzing with warmth and purpose, is one of Britain’s greatest schools and we’d be delighted if you visited. Ancient yes, but as twenty-first century as tomorrow, Bromsgrove’s offer to day and boarding pupils is all embracing.

I wish breadthellence were a real and less ugly word, because then I could use it to describe this School.

We teach and learn with passion and pizzazz, but insist upon academic rigour; we are proud of a five hundred year history but shun smug, public school drones; we are awash with flair without drowning in pretentiousness.

Why beware? Beware because this is a prospectus, not a soundbite. I like it here. I like what we are (though we will always strive to be better still), not what a marketing consultant wants you to think we are. So, if you want girls who look like they’ve walked out of shampoo commercials and boys smiling sweetly as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, please look elsewhere. Every school seems to be educating “the whole child” nowadays and if you take the words from one school and stick them in another school’s prospectus you’d hardly know the difference. Well, in this one, what you read is what you get.

So what do you get? In a nutshell, we offer staggering breadth (including first division academic performance) to over fifteen hundred day and boarding pupils, aged two to eighteen, in spectacular facilities. You will witness phenomenal A level results; equally stunning grades via the global perspective of the International Baccalaureate; nationally recognised sport; and a creative arts scene delivered with gusto and verve in a large, happy community of committed young people.

There is little point getting top grades at A level and IB if all you can do afterwards is stare at your shoe laces when you ought to be engaging other people.

If you want to make a difference for the better in this world, please read on.

CHRIS EDWARDS Headmaster

etho s & atm o s ph e r e Nobody has a monopoly on truth.

And yet, values drive us. Our Mission Statement makes this explicit. We seek to foster people who will, proactively, make this world a better place.

This is no school for the arrogant, the snobbish or the idle. We employ over four hundred support and academic staff, and pupils learn to value everybody equally, from part time shift workers to senior academics.

A common vision is key. We never think of Bromsgrove as an institution: it is a community. And it’s a community intent on building the roads and bridges of the future, not the walls.

We are inspired, not overwhelmed, by a history both noble and strange. An ancient chantry School of the middle ages, Bromsgrove existed for perhaps 100 years before its Foundation proper in 1553. It was then refounded in 1693 when it moved to its present site.

Thomas Cookes, the man responsible for this new start, also founded Worcester College in Oxford University, and thus a historic link began. During the Second World War, the entire School (still relatively small then) had to up sticks and move to Wales while the British government used the School’s facilities. But in recent years, Bromsgrove has re-established, indeed reinvented itself, tripling in size and investing many millions of pounds in its facilities. Yet amidst all this change, we ensure there is time to reflect and to calmly assess, as individuals, where we are. Two or three ten minute Chapel services per week, remain fundamental in that process.

There are three constituencies to Bromsgrove School: The PrePreparatory School (over 200 pupils aged 2-7), the Preparatory School (500 pupils aged 7-13) and the Senior School (900 pupils aged 13-18).

The Sixth Form is unusually large with over 400 pupils. Bromsgrove School Thailand opened its doors in 2005, demonstrating that while the School may have physical boundaries, its aspirations to promote first rate education are limitless.

de velopment Frankly, a great teacher should be able to inspire young people in a pig-sty.

Mercifully, it’s not a point we have to prove at Bromsgrove.

Tens of millions of pounds have been invested in the last fifteen years, and if no one iconic building screams “Bromsgrove”, it’s only because there are so many that might. From the 17th century school house to the many 21st century structures, the working and living environments are magnificent. The Senior School sits in 100 acres of leafy grounds with the Preparatory School adjacent, while the Pre-Preparatory School is housed in a beautiful Victorian mansion overlooking the countryside. In essence, visiting Bromsgrove School is like visiting a small town in which the planners, century after century, generally got things right. The second decade of the 21st century is witnessing new developments on an unparalleled scale: a massive sports arena; state of the art boarding and day accommodation; a hospitality suite; a fitness centre; and two further dance studios. We move forward. Always. The School continues to innovate and lead in terms of the physical environment.

a c a de m ic e xc e l l e n c e We are unashamedly academic.

At the time of writing, the government’s value added A level tables ranked Bromsgrove first out of all state and independent schools in this part of the country (Birmingham, Worcestershire and all surrounding counties). Aiming high is sine qua non at Bromsgrove.

But we are not the sausage machine that parents of a certain age will recall from a Pink Floyd video. You don’t have to be Einstein or Picasso to come here. Instead, our exceptional results flow from a community that nurtures and encourages, with the expectation that pupils will achieve their best.

This message is communicated regularly and unambiguously, whether pupils are taking IB or A level, GCSEs or internal Prep School examinations.

Academic success is celebrated and we want young people to enjoy hard won achievement.

Our results place us in the top ten (sometimes top five) of co-educational day/boarding schools in the UK. The majority of the 200 pupils who leave the Upper Sixth every year go to Russell Group universities in the UK (in the year this prospectus was written, the most popular choices were LSE, UCL and Imperial universities who received 40 Bromsgrovians).

However, some choose overseas universities (from the USA to the Far East) and others will pursue Art, Music and Drama at specialist institutions.

Oxford and Cambridge candidates are specially prepared via a programme of extension lessons and interviews, often one to one.

Our own academic facilities have been improved beyond measure in the last decade. Eighteen new and refurbished Science laboratories recently joined a magnificent new Humanities block, Art and Design Building, and Library.

All older academic buildings have been given a 21st century makeover so that every pupil learns in a superbly resourced environment.

s i xt h f or m The Sixth Form is large and dynamic.

Many pupils from all over the world join the School at this point, and the resultant atmosphere is one of Bromsgrove’s great joys. Lifelong friends are made. It’s a special place to be.

It’s not merely that one can choose between the International Baccalaureate or A level: it’s more to do with leadership opportunities, and the chance to dive into the coming waves of adulthood while lifeguards still watch from the shore.

At Bromsgrove, Sixth Formers will be challenged intellectually, spiritually and emotionally. They will learn that life is not the stroll in the park some advertising agencies would have them believe, and they will be asked to contemplate loss and failure as well as triumph and joy. If a great education is to be truly transformative rather than merely informative, it must face the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.

Our bespoke University and Careers Department deals with every pupil individually and gives as much time as necessary in helping pupils make the right choice after School.

This intensely personal approach to university selection is a huge strength of the School, and it needs to be.

The young people of today will leave their university for a world that is economically, politically and socially unrecognisable from the one their parents knew. When I was young they told me we’d be wearing Bacofoil suits and flying with personal jetpacks.

Nobody predicted Facebook.

cr e at i v i t y We believe that if Music, Art and Drama are central to the life of a school, the human condition is better understood by the pupils.

This seemingly portentous statement informs our approach to the creative arts. We have no in-house style.

The creative arts at Bromsgrove allow pupils to breathe, and although all great art demands discipline, we seek to develop rather than cramp the individual muse.

The Art and Design facilities in the Senior School are among the country’s finest, Music is taught in a ten thousand square foot, three storey Music School, and the Drama department uses both its studio facilities and the new Artrix theatre in Bromsgrove town. Pupils can take up or continue with lessons on a huge array of instruments, dance in state of the art studios, and design clothes for fashion shows. Yet all this counts for nothing unless the passion and fizz of young people is manifest in the concerts, productions and displays.

At Bromsgrove, it is.

From Liszt to Led Zeppelin, Shakespeare to Stoppard, Breughel to Banksy, a Bromsgrove pupil has the chance to explore the Western tradition; but our international dimension means that world theatre, music and art are also embraced and celebrated. Kabuki anybody? The opportunities are boundless.

sports & facilities Bromsgrove offers nationally recognised elite sport together with a mighty breadth of opportunity for those who simply want to participate.

All this takes place in superb facilities: sports halls, floodlit astroturfs, tennis and netball courts, a swimming pool, a fitness suite and acres upon acres of grass pitches.

At the highest level we aim to perform like a sports academy. National honours frequently come our way at Prep and Senior level, and many of our pupils play at regional and national level. However, the majority do not, and we recognise that. Some pupils may want to move from a C to B team, and their journey is no less important than that of a budding international.

Whatever one’s level, there will be sport to enjoy at Bromsgrove.

Hundreds of pupils will often be representing the School on a Saturday (or indeed on a weekday). Some pupils in top teams will be trying to impress national selectors; others will be more concerned with having as much fun as possible in a competitive environment.

Every week we play fixtures against other schools - both independent and state - and we also tour internationally.

Sport is a most wonderful way to build more than muscles: relationships, leadership and teamwork skills all ensue from an inspiring sport programme.

e xt r a c u r r ic u l a r Bromsgrove aims to provide a three hundred and sixty degree education, and if we are to do that we must provide opportunities outside of classrooms and sport halls.

Bromsgrovians serve the community, test themselves on mountains and in rivers, debate the issues of the day in competition, make and sell products, teach, march, climb, ride, shoot. Be it Duke of Edinburgh or the Combined Cadet Force, Young Enterprise Schemes or one of the numerous voluntary School activities, the richness of the extra-curricular programme is available to all.

As well as the huge weekly programme, Bromsgrove offers an optional Saturday morning programme that includes everything from martial arts to creating bio-fuel from discarded vegetable oil which will power the School minibuses. Virtually every conceivable interest is catered for, and in adjacent rooms one might find the chess club and a RADA group hard at work, though at different noise levels.

To call somebody a Renaissance man or woman might seem a little Eurocentric these days, but the phrase encapsulates the breadth of education to which we aspire. What happens away from the traditional school environment is every bit as important as what happens within.

pa stor al care, parents and the house system The most important aspect of any school is the quality of its pastoral care. We want safe, happy young people to take the School’s values into the adult world, and so we have obvious and necessary facilities such as a superb Health Centre staffed 24 hours a day. But it’s the people, not the buildings, who define the community, and with specially trained medical, counselling and pastoral staff (including the Chaplain), pupils always have somewhere to turn.

However, the ace up the sleeve is that the Senior School operates a House system (as opposed to a form system) for day and boarding pupils alike.

We are a large Senior School, and breaking it down into eleven Houses, each with a cohort of young people aged 13-18 means that pupils will have a physical base in the School with a Houseparent, Assistant Houseparent and House tutor team on hand to help, advise and, if necessary, console.

Housemothers, who have no academic obligations, provide a vital and much loved extra dimension to the pastoral support. Pupils will know every other pupil in their House, regardless of age: everybody matters; you will never get lost in the crowd. In these small communities, leadership opportunities

abound, and important lessons about community life are learnt. Interhouse competitions, from singing to sport, are keenly fought, but in the Houses the gentler conversations take place as well. Chances are, if you’ve had a bad day, it will be to friends and staff in the House to whom you will turn.

And each House has a parental liaison group who feed ideas into the School Parents’ Association. All parents can input at House level and feel a part of the special community. Obviously, this might be more difficult for overseas and UK boarders’ parents, but modern technology has helped enormously in this regard. We value every communication with parents, and we want them to enjoy the Bromsgrove experience. The House system ensures a large School can respond quickly to the input of its parents, and give time and individual attention to every child.

b oa r di n g The cliché “home from home” is as good as any to describe Bromsgrove’s boarding offer. Half of Bromsgrove’s Senior Houses are for boarders, and boarding life is as rich and full as you can imagine. For some people, boarding really is life-changing.

Nothing can compare with boarding as a preparation for university: independence, co-operation, and leadership skills are all part and parcel of the experience. So is learning to compromise. And yes, you need to keep your room tidy. For some pupils that last requirement is harder than Further Mathematics.

From Sunday trips and activities to evening or weekend use of the School’s facilities, boarders enjoy a diverse, rewarding life away from the classroom. And Bromsgrove never closes in term time. There are no exeat weekends, so if a boarder wants to stay at School for every weekend in a term, he or she can be confident there will be plenty of other boarders on site. We are, in current parlance, a twenty-four seven School, though pupils can weekly board as well in appropriate circumstances. Boarding is more popular than at any point in Bromsgrove’s history: it’s easy to see why.

prepar atory school An unintended consequence of Bromsgrove School moving to Wales during the Second World War was the founding of a Preparatory School, known to one and all as “the Prep”.

Seven decades later, the Prep and Pre-Prep have over seven hundred pupils between them. The values stated on previous pages, together with a culture of limitless aspiration define the Prep School. Standards are skyhigh, and pupils respond to the ethos with astonishing vigour.

Though day and boarding pupils attend, and though the values are consistent with the Senior School, the Prep School is not simply the Senior School on a different scale. The Prep is where straitjackets and comfort blankets are slowly and carefully discarded: it is where children are encouraged to learn autonomously.

Life skills mentioned throughout this prospectus, from cooperation to leadership, are fostered here. Even at this early age there are considerable opportunities for leadership: a team of Prefects, Heads of School, sports’ captains and so forth allow pupils to experience the challenges of leading and inspiring others.

The academic syllabus is rigorous, though it does not slavishly follow the national curriculum. Monitoring of performance is tight and the expectation is that everybody will give of their best. We set our benchmarks way above national averages and, as ever, we find that busy, happy pupils take this in their stride. Never mind what the statistics say; how good can you be? Challenge yourself.

Drama has always been a huge strength of the Prep School while the Choir performs in chapel every week and tours nationally and even internationally, taking Bromsgrove music out into the world. Art and Design are as vibrant as their large, modern home. As for sport, it is no exaggeration to say that Bromsgrove Prep is one of the country’s most successful schools of its type both in terms of performance and participation. Breadth is every bit as important as elite squad training.

The joy on the face of a pupil who has broken into a second or even third team (actually, we’ve had a seventh team exist at Bromsgrove Prep) is as great as that on the face of a county player. The extra-curricular programme is expansive, and Saturday morning activities (optional for day pupils) take these sessions to new heights.

pr e pa r atory (Continued)

Mention of Saturdays leads neatly to the boarding experience. Bromsgrove Preparatory School has more boarders than many schools that are traditionally thought of as “boarding schools”.

The reason is obvious as soon as one visits. Boarding is homely, fun and gently instructive in the art of – well, in the art of living. That sounds like something from a TV commercial, yet there is truth in the statement because although the boarding community is carefully nurtured by Houseparents, tutors and others, it is independence, not reliance, that is engendered in the pupils. Weekend programmes, evening activities, and even conversations with friends over a home-cooked breakfast all help prepare young people for the world beyond.

The Prep School’s green site sits adjacent to the Senior School, and the Prep therefore shares some of the Senior School’s facilities (such as the Music School, swimming pool and astroturfs). However, the Prep boasts fine grounds and buildings of its own and has a unique atmosphere.

A modern sports hall, superb Design centre, grass pitches, hardcourts and a magnificent, airy, twenty first century teaching block for the younger pupils are just some of the eye catchers.

For young people aiming high and wanting excellence with breadth, Bromsgrove Preparatory School is a world of wonder.

pre-prepar atory sc ho ol Five minutes drive from the Prep and Senior Schools, overlooking the green countryside of North Worcestershire, stands a beautiful Victorian mansion.

It is approached by a long drive and surrounded by delightful grounds. You might be forgiven for thinking it is inhabited by a dear old Professor whose nephews and nieces periodically nip over to Narnia. Without wishing to stretch the image too far, you would, in part, be right. Over two hundred very young Bromsgrovians are having a mighty fine time in this mansion.

This is where the foundation is laid for many pupils. They learn not simply to read and write and paint and operate computers: they learn to live by the values of the School. They learn to care and contribute.

In an invisible, rather mystical way, the joyous atmosphere of the PrePrep sets our youngest people up for the rigours of life. The academics are taken very seriously indeed (we stretch our pupils beyond the expectations of any national curriculum), though the purposeful nature of the lessons is always illuminated by flashes of unapologetic fun. In Nursery and Reception the learning process is inevitably rather different, but the

skills are being honed nonetheless.

And by the time the children are ready for Prep School, you will find, time and time again, immaculately dressed, courteous, eloquent, enquiring young people.

From outdoor learning areas to computer suites, the children of the Pre-Prep have wonderful facilities in which to learn and play. It may not quite be Narnia, but if there’s a finer school of its kind in the country, I haven’t seen it.

GLOBA L VI S ION Bromsgrove put itself in the vanguard of international education by going out into the world; and, in turn, the world has come to Bromsgrove. The imperative to cooperate, learn from one another, and respect differences while sharing common values is evinced in all we do. China, India and Brazil had small, struggling economies when I was born. The world in which our children are becoming adults is so very, very different. At Bromsgrove, we recognise that and respond to the challenges with gusto.

While the spectacular new campus of Bromsgrove International School Thailand is the largest physical manifestation of the School’s international mission, the truth is that Bromsgrove UK has had an international dimension for many years. Three hundred of our sixteen hundred pupils are from places other than the UK, and they represent forty different nationalities. The numerous parents’ meetings and consultations conducted overseas, together with the many alumni events held around the world are testament to the significance of Bromsgrove’s international community.

Within Bromsgrove UK, a dedicated team of teachers offers bespoke support to international pupils, ensuring that specialist language needs, cultural differences and other relevant issues are addressed sympathetically and personally.

International pupils thrive at Bromsgrove because they enjoy a British education in an environment that understands and celebrates diversity.

The School may have a Utopian vision of global harmony, but we are not ashamed of it. The nations of the earth do indeed come together at Bromsgrove. If we can play some part in helping to keep things that way once our young Bromsgrovians have gone out into the world, we will have done well.

a f t e r b r om s g r ov e A sentence from my opening remarks begins this conclusion: there is little point getting top grades at A level and IB if all you can do afterwards is stare at your shoe laces when you ought to be engaging other people. I always feel a twinge of unease when parents say they choose Bromsgrove because of our high league table position.

Of course I’m thrilled we do so well academically, but that, strangely, is a by-product: Bromsgrove School is about making a difference for the better.

The Old Bromsgrovians around the world are engaged in activities as diverse as jazz music, politics, scientific research and international law. Some are very famous, most are not. But what we hope the majority do have in common is a value system that guides them through life.

Around the globe, thousands of Old Bromsgrovians are in contact with the School and each other. From Munich to Massachusetts, Kiev to Kampala, Birmingham to Beijing, there are schools, hospitals, rehearsal studios, university laboratories, film sets, seats of government with Old Bromsgrovians in situ. Many of these come back to the School to inspire the current pupils: and many keep in touch with friends they made long ago in North Worcestershire.

Not all Bromsgrovians will become household names. But whatever they choose to do, it is our hope that they will never forget that they needed care and guidance along the way.

At a recent Commemoration Day, I stood on stage flanked by three Old Bromsgrovians: a Cabinet Minister, a Judge and an Ambassador. They all looked most eminent. But two minutes earlier, speaking with their long-retired former Prep School Headmaster, they had been standing up straight and listening with childish intent.

They hadn’t forgotten. If you come to Bromsgrove, neither will you.

mission statement Bromsgrove School aims to produce: happy, creative, moral citizens who live motivated, fulfilled lives while enriching the lives of others It seeks to achieve this through: an enlightened, disciplined and broad education that responds to global change while retaining core values The Core Values Bromsgrove seeks to foster in its pupils are: Humility and Confidence • Compassion and Ambition • Respect and Curiosity • Tolerance and Vision

BROMSGROVE SCHOOL FOUNDED 1553

Bromsgrove School, Worcester Road, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, B61 7DU 01527 579679

www.bromsgrove-school.co.uk

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