Chronicle Spring 2022

SPRING 2022 | VOLUME XLI I | NUMBER 683

CHRONICLE

Alastair Chirnside On promoting scholarship, sustaining excellence and fostering a culture of service

Felicia Skene The untold story of the philanthropist, activist and champion of St Edward’s

Showtime Performances and exhibitions to excite and to inspire

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The Teddies Values St. Edward’s was founded on Christian principles, which continue to provide the foundation for our values and which, through Chapel, remain central to the life of the School. Integrity: the value of honesty to ourselves and to each other – we seek to earn and to deserve the trust of others, by acting rightly and justly; – we take responsibility for our words and actions; – we acknowledge our mistakes and we learn from them. Kindness: the value of love – we feel and show compassion for others, always listening and seeking always to understand; – we value, respect and include others without regard for differences; – we treat others as we would have them treat us. Courage: truthfulness to our values at the testing point – we stand up for what we believe to be right, speaking up for ourselves and for others; – we seek to bring out the best in others; – we persevere with resilience, with forgiveness and with patience.

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Word from the Warden It gives me enormous pleasure to introduce my first issue of the Chronicle as Warden of St Edward’s.

It is, as ever, a packed issue. Our Head of Communications Tracy van der Heiden has, rightly, called me to account on my plans for the School and you can read the outcome of our conversation from page 4. In this piece, you will learn of just some of the ways in which I plan to make St Edward’s the leading co-educational school in the country. Our strategic focus on scholarship, excellence and service is amply illustrated in Rachel Moffatt’s engaging piece about our community partnerships on page 30, in David Flower’s informative piece about the development of the curriculum on page 12 and in our in-depth focus on the arts from page 14. The North Wall is an outstanding feature of the School, allowing us to mount important exhibitions such as Changing the Story (see page 14), which so enriched our pupils’ education, and impressive performances such as Sweeney Todd , which, as School Organist Gabriele Damiani says in his excellent review on page 22, is ‘fiendishly difficult’ and a ‘colossal undertaking’. It is to the enormous credit of all involved that the show was a triumph, without doubt the best performance I have ever seen in a school context and significantly better than many I have seen on the professional stage. It is fascinating

alongside these features to hear from Co-Directors Ria Parry and John Hoggarth about The North Wall’s dual role: it is both an important hub for school Drama, Dance and Art, and an arts centre serving the wider Oxford community and beyond. For context, it is good to be reminded by George Fenton, former Teddies pupil and Governor – now award-winning composer and North Wall Trustee – about the thinking and the people behind the creation of the arts centre some 15 years ago. Beyond all this, there are features on important areas of school life such as a spotlight on our work on Relationships and Sex Education on page 34, an update on our sustainability agenda on page 36, and regular features such as profiles and sports reports. Most notably, you will see we open this issue, on the opposite page, with our newly-expressed school values, about which we have talked a great deal in School. These are important values, central to our ethos and to our future. I am certain you will find plenty to enjoy. Alastair Chirnside The front cover shows the newly-opened Christie Centre, recently shortlisted for a prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects’ Award.

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Sasha Wolcough, Chimdi Okonkwo and Saskia van der Heiden prepare to speak in Assembly for International Women’s Day in March

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Alastair Chirnside: The First Chapter Head of Communications Tracy van der Heiden speaks to the Warden about his first six months at St Edward’s.

What have you enjoyed most about your first few months? The best part of the last six months has been getting to know the pupils. Teaching my Lower Sixth Latin class every week and so far just over half of the Shell Classics sets on rotation, hosting lunch for House year groups in the Shell and Lower Sixth, visiting a boarding house every week, talking on the playing fields and at the boathouse, hosting birthday celebrations for pupils turning 18 – those opportunities for getting to know the pupils who make the School as great as it is have been the highlights of my first six months.

You’ve made it clear that scholarship – and by that you mean academic endeavour, engagement and curiosity – is one of our highest priorities. How have you and your colleagues progressed this agenda? Quickly is the short answer. David Flower has done a huge amount of work on this area of our strategy in a very short time (see page 12). There are two parts to scholarship, and to my answer to your question. The first is about the routine business of schoolwork. Teddies has always had a strong culture of independence,

Is Teddies as you expected? I had very great expectations when I started as Warden in September but the last six months have been even better than I expected. We talk a lot about the warmth of the school community, and that has absolutely been my experience of the School. The way in which pupils and colleagues support each other, look out for each other – it’s very special. You can see the strength of the community every day in the Quad – when I look out from my study window, it is very rare to see people walking by themselves.

The Warden with Maximilian Geddes and Aurea Frei

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Historians of the Month in November: Cecily Brown, Kaïa Christensen, Bella Darby, Evie Cullum, Xan Lytle and Charles Yang. Also selected for November but not pictured were Olivia Ainsleigh Jones and Elsa Hall

of pupils taking responsibility for their own learning. We are keeping that culture throughout the School, and especially in the Sixth Form, but we have put more structure into the Lower School. We have introduced a prep timetable and we have brought back prep diaries to make it easier for pupils to take responsibility for planning their work, and easier for their Tutors and their HMs to know that they are getting it done. The second part of scholarship is about interest in ideas, in developing a lifelong interest in the life of the mind. We have opened up the Academic Forum, so that it is accessible to everyone, and we have increased the number of opportunities in the super-curriculum, the debates and lectures taking place every week in the school calendar, and we have promoted them much more actively. Looking ahead to next year, we are looking to fill the programme in the evenings with talks by pupils, teachers and visiting speakers. We will also be launching a reading strategy, making time in the week for every pupil to read and making even greater use of the exceptional facilities in our Library.

Those two elements come together in the Honorary Academic Scholarships that we have introduced. We celebrated the first of those new awards in the last assembly of the Autumn Term, and we will do the same at the end of this term and next. It is inspiring for pupils to see academic industry and achievement celebrated, and to know that those and other honorary awards are available to them throughout their school careers. It is not all about scholarship though – excellence and service, the other two parts of our strategy are equally important. Scholarship, excellence and service – SES, just like St Edward’s School. It’s what we want to make Teddies famous for. How are you ensuring that all pupils can achieve their full academic potential? For me, it is not just about pupils fulfilling their potential, it’s not just about gaining excellent grades in exams. The most important part of a Teddies education is that pupils expand their potential while

they are here with us – and not just in their academic work but in other areas of school life too. On the academic side, there are two practical ways in which we do that – the first long-established and the second new. The first is about people. All our teachers work as Tutors, sharing with HMs the responsibility for monitoring pupils’ progress, for making sure that they are fulfilling all of their potential. We are going to make more time available for tutoring next year, so that there is enough time in the week for conversations about academic work. The second is about systems and about the way in which we can make better use of data. We are in the process of appointing a Lead Analyst, whose job it will be to make available – not only to Tutors but to every teacher – the information that we have about pupils’ progress. The Lead Analyst’s first task will be to build a sector- leading tracking and monitoring system, so that we can see when a pupil might be starting to fall short of their potential and start to talk with them and with their parents.

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or representing your peers at a meeting of the new year-group forums, or speaking for your House at a meeting of the new Sustainability Committee, or working as a Prefect, a Head of House or a Peer Listener. Outside school – Beyond Teddies – it is about the programme for partnership work which is building up quickly. From September, all pupils in the Sixth Form will have 90 minutes in their timetables every week for partnership work in local primary schools, care homes and charities – and we are working on plans to provide similar opportunities for every year group in the next five years. You want to make more of our location in Oxford – how do you plan to do this? Those plans for our programmes for service are a good example – they wouldn’t be possible if we needed to travel 30 minutes in a minibus first! The greatest opportunity for us is academic, to make more of our proximity to the university. We are working on three initiatives. The first is a programme of Oxford Lectures across all departments, two-day residencies in the School for a visiting academic to lead workshops and to give lectures to pupils, staff and parents from Teddies and from other local schools. The second is the introduction of Oxford Days into our calendar, making time for every pupil, in every year group and in every subject, to be taught once every year not in the classrooms of the School but in the colleges, faculties, museums and galleries of the city. The third is the appointment of Oxford Fellows, graduate or postgraduate students to work part-time alongside our teachers, sharing their expertise and their passion for their subjects. The first of those new appointments will be made for September, and we’re aiming to run our first Oxford Lectures and Oxford Days later this academic year. You’ve talked about aiming for excellence in every aspect of the School – how is this manifested in plans for the next few years? Excellence is about buildings and facilities, but it is also about the soft structures that make a school great. For the first, we are in the process of finalising a ten-year development plan for the estate, identifying where we need to create new facilities or expand our existing buildings. The obvious priority there is our facilities for girls’ sport,

Julie Curtis, Professor of Russian Literature at Wolfson College, Oxford, lectures the Fifth Form on Gogol’s The Government Inspector

‘Children need to be happy’ was a point you made in your interview for Teddies TV – can you say something about pastoral care at the School and how you are looking to continue to develop this fundamental aspect of school life? Even before I applied to be the 14 th Warden, I knew that Teddies had a great reputation for the warmth and friendliness of the community, and that reputation really is deserved. It doesn’t happen by itself though – it happens because the pupils here feel so well supported by the school and by their parents, working together. We haven’t found any secrets to happiness and we never will, because it is so personal. But there’s no doubt in my mind that happiness comes from a feeling of belonging, from knowing that others are looking out for you, from being on top of events rather than just responding to them, and from a feeling of moving forward in your life. The pastoral structures at Teddies mean that pupils can see the support available to them, especially with the House teams so visible all the time and with more than two thirds of our teachers living onsite. We’re aiming to increase that number to 80% over the next five years and eventually to be able to accommodate all our teaching staff, so that our pastoral care can be properly universal. Our work on developing the academic structures for pupils is important here too. We are working on plans to change the

shape of the school day in September, to protect time for prep in the evenings so that all pupils can keep on top of their work without feeling that it is taking them away from all the other opportunities available to them. We are also making two new appointments for September. Virginia Macgregor will be our first Director of Wellbeing, and she will take our programme for Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education and expand it to become a wellbeing curriculum spanning all areas of school life. We are also in the process of appointing for the first time a School Psychologist, who will manage our counselling provision and who will provide a further layer of expert help for pupils when – as inevitably happens for all of us from time to time – things are not going so well. You’ve said that service is very important to the School’s ethos – what does this mean in practice? Service is an attitude of mind, putting others before ourselves, and like everything else it can be learnt at school. And like everything that we learn at school, it has benefits for us too. Practically, service can happen in two ways, the first inside the school and the second outside it. At Teddies, it is about pupils doing things for each other – whether that is helping your HM to supervise the corridors at bedtime,

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wellbeing. The Teddies Talks series on pastoral themes will provide the model on which we will build, just as the Shell dinners of previous years have provided the model for the invitations which Zannah and I are looking forward to extending to all parents every year. It’s the 25th anniversary of being fully co-educational this year, and the 40th anniversary of the first Sixth Form girls arriving at the School. Why is co-education so important in modern education? Every child is different, every parent’s decision about their education is unique, and there are great schools educating boys and girls separately – so co-education is not a precondition for a successful school or an excellent education. At the same time, it’s very unlikely that anyone opening a new school today would want to open anything other than a co-educational school. From all that we read in the newspapers and see around us in society, it is clear that we need more togetherness, more diversity, more integration. We certainly don’t need more separateness or more exclusivity. The purpose of education is to prepare children to take their places in society and to lead successful and fulfilling lives.

especially as we are aiming for an equal balance between boys and girls in five years’ time. The first diggers will be onsite in the autumn. The plan covers much more than sport though – new teaching spaces, better reception facilities for visitors and for visiting teams, less traffic and more security on the Field Side, more accommodation for staff. For the second, there are so

many plans that they would make up a Chronicle article by themselves. One good example is the way in which we engage with parents – we are changing the way in which we report on pupils’ progress and we are creating new opportunities for dialogue with parents about the most important aspects of their children’s education, about their development as people, about their

Deputy Head Academic David Flower gives a talk on Malcolm X’s visit to Oxford in 1964 as part of Academic Forum – an engaging series of evening talks by staff and visiting speakers open to all pupils

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Emotional intelligence is a critical for that, and children graduating from a co- educational school will simply have more points of social reference: they will have seen more men and women among the staff as role models; they will have looked up to older girls and older boys together as role models in the school community; they will have seen equality, diversity and inclusion every day; they will be more ready for life in the real world. How are you promoting equality, diversity and inclusion at St Edward’s? That’s a question for a whole article, not one answer in an interview! I’ll try to give you a sense of our work on promoting EDI. The first step has been to harness the passion and interest of pupils, for whom these are rightly such important issues. We created in September two separate EDI groups, one for staff and one for pupils. They are both chaired by Rachel Bellamy, the Deputy Head Pastoral, who leads our

work on EDI in the management team, and they meet regularly – in fact, the level of interest among pupils has been so great that they have been meeting every week since September. Those groups have two purposes: firstly to get the views and ideas of the whole school community about the ways in which we can do more and better to make Teddies more equal, more diverse and more inclusive; and, secondly, they help us to hold ourselves to account as a management team, by providing feedback on the work that we are doing, for example, on the curriculum and on the recruitment of staff. Teddies is well known for its culture of enthusiastic participation across all areas of the School. What plans do you have to ensure that this continues? The range and level of participation by pupils at Teddies is one of the School’s greatest strengths, and I absolutely want that to continue. Self-agency – the willingness and

the ability to get started on a project or an activity, to persevere, and to see it through to completion or to a high level – that’s one of the most important qualities for pupils to take away from their time at school. The St Edward’s Award is the centrepiece of our plans in this area. It will be introduced in September, and it will provide a framework for pupils, working with their Tutors and their HMs, to track their involvement in school life and their progress through their school careers. It will cover academic work, super-curricular engagement, cultural activity, sport and service – as they reach certain levels of participation and engagement in the Shell, in the Middle School and in the Sixth Form, pupils will gain credit towards Blue and Gold awards. At their last Gaudy, we’ll celebrate pupils’ graduation from school – some of them with three golds to their credit, all of them ready for the world beyond Teddies. Are your family enjoying being part of the Teddies community? What do you all enjoy about being in Oxford? The opportunity to live and work here was one of the attractions for me in applying to be the 14 th Warden, and it has been great to be back in Oxford. Mary and Lizzie are really enjoying the Dragon – although I think I have enjoyed my reminiscences about the Dragon of the late 1980s much more than they have! We’ve all enjoyed being able to shop in the Covered Market, walk on Port Meadow, visit the Ashmolean and have supper at Brown’s, all without getting in the car. Oxford is an amazing city, and we are very lucky to live here. But, to come back to my answer to the first question, it is the warmth of the Teddies community that we have enjoyed more than anything over the last six months. It is not just that there is so much to enjoy in the life of the School, from the excitement of close matches on the playing fields to the thought-provoking lectures in the Olivier to the brilliance of Sweeney Todd , the Dance Show and the Choral and Orchestral Concert. There are also so many friendly, committed and inspiring people to enjoy it all with. That’s been true for Zannah, Mary, Lizzie and me, and I hope it’s true for all the readers of the Chronicle , pupils, staff, parents and OSE – all of us enjoying Teddies together.

Olivia Olisagu in a Biology lesson

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Big in Japan

Sub-Warden Tony Darby leaves at the end of the academic year to become Founding Principal of Rugby School Japan. We asked him to look back at his time at Teddies before he embarks on the adventure of a lifetime: launching a brand new school.

fantastically rewarding seeing the pupils at their very best, performing in a concert in London, or giving their all against local opposition down on the sports pitches, or watching an outstanding production such as Sweeney Todd . But most of all it was those daily interactions with some outstanding, hugely dedicated colleagues, alongside many delightful and engaging pupils that have made me realise just how much of a real privilege it has been to work for five years at Teddies. I will miss it.

I remember well the thrill of being offered the Sub-Warden position and the sense of excitement I had about joining the Teddies community in September 2017. I had visited on lots of occasions prior to joining, and it had always felt such a relaxed, nurturing and thriving boarding environment. Exactly the sort of school that I wish to replicate in Tokyo. Once the fog of the first few months began to lift, I came to realise that the role of the Sub-Warden was that of chief organiser, planner and someone in the background who can smooth out the inevitable bumps in the road, both internal and external, that often appear from nowhere in a busy boarding school. And there have been a decent number of bumps these past few years. The most notable of these issues came in March 2020 when then Warden Stephen Jones and the senior management team took the momentous decision to shut the School with immediate effect due to the unfolding Covid pandemic. I remember the early morning meeting vividly. I had many questions about an unfolding crisis, not least the question as to whether this really was an existential threat to the School. To put it into context we didn’t have any real knowledge or understanding of the virus, certainly no sense of a vaccine, and more immediately we knew that it would take all of us, staff and pupils, some time to get used to online schooling. Thankfully the Easter holiday provided some much-needed time to plan the Summer Term. Five years on from my appointment and there have been huge developments in terms of new buildings and changes in personnel, but I have come to understand that it will be the friendships and working within a fantastic community that I will miss the most about Teddies. In a busy boarding school, each day can feel like a week, and yet a term goes by so quickly, but it will be the little

things that I will look upon with a nostalgic glance backwards. So, I will miss the office on the Quad, which was a very obvious window into the lives of all the pupils, and rest of the community, even if it meant I felt I lived my working life in a goldfish bowl. It was always

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Steven Kaack Keble College

The Oxford Movement and Education An Academic Conference By Huw Thomas, Head of History and Conference Coordinator 1870-1873 were very important years in the history of St Edward’s School. Algernon Simeon, the young headmaster of Thomas Chamberlain’s school in New Inn Hall Street, purchased the business, secured land in the village of Summertown and by 1873 pupils were arriving at the new and ambitiously spacious new buildings. Chris Nathan, our indefatigable archivist, urged that we commemorate these important events and so the School is planning a major event on Friday 23rd September 2022. It will take the form of an academic conference to be held at the School on the subject of ‘The Oxford Movement and Education’, reflecting in a wide context the School’s role in that very important 19th-century development. A distinguished team of scholars of national reputation will convene to explore the distinctive role of the Movement in the context of schools, universities and the nation. It is hoped to attract not only academics with an interest and expertise as participants but also school pupils and clergy. The School will thus identify itself again with its historic ties with the Oxford Movement and its continuing commitment to scholarship. Details of the day and registration will be circulated nationally in due course and it may be that OSE and friends of the School would like to attend. Invitations to the Conference will be extended to Teddies pupils and to all local schools, including our Beyond Teddies partnership schools. Contact Huw Thomas at thomash@stedwardsoxford.org to find out more.

The ornate Gothic Revival interior of Keble College chapel. This style of furnishing was the aesthetic response to the high church values of the Oxford Movement.

Liddon Quad in Keble College. The college was founded in 1870 in memory of John Keble, a key member of the Oxford Movement.

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Rachel Moffatt What do you do at Teddies and how long have you been here? I have been Partnerships Manager since September 2021. Before that I worked in the IB and Careers Departments at Teddies for a year which allowed me to really get to know the school community. What did you do before you started work at Teddies? I worked in the school office at St Nicholas’ Primary School in Marston; it was a real eye-opener to realise how financially stretched primary schools are but it was such a great place to work – there is never a dull moment working in a school! Other highlights of my career include running my own first aid training business for six years, working at Fulham Football Club in their Commercial Department and managing the Sports Centre at The Oratory School, Reading. difference to the local community around St Edward’s. There are so many fantastic schools, organisations and charities locally and I am excited to work and partner with lots of them and see the mutual benefits as the partnerships grow. What have been the highlights of your first terms as Partnerships Manager? Working with Oxford Council and Asylum Welcome to arrange for Afghan refugees currently living in hotels in Oxfordshire to come to St Edward’s for crafts, sports and meals. It’s not something we have publicised widely as we have wanted to respect the privacy of the refugees but It has been so rewarding seeing the Teddies pupils welcome these families and truly engage with them. What’s on the horizon for this important area of school life? Simply to grow! The Warden places a real emphasis on service and we hope that every St Edward’s pupil will be able to serve and engage with the wider community during their time here. For Sixth Formers this will hopefully mean more opportunities for external weekly What are you most looking forward to in your new role? It sounds clichéd but making a real

What do you most enjoy about living in Oxford? Oxford is such a beautiful city with everything on our doorstep. It has a wide range of museums, restaurants and shopping. We’ve recently started to explore more of the Cotswolds which are simply stunning. Tell us a bit about your education. Did you enjoy school? I have a degree in Biology from the University of Southampton and prior to that I went to Cheltenham Ladies’ College. I still have some wonderful friends from CLC. Naughtiest thing you did at school? No comment! Best advice you’ve ever been given? Be kind to people and treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. Read more about community partnerships on page 30.

community projects such as helping in primary schools and community projects such as the Cutteslowe Community Larder. Pupils in the Middle School will engage with the community as part of their Pathways and Perspectives courses – pupils will give performances to local schools as part of their ‘Theatre in Education’ project and run drama workshops for primary school children. The Lower School will take part in group activities in primary schools such as reading to children in Key Stage 1. You’re married to the Head of Rowing here at Teddies, Adam Moffatt. Tell us a little about your family. We have two children – Jack (8) and Ella (6). We live on the school site and so we are very lucky that we can make use of the amazing school facilities. In the holidays Jack enjoys having the run of the playing fields and Ella whizzes around the Quad on her rollerblades!

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The Evolution of the Curriculum at St Edward’s by David Flower, Deputy Head Academic

Award Science from September 2022. We think that it is important for each pupil to be able to pursue the courses best suited to them and so returning to Triple Science for those best equipped feels like a progressive step. One of the ways in which we will achieve this is to move to 45-minute lessons, a development recently announced by the Warden. The new Pathways and Perspectives courses, which have been hugely popular and give our curriculum unrivalled breadth and diversity, will continue to be an option alongside GCSE subjects, allowing pupils to build a Middle Years programme which fuels their individual interests and ambitions. Another way in which we want to make sure our curriculum fits the needs and abilities of all of our pupils is to allow them to choose to take four separate A Levels. Up until now this option has only been open to pupils who take Maths at A Level as they have been able to add Further Maths as a fourth course. Any Fifth Form pupil who thinks that they might want to take

four A Levels ought to see me and I will explain the process, as soon as possible. It has been wonderful to see the Christie Centre in use as the architects envisaged. I enjoy roaming the buildings during evening prep time and witnessing the quiet productivity in the Roe Reading Room, a lovely contrast to the bustling break-out spaces that are used for collaboration in the daytime. It is fantastic that one building can encapsulate so much of our academic ethos. To support post-lockdown learning we have re-introduced prep timetables into the Shell, Fourth and Fifth Forms – these are not onerous, but do ensure that prep is evenly spaced out, with at least 48 hours between setting and submission. We continue to believe that self-regulation is a crucial skill that pupils need to be taught during their time at school and the purpose of these new timetables is to bring predictability and regularity to their workload. Pupils can record work in their diaries, which means that they need not always work on a device in the evenings. Of course, some work is

The evolution of the curriculum at St Edward’s continues to move at a great pace. In September, the new Academic Steering Group, together with the Heads of Department, conducted the first of what will be an annual consultation on the subjects that we offer at IB and A Level, as well as through the Middle School years. Probably the biggest alteration to come out of this will be to include GCSE and A Level Computer Science for the first time from September 2022 – a change which has already been warmly welcomed by many Fifth Form parents at their Sixth Form options evenings. Other new arrivals include IB Dance and A Level Textiles. A key principle that you can begin to see being revealed here is to maximise choice. Whilst this cannot be achieved in one fell swoop, parents and pupils will begin to notice a slightly greater range of subject choices being offered over the next few years. A good example of this is in the Middle School where will be offering Triple Award Science as well as Double

Phoebe Eggs with her textile designs

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better completed on a computer but we think there remains a place for work done by hand using a pen and paper. In terms of buildings and infrastructure, we have just completed an audit of our in-class IT equipment and are looking forward to having a universal system in all classrooms and at teachers’ fingertips by September 2022 at the latest. A final and very welcome innovation took place on the last full day of the Autumn Term when the Warden invited all new Honorary Award holders and their parents to a drinks reception to celebrate their achievements. These pupils received awards for excellence in their academic work, or in sport, music or drama. It was a great way to conclude a very busy and successful term, and we are looking forward to announcing more Honorary Awards at the end of this term.

The stunning roof of the Roe Reading Room in the Christie Centre

Outstanding Results

The pupils above achieved outstanding GCSE results last summer – congratulations to Adriane Yeung, Lucas Joy, Josie Denvir, Joss Harrison, Isabella Paymaster- Billington, Patrick Maxwell, Joseph Osei, Nina Brandler, Charles Turner, Ndiana-Abasi Awak-Essien, Olga Muravitskaya and Justin Liu

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Rommi Smith: Changing the Story

In January, The North Wall mounted an important exhibition, Changing the Story: Photographs of British Life in Black and White (1917–1962) , which featured a series of striking images selected by award-winning poet, playwright, theatre-maker, librettist and academic, Dr Rommi Smith. Drawn from the TopFoto photographic archive, the images placed centre stage the often unacknowledged racial diversity of British history. ‘My history lessons did not look like this’, said Dr Smith in her introduction to the exhibition, and she explored this theme and many others in innovative workshops with pupils from the History and English Departments. We caught up with Dr Smith to find out more about the genesis of the show.

You’re the inaugural writer-in-residence for the TopFoto archive. What drew you to the TopFoto archive and why did you choose this particular selection of images for the Changing the Story exhibition? My writing residency (and indeed the roots of the Changing the Story exhibition) really began in the early spring of 2019, when I had a conversation with Flora Smith (manager-owner of the TopFoto archive). I was attending the first British American Project (BAP) writers’ retreat, which Flora was hosting. We were in the kitchen and talking about a short, sepia-toned, digital selection of TopFoto images. When I first saw the cover image of the album (a 1917 image of Caribbean Naval personnel who fought for Britain in the First World War), I immediately knew its historical and cultural significance. I wanted to see more of the archive. As a scholar of race and representation – and as a Black woman of mixed heritage – I knew that these images were replies to the absences and erasures of Black and Brown presence in the mainstream narration of British history. I suggested to Flora – in that same conversation – that a series of creatives respond to the archive, as interlocutors: I knew that I wanted to be one of them. I mooted a number of organisations and individuals, including those from within my own networks, who would be interested in and would champion the images. Our ongoing conversation and friendship continue to grow out of that first chance conversation.

Crowds of children cheering Queen Mary as she opened a new extension to Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton, October 1938

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Doreen and Herbert Zayne on their arrival at Tilbury on board HMT Empire Windrush with their children, 1948. As part of her research, Dr Smith managed to track down Doreen and Herbert’s relatives and it was an absolute delight to welcome to the Private View Dawn Chamberlain, younger sibling to the pictured children, and her niece, Wendy Zayne, daughter of David Zayne, the toddler pictured above – and many other members of the extended family.

What have been some of the highlights during your writing residency with TopFoto? At the outset of my writing residency, I could not have envisaged that my research would unite a family with an exhibition photograph of loved ones (and, in the case of two of the family members, with an image of their childhood selves) – I will forever be grateful that my research as part of this residency has made this so (see above). Working with Flora Smith to realise and manifest a series of thoughts and concepts expressed across a three-year-long creative conversation was a highlight. Collaborating with Christella Litras was another project highlight. We have known and respected each other’s work for about 20 years. We have friends, collaborators and

I selected the 34 images for the exhibition, because they are images to which I was drawn emotionally, historically, critically and creatively. For example, there are images from the Sunset Club, a 1950s Soho nightclub, with a diverse clientele, where jazz could be heard. My passion – and doctoral research – concerns jazz and civil rights. Ken Russell’s image of the young boy cricketer is luminous; every time I look at it, I have a profound sense of wanting to find a language for the gestures and light in that image (see page 16). With the image of Herbert and Doreen Zayne, I felt a kindred connection; this is an image of a mixed-heritage family – taken over 25 years before I was born into my own mixed-heritage family. I felt each exhibition image held a story that I wanted to know – and that I wanted to share with others.

mentors in common, but this was the first time we’ve had the chance to collaborate on a creative project.

‘The Inspiring People talk was excellent. Rommi is hugely talented and pupils were impressed by her ability to convey such an important challenge to the prevailing narrative of ‘Britishness’.’ HUW THOMAS, HEAD OF HISTORY

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of Queen Mary, shown on page 14) through to my inclusion of First World War and post-Second World War images. In writing the text panels for the exhibition, I reflected upon my own secondary education, and my own teenage memories of the absences in the images of war heroism presented to me during GCSE and A Level History lessons. I produced an exhibition bibliography detailing just some of the texts which informed my writing and research. My hope is that this reading list will be of inspiration to St Edward’s pupils, staff and the wider Oxford community. There are things I learned during my research process of direct relevance to Oxford and its history. I found a beautiful and moving letter which was written in 1942 by the proprietor of an Oxford snack bar and sent to The Times in defence of a Black US serviceman’s equal treatment. That letter is included in David Olusoga’s stunning book Black and British: A Forgotten History (2016) and it is evidence of the courage of people, across time, to speak up for justice and fairness. ‘Rommi Smith was able to select images that captured the emotions of Black people during that period. What I love was that not everything was sad and depressing, but also portrayed the joy black people experienced. It just showed that Black history isn’t all about sadness. The exhibit was a sign that there ​ isn’t necessarily White history and Black history. We just have history. [This is a] small step towards a revolutionary change in representing those who have always been a part of the story in Britain.’ CHIMDI OKONKWO, SIXTH FORM

Young boy with a cricket bat, Portobello, 1954, by Ken Russell

What will the legacy of the exhibition be? A lasting one. I hope that the conversations it started extend beyond exhibition walls and timeframes; that it reshapes curriculums and that people who came to see it carry its meanings and messages with them out into the wider world. I hope that the knowledge and experience of what was seen on the walls of The North Wall Gallery become a spark for encouraging people to rethink how they see British history, themselves, and the world. Was it appealing to you that the exhibition would sit at the heart of a teenage community alongside its presence as part of the wider arts landscape of Oxford and surrounding area? Knowing that the exhibition would sit within the context of a school community was deeply relevant to both the nature and content of the exhibition. This fact informed everything from my proposal for the lead exhibition image (a 1938 photo of flag- waving school children awaiting the arrival

‘As an educator, I have been struck as we’ve prepared for the exhibition by Rommi’s words – ‘my history lessons did not look like this’. Thanks to this innovative venture, we have an opportunity to enrich and expand our pupils’ understanding of history, taking them out of the classroom, away from their books, and demonstrating in this most striking of ways the often unacknowledged racial diversity of British history. This is an educational experience like no other.’ THE WARDEN

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Pieces inspired by Rommi’s Workshops Pupils took part in workshops with Rommi as part of their English and History classes. These pieces were written anonymously in creative writing workshops in which pupils were asked to write from the perspectives of the people in the photographs within the exhibition.

Rommi Smith Rommi Smith is an award-winning poet, playwright, theatre-maker, performer and librettist. A three-time BBC writer-in-residence, she is the inaugural British Parliamentary writer-in-residence and inaugural poet-in-residence for Keats House, Hampstead. A Visiting Scholar at City University New York (CUNY), she has presented her research and writing at institutions including: The Segal Theatre, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and City College New York. Rommi’s performance at the Schwerner Writers Series in New York was at the invitation of Tyehimba Jess, Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry. Rommi is a Doctor of Philosophy in English and Theatre. Her academic writing was first published by New York University Press as part of the groundbreaking book Imagining Queer Methods (2019). She is recipient of a Hedgebrook Fellowship (USA) and is a winner of The Northern Writers’ Prize for Poetry 2019 (chosen by the poet Don Paterson). She was recently awarded a prestigious Cave Canem fellowship in the US. Rommi is a Sphinx30 playwright: Sphinx30 is a prestigious programme of professional mentoring for – and by – contemporary women playwrights, led by legendary company, Sphinx Theatre. Rommi is the inagural writer-in-residence for Topfoto, the UK’s leading photographic archive and a forthcoming poet-in-residence for the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. Find out more at www.rommi-smith.co.uk

I have lost my voice I have lost my rings but I have found my feet, I’ve found my voice and I’m ready to sing.

I have polished my boots I have straightened my tie I have salt in my hair still I have methodically creased my trousers down my thigh I have heard every command I have been out to fight I have worked on deck I have worked without seeing sunlight I have trained for these days, and I have travelled the waves. The sound of people chattering in the background, the wind from the sea whispering in her ears, the handkerchief flapping and the sounds of the ships, creaking and grinding together. The wind picks up waves and she can hear them, lapping on the side of the boat. Gently the camera clicks and clicks again. Far away she can hear another ship sounding its horn as it prepares to come in to dock. Footsteps thump around on the hollow floor echoing in the bows of the ship below.

Photo credit: Lizzie Coombes

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Photo: Philippa James

The North Wall A Creative Powerhouse By Co-Directors Ria Parry and John Hoggarth

The North Wall Arts Centre is located on the grounds of St Edward’s School and is run as a charity – The North Wall Trust – which provides opportunities for artists, young people and the Oxfordshire community to make and experience art of the highest quality. The North Wall team has a strong and symbiotic relationship with Teddies. We work closely with the Drama, Dance and Art Departments to ensure that pupils benefit enormously from unrivalled proximity to a nationally-acclaimed professional arts venue.

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The North Wall programme includes professional theatre, music, comedy, dance, exhibitions and talks and we welcome around 30,000 visitors each year. The building design has won awards from the Royal Institute of British Architects and encompasses an impressive 200-seat flexible theatre, a beautiful gallery and two studio spaces. We have received critical acclaim for our in-house productions, including a Scotsman Fringe First Award for Best New Writing, and a Stage Award recognising outstanding theatre performances at the Edinburgh Festival. Alongside the professional programme, we are committed to nurturing the creativity and development of young people and early-career artists. The Participation Department offers a huge variety of workshops, courses and events for our local young people and community, and The North Wall is a long-term partner of the National Theatre to produce Connections Festival. Our ArtsLab programme offers residencies and masterclasses to early- career writers, directors, performers, technicians, designers and producers, allowing them to develop their craft, and to progress in their chosen field. Our annual Alchymy Festival showcases new work from super-talented early-career artists, and attracts audiences from across the UK. As Co-Directors of The North Wall we lead a small but brilliant staff team.

The technical staff move between working on the public programme and supporting school exams, classes and productions. Teddies pupils have regular access to the theatre and gallery for their productions and exhibitions and we work closely with the Drama Department to facilitate professional performances and workshops that are relevant and inspiring for the school community. We are often able to arrange exclusive access to work-in-progress shows and technical rehearsals, tailored workshops, and co-commissions with exciting playwrights for the School’s annual Edinburgh Festival production. We regularly collaborate with the School on creative projects, including: Inspiring People – a series of public conversations with inspirational individuals – kickstarted by Sir Nicholas Hytner as the inaugural guest, and with Zing Tsjeng who spoke on International Women’s Day earlier this month; several themed exhibitions, including Backstage at the Ballet opened by Dame Darcey Bussell; and an annual event in the Ogston Music School, most recently a public recital from world-class pianist Gala Chistiakova, which was accompanied by masterclasses for Teddies pupils with Gala herself (see page 45). We are proud to run The North Wall as an organisation with a national reputation that firmly believes in combining access and excellence. We are united with St Edward’s

School in our joint mission to support the education and inspiration of young people, and we do this by extending an invitation to immerse yourself in the best and brightest creative experiences. Parents are able to sign up for a free annual membership, via the ‘Parents’ Pass’, which provides various discounts and exclusive invitations. We have a wonderful programme coming up, including award-winning Funeral Flowers by Emma Dennis-Edwards, family favourites M6 Theatre with Pebble on the Beach , the phenomenal Camille O’Sullivan performing songs by Nick Cave, and fabulous comedy from Mark Watson. We look forward to welcoming you to The North Wall – visit www.thenorthwall.com to find out more and to book.

Parents’ Pass Unlock the

arts at Teddies

The North Wall Parents’ Pass allows holders to purchase two tickets for theatre events at The North Wall for £10 each and gives a discount of 10% at The North Wall bar. Pass holders are also invited to opening nights and private views. If you would like a Parents’ Pass, please register at The North Wall Box Office: 01865 319 450 / contact@thenorthwall.com

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George Fenton OSE is a composer. He writes for theatre, film and TV and has enjoyed long collaborations including those with Alan Bennett, Richard Attenborough, Stephen Frears, Nicholas Hytner and Ken Loach. Among his best known films are Gandhi, Dangerous Liaisons, Groundhog Day, You’ve Got Mail, Hitch, The Lady in the Van, The Wind that Shakes the Barley and, on television, well known themes such as Newsnight and Bergerac , and series including The Jewel in the Crown, The Monocled Mutineer and Talking Heads . His scores for documentaries include The United Way and The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and The Frozen Planet which he has also conducted in concerts worldwide. Theatre credits includes Collaborators at the National, Othello at the Royal Shakespeare Company and a season of monologues at the Bridge Theatre. His most recent score is for The Duke . He teaches at The Royal College of Music and The University of Nottingham, and actively promotes music in education through his work with Bemuse UK. George was in Field House from 1963 – 1967. A Bold Vision By George Fenton OSE

Photo: Michael Speed