Once you have worked at Eton for 50 years you get your name engraved on a stone in School Yard. You’ve been here so long that now you will be here forever. It is a tradition that I love—and one we honour this summer as we bid farewell to Janet, our school office manager, who started at Eton back in 1972. Throughout many leaving events and vales it was highlighted how much her job, and to some extent the school, had changed over half a century; but she was clear that the most fundamental thing—the importance of the community—had stayed constant.
The second half of the summer term is my favourite period in the academic year for that very reason: it is a time when school communities come together to recognise what has been achieved. And, after the Covid challenges of the past two years (which saw the leavers of 2020 and 2021 cruelly denied their important rites of passage), this summer at Eton has been worth the wait. The school play and concert; the Bumps; the interfaith garden party; the CCF Tattoo; the Fourth of June (held on 18th June, obviously) complete with the Procession of Boats; perhaps the final Eton v Harrow match at Lord’s. And, who would have thought it, this year the boys even welcomed the return of actual exams…
But the highlight for me each year is Taking Leave. This is when I see each boy leaving the Upper Sixth individually to discuss his experience at the school. It is a big investment of time—there are 275 of them—but it is without doubt the best and most affirming thing I do each year.
As the next generation become adults in an increasingly fractured and turbulent world—both at home and abroad—it is all too easy to be pessimistic. The young often get a bad press these days, maligned as a snowflake generation who are lacking in resilience and overly quick to take offence. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth, as their response through Covid has demonstrated. Taking Leave always reminds me of the wisdom of youth (Etonians tend to speak their minds) and makes me proud that we are sending an incredibly impressive and principled group of young people into the world—young people who are diverse in thought as well as in background; who love history and tradition, but understand the need to balance the old and the new if a place like Eton is to stay relevant; who have a global outlook and want global experience (more than 50 Etonians head to North America this year for university); who want greater priority given to global issues (notably protecting our planet); and who are happy to celebrate both their own individuality and the differentness of others. And I know that the same applies to young people at schools up and down the country.
We face some serious challenges, but when I look at young people today, I think there is every reason to be optimistic.
Then Taking Leave led into Leavers’ Sunday and the head master’s address to a packed college chapel. Last year our senior chaplain stole my annual joke in his opening welcome (thanks, Rev!), so the pressure was on for some new material this time round (joke now copyrighted, so can’t be reproduced here). I ended by reminding the boys to take life seriously enough but not too seriously: “He believed in responsible fun.”
In that vein, like all England cricket fans, I’ve been thrilled to see the transformation “Bazball” has brought to our Test team’s fortunes. While it’s perhaps a little too simplistic to suggest that relaxing and having a laugh was all that was needed to turn Bairstow into Bradman or Leach into Warne, it does underline that we tend to think most clearly under pressure and perform at our best when we have a strong support network—and humour and laughter can be a compelling currency. “It’s great fun to be a part of,” said Joe Root after the record run chase against India, “it’s like being a kid again.” And it’s important that we don’t forget to allow kids to have fun at school, not just beyond school. That way, they’ll be much more likely to challenge themselves to do the things they can’t quite do yet.
Another benefit of the strong support network we see in good schools is that it offers young people a framework of stability and consistency and gives them the reference points they can come back to when the going gets tougher. At this time of political turmoil, I find myself asking if schools themselves would benefit from that same consistency from above. I have been head master of Eton for seven years and, at the time of writing, am now on my seventh education secretary (OK—one only lasted a day). By way of comparison, I am Janet’s fifth head master in 50 years.
Our national education system is critical to the future of our society. Leading it effectively, in the same way as leading a school, requires deep personal commitment, strong strategic awareness and a long-term plan. That is undermined when the leader constantly changes. Just as children benefit from stability, so too does our school system—and both would benefit greatly if education policy was given the longer timeline it deserves from our political leaders.
