Radley Newsletter 07

THE

Radley N E W S L E T T E R

| Housebuilding in Kerala | Reflections on the Remove Year at Radley | | Design and Technology | Snapshots of Sundays at Radley | | The Head of Mathematics | The History Society | The Rugby Club |

Housebuildi in Kerala

In 1998 Radley organised a trip to Kerala in South India to build houses for villagers of Mankotta Island. So successful was this that it has since become an annual event.

This year the team led by Mr Hamshaw and Mr Shaw consited of Oliver Arnott (Edgeborough, H Social), Charlie Curran (Aldro, D Social), Alastair Hope-Morley (Cothill, E Social), Sebastian Knight

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(Oratory Prep, E Social), Mark Lau (Aldro, D Social), Daniel Lumby (Caldicott, G Social), Fred Rowe (Cothill, A Social) and William Summerlin (Caldicott, F Social).

Under the expert supervision of our hosts, Jai and Laila Chacko, a wonderfully creative and exciting time is had by the volunteers.

Hard labouring for two weeks in post-monsoon conditions is followed by free-ranging tours of South India.

ing Over the past ten years more than 100 Radleians have taken advantage of this opportunity and a total of twelve houses have been built. In recognition of the houses already built, the lane where they are to be found has been renamed Radley Road.

Tommy Siman reflects on the Remove Year at Radley How does an all-boys boarding school accommodate and entertain one hundred and thirty, fifteen year old boys? The novelty that came with the first year has worn off, the cooked breakfasts every morning are now taken for granted, the further independence that boys of this age desire is just out of reach.

When I arrived at Radley I was used to asking my parents for permission to do things, but after my arrival it soon became clear that it was the internal hierarchy of dons and matrons who were my new ‘guardians’. It is these figures of authority who deny a Remove many of the things that he might want to do like going into Oxford on a Saturday.

They are set the task of pacifying the rebellious nature of teenagers on a day to day basis. The fact that Radley is by and large a calm and upbeat/cheerful place is a reflection of the success with which the dons carry out their duties.

There is a great difference between the attitudes of a Shell and a Remove. In the Shells there is a desire to prove yourself, to show your year and dons who you are and what you can do. This compulsion lessens in the Removes. There is still a will to do well, but as your dons now know you and you feel that you have established a good reputation for yourself, there is less need for this desire. Surprisingly, for me at least, it was not difficult to re-kindle this desire in certain subjects.

My first term of the Removes was probably the busiest school term I’ve ever had. I had been moved up in several sets after the Shell summer exams and the workload, especially in French, increased greatly. I was also involved in the school

play, Richard III, which admittedly took up a lot of time, but was a great experience. It was my first time in a whole school production, having been involved in the Shell Play With Intent, and I could not have enjoyed it more.

The problem I had was fitting my work in around the play, but this was not particular to me. What I also found increasingly difficult was fitting in music practice. I have three music lessons a week and it became very hard to find a good time to practise.

I was working during most central hours and during prep I had play rehearsals or French Coursework drafts to finish. By the time of the end of term exams I was very tired and perhaps slightly underrevised. As much as I normally enjoy exam week I was not relishing the prospect of the Michealmas exams.

To answer my introductory question, I think that Radley manages to entertain and accommodate us with relative ease. There is something for everyone; on the sports front, you can play almost any sport you want, which has been a major bonus during my time, for those wishing to indulge their thespian inclinations there is a fantastic theatre, for musicians there is an entire music school, there are also competitions happening constantly and these are not confined to any one aspect of Radley life.

The Remove year is anything but a year for ‘coasting’, there is always something that needs doing or something that you want to do. This means that the ethos of a Remove develops as he advances through the year.

From a personal perspective, the Remove year has so far encouraged my work ethic to increase and has given me first time experiences that I have thoroughly enjoyed.

Tommy Siman, Abingdon Prep and H Social

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DES S

& TECHN N

The Design Technology Department at Radley is widely respected amongst its public and prep school peers. Competitor schools come here to look at how it is done, while Will Matthews the D.T. Head of Department has been an independent consultant to others.

Large numbers of boys choose to take the subject to GCSE (ranging from 48 to 60 in recent years in each year group) and to A level (last summer 18 boys took A level DT); many comparable schools struggle to attract boys to examinable DT. The results are part of the attraction at Radley; in 2008 17/18 boys got an A grade at A level, and 89% got A*/A at GCSE. Boys know that they will be directed and taught very well, and that they will have a great deal of fun in the process, for Will Matthews encourages innovation, cutting edge technology, and a pride in a really professional product.

Typically, Radleians like to Design and manufacture products that are sharp, dangerous or fast (but it is a boys’ school). We have one of the best equipped workshops and Electronics labs in the country in which we can help students turn their dreams/ cognitive models into reality. Short of a

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nuclear submarine, most products can be designed and manufactured on site.

We regularly are told by ex-students that they stand comparison with, or are better than, the ones they go on to use at University.

Walking through the Sewell Centre, visitors see few finished products – this is good! We want boys to design and manufacture products that they are proud of, that they take home the instant they finish them. This pride in their work is something we hope will stay with them for the rest of their working lives.

Radley as a result has a large presence in the world of Design and Technology.

We have old boys who work or have worked for Seymour Powell, James Dyson, and many other world renowned consultancies around the globe. They are involved in designing and manufacturing everything from luxury cruise ships to space ships, from Jamie Oliver’s interior

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& NOLOGY NO design work to large public Architectural projects.

Design and Technology at Radley is concerned with designing and manufacturing products which can be tested and evaluated in use. Designing and manufacturing is a practical activity that encourages imaginative thought and promotes enquiry. Boys apply scientific, mathematical, aesthetic and economic principles whilst developing technical skills to produce quality solutions. The products are tangible and have a clear purpose and function. They involve the use of appropriate materials, selected for a particular purpose and are of such quality as to be efficient in use and capable of being tested against specific criteria.

An important feature of Design and Technology is that it makes immediate and practical use of knowledge and skills from other subjects. It is linked with Art and Design, Mathematics and Science. The GCSE, AS and A2 courses in Product Design force students to draw from their own knowledge and experience of all subject areas – from

Art all the way through to Physics.

They bring their knowledge and understanding both in a practical and theoretical manner to solve a problem – working in the area that best suites them along the line from artist to scientist.

The new A level has a strong emphasis on commercial viability which gives rise to exciting possibilities of links with Economics and Business Studies.

Good quality learning means that pupils at Radley continuously use and extend their knowledge, understanding and skills as they design and make products. They show curiosity in the investigation of the capabilities of different materials and use an increasing range of techniques, processes and resources with confidence, showing creativity in designing products to meet particular human needs. They are prepared to persevere in the organising, planning and making of their products, evaluating them at each stage and testing them fairly against objective criteria and are able to work both independently and as part of a team. The photos accompanying this piece illustrate the quality of what boys achieve.

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GARRY WISEMAN HEAD OF MATHEMATICS

Very few heads of department in any school in the land have done the job for a quarter of a century, but 2009 is Garry Wiseman’s 25th year as Head of Maths at Radley. In that time he has had the chance to move on into Senior Management, but has chosen to stay at Radley doing what he loves best. Over that period he has established himself as a doyen of Maths teachers.

It has been no ordinary tenure for he has shown considerable powers of stamina and resilience across the years as successive governments tampered with exams, and external demands have changed. There has never been a question of Garry Wiseman passively occupying the position, for he has been in the vanguard of the radical managerial change that has occurred in the best schools. There, heads of department have taken responsibility for leading their teaching teams, and for the results of the pupils in their subject areas. Heads of department a generation ago might be the ablest practitioners in the subject, but the role didn’t extend much beyond cherry picking the best sets to teach themselves, choosing the syllabuses and ensuring the exam entries were accurately and promptly completed.

Part of Radley’s success has been to develop heads of department who have taken on responsibility for inducting new teachers, seeking to improve the teaching performance of all the team, closely monitoring all the boys that pass through the department and, for everyone, setting high expectations of what can be achieved with hard work. Outstanding results – from boys of widely differing abilities – have followed.

Garry Wiseman has epitomised the approach. He has taken infinite care to establish contacts so that able young Oxbridge graduates are attracted into teaching at Radley, where they are helped to learn their craft, establish good classroom discipline, share materials and teaching ideas, and gain the confidence to go off and run departments themselves.

The professional standards he sets are high and unremitting, but he understands

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the importance of rewards and treats; the department’s parties have a great deal of style, good food and fine wine. He also understands that young teachers in a boarding school should be encouraged to be all round schoolmasters, and they have indeed contributed markedly on the games field, in Socials, in running societies. He has led the way in this, subtutoring in a Social, running the 2nd VIII and masterminding 5th XI Hockey and Stonewall, (Radley’s 5th and 6th Rugby XVs) with the lightest of touches, and organising and personifying the role of Sixth Form Form Mastering.

How to measure the success of this department team so painstakingly accumulated, and shaped, over a number of years? Firstly, in the way the boys have responded to being driven to exceed expectations from Y9 (the Shells) onwards. Boys are entered for IGCSE as soon as possible, and by the 5th Form many have taken, and achieved high grades in, AS Maths. Each year in the 6th Form Single Maths attracts c50-60 boys in a year group of 125-130; in recent years, and even more impressively, the number of Further Mathematicians has risen, this year in 6.1 to 24. This includes a sizeable percentage of the whole country’s Triple Maths entry, and a telling tribute to Garry Wiseman’s ambitions for his boys.

At the end of it all, they have performed

outstandingly: in the A level results from 2008, the 56 Single Maths candidates achieved 76% A grade, 98.2% A/B. In Further Maths the 25 candidates achieved 88.2% A grade. While nationally Maths entries have diminished, Radley has emphatically bucked the trend. Nor does it end there: Radley 6th Formers continue on to read Maths and Natural Sciences at Cambridge, to score highly in Maths Olympiads and – like John Morton who left in 1997 – to become Oxbridge Fellows in their turn.

His secret is his energy and enthusiasm which infects others; so, large numbers of boys routinely attend the voluntary Maths Society on a Monday evening at 9.05pm to hear a don or a boy give a paper on a particular mathematical enthusiasm. So, too, the intense pride in his department and in the subject he evinces which rubs off on boys and adults alike. Thus, he writes best selling textbooks or is invited to inspect Maths departments in other HMC schools as a sort of trouble shooter. It is this continually renewed enthusiasm for his subject, the desire to share it with pupils and colleagues, which have kept him fresh for a quarter of a century and which makes us confident that he will celebrate an extraordinary 35th anniversary running Radley’s Maths Department before he eventually retires.

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HISTORY SOCIETY ‘Let me top you up before you head downstairs. You’ve only had one glass.’ So ends another delicious dinner in Common Room, our visiting speaker politely declining our offer but putting aside the glass to return to it later, before he or she delivers an engaging, often entertaining, always informative lecture to a group of upper school boys. Such is the hospitality for which Radley is well known, and many a burgeoning friendship has been cemented in such style.

While one function of the History Society is to prepare interested and able boys for university entry (the History Reading Group, a forum for the discussion of complex historical ideas and events, meets weekly), another equally important function of the Society – indeed one of the traditions of the Society – has been to welcome guest speakers to the College. It is a great privilege for those of us who teach and live at Radley to welcome so many esteemed and interesting specialists in the field, all of whom speak to the boys on a chosen topic, often with flair and wit, and who provide an insight into a topic (usually but not always related to the boys’ A Level History courses) which we are unable to provide. Some are engaged in pioneering research, all are invested with alarming degrees of enthusiasm; and their lectures provide a forum for stimulating historical debate and discussion. Part of the appeal for the boys is, I’m sure, being able to put a face to a name and to meet the ‘authority’ (as the guest speaker is described to the boys on a Monday morning and whose name features in all their essays); another appeal is, however, knowing that opportunities like this do not come up very often and that not every school is as lucky to be able to draw on such wide contacts and connections.

Many of our guest speakers have visited the school several times. Only this year, we have been joined again by Professor Eric Evans, who enthusiastically compared the women’s suffrage movement with the Chartist movement of sixty years earlier (did the women learn any lessons?), and by Professor Jeremy Black who spoke about power and control within the Nazi State.

And only last year we had the great privilege of welcoming back to Radley Lord Hurd who spoke to the boys about Robert Peel, the subject of his latest biography (‘the man on the man!’ as one of my colleagues excitedly exclaimed ). New faces have also been welcomed to the College this year: Glenn Richardson from St Mary’s University College in Surrey who talked about the

Reformation in Europe and in England; Professor Lucy Riall of Birkbeck College, London, who gave a fascinating lecture about Garibaldi’s celebrity status in the nineteenth century; and Professor Rana Mitter of Oxford University who spoke about Chairman Mao, his early life and political ideas. Andrew Roberts, one of the country’s leading biographers and military historians has spoken three times here. It has been a great pleasure to welcome them all to the College, and to share their insights.

Such has often been the quality of the talks that a number of boys have been encouraged to look further into the topics that they have heard discussed. ‘I didn’t know that….’ or ‘Was that really the case?’ or ‘Did you agree with him, Miss?’ are often starting points in my lesson the following day. It is always refreshing to see how many of our sixth formers voluntarily attend these lectures and all who do come along are highly appreciative. Of course, we have insisted that some lectures are compulsory (they tie in so well with the courses the boys are studying) and all who attend take home an interesting fact to include in their next essay.

Andrew Roberts, Biographer and Military Historian

While primarily a society run for sixth form students, we are not exclusive; we have also welcomed guest speakers in the past to talk to boys in our lower school.

Only last September, Richard Thorpe, an authority on British twentieth century political history, spoke to our Fifth Form on the Suez Crisis, providing a vast quantity of useful information which many of the boys incorporated into their coursework assignments. Richard has for a long time been a friend of Radley, coming to numerous first-rate school productions in the theatre, as well as providing invaluable academic assistance in the form of articles and useful contacts for members the Department.

And more recently, we had the pleasure of welcoming David Faber, author of ‘Munich: the 1938 Appeasement Crisis’ and grandson of Harold Macmillan, to speak on the topic of his book. He spoke with infectious enthusiasm for his subject and had us all enthralled. Boys from all year groups attended and, I’m sure, went away having learnt a great deal more about the issues.

We were all, I’m ashamed to say, slightly embarrassed at not knowing that a Nazi flag had been flown over Cardiff town hall in 1938; all of us were flummoxed when David showed us the photograph. The conversation flowed for a good hour afterwards in Common Room.

As our 6.1 Historians shortly begin to consider their university applications, and as the 6.2s prepare for their A Level exams, I am sure that for all there will be at least one nugget of information gleaned in History Society lectures that will prove to be of worth. And we can look forward this year and next to welcoming many more esteemed guest speakers to the College to continue the tradition. All who have visited Radley have commented on the boys’ enthusiasm and interest, and all have fine words to say about the welcome they received. There have been some hair-raising journeys on the A34 and around the Oxford ring road as I rush in order to make the train or bus connection for the speaker’s return journey but this hasn’t put any of them off coming back; next time they will opt to stay in one of the guest rooms. And it will mean that we can spend a little longer over that last glass of port in Common Room before retiring for the evening.

Theresa Scammell Jackson, Head of History

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THE RUG For the first 35 years of its life Radley played its own Radley Football, a game like soccer with a Rugby pack and Rugby offside. In time, as opponents adopted either Association, or Rugby, football rules, it became harder to find matches, and 50-a-side fixtures within Radley palled. After a 30 year dalliance with Association Football, the college in 1912 adopted Rugby Union; over the subsequent century or so Radley has produced unbeaten sides, 4 full internationals as well as a current England Saxons player, and 2 members of the World Sevens Champions’ team in 1993 including captain Andrew Harriman and Chris Sheasby, both full caps. It has also produced a steady stream of Oxford and Cambridge Blues, in 1983 having 4 ORs in the Varsity Match. Radley is one of the strongest Rugby playing schools judged by its demanding fixture list, by the fact that it can turn out 22 XVs on a Saturday (and does v. Tonbridge and Harrow), and that 80% of matches are won, and by the impressive commitment of Common Room, 42 dons coaching teams, and 5 others refereeing matches, throughout the Michaelmas Term. This article reflects the fortunes of Radley RUFC in the 2008 season from the top, the Bigside 1st XV, through the middle years (the Colts 1st XV) and on to the base of the pyramid, the Midgets teams, and Midgets 5, 6 and 7 in particular, boys fresh from Prep School, where we start with Iain Campbell and Simon Hall, the two dons in charge, reflecting:

MIDGETS 57 In the Michaelmas term one of the few things that absolutely all the Shell boys must do is Rugby. At the base of the pyramid, whose apex is the giddy height of Bigside, is the Midgets 3rd game, the group of 60 or so boys who train next to the vertiginous height of the Bigside posts.

In recent seasons there have been enough boys to put out even a 7th XV, while the 5ths and 6ths coaches have had the luxury of a large number of really rather good players with whom to work, as opposition schools have often found to their cost. In most weeks the troops are out five times, whatever the weather, and this is by far the longest term. This is a lot of contact time, so a sense of fun from everyone is an absolute prerequisite. During those long four months a thirteen year old can transform physically into a big, hairy

adolescent. With the right conditions a side can also transform from a rather diffident, even work-shy set of boys resplendent in gleaming red and white shirts into a relatively hard-bitten, grimy, competitive squad with rehearsed moves and eight or nine games under their belts. Over the last ten years a great many boys have gone on from these humble beginnings to blossom into seriously good rugby players higher up the school, with three in recent memory, Jethro Marriage, Bertie Russell and George Cooke-Yarborough, who have made it right to the very top of the pyramid, coming full circle geographically to the Midgets 7ths’ training neighbours, Bigside themselves.

Equally valued, however, are the novices or apparent non-games-players who have represented the College in just one match in their school careers. Thanks to sympathetic coaching and selection in most seasons nearly every boy in the year achieves this feat.

C O LT S I Niall Murphy, Tutor of K Social, has presided over a very successful campaign with the Colts (Under 16) XV, and he writes: Two summers ago after lengthy discussions with Richard Greed (Master i/c Rugby) on tour in New Zealand I decided to step down from being Bigside backs’ coach and coach Junior Colts. The idea was that I should try and engender more continuity in the style of play required to succeed at 1st XV level. The boys had to be the decision-makers – they decided whether to run or to kick, and improvisation was the key tactical idea. Pierre Villepreux, that wonderful coach of Toulouse and France, once suggested that you should “Attack where the defence is not”. It meant a wholesale improvement of individual skills for all the boys. All players were expected to pass out of the tackle, off-load as much as possible, run into space and keep the ball alive at all times – whatever the weather.

It resulted in a tremendously successful season as JC1, with only one match being lost to Oundle.

The next year the task was made easier by the fact that the entire coaching staff moved up with the same group of

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GBY CLUB T H E 1 ST X V And so to the 1st XV, Bigside, of which Richard Greed, Master i/c for the last 15 seasons writes:

boys to Colts 1, and were joined by Tony Jackson as a forwards’ coach. The coaches felt it was important to blood new players before they made the transition to Bigside, and indeed Patrick de Courcy played a couple of games at the end of the season for the 1st XV. The Colts year group of 4 XVs also only lost four matches in total and that was an enormous credit to all the boys in the Vth Form, and to the fast, mobile, skillful ‘French’ philosophy of the coaches.

All four Colts teams would attack from anywhere, whether deep in their own 22 or not. Opposition parents and referees were always complimenting the boys on their ability to play such an attacking style of rugby, with such success.

The Colts 1 squad that finished the 2008 season unbeaten contained several boys who had come from lower teams in the JC year: Alex Low came from JC4 the year before, as did Tom Ward, and Adam Bolton was a JC3 regular the previous season. Andrew Tinsley, was a Remove, but easily adapted to the attacking style and the skills required. This was exactly what I had hoped to achieve – the emergence of fresh talent from nominally lower teams.

The captain and vice-captain for two years running were Andrew Barrie and Danny Brownlee; they provided pace, attacking verve, defensive stability and excellent leadership.

Rugby at 1st XV level is about creating an environment in which a team can flourish and building upon the core skills of players who have benefited from some excellent coaching as they have progressed through the school. It means communicating a vision of how you want the game to be played and the players understanding what is expected from them. Rugby, after all, is a simple game and it is about doing the ‘simple things well’. Vital foundations are laid on pre-season training camps, and 38 boys spent an intensive week in Italy working hard on positional and core skills as well as game strategies. Many of the players had also benefited from a three-week tour to New Zealand the previous season and therefore we entered the 2008 season with high hopes.

and confidence. Every training session was completed with a passion, players driving themselves in the quest for selfimprovement and, in doing so, they created something both magical and memorable.

The confidence was plain to see as victory after victory followed including the suffocation of a strong Marlborough team 7-12 and the free flowing rugby which saw us dismantle a highly competent Oundle team 7-43; indeed, there we came as close as possible to achieving our playing vision.

We played a dynamic faster game with an emphasis on achieving width that would unleash the devastating running skills of our outside backs (such as Ed Barry, Tom Atkinson and Giles Bromley-Martin) to attack the space in the wide channels. The telling statistic was the fact that, during our season, the backs scored 85% points including a remarkable hat-trick against Oundle. The forwards gave the team a dynamic platform from which to play our

Underpinning everything is the vital ingredient of the team dynamic.

It is in the tough matches when the loyalty, support, endurance, discipline and camaraderie are tested and the 2008 team, led by the inspirational leadership of Jack Hibbs, had those qualities in an abundance – the generally positive atmosphere that the boys generated as a group translated into a season of immense pleasure and enjoyment.

The 1st XV playing circuit is remarkably competitive and there are few ‘soft’ games. The season was a highly successful one with only 3 of 12 matches being lost. Two of those games were lost in the opening three matches but rugby seasons are about key moments and the team came of age in our fourth match against Warwick. Losing 7-3, and deep into injury time, Radley were pressing hard on the line against ferocious Warwick defence. One mistake would lead to defeat. Discipline was kept and we played through the phases and moved the ball at the right moment to our right-winger who just had the space to squeeze in at the corner to clinch victory – that is when you have no regrets about the number of man-hours invested in this beautiful game. That moment and that win gave the team self-belief

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expansive rugby and mention must go to Alex Gordon Lennox who dominated the line-out with his impeccable sense of timing and athletic grace.

At all levels, then, Radley Rugby is in rude health; quite as important as having talented and trainable boys is the presence in the Common Room of skilled and dedicated teaching dons as the contributions above attest. It is thanks to them that one of the great sights at Radley is that of the pitches on a Saturday afternoon with 10 matches and 300 boys purposefully competitive.

Freddie Tapner (Second Prefect)

r a dl e i a n s

LUDGROVE, AND F SOCIAL It was around this time five years ago that I started to tire of Prep School. Now this is not to say that I hadn’t had a good time (quite the contrary in fact), but more the fact that I needed a change, and thankfully Radley was beckoning for my arrival in only six months’ time. The change was exactly what the doctor ordered: the sudden extra freedom, being treated more like a grown-up and the larger year group are just some of the excitements I remember from all those years ago.

I have been one of the Senior Editors of the Chronicle for several years - the task of organising articles, commissioning reviews and editing the final copy are all part of the job, but the reward is great when you see that something which you have produced is being read by 600 boys. Trying to get others to meet deadlines can be a nightmare though; I now sympathise with dons on that subject!

The writing is hugely enjoyable: I think this is one of the aspects I will miss most come July.

I have been fortunate enough to be involved in many aspects of Radley life, including College Play productions such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, A Few Good Men and most recently Shakespeare’s Richard III. Not only were all of these huge fun, but also the quality of the Drama Department ensured that these productions were far more than schoolboys prancing around on a stage. The lack of AS Levels in the VI.1 year left Ben Sheen (C Social) and me enough time to direct the Shell Play, With Intent - quite what the Shells must have thought when they saw they were landed with us for their first play I’m not sure!

Whilst all of the facilities and results at Radley speak for themselves, the thing which I have found most valuable about my time at school is boarding. I count myself incredibly fortunate to be able to sleep, work and play all at school, and I think that it is this which has produced many binding friendships. The fact that the dons also live on campus adds to the community feel of the place – my Form Master will often invite our form round for drinks or supper, which is always huge fun.

Music has played a large part of my time here also – the tours and the concerts have always been events to look forward to. I’ve enjoyed playing and singing in the ensembles the most - from little things like the Percussion Ensemble to larger groups like the Choir, all are fun to be involved in. As I type we are preparing for Paris - I’m trying not to think about the 4:30am start...

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As I reread this piece, I’ve noticed that I’ve over-used the word fun. But there’s just no other word for it - barely a lesson/ rehearsal/meeting goes past without some form of laughter and enjoyment. There’s no doubt that Radley is hard work – with so many commitments it is always going to be – but I can honestly say that I have enjoyed every second of my time here. The only problem I have is that, unlike Prep School, I suspect I’ll never tire of Radley life…

Website: www.radley.org.uk . Admissions enquiries: 01235 543174 . admissions@radley.org.uk