insideKENT Magazine Issue 73 - April 2018 | Page 146

EDUCATION
WHY PARENTS MAKE THE DECISION
TO INVEST IN THEIR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION
BY MIKE PIERCY, HEADMASTER AT THE NEW BEACON SCHOOL, SEVENOAKS
THERE ARE TWO FUNDAMENTAL REASONS WHY PARENTS MAKE THE
BRAVE (AND EXPENSIVE) DECISION TO INVEST IN THEIR CHILDREN’S
EDUCATION IN AN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL.
Firstly, the staff pupil ratio and class sizes. It’s
all about people, and it’s all about the
individual. At The New Beacon all boys prep
school, the staff pupil ratio is 1:10. Class sizes
are 14-18 pupils, which means there is
significant attention to each boy. Getting to
know each character – his strengths, his
enthusiasms, his learning style, his fragilities
– is a central part of the teacher-pupil
relationship.
Secondly, a good school will offer breadth; a
one-stop shop, stimulating every part of the
brain. The academic curriculum is a ‘given’,
central to any school, but there should be so
much more. Take music for example. The DfE
introduction of the EBacc, with its questionable
view on the arts and music in particular, has
added to an ongoing decline in music
education in schools. Education should
stimulate and feed the entire brain; I recall
clearly from the delightful film, Educating Rita,
the line: ‘Wouldn’t you just die without
Mahler?’
In 2016, the World Economic Forum published
a report entitled New Vision for Education:
Fostering Social and Emotional Learning
through Technology. This report outlined the
skills and characteristics that are increasingly
required in the workplace. Significant
emphasis is placed on core skills such as
numeracy, literacy and technical literacy, but
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the social emotional competencies and
character qualities will win the day – critical
thinking, problem solving, creativity,
collaboration, initiative, resilience.
So, what can we do in schools? Good teaching,
of course, and a strong academic core, but
providing the chance to enhance those social,
emotional qualities is a prerequisite. Some
examples from The New Beacon: coding,
chess, philosophy and ethics, design
technology, art, music composition,
animations activity. Returning to character
development, teamwork is not innate, it needs
to be experienced and taught through sports
(and a wide variety of them), problem solving
activities, musical ensembles and the like.
Competition is not a dirty word. Ask any parent
about their workplace, the human and
business competition they encounter, and
there will always be an anecdote. To remove
competition from education is tantamount to
failure to educate. The secret is to provide
competition with safety nets; to prepare pupils
for failure and to give them the emotional
tools to facilitate recovery. To help give our
boys perspective, I tell them that no matter
how successful they are in whatever sphere,
at some stage there will be someone
better. That approach discourages arrogance,
breeds humility and cultivates a measured,
appealing confidence.
Professor Lord Robert Winston recently came
and gave a lecture at The New Beacon. As one
might expect, he inspired the audience from
twelve different schools about science and
medicine. He also encouraged the pupils to
embrace the arts – he himself a former
chairman of The Royal College of Music. He
talked of theatre and literature. He encouraged
pupils to follow the things that interest
them. And, above all, he emphasised the
importance of humility; of emotional
intelligence. A school that gives pupils the
broadest experience and which puts at the
heart of its mission the individual development
of each student is the one we would choose
for our children.
NEW BEACON OPEN DAY
Friday 25th May
2-3.30pm
Register at
www.newbeacon.org.uk/openday
New Beacon School
Brittains Lane
Sevenoaks
TN13 2PB
01732 452131
www.newbeacon.org.uk
thenewbeacon
NBS7OAKS