ROSSALL SCHOOL

NEWSLETTER
Monday
th
15 November 2010
Headmaster
I’ve just been reading the silly stuff in the Sunday Times about ”Best Schools : the lists they don’t want you to
see.” I’m not sure who “they” refers to, and in any case the lists are entirely predictable and not at all interesting.
These are not best schools at all : they are schools where a focus on academic outcomes has created a demand
for a place at a school which focuses on academic outcomes. What is mildly interesting is that two of the “top”
schools are boarding schools, one with very high fees. League tables have been with us for 20 years and there
is no doubt some sense in which they have made people in schools aware of things they could do better. What
grieves me, of course, is the implication that the “bestness” of a school is exclusively the examination results,
because there is increasingly a strong opinion in the world---and not just because of Alan Sugar and Richard
Branson---that the contributions boys and girls can make to the future happiness and prosperity of the world are
not related to intellectual ability but to qualities of character : moral force, determination, the ability to work in
teams, and all the other stuff we’ve known about for years.

Mind you, the landscape is a disturbing one. On Thursday I had a speaking engagement in Liverpool: my train
couldn’t leave Lime Street station because another train had broken down; eventually a sad asthmatic train
appeared half an hour late; we all piled on, with no room even to breathe; we sat there for ten minutes, no
announcements were made, and then the sad asthmatic arthritic train creaked out of the station, and I found
myself reflecting on the fact that we invented the railways (did George Stephenson go to a Best School?) and
here I was nearly two hundred years later having a Third World experience in the home of heavy engineering. I
was on my way to dinner with the Vice Chancellor of UCLAN in Preston and we had a presentation on The
Effects of the austerity programme on employment and productivity in Lancashire (a discouraging twenty
minutes) and then the Vice Chancellor, despite having to make cuts of £42 million, gave us a rather wonderful
dinner. Tuition fee changes and University cuts will change the landscape for all our young people and my 16
year old daughter is asking me whether she should go straight into employment. Only the fish find this amusing.

A school is such a bubble that the realities of the outside world are kept safely at bay. Even the realities of the
violent weather provoke laughter because, as a famous politician once said, we are all in this together. I have
been working on the agenda for the Council meeting in ten days’ time. We are looking at extending the
refurbishment programme, developing our I.T. facilities, and updating and improving everything about our
Catering (this is a huge project and will make a vast difference). The catering project is important because it will
move us, I hope, into an area of greater choice and shorter queues (I made a vow when I first arrived that I
would always queue because everybody’s busy, but the queues are very slow at lunch). We have had
consultants in to look at the whole range of our food provision and I am excited about the possibilities. Council
will be pleased to hear about our success at getting more young local people into the school. As I have said
before the school does not look impressive from the road, but 120 children from local primary schools were
manifestly thrilled to be in the Square on Friday for Mark Pryor’s Code-breaking day: teams of four spent five
hours working on various quasi-mathematical challenges and went away very happy with what they had seen
and experienced. More about the school is getting into the local papers, and I have another date with Sally
Naden on Radio Lancashire in ten days’ time.

One of our agents in Germany told her candidates that if they came to Rossall they would be taught Latin by the
Headmaster. I am now getting growing numbers coming for Latin lessons: on Friday I even had a boy in the
group who didn’t know any Latin but had heard the lessons were fun! We are often told we lose pupils at various
levels because we don’t offer enough fun subjects. As a Classicist I’m suspicious of fun subjects, and I’m not
sure the Coalition is too keen on them either, though they seem to make an exception for Psychology which they
think will become useful as the population of these islands slides towards insanity. On that happy note I wish you
well from my lovely school, a best school and getting better.

Dr Stephen Winkley
Headmaster
Events Week 10
th
Mon 15 November 6.30 pm School Play rehearsal, Big School

Tues 16th November Please note: The Careers Fair has been rescheduled to take place on
1st February 2011 at 6.30 pm

Wed 17th November 6.30 pm School Play rehearsal, Big School

Thurs 18th November 4.00 pm Science Lecture, Laboratory 6

4.00 – 6.00 pm Junior Theatre School (Years 3 – 6)
5.30 pm Extended essay meeting for all Year 13 IB, Laboratory 7
6.30 pm Year 12 Academic Parents’ Evening

Fri 19th November 6.30 pm Farrell Society

Sat 20th November 10.30 am U12, U13, U14 rugby –v– QEGS, Blackburn (h)
1st XV U15 rugby –v– QEGS, Blackburn (a)

Sun 21st November 10.00 – 4.00pm School play technical rehearsal

7.00-9.00 pm Senior Theatre School