Scotch College

It’s about challenge and support

We want each boy to be ready to challenge those things which need challenging and support those which need supporting, guided by the values and beliefs of a Scotch education.

It is a sign of the times that our language struggles to cope with a continued desire to ‘raise standards’ and classify ‘success’. Superlatives abound and words like ‘legend’, ‘hero’ and ‘awesome’ take on new meanings. So it is fitting, while writing for ‘Great’ Scot, that I pause to consider what I mean when I say Scotch is a ‘Great’ School.

There are, I think, certain necessary conditions:

• a Great School sets high expectations in all it takes on, and supports its students along the journey with relationships forged at the level of the individual;
• a Great School promotes curiosity, individuality and independence of thought, while inculcating a strong sense of compassion, community and belonging;
• a Great School is happy in its skin, standing true on its beliefs and values while striding forward with confidence and purpose;
• a Great School has a staff with the desire and ability to constantly seek to improve what they do;
• a Great School is an exciting, fun place in which to live and learn.

But, perhaps most importantly, a Great School stands on the achievements of its boys long after they have taken off their school ties and sat the final examination; be they achievements in a profession, in business, by holding public office, through service to others or as a husband and father.

At the start of the year, I received the sad news of the passing of a former colleague, Jim Neyland. Jim was an outstanding educator with a passion for both the beauty of mathematics and the power and adaptability of young minds. His obituary in New Zealand’s Dominion Post noted that ‘he abhorred the system’s obsession with assessment, once checking every education book in the library for mentions of the word. Up until the 1980s three books out of hundreds mentioned assessment. Afterwards it popped up in every book’.

I was reading Jim’s obituary the day the Government’s MySchool website went live, and have no doubt a wry smile was being cast my way.

I am a supporter of the national testing of literacy and numeracy and of the MySchool website, which packages data for the public arena, because, on balance, I believe them to be in the best interests of the most important people – the boys and girls who attend Australian schools. But mine is a qualified support; the qualification based, both on practical experience in the UK, and what we know to be the key factors in bringing about improved outcomes in education.

The national instrument of testing (NAPLAN) tests provide an important measure, but they are not the measure of an education. And this is where the danger lies. If parents, public servants and politicians start to believe they are all-encompassing, then many head teachers (whatever the additional information included on their websites) will have little room to move as ‘teaching to the test’ dominates the landscape as the only way of bringing about ‘improvement’. The curriculum will narrow as schools lose time and place for curiosity, questioning, flair and creativity. And, as is the way with many measures of ‘achievement’ and ‘excellence’, we quickly become alienated from the fact that the tests and classifications are our own creation; that they are an attempt to deliver some form of meaningful snapshot, and are not the Holy Grail of an education.

Once a national curriculum, a vehicle for national testing (NAPLAN), and a national vehicle for reporting (MySchool website) are in place, all the tools to control schooling are in the hands of those who want to measure and compare as the sole means of driving school improvement. The experience of the UK shows that the power to dictate ‘what is best’ can become seductive, with directive after directive flowing from those in offices to those in classrooms.

Now measurement and transparency certainly have their place, but we mustn’t get the cart before the horse. If we do, then ‘standards’ are put in place for all schools to achieve; head teachers push staff and students harder and harder at the tests at the expense of art, music, sport – in fact, just about anything not linked to the tests, including the more abstract components of mathematics and literary analysis.

Boys and girls are continually told they must do better in the assessments and, ultimately, they, and their teachers, read into this that they are not good enough. National standards and targets are set, and, in the government’s drive to see them achieved, downward pressure is brought to bear on the very grade classifications which define the scale, putting the integrity of the whole process in question.

And there is another very real weakness: the attempt to conduct year-on-year analysis of a cohort in each school rests on the fragile assumption that the cohort itself remains constant. While this might be a fair enough assumption for many schools, Scotch included (though intake years pose a difficulty), some schools live in a world where their roll is anything but stable.

The process does identify where money needs directing, but, by itself, it doesn’t address the real issue of improving the quality of teaching and teachers, and the relationships they are able to forge with their students through breadth and opportunity across the whole curriculum; and in that I include plays, sport, public speaking, music and camps.

At Scotch, we want to improve each boy’s opportunity to discover interests and talents; and we want to improve his outcomes, both in those things which are measured, and those for which these are formative years: his sense of self; interaction and dealings with others; engagement with family and with communities near and far. We want each boy to be ready to challenge those things which need challenging and support those which need supporting, guided by the values and beliefs of a Scotch education.

The commitment and talent of our staff in this cause were evident once again leading into, and over, the summer vacation, with 580 boys being guided through a range of activities by some 60 members of staff. There were opportunities for boys to discover and pursue individual and group interests while strengthening relationships through positive interactions. This is what works in the bush and at Cowes; for overseas trips; on cricket tours, swimming and rowing camps and with tennis exchanges; and in gatherings for our pipes and drums. And it is what works in the classroom.

Though the path lies through different terrain, the journey being taken by the elders and principal of Tiwi College is based on the same values, as they look to create both an educational facility and a home from home for the boys and girls of Melville and Bathurst Islands. They have a clear vision of what they want – Tiwi College to be a Great School – and we are committed to being part of that journey.

A link which began with a football match 14 years ago has grown to see Tiwi College and Scotch working to provide learning opportunities for the students and staff of both schools.

The latest development (made possible through the generosity of members of the Scotch community), will see members of Scotch staff heading north for a week during holidays or periods of long service leave, and I have no doubt they will both contribute and learn much during their stay. Their priority will be assisting with the teaching of literacy and numeracy, but the hope is that by doing so they will contribute to something much bigger.

Education may not be a sufficient condition in bringing equity and prosperity to communities, but it is, I believe, a necessary one. Or, in the words of Brian Clancy (development and risk management advisor for the Tiwi Land Council) reflecting on the work of the Tiwi elders: ‘It’s all in place: job opportunities; home ownership; improved healthcare. Now we need the school to deliver a culture of participation. There is no plan B’.

It has to be good for young people to have their schools open to public scrutiny and it is right, I think, for a government to form a view of what it means for a school to ‘fail’ its students; and it must be right for governments to seek information as to which schools are in greatest need of financial support. We do need triggers for action and change, and it is good for all in education to know we are working in a transparent environment which keeps our minds fixed on improving outcomes for our students.

But we must be mindful of what it is we actually want from our education system and of who is holding the reins, always bearing in mind that the answer lies in good teaching and good relationships. Results on tests are of use, but on their own they are no measure of curiosity, tolerance, creativity, health, compassion, empathy, resolve, humour ... or even of an intellect. GS