THE HEADTEACHER'S BLOG - THE BURFORDIAN, ISSUE 14 2023 -2024

This is the Headteacher's Blog which was first featured in issue 14 of The Burfordian, published on Friday 21st June 2024.

And in the blink of an eye, we are at the end of the exam season. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly it goes. I am aware that students in Years 11 and 13 and their parents will have felt that whilst they were happening, the exams were taking an age. Yet most afterwards look back and reflect that they took no time at all. In the grand scheme of things, it is such a small period of the education process yet the impact of the experience is quite profound. I am not talking about the results themselves that come from the examinations, which whilst vital in the short term become less significant over time in deciding the journeys of young people, more the rite of passage that they represent and the skills that are built from their completion.

In May and June each year, Mr Cowley and I visit the Year 5 families in the feeder primary schools to explain what Burford School is about. Of course, I stress Respect Participate and Reach, yet I am also interested in hearing the views of the parents coming up to the school. I am particularly keen, at these meetings, to ensure there is alignment of values and so ask parents to consider what secondary education is all about. I also welcome questions from the parents. Last night I was particularly struck by a question that reflected back to me my own challenge to the parents. It was framed in a much more direct way, "what was the point of learning a certain subject" – I won’t label the subject here.

I will always advocate the learning of all subjects and all knowledge with no one subject being less or more important than another, but I do know that a few students will struggle in certain areas and be less motivated to take on some subjects over others. Young people will commonly say “I don’t need that when I am older – what’s the point”. In truth it is not the subject knowledge that is carried forward into the future. It is more the universal skills developed and the process of how you got there. Schools offering the best of education, such as Burford, nurture aptitude for collaboration, communication, thinking, research and self-management as this is the “stuff” that is needed later. However these are only developed within a well-designed balanced curriculum where all subjects have a role such as that on offer here. It is through the knowledge base that the skills are developed. Skills can not be developed in isolation. Academic research supports this point.

And then when it comes to exams, there is no getting away from the hurdle that they represent. It is exactly for this reason they are key to education. The grade matters not because it is the subject on its own that is what unlocks the doors to the future, but what it shows at that moment in time. It is a marker for the endeavour a young person will engage with to succeed. This is the attribute, resilience, that is carried forward. It is why we will continue to ask students to reach in all areas and take on the challenges in front of them.