THE HEADTEACHER'S BLOG - 2024-2025

This is the Headteacher's Blog which was first featured in Burford School's Charter Day celebrations Friday 22nd November 2024.

Chair, Trustees, Parents, Carers, Staff, students and alumni, welcome to the Senior prize giving on Charter Day 2024.

Thank you to our jazz band led by our superb music department Mr Frankcom, Mr Wright, Mrs Hughes and Mrs Jenkins. Thank you to the inspiring students who keep reaching for excellence with such wonderful music. 

The Chair of Trustees, Mr Willis, has the privilege of introducing our guest today, Josh McNally so I will resist speaking about rugby even though I do have sympathies towards the sport and find it very exciting to be sharing a stage with a professional. I must admit I am more a Tigers fan than Bath or even Cardiff So I am glad Josh is at that end of the stage as I think as has about a foot advantage over me.

Earlier in the week I was at a conference with secondary Heads. I am not sure what a collection of Secondary Heads would be called....

……..Owls is Parliament, Elephants a Memory, crows ...... of course a murder and giraffes....... tower. Or how about a conspiracy of Lemurs. Love that.

Maybe a collection of Heads could be a policy or even a letter. However, I prefer a reward of Heads. Yes, cringy I know but it is genuinely a reward to work in this job alongside fellow professionals inside and outside the school. Most importantly I am rewarded by working with the incredible young people who we are here to celebrate this evening. Anyone will know who was there, that Star for the Night embodies everything that is good about education at Burford and how gushy I can get about what happens here.

That is not to say, maybe on a different day a punishment of Heads might seem very apt depending on which seat you find yourself.

Anyway, back to the conference. The focus of event was teenage Mental Health. A conversation very much for our age. Mental Health is a difficult area and certainly not for extended discussion this evening. There are differing views on how best to explore it in schools and very different responses amongst parents and students. I have no intention of being downbeat here or to say I have all the answers, yet I would like to pick out a couple of themes that came up during the talks on Monday.

Firstly, positive mental Health is strongly correlated with a sense of belonging and works in a virtuous circle, one reinforcing the other. Our speaker an expert in child and adolescent psychiatry at Oxford highlighted the importance of connections. Perhaps not revolutionary but at Burford such thinking affects how we see our role and links to our values.  

I will never relent in stressing them: Respect Participate Reach.

Respect, that sense of understanding and being alongside others creates the space for people to feel safe and provides the building blocks of belonging; Reach, a deliberately ambiguous term, covers reaching to be the best version of ourselves yet also reaching out for others and reaching in for strength.

Which leaves participate. Now a quick aside. If our speaker said one thing that stuck in my head more than anything else, it was the following.

The only facility available for handling anxiety is exposure to the situation causing it. Acknowledging some caveats for individuals with specific need and, though I know it is tough for people of all ages with challenges that we can only imagine, taking things on will ultimately be the only way forward. The key is the support framework behind it.

Irrespective of the importance to academic learning, attendance at school for this reason is an essential part of personal growth. Absence builds isolation and reverses the spin of the virtuous circle described earlier.

And so I come back to participate - the middle pillar of our three values.

It is with participation that the most ground is gained towards positive Mental Health. This ensures the spin of our circle goes in the right direction. Being with others in teams, casts, trips, bands and orchestras; building resilience by facing up to challenges such as matches, concerts, plays, expeditions or dare I say tests and exams; it is about building confidence by understanding what can be controlled (your own performance) and what can’t be controlled (the opposition or the weather or how your friends behave, the referees interpretation of the laws (not rules in rugby – yes I am one of those pedants) or even the questions in the test.

Participation is the middle of our three words for a very specific reason. Young people thrive by being involved with others in purposeful activities and we provide plenty. Please look at the programme or the video at the end of this event. I have provided the briefest of summary that will never do justice to our offer and the fabulous venues where they are experienced, from the classroom to trips, to the sports field to the concerts to the stage to the gallery to the gym.

As another aside please do buy tickets for our biannual dust up of the Sheldonian in December oh and the Christmas fayre just a few days before.

The second theme from the event was my hobby horse: social media.

I have written enough on the potential pitfalls of internet enabled mobile phones in the blogs over the last term so won’t dwell on it here. There is however no getting away from the correlation between increased incidence of Mental Health issues and the ubiquitous influence of social media. All I ask tonight rather than go further into it is that you check on the blogs at the beginning of the most recent Burfordians and respond to the questionnaire when it is sent in the new year.

Before we move on to the highlight of tonight’s proceedings, student achievement and our guest speaker, former student, Josh Mcnally I will conclude by stressing the importance of this wonderful community and the quite brilliant people in it. We do not exist without each other. We do not excel without each other, and we do not grow without each other. In conclusion Respect Participate and Reach.

I commend to you the Students of Burford School.

Finish

Thank you for attending this evening. Before you leave and before our video I want to offer a few words of gratitude. Endeavour combined with a lightness of touch makes for joy. It is in the collective pursuit of excellence that young people flourish. I hope you agree that this evening has been a triumph.

So, I applaud Mr Wilsden and Miss Skerten and their teams, Mr Staniforth and the site team, catering, cleaning, the teachers, teaching assistants and administration. Everyone has a part to play in making the magic happen today and every day. To provide the opportunities that the community benefits from and to nurture the school into the future.

Finally thank you to you for giving us the responsibility for looking after your children. We do not underestimate that gift.