Building Character or Character Building?

Headmaster’s Routh Assembly Address
Monday 19th April 2021

Good morning and welcome back onsite, at last, to just about all of you. Special praise to the boarders, who have managed to overcome the chaos of travel restrictions and quarantine regulations, making your way back from the 52 nations that grace our School. Your commitment is admirable, and it really has been a delight to see you all around the grounds once again over the Easter Break.

Frustratingly, I am still stuck offering encouragement from behind a camera lens this morning, as some pandemic restrictions persist. Nevertheless, you are at least together in your Tutor groups, so I bid you all welcome back to the Summer Term. A term which is looking considerably brighter, and not just because the sun has finally returned. We have much to look forward to as the COVID cloud begins to lift.

The fact that your diligence in distancing and wearing masks led to no new cases in the School last term means that, from today, we are confident in allowing the Day Houses to become separate bubbles, as has been the case in Boarding Houses throughout. Please follow the usual precautions when you are back in your Houses, but enjoy the privilege of reuniting in them once again.

The Summer Term is, of course, traditionally the Exam Term. Nothing has changed in that regard, albeit that there are some who have already cleared their final hurdle last term. I congratulate the IB candidates who completed their assessments back in March and now look forward to participating in the Bromsgrove Master’s programme. The lectures and electives that have been crafted for you in this university-style course make for a very stimulating month ahead and I commend you all for returning to take part.

As for the rest of Upper Sixth and the Fifth Form, you still have the final leg of your race to run. These next few weeks will undoubtedly feel a little stressful, as they would in any normal year. But see them as an opportunity, not a threat. And do not lose sight of the fact that you are extremely well-prepared. The Practice Assessments you sat last term were designed to give you the best possible shot in the Finals that lie ahead. Now is the time to prove yourselves. Ignore the hysteria in the media, or any uncertainty about the unfamiliar process this year. I promise you that your teachers are there to do right by you, so long as you do right by yourselves.

And Fourth Form? Well, you too, of course, face assessments this term and I encourage you to use the opportunity to prepare for the real thing in a year or two’s time. As disrupted as the past twelve months have been, you have learned much, and your upcoming tests and exams are the chance to consolidate what you know and lay the foundations of your GCSEs.

For all this academic focus though, the Summer Term holds much more than assessments. As courses come to an end and the weather warms, we traditionally enjoy plenty of sporting, cultural and service activity. More of that is coming soon I promise, and it will be doubly important this year.

I worry a lot about what you have missed during the lockdowns and restrictions of the past year. Not so much academically, for I genuinely believe that your online learning has been first class. But as we all know, there are some things that have been next to impossible to replicate virtually. Competitive sport, or even just a friendly knock around. Playing music together, and the joy of a live audience. Socialising properly, having time and physical space in each other’s company. Serving other people. Making a personal difference to someone else and the pleasure that comes from doing so.

I worry about what you have missed in the wider development of your character. I am not alone in that. All Heads worry about the young people in their care. Always have. One of my lifelong heroes, the Headmaster who founded the great Scottish boarding school, Gordonstoun, certainly did. I never met him, he died when I was nine, but his work has always inspired me.

His name was Kurt Hahn and, amongst many other triumphs in his extraordinary life, he was responsible for creating three organisations that I hold dear to this day. The first School he started was in Salem, Germany, in the 1930’s. He was a very successful young Headmaster, but also a man of firm beliefs. A Principal with principles, you might say. These were the years when Adolf Hitler was coming to power, and Kurt Hahn couldn’t stay silent about his oppressive policies. Although he was a proud German, he spoke out against the Nazis, who finally put him in jail for his criticism. When he was released, he realised his life was in danger, so he fled to Britain.

There, he opened Gordonstoun, which remains today one of the world’s great boarding schools. He became a great educator and, because of his experiences as Headmaster of those two schools, Kurt Hahn went on to become a driving force behind the establishment of the International Baccalaureate. Given what he had witnessed from the Nazis, his strong belief in the importance of tolerance and diversity was woven into the very fabric of the IB. As many of you know from first-hand experience, it remains a central thread to this day.

More than that. Those things that I am worrying about you missing out on this year? The creative, active, and service activities? Hahn worried about those elements of personal development too. That’s why CAS is so important in the IB Diploma that you even get marks for it.

Starting two Schools and inventing the IB would probably be enough of a legacy for any person, but Kurt Hahn wasn’t finished yet.

When the Second World War came, as he had feared it would, he found himself called to London to meet none other than Britain’s wartime Prime Minister. Military generals were becoming increasingly concerned about the seemingly unnecessary deaths amongst the Navy and Airforce, as men who were having to abandon ship or bail out of their aircraft over the English Channel during battle were not surviving long enough in the cold water for help to reach them.

Winston Churchill had heard of this eccentric Headmaster in Scotland, whose teaching methods revolved around building a person’s mental stamina and fortitude as well as their physical. He wondered whether Kurt Hahn might have something to teach the young sailors and aircrew, perhaps improving their chances of survival. Hahn did just that. He created a programme of training that was so much more than physical. He taught the skills of resilience, courage, and self-belief, all of which kept survivors alive long enough to be rescued.

Just like the IB, that character building programme still exists today, now open to anyone, not just the military. It offers adventure-based experiences to ordinary people who want to test themselves, to find their real limits. Those who want to grow in mind, body and spirit. It is Outward Bound. I trained there as an instructor nearly three decades ago and not a year has gone by that I haven’t had cause to thank Kurt Hahn for that gift and his insight.

IB, Outward Bound. Yet I said that Kurt Hahn was responsible for three institutions that endure to this day. The third one was also born of his worries about the need for young people to become confident and independent. Strong enough to survive the elements. Courageous enough to stand up to bullies like Hitler. Confident enough too, to seize the day and make the most of what life offered them. But this third programme wasn’t his own invention. It came about through the influence that he had on a young pupil in his care.

After he had left Germany, but before the war started, Headmaster Kurt Hahn took in as a boarder at Gordonstoun, a little boy of Greek and Danish heritage. His name was Philip. Unless you have been living under a rock this past week, you will know that that boy just passed away recently, aged 99, and was buried on Saturday with the full honour that he deserved.

Prince Philip lived a life of great service and he often credited his Headmaster, Kurt Hahn for the strength of character that he gained while he was at School. But Hahn’s influence was even greater than that. Because after the War, in the 1950’s, Prince Philip, now the Duke of Edinburgh, gave his name and his wholehearted support to yet another scheme that grew out of his old Headmaster’s convictions. The Duke of Edinburgh award. D of E.

Bromsgrove boasts one of the highest participation rates in DofE in the country, meaning that a very large number of you are benefiting directly from the beliefs of Prince Philip and his old Headmaster, Kurt Hahn. It is one of many activities that will restart this term, giving you all those same opportunities; adventure, confidence, mastery of new skills, the chance to serve others.

It seems fitting then, as we return together at last for the Summer Term, that my worries about what you have been missing in terms of education outside of the classroom will, at least in part, be allayed by a parting gift from Prince Philip. So, make the most of every expedition this term. And every camp, every sports match, every House competition. Throw yourselves into making music and performing. Seize the opportunities to serve others. The pressures you will face in sitting assessments this term may be “character building”, but everything else that you do outside the classroom will, truly, build your character. Have a great term.