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Prize Giving 2009
Guest Speaker - Professor Matthew Seymour MA (Cantab), MD (London), FRCP, Professor of Oncology, Headmaster's Address A while back, I was in the market in Halifax, standing in the queue by two children I’d never seen before as they were out doing their family’s shopping. Among the items evidently on their mother’s list was ‘cabbage’. Both children were looking puzzled as their eyes ran over the green-grocer’s stall, prompting one child to ask of the other: ‘What does a cabbage look like?’ This was, I must confess, somewhat of a defining moment for me in my awareness of just how far from our roots – almost literally – modern life can take us. Cabbage comes, soft and ready-shredded, in a little pile on a plate as an accompaniment to something else, doesn’t it? Its previous life-history is well known. Prior to the plate, it experiences a transitory phase on the serving-spoon, before which it has been sole inhabitant of the cooking-pot, in which it has been steamily incubated. But its true origin is the ‘fridge’. Whilst undeniably a product of a Western mind-set, ‘dependency creep’ is not limited to children – or even to people generally; it is also an in-built feature of modern automated systems. There was an interesting article on this in the New Scientist magazine recently, to which I am indebted for some of the following information. According to some international risk assessors, such systemic dependency creep is exposing us and our planet to some of the greatest risks of global disaster conceivable. What has become known as ‘the Carrington event’ refers to the most serious space weather event in history, which happened in 1859. Eight days of severe space weather, caused by particularly violent sunspot activity, gave rise to stunning auroras at the Equator, brought down telegraph networks and drove Victorian magnetometers off the scale. Today, lesser space weather events than the Carrington event - or, indeed, the explosion of a nuclear device over, rather than on, the ground - could wreak unimaginable havoc: being high powered, modern electricity grids around the globe would be especially vulnerable as they would act as huge antennae, channelling enormous direct currents into power transformers. What would make things worse, though, is these grids’ interdependence with the systems that support our lives. What doesn’t depend these days, either directly or indirectly, on electricity? Apart from the obvious – such as trains, lights and refrigeration - according to some calculations, with the power-grids down and extensively damaged by such an event, drinking water (which is electrically pumped) would run dry in half a day; delivery trucks would run out of fuel because that is pumped electrically, too, so supermarket shelves would be empty in a matter of days; back-up generators at key sites such as hospitals, would work only until their fuel ran out. Melted transformer hubs cannot be repaired, only replaced, and trained teams to do so are in short supply. Within a month, the handful of spare transformers would be used up; the rest would have to be built, which can take up to 12 months – but electricity is needed for their fabrication. Coal-fired power stations would run out of coal in 30 days or so and there would be no transport available to bring any more coal; nuclear power-stations are programmed to shut down in the event of serious grid problems and can’t restart until the power grid is up and running. Gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate so would not work. I do hope I’ve cheered everybody up with that scenario. What on earth has a doomsday story for our unwritten futures got to do with Prize Giving and two children in a market who don’t know what a cabbage looks like? The answer is this: we seem to have become, in our thinking and in the material infrastructures we have created for our own convenience and supposed protection, overly dependent on ephemerals which we take as givens. When his wife, Linda, died, Paul McCartney said something remarkable: ‘All we ever wanted for our children’, he said, ‘was that they had good hearts’. What a refreshingly wholesome and fantastically down-to-earth thing for one of the most famous men on the planet to want. Paul McCartney, it seemed, despite his meteoric rise to stardom, had kept his feet firmly on the ground and not lost sight of what really matters, at least from the point of view of his own children’s education. And that’s my point. What we strive above all else to do at Rishworth is ensure our basic values are right and that these are inculcated into our pupils. We, too, are about getting youngsters to stand on their own two feet so that they learn not to be overly dependent. This is the generation that will, I hope, start to rectify some of the mistakes my generation and previous generations have made; we owe it to them to equip them properly for the task. Here is a report on the outcome of Rishworth School’s efforts to that end: After 8 years in that office and many more served on the Board, The new Chairman is Dr. Brooks, former Vice Chairman, and the Vice Chairmanship is now held by Mr Mitchell, so the hands at the tiller remain highly skilled and utterly secure. Regrettably, the Right Reverend Tony Robinson, Bishop of Pontefract, has left the Board, given the growing demands of his many other commitments. We thank Bishop Tony for his support throughout his governorship and wish him well with his other responsibilities. Mrs Temperley retired after 5 years of distinguished headship at Heathfield, and we also said farewell to Mr Appleton, Mr Majkowski, Mr Davidson and Mr Taylor. The development of our facilities, which the Chairman has summarised, coupled with the development of human beings, both pupils and staff, trace the two main interwoven strands of our rich tapestry of progress. Here are some of the indicators of that progress this year. Firstly, exam results. At both GCSE and A level we had the best results we have ever had overall. This is of course very pleasing and does reflect well on both the students and the staff. It also points to the success of the emphasis placed here on the technical development of teaching and learning, through, for example, the extensive use of such facilities as the Lesson Observation Room, which provides such enrichment to our many self- and peer-review systems and to our in-house professional development opportunities. None the less, as I always say when I have the opportunity to do so, we care far less about global statistics, however good they are, than about how each pupil fares relative to his or her own potential. The teachers here know their pupils and their pupils’ strengths and limits. It is when we consider just how well each has done that we experience the truest sense of achievement – as much for the humbler grades attained by the student who was always going to find academic work hard as for the strings of A Grades achieved by the highest performers. Be that as it may, here are the statistics: GCSE Results 2009
A level Results 2009 With all grades cashed in,
In terms of points,
But it is also outside the narrow ambit of public examination results that many of our students’ richest development and greatest achievements can be seen. Here is a small sample of some individual distinctions and out-of-class activities from this year:
None of this would happen without the dedication of the staff. When I say ‘the staff’, I of course mean the teachers, but not only the teachers. Every section of our community, including the non-teaching staff, sets the very best of examples through dedication and hard work, through flexibility and co-operation, through the positive approach adopted, and through the care taken to treat everyone with friendliness and courtesy. I thank the support staff, along with the teachers, the governors, the PTA, the parents, and the pupils, for the part they all play in Rishworth’s continuing success. To conclude, the year has, then, been outstanding, but one very dark cloud hangs over us still, and always will. In June 2009, just days before end of the school year and only a very short while after he had concluded his time here as an Upper Sixth Former, we lost Andrew Curwell in a tragic accident while he was on holiday with friends. The esteem and affection in which Andrew was held in this school (as indeed he was in other communities where he played such a prominent role), became immediately evident as everyone sought to support each other in an overwhelming sense of loss. I am delighted that Andrew’s parents are here this afternoon. It is true, I think, to say that, of those qualities which we most seek to foster here at Rishworth, not least the soundness of heart and the capacity for self-determination, which were among those with which this Report began, Andrew was in so many regards an embodiment, to be remembered, to be inspired by and to be emulated.
Chairman’s Introduction and Report Lord Mayor, Lady Mayoress, Guest of Honour, Distinguished Guests, Good afternoon. I am delighted to be able to address you as Chairman of the Governors for the first time. It is traditional for the Chairman to refer to works and improvements in the School over the preceding year and I do not intend to depart from that practice, although on this occasion in addition I shall refer to two important matters, one now and one at the end. The first concerns my predecessor Mrs Dilys Whittaker to whom the Headmaster will pay tribute shortly. Dilys has served in the Office of Chairman of the Board with great distinction. The Governors wish to record both individually and collectively their gratitude for her wisdom and kindness over many years. I am very pleased to report that Dilys has agreed to continue to serve as a member of the Governing body. Now to my report on the Estate; I should say immediately that the Governors are indebted to our Bursar, Michael Schofield and his staff for their hard work and the care that they have afforded to the fabric of the School over this and previous years. We had planned to spend the summer attending to vital but less conspicuous areas of the School such as roofs, windows and boilers. We also wanted to increase classroom capacity and to ensure that our ICT provision was completely up-to-date with a newly fitted ICT room, strengthened network and internet upgrades. However, the demand for boarding places has been such that we had to make some significant changes to the boarding environment. With very little notice it was necessary to plan and execute alterations and the Bursar, the Site Services Manager, Paul Bishop and his team worked tirelessly throughout the summer holidays to ensure that the works were completed in time for the boarders’ return. For those of you who have seen it, I am sure that you will agree that the results are very impressive and, together with the ICT enhancements arranged by Neil Holroyd, Senior ICT Technician, we continue to offer excellent contemporary boarding accommodation to a standard which gives us a definite edge over the competition. There are some detailed individual works that I should record.
There have also been significant improvements at Heathfield, including rendering on the outside of the pool building, the replacement of the assembly hall roof, an upgrade of the mill ramp entrance and the replacement of the School server with an exchange server. These are a mix of strategic and incremental improvements and are necessary for the well-being of all who work and live in the School, both pupils and staff alike. The Governors have every confidence in the leadership and management of the School and we look forward to a bright future.
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