WHY I GIVE DAVE MERRITT

WHY I GIVE

BY DAVE MERRITT (63-73)

Ihave given to the RGS Bursary Campaign since it began in 2002. I was educated here myself as a student from 1973 to 1974 when the Direct Grant system was in operation. Without the grant my Dad would not have been able to afford my place.

To be honest, I came aged 8 as a Geordie Gateshead boy with a few chips on his shoulder about the rich kids he was mixing with! The Junior School years were difficult but I found my feet and then came to immensely appreciate the teaching I received, the brilliant people I met and the opportunities I was given. I experienced what the Bidding at the old Founder’s Service spoke of – staff with ‘understanding hearts and love of sound learning’. So, I partly give to the Bursary Campaign out of nostalgic gratitude for what the RGS did for me and the desire for members of the Geordie tribe in a similar situation to mine to experience the same.

As someone who leans somewhat to the left politically I have some reservations about the independent system and see the point in critiques such as those of the Sutton Trust about entrenched elitism. It would be great, would it not, if all schools could provide an RGS quality of education appropriate to the needs of its students? But this is not an ideal world in any way and while things are as they are, I believe access to the RGS for the materially less well off needs to be maintained. A 21st Century school with as broad a social mix as in my Direct Grant days will be more balanced for all concerned and go a little way to aiding social mobility. The Bursary Campaign helps to facilitate this. “A 21st Century school with as broad a social mix as in my Direct Grant days will be more balanced for all concerned and go a little way to aiding social mobility. The Bursary Campaign helps to facilitate this.”

I can’t be all that anti private schools, as I have worked at RGS in some incarnation or another for 40 years. Staff do not generally know which students are on bursaries and rightly so. Having said that, sometimes we do get to know and I have often been struck by how much bursary students appreciate being here and make the most of their time. Some of their stories are published in ONA Magazine and they make moving and inspiring reading. The RGS in 2019 is a different beast from the one I joined in 1963. However, it is still a great place and can still claim to be –in the words of the now defunct School Song – the ‘School of the North’ and potentially a ‘Mother and Maker of men (sic)’. I give to the Bursary Campaign to help enable young people to access the opportunities it affords.