Today we celebrate the many brilliant things that our leaving pupils have already done in their lives at Clifton. In preparation for the Inspection in March we catalogued and itemised all of those things. We would be here for a very long time if I listed them all but as you may have read, the inspection report described the school in the most glowing language available to bureaucracy, and our music and art as exceptional. In music no fewer than 41 pupils have achieved grades 7, 8 and above in the last year. There are no fewer than 26 group rehearsals each week ranging from Flute quartet to Rock workshop, as well as regular concerts and recitals. The quality of the art you can see for yourselves and few schools send so many pupils on to Art School. Over 50 current pupils have played representative sport at County level or above. The performing arts flourish, as you will know if you saw any of this year’s productions including some truly remarkable House plays. The record of excellence goes across a whole range of activities, trips, tours, expeditions and visits abroad, all of which offer our pupils life-enhancing experiences. But of course it is the issue with which I began, an academic education, and education of the mind, that matters most. Of course the outcome matters too. 80% of those Cliftonians who applied in 2010 were offered places at the Russell group or 1994 group of universities, that is to say the most prestigious ones, some 5% ahead of comparable schools according to data supplied to us by UCAS. We also said farewell after a long and distinguished Clifton career to the Head Groundsman Nigel Peacock. During his time Beggar’s Bush has been transformed from an open space of rocky fields into one of the finest sports and leisure facilities for miles around. The new Head
Groundsman Andy Matthews started at the beginning of April. He came to us from Harrow and had been at Taunton before that, and one can see his handiwork as you step from this marquee: I am sure that you will agree with me that The Close has never looked so good. The first XI has responded to that in fine style, winning all of their matches so far this term. When the facilities are as good as they are the pupils raise their game, their games, to match. Yet again a girls’ hockey team went to the National Finals: this year it was the turn of the Under 14s. Hockey at Clifton is now established at a new level. Many of you were present on March 4th for the opening of the new international standard water-based hockey pitch at Beggar’s Bush. Hockey is not the only game the girls excel at. In March Lucinda Pigott won the first ever girls’ Rackets open competition at Queen’s which means she has won her place in history; not only that but the final was an all Clifton affair with Lucinda beating Emma Powell in a final that was Clifton 1 v. Clifton 2. Also in racket sports Clifton won the Real Tennis schools doubles competition. Elsewhere the footballers had their most successful season since football was introduced in 1959 at the insistence of a pupil by the name of John Cleese, who successfully petitioned the Head Master to allow it. Cleese was you won’t be surprised to learn a very persistent and articulate advocate. The next project at BB will be a high quality first XI football pitch next to the 3G pitch and two superb cricket squares on Whitehead, which is the area above the new hockey pitch on the Failand side as it were. There are on-going discussions and architects’ plans for further development at BB too, although these are at the early stages of conception, but the long-term plan is to create matchless facilities at BB.
We have an ambitious development plan to bring all of our facilities for teaching and learning up to the highest standards. By September we will have a dedicated Sixth Form Centre in the building behind me currently occupied by the Health centre and the Chaplaincy. The Chaplain is moving to new accommodation in Worcester Terrace, which is opposite the front entrance of Wiseman’s, and the Health Centre will move into the Chaplaincy. This creates space for classrooms and offices for the teaching of sixth form only subjects: specifically it will house the Psychology department and some Economics teaching, together with Mr Greenbury, Head of Sixth Form’s office, and all of the resources our sixth formers need as they focus on Careers and University choices and applications. Smaller rooms will allow for quiet study and for research as well as interview training. The most ambitious new project of them all is a Centre for the Performing Arts on the site of the existing Redgrave Theatre and the Chateau. But before you get too excited, these plans are at a very early stage and face considerable hurdles in terms of planning, design and indeed financing. But if we want Clifton to be one of the very best schools in the country we need to press ahead. Some of these projects will need financial support beyond the reach of the College’s current resources, and to that end we have set up The Clifton College Development Trust. This is a separate charity with eight founding Trustees, seven of whom are Old Boys and the eighth, its Chairman, is a current parent. To ensure particularly joined up thinking and planning, the Chairman of the Old Cliftonian Society (who is also a current parent) is one of the Trustees. As we all work together for the future of Clifton, the purpose of the Trust is to help us to accelerate our
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