Rhubarb 2021

ST EDWARD’S

including recruitment, managing (and being managed by) a governing body and dealing with parents.There was always a slight frisson of excitement when Stephen talked at parents’ meetings because one never knew quite what might be coming next. His addresses at school assemblies and his speeches at school dinners were equally idiosyncratic, but never failed to inform his listeners of something they had not known before, whether it was about sailing, terriers, US generals or the virtues of keeping a diary. His most striking act in the assemblies between 2014 and 2018 was to read out the names of those OSE who had fallen in the Great War in the equivalent weeks a hundred years earlier, as if they had only recently left the School. However, although his pupils will remember all the above and more with gentle affection, it is not for this that history will judge Stephen’s

Wardenship. The last 10 years have been a time of growth in many directions.There has been a substantial increase in numbers (from 654 in September 2011 to around 780 in September 2021), a hugely successful and expanded academic programme, some of the most ambitious building projects the School has seen since 1863 and further provision for boarding.The building of the Ogston Music School in 2018 highlighted the School’s commitment to the co-curricular arts.The Olivier Hall (2020), stunning in its conception, seats 1,000, enabling the whole School to meet together in comfort.The new Christie Centre with the elegant Oxley Library and the stunning collegiate-style Roe Reading Room (also both 2020) go hand in hand with the continuing success of the International Baccalaureate and the innovative Pathways and Perspectives Courses. The expansion of boarding includes not only the building of Jubilee (2013) and co-educational Cooper Lodge (2020) but also co-educational Sixth form boarding in Sing’s and Apsley Houses. Of course, none of this was down to Stephen alone, but the Governors had faith in him and he, in turn, had faith in his staff. One of his strengths was a knack of not only picking and deploying the right staff for the job but then standing back and letting them get on with it. Another strength was that he was very kind, with a real understanding of the human condition in adults as well as pupils. Stephen ended his Wardenship under the cloud of the Covid pandemic but it is greatly to his credit that his optimism, drive and pragmatic approach helped to steer the School through a very difficult time with more success than many other boarding schools.To his great disappointment, the pandemic denied him the ‘Grand Opening’ of all the new buildings but history will not worry about that. History will remember him for achieving what he often spoke of in Common Room meetings – “Our aim must always be to make this school ‘Bigger, Better, Stronger’”.

STEPHEN CHARLES ION JONES | THIRTEENTH WARDEN 2011-2021

St Edward’s seems to place significant weight on the use of the ordinal number that often precedes the word Warden and in

FEATURE

doing so sets the position firmly within a continuum. By definition, there have been previous Wardens, who each in turn enabled the School to survive and thrive under their leadership. By implication, there will beWardens to come, successors who will continue to carry the School forwards. A first impression of Stephen Jones, the 13th Warden, might be of a typical old-style headmaster but he is very much a man of our time. He carried the School forwards in no uncertain terms, while still making sure it continued to look back to its roots. Educated at Hurstpierpoint and Durham University, where he gained a first in Philosophy, backed up subsequently by an MA in Mathematics and an MLitt for a thesis on the Philosophy of Mathematics, he came to St Edward’s after a seven-year stint as Head of Dover College.This gave him invaluable experience of headship,

By Judy Young

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