The Chronicle, Autumn 2018

7 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

The Value of Ambition Chris Jones took over as Chair of the Governing Body in January. A former pupil of St Edward’s, Chris read History and English at Cambridge before going on to a highly successful career, first in advertising and then in other industries. He talked to Tracy van der Heiden, Head of Communications, about values, ambition in many guises – and what it means to be part of the Teddies community.

reflect on when they come back or when we see them all over the world. The second value also relates to community - but in its wider sense. People often describe this school as unpretentious. This is not inaccurate, but it implies that we don’t have a choice, much as Churchill unfairly derided Attlee as a modest man who had much to be modest about. There are rows of pretentious schools with far less to boast about than we have. We have made a choice. We are not unpretentious, we are anti-pretentious, because pretension will get our pupils absolutely nowhere in today’s world. We sit on a vast estate in leafy North Oxford representing, in many ways, an oasis of academic and social privilege. Were we not anti- pretentious, this set of circumstances could easily create a fertile breeding ground for a sense of entitlement. If we are doing our job, no-one will leave this school with any sense that they have an indisputable right

Can you remind us what you said at Gaudy when you talked about Teddies’ enduring values? I talked about the three values that are absolutely at our heart, the three values that fundamentally shape the experience of our pupils and staff. First and foremost, we are a community – a healthy, flourishing micro-society in which everyone is

supporting each other. Not just staff supporting pupils, but pupils supporting pupils, staff supporting each other and even pupils supporting staff. Being part of such a powerfully sustaining network means that extraordinarily deep and lasting bonds are formed; I’ve experienced it myself and I witness it everywhere. It is one of the things our former pupils always

Josie Denvir, Elise Rance, Tilly Anson and Paddy Smith.