Many of the individual achievements of the last year are recognised in prizes awarded here and in houses today. We hope that academic efforts will also be rewarded through strong public exam results from two able cohorts who might surpass the record results of last year, which saw 90% of leavers achieve their first-choice university offer, and the College listed as a top IB world school. The St Andrew’s Centre was ready for their final term of revision and has continued to prove a transformative addition to the campus. Do take the opportunity to visit it today if you haven’t yet done so and make some time to linger in the Art and Design exhibitions, which are as vibrant, diverse and impressive as ever.
St Andrew’s was one of a range of initiatives envisaged to enhance the life of the mind when I arrived in Bradfield. An expanded Minerva lecture series was another. This year guests have visited Bradfield to talk on subjects ranging from intercultural understanding to exoplanetary science. Along with the pupil-inspired TiB talks, Science Week, Articulation, Inter House Maths, house general knowledge, Olympiads, debating, ESU and more, there have been many opportunities to pursue intellectual excitement in byways of personal enthusiasm as well as the highway of the curriculum.
Further learning opportunities have once more come through the Horizons team who, with the invaluable help of parents and friends, offer interview practice, advertising and marketing challenges, career reflections and windows on the world of work. The same is true of trips, which have included a tour of the Mini factory in Oxford, a visit to CERN, a science conference in Boston, a classics trip to Rome and Naples, a politics visit to Westminster, and a battlefields tour. Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau on Holocaust Memorial Day in virtual reality was made possible by Campus-XR, the edtech platform incubated at Bradfield by our own team and now spun out as an independent company. I am delighted to confirm that it is attracting a good deal of interest from educators and IT giant, Meta who intend to pre-load Bradfield’s product on headsets for the education market.
All this activity ensures our pupils are well informed about the world of work and hopefully have a better sense of proportion than the graduate who recently went for a job interview and responded to the HR Manager’s question about starting salary by stating, ‘I am hoping for about £1000,000 a year, depending on the benefits package.’ The Manager replied, ‘Well, what would you say to a package of eight weeks’ holiday, private healthcare, and a new car every 2 years, starting with say, a red Porsche?’ The graduate sat up straight and said, ‘Wow!!! Are you kidding?’ The interviewer replied, ‘Absolutely…but you started it.’
Bradfield pupils have a lot of fun in the classroom and learn a lot outside it, as well as vice versa. Indeed, the curriculum and co-curriculum combine to help them enjoy school whilst developing invaluable attributes for later life. Inquiry is sparked in the classroom, innovation nurtured by the creative arts, collaboration fostered in teams, communication skills honed through public speaking, open-mindedness developed through volunteering, and resilience grown in the CCF. Crucially, confidence is built in multiple ways for our diverse pupil body. A Bradfield education is about knowing and doing because we recognise it’s ultimately more important to know how to make ratatouille than to know how to spell it.
Once more this year, the collective experiences of Michaelmas Goose and House Singing, Remembrance and Carol Services, the Golden Egg and the Steeplechase, and the major shows and concerts have brought the community together. It has been an exceptional year for performance with an eclectic and challenging dramatic repertoire culminating in a great summer Shakespeare and multiple concerts including a wonderful community performance of Haydn’s Creation. More recently, the service of commemoration for our beloved former colleague Jeremy Ball proved an uplifting tribute to a man who enriched many lives, and this week’s 175 Gala was a joyful eclectic testimony to the rich creative talent of Bradfieldians past and present as well as the staff who inspire them.
The co-curricular sphere has also seen many team and individual successes. A second successive ISFA final and an ESFA semi-final for the boys’ football, national plate victory for senior girls’ squash, narrow defeat in the semi-final of the national netball cup, two cricket finals days for the girls, and multiple successes at the Ultimate Dance Championships are some of the team highlights. Eight pupils have represented their country in cricket, hockey and shooting, two have qualified for national showjumping championships, two were Berkshire badminton champions, five were selected for the England Hockey Talent Academy and another footballer has joined a distinguished list of recent leavers to be offered a professional contract.
It has also been a vintage year for Old Bradfieldian sport, over the course of which the cricketers did the double last summer retaining the main Cricketer Cup and winning its inaugural over 50s spinoff, the golfers won the prestigious Halford Hewitt trophy for the first time, and the footballers lost agonisingly in the semi-final of the Arthur Dunn Cup.
The celebration of the 175th anniversary of the College’s founding has brought many OBs back to Bradfield for the first time in years and has also been a wonderful team effort, including two fascinating histories, a visual timeline in Bloods passage (another must see before heading home today), obstacles reintroduced to the steeplechase, the splendid Gala, and even 175 umbrellas, wine and gin! Our 175 giving day galvanised the whole community in support of Bursary fundraising. Thank you so much to all those who supported this so generously.
Partnerships, outreach and charity work have continued to flourish with extensive fundraising activity for the Oscar Foundation (who will visit us again in October) and numerous other charity initiatives, including the collection of some 1300kg of Harvest produce for the West Berks Foodbank and 169 Christmas shoeboxes. In all, over £30k has been raised for multiple charities. Alongside this activity, initiatives like the Model United Nations events with local schools, visits to and from the Bradfield Club in Peckham, the Restless Triathlon, the Carwarden School adapted Olympics, the ABC to Read scheme, and our after school and community sports programmes have seen over 300 Bradfieldians working alongside nearly 1000 local young people, offering over 3000 hours of reading support, sports coaching and volunteering. A massive thank you to everyone involved.
Service to others is at the heart of much activity within school as well as beyond it. Pupil leadership is essential to the whole range of College activity. Senior pupils set the tone for the wider pupil body and they in turn are led by the Heads of House and Prefects. Once more, the JCR has been superb this year. They have been outstandingly led by the multi-talented Heads of School and Deputies. We will hear from Gemma and Alex later, but I would like to take this occasion formally to thank them, Anna and Jackson, and the whole JCR and Upper Sixth for their lead over the last year. The 173 leavers of the College’s 175th year have set a fine example; we wish them all the very best for life beyond Bradfield.
As well as our pupil leavers, a number of long serving staff are moving to pastures new. Pauline Kenyon and Keri Howells have been stalwarts of the Study Skills and Support Department for many years. Like Kirstie Parker, who leaves after 16 years teaching Moden Languages including a successful stint leading the IB, I suspect they are looking forward to taking holidays in term time. Maddie Best, who leaves us after filling multiple roles with distinction since she began here as a Graduate Assistant will not have that luxury as Assistant Head Teaching and Learning at Cranleigh, nor will Lawrence Beith, who is heading down the M4 to join his wife at Eton, having led the Economics department and the Close with great energy and enthusiasm. Among the teachers leaving after shorter stints, Liz Wells has made a huge contribution as Deputy Head Academic and now heads off to an even busier life as Senior Deputy at Sevenoaks. Last but not least of the teaching staff leavers, Phil Clegg has been Head of Biology and Sixth Form, and transformative champion of environmental sustainability. He leaves to take up a Business Development role at Alleyn’s after his third and longest stint at Bradfield, the first having been as a pupil.
I overheard the following exchange between two pupils last week: ‘With Phil and Chris leaving, the College is just not going to be the same,’ said one. ‘Who’s that?’ asked the other. ‘You know, Mr Clegg and Chris the crossing man,’ came the reply.
Chris Hill has been the welcoming face on the crossroads for over a decade. His unfailing good cheer sets a great example to the sleepy teenagers heading to breakfast, disarms the frustrated drivers waiting for them and is commented on by everyone who comes here for a job interview. Karen Henry who has worked so graciously in Crossways and College also steps down this summer, as does Wendy Dance who has been a key point of contact for Faulkner’s parents and massive support to the House team, and Yvonne Horner who has led the office services team who provide invaluable support to departments and families alike. Finally, we salute the 38 years’ service of David Doole in multiple capacities, ranging from outstanding maths teacher to data analyst extraordinaire. We wish these long-serving colleagues the very best for the future along with all the other teaching and operational staff who move on after shorter spells here.
