ONA Now and Then statistics might appal rather than amuse. In a sense, both are right, of course. Smith rightly takes pride in the achievements of his period in the school: Cox inevitably occupies the same territory as I must nowadays, certainly taking delight in high academic achievement, including places won at Oxbridge, while appreciating that parents and students alike demand a broader range of what nowadays we too often term ‘outcomes’ from education.
them achieve those remarkable results while still pursuing energetically that huge range of sporting, artistic and cultural activities that have always characterised the RGS.
At the heart of it all, though, is that amazing experience of diverse people (yet, in a sense, with like minds) who enjoy great experiences at school and form lifelong friendships. It’s no surprise (but a delight) to me that ONs from many years That breadth differs little from the many ago still enjoy reunions. How good to see pictures of the past painted in the following the Penrith group meet again (and vow pages. There were no glittering prizes to to continue!) It is, I suppose, an be won by the boys who enjoyed O.T.C. occupational hazard camps in 1914: but they still took part, and Moreover, in September it was a joy to made the most of them (as our boys and welcome the ‘class of 1944’ to celebrate for school heads to be girls do to this day). almost to the day 70 years since they accused of boasting. started at the RGS. We heads too swiftly After all, we’re employed When I was a young teacher, 35 years assume that the course of the school is ago and more, the Times Educational ever onward and upward, and that we to be the figurehead Supplement used to produce a schools’ must be doing so much better than all of, and leading advocate league table of Oxbridge scholarships those years ago: but one of that group won: there were no other statistics (I’m sorry I can’t remember who) reminded for, the school. available. As the computer age made me that some things are timeless. such information ever easier to obtain the appetite grew for league tables: I’m never He recalled the advice given to him We’re expected to communicate our sure whether that was fuelled by the as an 11-year-old on his first day by vision and ambition for the institution: we the Headmaster, Mr Thomas (22-48). also have to spread a relentlessly positive media, government or public interest. The most important thing the school message, praising the many triumphs and could teach them, he stated, was First A Levels, then GCSEs and now even (dare I admit it?) minimising the “thoughtfulness for others”. a host of other measures are used in shortcomings. a variety of analyses to create league The RGS teaches a great many other tables: initially by newspapers; next for Nonetheless I’m not being in any way government; and nowadays newspapers things too, now as then: but if that were the self-congratulatory when I applaud the primary lesson that the 11-year-olds who take the government’s figures in order to manner in which the ONA Magazine is joined us last September take away from manipulate them and create their own currently going from strength to strength. the school, I think I could be satisfied. It’s all thanks to you loyal Old Novocastrians different league tables! They create a particular form of madness that too easily who seem to be inspiring one another, Bernard Trafford drives schools into focussing entirely on from one edition to the next, to put pen to those things that can be measured – to the Headmaster paper (or, at least, to hammer the word detriment of ‘softer’ skills and activities. processor) and share your reminiscences At the RGS we are both unlucky and of RGS past. fortunate. Unlucky because an academically selective school can have It’s healthy, too, to indulge in robust debate. On the next page J Harvey Smith no hiding places: we do well in such league tables because our boys and girls (44-52) takes my ante-predecessor, Alister Cox (72-94), to task for suggesting achieve so highly, but the pressure is on that places won at Oxford and Cambridge to stay ‘up there’. But we are fortunate too because our students are both talented are a crude measure of a school’s and hard-working, so that we can help success, and that concentration on such
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