SE CHRONICLE 684

46 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Dr Emma Speed-Andrews joins us as School Psychologist, Merlin Blackham becomes Technical Support Engineer and Kate Lagden joins us as PA to the Sub Warden. Emily Dawes and Ella Francis join the Admissions Department, Emily to cover Emily Starbuck’s maternity leave as Admissions and Events Officer and Ella as Admissions and Events Assistant. Courtney O’Keefe joins the Beyond Teddies team as Partnerships Coordinator and Donna Eames joins as Health Centre Receptionist. Hannah Khan joins the Front of House team in The North Wall and Teresa Miller joins the Accounts Department. Tom Greensmith joins us as Lead Strength and Conditioning Coach. In sport, Ed Ellis becomes Head of Cricket and Hockey, and Joe Winpenny joins us from various roles in Rugby at Oxford University, Oxford Brookes and Oxford Harlequins RFC to become the School’s first Rugby Professional. Nic Bond and Mark Hanslip will act as joint interim Heads of Rugby until a permanent appointment is made this term. Louise Duffy becomes Head of Sailing and Jonathan Hooper, who has been working for the Football Federation of Belize, becomes Head of Football.

The St Edward’s community owes a great deal to former governor, Mike Stanfield, who stepped down in August after more than 30 years on the Board, 10 of them as Chair. Mike was the driving force behind the establishment of The North Wall at the School 16 years ago and he remains Chair of The North Wall Trust.

T IME TO READ

intimidate, to scatter ‘false news’ and spread hate. In 1957, when I was in the Lower VI at Leeds Grammar School our favourite reading was Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy and it has remained influential for me ever since. Hoggart was a product of the slums of industrial Leeds who went on to an academic career. The book was partly autobiographical and can be recommended as a fascinating picture of working-class childhood but its main aim was to question the ‘massification’ (sorry, not my word!) of popular culture in newspapers, magazines, comics and advertisements, often American imports, which he argued were corrupting popular culture and were socially destructive. The parallels with today’s situation are striking and I wonder what today’s Sixth Formers would make of it. The History Boys by Alan Bennett First staged in 2004 The History Boys won worldwide acclaim both onstage and as a film. The published text, as well, is worth a read as

it includes Bennett’s own characteristic introduction. I am an enormous fan of Bennett and think this is the best of his plays, partly because it touches on my own life as a former Sixth Form history teacher. Set in what is presented as 1980s Sheffield, amongst a class of Sixth Form boys hoping to get into Oxbridge, it explores some aspects of History teaching but, much more importantly, it tackles the vital relationship between teachers and learners. How do we learn and what qualities of technique and personality are required of teachers? What are the roles taken by the sheer slog of learning (Mrs Lintott), the mastery of examination technique (Irwin) and the cultivation of imaginative learning and identification with past knowledge, with a touch of eccentricity, even anarchy (Hector)? The witty hilarity of the play requires that we see it as, in part, a fable and only partly as a naturalistic slice of life. Real Sixth Formers today might well find it fascinating as well as hugely entertaining.

TIME TO READ

TIME TO READ

TIME TO READ

TIME TO READ

Malcolm Oxley, Former Sub-Warden and author of the School’s History, after whom The Oxley Library is named The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart At present we are torn by clashing views surrounding the so-called ‘social media’ and the democratisation of communication. Popular culture is everybody’s culture enabling freedom of expression for all but a freedom, too, to bully, threaten and