The Bulletin 256

ISSUE 256 May 2025

FROM THE HEADMASTER American entrepreneur Ted Turner once commented: “If I only had a little humility I’d be perfect...”. An article in the media this week highlighted the cultural differences between various countries around the world when it comes to individuals’ self-promotion and selfaggrandisement. While acknowledging that he was inevitably stereotyping, he claimed that many nationalities are not in the habit of speaking the language of self-effacement. As he illustrated, “underplaying your status in this town [Washington] is akin to smearing yourself in fresh elephant dung on your way out of the house – people may still speak to you, but it’s going to be terrifyingly brief.” Those in the public eye – politicians, celebrities, and so on – are all too often self-publicists using their profile as well as channels such as social media to ensure that their achievements and movements are broadcast vociferously to all.

In stark contrast, self-deprecation has long been the British way. Josh Clancy noted that “we cloak ourselves in the armour of irony and selfabasement to ensure that no one will ever call us anything dreadful such as pushy, ambitious or a bit keen.” This tradition of nonchalance and perceived indifference is deeply ingrained in the British psyche.

The RGS is, perhaps, guilty of further embedding this mindset. As one of our six values, within the value of integrity, we talk of the importance of approaching life with humour and celebrating traditional qualities such as decency, politeness, and humility. So, are we selling our students short? Are we nurturing a culture whereby students undersell themselves or are embarrassed to reveal their true talents?

In my opinion, this could not be further from the truth and this last week at the RGS has highlighted this.

Scholarship for All is firmly embedded in our ethos; rather than the domain of a select few, scholarship unites and inspires us as a community. Our Junior ILA (Independent Learning Assignment) Evening provided our Third and Fourth Form students – supported by their Sixth Form mentors – to discuss with the attendees their research projects at a science-fair-style event. The rich diversity of topic impressed: AI, asylum seekers, board games, fashion, the International Criminal Court, motorsport, US politics, roller coasters, space exploration, supersonic aviation, sustainable energy sources, time travel, and many, many more. Our junior students in the First and Second Forms then competed against their counterparts from RGS Dubai in the 200 Seconds Competition. Again, the breadth of their interest was remarkable. In just 200 seconds and with a limited deck of presentation slides, the students addressed the audience on Star Wars, air travel, architecture including the Eiffel Tower and the Gherkin and iconic music, to name but a few.

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We publicly acknowledge success and use this in an aspirational way to, in turn, inspire others.

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In both events, it was, however, not the range of subject matter which really struck me but the passion, the articulate way the students expressed themselves, and the complexity and sophistication of investigation. Our students spoke with conviction and confidence: to their great credit when speaking live in front of an audience.

Our culture of mutual respect and high achievement means that our students are proud not only of their own achievements but equally celebrate those of their peers. We publicly acknowledge success and use this in an aspirational way to, in turn, inspire others. The scholarship events this week perfectly illustrated this. For me, humility is not an obstacle to progress; humility is an absence of arrogance and self-entitlement, a desire to continue to reflect and improve, and, perhaps most importantly the ability to take what you do, but not yourself, too seriously and to be able to laugh at yourself. And if that means being a bit keen and applying metaphorical elephant dung from time to time, then so be it.

SCHOOL PRIORITIES 2022-2025 Our current RGS school development priorities are Collaboration, Student Experience and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. These priorities are in the final year of our three-year cycle.

EQUITY, DIVERSITY & INCLUSION We have focused on responding to student and staff voice, as well as experienced external providers, to inform our strategy which is currently centred around developing a more inclusive curriculum; staff diversity; and providing additional training and support for staff and students with the aim of making our whole community more tolerant and inclusive.

COLLABORATION We are focusing on four areas: staff collaboration to develop and improve teaching and learning; sharing best practice between RGS and RGS Prep; co-educational opportunities and links for our students socially and academically; and linking with our international schools to provide students with cultural and academic enrichment opportunities.

STUDENT EXPERIENCE This is always an area of continual development; however, our current focuses are on student appearance; the reporting process; academic tracking and reporting; co-curricular participation; literacy; pastoral support; reviewing the Sixth Form curriculum provision; and effective use of student devices and the possibilities that AI offers.

NOTICES

General Sports Reminders Please be aware that there continue to be roadworks on the A281; traffic lights are in operation just before the Shalford roundabout. If travelling to Bradstone Brook from Guildford, please be aware of this and leave extra time for your journey. Thank you.

We very much welcome parental support at weekend sports fixtures including cricket at Bradstone Brook. May we politely remind you that dogs are, regrettably, strictly not allowed.

May we also remind parents that to support the School’s drive on sustainability, please bring your own re-usable cups for coffee and tea. Thank you.

Monday 5 May Bank Holiday Monday. School closed.

Tuesday 6 May Market Day Concert in Holy Trinity Church.

Wednesday 7 May Concerto Concert with Southern Pro Musica in Holy Trinity Church. All very welcome. See the poster for further details.

Wednesday 14 May Lower Sixth Form Parents’ Evening in Great Hall and the main building.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK TICKETS

THE GALLERY

THE GALLERY: RGSG DUBAI’S VISIT

LATEST NEWS MUSIC Our students performed very well in recent ABRSM exams; more than 75% passed their grades with Merit or Distinction. Julian Zou and Yuvan Raja were awarded High Distinctions in their ARSM Diploma exams. In addition, five students took and all passed their Grade 8 singing exam with Distinction: Oscar Ford, Adrian Groenewald, Ralph Moggs, Ben Pilkington and Alex Pop. Of particular note, Oscar achieved a remarkable 146/150. Nicholas Yang also deserves mention, winning four Classes in the Piano Section of the Godalming Performing Arts Festival.

Archie Munro, Alex Pop, and Nicholas Yang have all been offered places to study in the Junior Departments of two of the main London conservatoires from September. Alex and Nicholas will start at the Royal College of Music and Archie will join the Royal Academy of Music. This is an amazing achievement and testament to their incredible musicianship.

NATIONAL COMPETITIONS Labeeb Ahmed has won a prize for his piece of writing in the national Show Racism the Red Card competition: our second recipient of a national level prize in this competition in the last two years. Labeeb will be attending the awards ceremony held at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground.

TRIPS A busy Easter holidays saw 150 RGS students on trips nationally and internationally for a range of adventurous, cultural and sporting activities. These included: the Classics Trip to Italy; the Cricket Tour to Sri Lanka; the Spanish Trip to Catalonia; the DofE Gold Award Qualifying Expedition to Brecon; and the Student Robotics Finals in Southampton.

SCHOLARSHIP Our inaugural Junior ILA Celebration Evening provided the culmination to a competition which provided the opportunity for Third and Fourth Form students to research and write a report on a topic of their own choosing, mentored by a member of the Sixth Form. The standard of research was astonishingly high; after lengthy deliberation Leo Shaw was crowned the Third Form winner, and Thomas Aczel and Theo Odhams joint Fourth Form winners.

The Grand Final of the 200 Seconds competition took place in the Auditorium, run jointly with RGS Dubai for the first time. Three finalists each from our First and Second Form gave presentations within the strict time limit of 200 seconds, alongside three Year 7 students from RGSG Dubai. The theme of this year’s event was Iconic and it was wonderful and inspiring to see the varying ways in which the students had interpreted this prompt. It was a really strong field of finalists; however, Adithya Shetty was the First Form winner, Thomas Jacob was the Second Form and overall winner.

SPORTS NEWS CRICKET

Cricket made a welcome return to the weekend sporting fixture list with a block against KCS Wimbledon, as the RGS put out 17 teams from the Under 12s all the way through to the 1st XI. Bradstone Brook looked resplendent, with immaculate wickets providing the opportunity for an impressive display of bowling and batting from RGS players. Pick of the age groups were the Under 15s: the three teams remained unbeaten with the Under 15Cs enjoying a nine-wicket victory, a feat matched also by the Under 12B team.

Individually, with the bat, Thomas McMurray impressed for the 2nd XI scoring 64 off just 55 deliveries to help the team towards a four-wicket win.

GOLF

Our senior golf team comprising Ollie Crawford, Ollie James and Dominic Powell competed in the ISGA National Schools' Golf Finals at Slaley Hall, Northumberland: a demanding format of 36 holes of Medal (strokeplay where golfers must finish every hole regardless of how many shots this requires) competition played over two days. This is the most gruelling and attritional format of competition golf, and the RGS team represented the School outstandingly in a field containing a number of teams from dedicated golf academy schools which included a number of golfers with handicaps below zero, and national amateur rankings.

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