Rivers

Headmaster’s Routh Assembly Address

Monday 2nd September 2019

Good morning and a warm welcome to you all. I trust that you enjoyed a fulfilling Summer break. One in which you continued to exercise your brain and all of your body, not just your thumbs. I hope also that you have returned to Bromsgrove feeling optimistic and positive, for there is much to encourage you today.

We start the new year pushed along by the current of some of the best academic results the School has ever seen. The encouraging news is, that was not a one-off event, but part of a consistent stream of performance over recent years. A flow we expect to continue. Other than welcoming some more outstanding teachers to the staff, all the preconditions that brought last year’s success remain the same. So, if you are seeking equally high grades this year, you are in the right place.

We also remain one of the top four sporting schools in the nation, despite not being an exclusive sports academy. So, if you are hungry for sporting success, you are in the right place. Likewise, our reputation for music and drama continues to bloom, locally and in national competitions. So, if you want to perform, you are in the right place. And we maintain some of the highest participation rates in D of E and CCF in the country, not to mention our own highly successful Bromsgrove Badge and Service activities. Again, if you want challenge and a chance to serve others, you are in the right place.

As well as acknowledging the eight new staff who join the Common Room this year, I also welcome 155 of you who enter Lower Fourth. For half of you, this is an entirely new experience. Yet even for the other half, who join us from our own Prep School, this is also new. Still Bromsgrove, but different. From here on in, you have more choice than ever before, but also more responsibility.

There will still be tolerance as you find your way, but now more than ever, you will be accountable for your actions. We aim to send you off to university in five years’ time. By then, you need to be capable and self-reliant. Confident, but not cocky. Respected and respectful. That process starts today.

Upper Fourth, I welcome you as newcomers too. You may think that odd. The majority of you have already been here a year. You may think there is nothing new about your return, that this year will be like the last. You would be wrong. The School may seem familiar today, but as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “Nobody ever steps in the same river twice.”

Allow me to share a literal example. Many years ago, before I was permanently sewn into a suit, I spent much of my life in rivers. Hiking up, swimming across, or rafting and kayaking down them. Every stretch of them. From that magical spot, high in the mountains, where the first raindrops hit a ridge and gravity decides which way they should run, all the way down to wide river mouths, where they finally pour out into the ocean.

One year, a friend and I decided to try and trace that entire trip in one go. To start from a river’s source and follow it non-stop to the sea. It was an ambitious expedition. A helicopter flew us up into the mountains, with our kayaks and supplies slung below in a cargo net. Then hovered low as it could get, the pilot dropping us in the middle of nowhere, next to the first tiny creek.

There were lots of adventures on that two-week journey downstream. We shot over unseen waterfalls, found ourselves paddling thin air. Our blades snapped between boulders in the rapids. Supplies were swept away when our kayaks rolled. We spent more time under the water than on it. Never dry, we lit a fire each night and spent the evening patching up gear and bodies with duct tape.

Finally, though, we got down to the wide, slow bends, where the river braided out of the valley and across the plains towards the sea. They were easier days. Sometimes we would just raft together and float along, talking and allowing the river to carry us.

Those lazy days cost us though. We took so long drifting there that a big storm caught us before we reached the sea. We had to hunker down in our tent for days to wait it out. Frustrated, listening to the rain and the boulders rolling in the floodwaters, frustrated to be stopped.

Finally, the rains stopped, and I got up early to check the state of the river. It looked a little dirtier, but otherwise no different than when we came ashore days before. I walked out into the middle to get a better look downstream. And promptly stepped into a deep underwater trench that hadn’t been there before.

Three days of flooding had carved out the gravel of the riverbed, leaving a deep hole. I was swept of my feet and went hurtling down the river. The last thing I saw before I got sucked under was a large fallen log. I saw it because it cracked me square on the forehead as I shot past. When I came too, I was lying washed up on a shingle bank, a few hundred metres downstream from our camp. Still dazed, and fortunately still breathing. Lucky.

Lucky and quite cross with myself. I was meant to be Mr Outdoors. I should have known better than anyone that rivers constantly change. That saying, “You never step in the same river twice” is accurate both literally and metaphorically. You never step in the same river twice because it is never the same river and you are never the same person as last time. Things constantly change.


Despite my moment of stupidity, I was proud of that trip. Proud to have used the power of the river to my advantage. To have navigated its full length, to successfully reach the end. Back, then, to my point about your return to Bromsgrove this year (the point is not that you will get knocked out if you get cocky!)

This School is a river, flowing through time. Its origins are way back in the past. Some 500 years ago, Bromsgrove School began as a trickle. Over the centuries, it has flowed on, gaining size and speed, to become the impressive torrent that it is as you enter it today. It has great power to carry you forward. However, how far forward will not just depend upon the force of history and reputation alone. It will also rely on how well you navigate your own course. How much effort you put in to propelling yourself. Whether you chose to drift and when you paddle hard for all you’re worth.

That is why I say welcome to a new Bromsgrove, Upper Fourth. Familiar, but changed. Your journey carries on from last year, but it will be different. A stretch in which you can perfect the techniques you learned last year. Remember though, this is a river that has flowed for hundreds of years. If you chose to swim against the current, you do so at your peril. Our traditions and culture, rules and routines, they have cut a tried and true course. If you don’t like where they will take you, you are in the wrong river and should get out now, because you won’t turn that tide.

Welcome also to those new to the Fifth Form. Your stretch of the Bromsgrove river picks up even more pace this year. The rapids of GCSEs lie ahead. They can be daunting as you see them approach, but if you pick the right line and lean into your work with commitment, you will rocket out the other side just fine. If you need inspiration, just follow those who went ahead of you, breaking records last year.

On that note, welcome to the Lower Sixth too. Those new and those returning. You round this next bend propelled by the best GCSE results the School has ever known. 45% - nearly half - of all your grades were 8s or 9s. Outstanding. I commend you for that. Yet you, too, now find yourselves in much faster water. IB, A Level, BTEC – you have picked your line and must now stay the course. Those of you who have just joined the School, your challenge is to quickly find the rhythm of your peers and paddle in harmony with them.

Finally, I welcome the Upper Sixth. Again, the banks of the Bromsgrove river will seem very familiar to you. Kytless is still standing where it always has. Routh, the Science Labs, Humanities. Admittedly, the eyesore that was the old Staff Centre has thankfully been eroded over the Summer, but all else is as it was. Except your place in the flow. For you are nearing the ocean now. You must prepare yourself to cross the bar.
That tumultuous place where the familiar flow of Bromsgrove meets the onrushing tide of Universities and the wider world beyond. That final stretch can seem daunting, so to you I say stay focussed, and have faith in the strokes that have brought you thus far.

All of you then, you are now back in the flow. Much is familiar, yet for each, this year’s journey is new. A different river. Do not make my mistake and become complacent, assuming everything is the same underfoot.

I encourage you all then, whatever year level you may be. Don’t stand on the bank, watching everyone else go by. Get in and embrace the currents that run through this place. Use the power of the Bromsgrove river, its history and reputation, to propel you. Position yourself in the right place in that stream and, whatever reach you face this year, paddle hard.

One of the traditions I have just alluded to is this assembly, known as Routh in honour of one of the School’s great Headmasters, Robert Gordon Routh. Here we gather together every Monday morning, to present significant awards, review the successes of the past week and preview the events and opportunities of the week ahead. We start, then, with a few presentations from last term:

Presentations
Design Technology
The Martin Sykes award for the best work in the L6th is presented to Polina Vagner.

Fencing
I invite Tatiana Morikova and Elsa Tsia forward to receive their minor colours for fencing.


Review
Two years ago, Mulan Yang and Vivianne Zhang Wei initiated Project Take-off, in which they designed creative and fun English lessons and then delivered them to children in remote Chinese schools. Over summer they continued their project, this time teaching at Tingjiang Middle School in Northern China. Their whole enterprise is entirely voluntary, and I wish to commend them for their impressive initiative; an example of genuine service.

Still on the subject of service, we also congratulate the Fifth and Sixth Form pupils who embarked on a 3-week World Challenge to Zambia over the Summer. They began their trip helping build houses for those in need in a small village called Mwandi, before trekking along the Zambezi river and enjoying a safari in South Luangwa National Park.

Also over the break, CCF Cadets spent a week at their annual camp where they fired rifles, took part in team building activities, completed the Krypton Factor assault course, lived out in the woods, and trained to work in an urban environment. Long days, but all did exceptionally well, and I was pleased to hear that the Bromsgrove Cadets were complimented by everyone for their attitude, manners and effort.

Two other significant overseas trips deserve mention. Those on the on the two-week Rugby tour of Canada and USA recorded 3 wins and a narrow defeat, while also managing to squeeze in some sightseeing adventures; whale watching, white water rafting, cycling, climbing and zip lining. They also spent a morning with the Canadian National squad as they prepared for this year’s World Cup.

Meanwhile, our netballers headed to the opposite hemisphere, on a tour of Singapore and Australia. Their itinerary included matches against the Singapore U19 and U17 National teams and then a school-based competition in Perth. A training session at the Olympic Park in Sydney was also included.
Like the rugby squad, they enjoyed a wide range of sightseeing experiences; jet boating, snorkelling, climbing the Sydney Harbour bridge and getting up close and personal with the Australian wildlife, to name but a few. And as with the rugby, it sounds as though you all enjoyed an action-packed trip and created lasting memories.


Preview
Finally, a quick preview of some important events in the week ahead.

All staff and pupils will have individual photographs taken today.

Individual music lessons commence this Wednesday. Please check your timetables and emails carefully for times. If you have not yet signed up for these, please speak to one of the Music staff as soon as possible.


All Music clubs, orchestras, bands and activities begin next Monday 9th, apart from Chapel Choir, which starts this Wednesday. Normal rehearsal at 12.50 in Chapel. Newcomers are welcome to join in and regulars are encouraged to bring a friend.

There is a change to the weekly Chapel arrangements for this week only:
• 6th Form on Tuesday
• 4th and 5th Forms on Thursday.

We then have the formal School Service on Friday, with lessons 1-5 as normal, followed by the Service, then Activities/Games at 4.15pm.

The Senior Play, which will be performed during the penultimate week of this term, is to be an adaptation of Charles Dicken’s magnificent novel “Great Expectations”. Auditions are nearly complete, however, there is still a final opportunity for anyone in Year 11 or above, who has missed all previous chances to audition. Please can you email Mr. Norton by the end of school tomorrow if you would still like to be considered.

Finally, a very busy day for the School this Saturday. We host a reunion for Old Bromsgrovians who left the School 1990-99. At the same time, there will be a large number of Hockey, Netball and Rugby fixtures and in the evening, a Street Food event for Boarders.

I wish you all an invigorating first week of the year as you throw yourselves into the flow of Bromsgrove School.

We end our Routh Assembly in the traditional manner, by standing to say the Grace together.