Well Ladies and Gentlemen we are finally all in here together with the cream of South Wiltshire and West Hampshire Youth – all 1,200 of them. Last year we couldn’t quite get in because of Grayson Perry. The year before, only Years 12 and 13 could come, and 12 months before that I had to record my speech on Youtube. Now Bishop’s students fill every corner of this magnificent building, so that every way I turn from here on the platform I am confronted with serried ranks of young faces. That’s a really good thing. I don’t take it – or this amazing event – for granted. Though there are seasoned campaigners in the nave and transepts who have seen it all before (pillars permitting of course!), there will also be many here this afternoon who are witnessing it all for the first time. Whatever your perspective I hope that you ‘get’ what this event is all about; the combination of magnificence, recognition of a shared endeavour and celebration of individual achievements. Whether our prize winners are in Year 8 or whether they are just about to depart for a far away place at the end of their Bishop’s story is of little consequence. What matters is the fact that we are finally all together to share the experience of Prize Giving and celebrate what we have all achieved – together – over the year just past.
This year has a unique place in literary history which I need to acknowledge, as very few schools have had a Nobel Prize Winner as a past member of staff. Between 1945 and 1962 William Golding taught at Bishop’s, completing his best-known novel ‘The Lord of the Flies’ in 1954, 70 years ago this academic year. There is a calculated poignancy in the fact that the BWS English Department will be adopting the book as a set text at GCSE this year. Golding won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, and I have a framed 1983 letter from Golding to Headmaster Glyn Evans on the wall of my office, Golding says this “with my advancing age the hundreds of faces have, as it were, fused into a single one of youth that is by no means unpleasant”. By repute he was a fine academic, a good musician but apparently a lousy teacher…but I do know what he was getting at.
Every school year is a mountain that has to be climbed, with the year panning out as a high ridge with summits to scale and chasms that have to be bridged. 2022-2023 proved to be no different; the usual steep ascent in September followed by a hugely busy time as autumn progressed. Nothing unusual in that, the school relaxing and expanding into a post-pandemic space that was proving to be bigger and more exciting than ever before. The sport, the music, the art, the enrichment, the hustle and bustle of a big school rediscovering what it can do. And then – after an interval of 16 years waiting for Godot – I received that long-expected phone call heralding the arrival of an inspection team within 24 hours. No-one who hasn’t been a Head can imagine the feelings generated by that call; that feeling that you are the only person, at that moment, who knows what is to come. The adrenaline tempered with more than a little foreboding as you think ‘What have I forgotten to do?’, ‘Who needs to know what and when?’ and ‘What do I need to say – and not say – to ensure that my school gets a fair crack? Two days of pressure follows, then two months of having a poker face as you know the outcome but few others do. Many tried to get the inside track, but I am happy to say that no one achieved success. The secret stayed secure until January when finally we were able to publish an outcome, which was more than satisfactory as you will know. We remain the only Grade 1 school in Salisbury, and one of a very select few in the South West of England. More importantly I was able to recognise the school – your school – in the description that the report offered. My staff carried through their part superbly, the students involved were an absolute credit and we can all – staff, governors, students and parents – be very proud of what we achieved. A job well done, and of course we have already started working to improve still further.
I had a visitor recently who, after a tour with a couple of sixth formers joined me for a cup of tea. He asked me what was next in the grand plan. I was tempted, of course give the flippant answer about hanging up my boots but didn’t. Instead I pointed out just how much has changed at Bishop’s over the past 5 years or so, and made the point that stability would be good for a little while. We still need to build capacity in pastoral care and student support, to make our systems for admin and monitoring fully fit for purpose and to ensure that we have everything in place to accommodate the changes that have rolled out in such an apparently seamless way. A building on the Bishopgate Site – our Bishopgate Site – will literally build more capacity for our bigger school.
Just thinking about the development of the school together with the complications of Covid is an intimidating prospect, and it is amazing how quickly memories evaporate. There are 300 more students in school than there were pre-pandemic, and the growth of the Sixth Form has been more dramatic still as it has almost doubled in size over the same period of time. With the benefit of hindsight I wonder how on earth we managed to launch our coeducational sixth form intake at the height of Covid, with recruitment through lock down and our first girls joining when societal restrictions were at their height. And yet look where we are now; 400 in the Sixth including around 150 girls, and with university entrance hitting new records in terms of quality as well as quantity. 20 boys and girls to Oxford and Cambridge this year, 15 medics and around 70% to Russell Group universities. That’s truly impressive stuff, and huge credit goes to the Sixth Form Office Team, led by Zoe Lambard, our Careers Crusader Sally Armstrong and that big team of teachers and mentors who do so much to help our boys and girls excel and aim so high.
Looking more widely the transformation that Bishop’s has gone through by design has influenced the shifting of the tectonic plates in education throughout the local area, particularly at Post-16 level. A consequence is that student choice for sixth form education is broader and more refined that was the case in the past. A decade ago there was just the choice of either Bishop’s or South Wilts if a student was looking for A level provision of any size; failing that, a lengthy bus or train journey to a college awaited, which would be tough going in the winter months especially. Now there is a clearly differentiated hierarchy to choose from, and the steady rise in the grades required for Year 12 entry at Bishop’s has put clear blue water between this school and other providers. One size fits all is no longer true – now students can choose, find what they want and need and (most importantly) be happy and fulfilled in what they do. That is real progress for Salisbury.
The great river of time flows on remorselessly and we need to keep our own bit part of history firmly in context. Our last year played out against a backdrop of political chaos and choppy economic waters. Those factors are not going away just yet and, though I sense no local threat to academic selection an impending election with a likely change of government means that nothing can be taken for granted. The school will need to do all that it can to raise environmental awareness and a sense of responsibility among our boys and girls, and the continuing growth of multi academy trusts may give pause for thought in due course. In short there’s plenty still to do; like most great ships of state though the course is set a strong and steadying hand on the tiller will be needed still over the years to come.
I was struck by a presentation that greeted me at one of the many schools that I visit to talk about the Bishop’s Sixth Form. This was an 11-16 school in Winchester where the boys and girls do well every year at GCSE, but because there is nothing beyond Year 11 aspiration – or perhaps the lack of it – is an issue to be tackled on a daily basis. In this case a quote from Michelle Obama was centre stage “The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them”. It was a gift for me; as you can imagine I was able to weave it seamlessly into the message that I was delivering to around 350 Year 11’s that morning. But it wasn’t just a sales pitch, and I wasn’t just fishing far from home in that assembly hall. That quote, that aspirational statement of intent fits perfectly into the ethos here at Bishop’s. Aim high, work hard, enjoy life to the full and you will get there. That surely is what John Wordsworth had in mind over a century ago, and, as I have said in tonight’s programme that 133 year-old mission will continue to August 2024 and beyond. John Wordsworth’s idea, his school, his beacon still shines bright today in the heart of our city, and it lights the nave and the transepts in this place tonight too. The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work hard for them. Those words could have been written by the founder of the school just as much as by the former first lady, and I am sure that it would have been echoed by one person who sadly is not with us here tonight – wonderful Erin Lauder, one of our first cohort of girls who joined us to aim high – you can see her picture on page 49 of your programme. She’s very sadly missed.
In conclusion - to governors, staff and parents - thank you very much for giving me time and space to speak – tonight and for the past 2 decades or so. And to the most important people here, our Bishop’s Boys and Girls, prize winners or no, remember these words that first appeared 400 years ago this year in Shakespeare’s first folio edition of Julius Ceasar:
‘It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves’.
Yours is the future – this year and those that follow. Work hard, do your best, aim for the stars and be proud to belong so that future Prize Giving celebrations can be still more awe inspiring. I wish every one of you every good fortune; may the sun be on your face and the wind at your back through 2023-2024 and the years to come. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing I’ll be rooting for you…
Thank you for listening everyone, and enjoy the rest of the evening.
SDS
2023 Prize Giving Programme
