Two Historic Ceremonies

Headmaster’s Routh Assembly Address
Monday 9th May 2022

Good morning.

As you are aware, we have two historic ceremonies to perform this morning. First is the presentation of the Housman Verse Prize. This competition honours our most famous Old Bromsgrovian, the great poet AE Housman, who once lived in the building we now call Housman Hall and whose study was in what is now Thomas Cookes and Hazeldene. His poems helped define an age in England, a verse from one of them is carved into the large stone ball outside the Admin Building.

Inviting you to make submissions the Housman Verse Prize each year upholds a School tradition that dates back almost to the time of his death nearly 80 years ago. I invite Mr Dinnen to introduce this year’s winning entry.

Thorns by Charlotte James
At the far end of the garden
Is a tangle of brambles, that writhe like angry snakes.
Prickled and pointy, With treacherous hooks
That’ll catch like the shed lock in spring.
And every time I try to clear it,
They’ll prick and they’ll scratch till I bleed,
with their barbs and their spines and their ugly bite,
until I give up and say they can stay.

It’s a tiny patch at the back,
In the shade of the fence, and the shed,
And with the vegetable patch, the lawn, and the flowers
It’s almost insignificant.
The rest of it all looks beautiful,
And I know I’ve worked so hard,
But it never changes that the brambles you see,
Mean you’ll never appreciate the rest like me.

The rest of the garden is neat,
Trimmed grass and roses in bloom.
The evening sun is setting, and you’re strolling up the lawn,
I think you really like it; You say the roses look divine,
Yet you persist with your comments,
About the brambles (of all the things)
And somehow the barbs feel sharper,
Now you’ve mentioned it again.

I don’t know why they bother you,
It’s not your garden, its mine,
Yes, they’re imperfect and annoying at times,
But I can get along just fine.
They’re out of the way, Since I tamed and trimmed,
And I guess that they’re alright to stay.
They matter to me; I’ve grown quite fond
But you won’t listen anyway.

And what’s just occurred to me I’d never have thought,
Because it seems such a funny thing
For all you seem to hate brambles,
their pricks and their tangles, that you protest at every turn.
At the end of the day, something you forget without fail,
Is that roses are not so pure.
For all that they represent virtue;
Roses have thorns too.

Monitors
The second traditional ceremony this morning is to commission our new School leaders for the year ahead. As the current Monitors head off on Examination Leave, the new team take over and assume responsibility for upholding the good order of the School.

The selection of Monitors is no easy task and I pay particular tribute to the care and thorough research that senior staff have put in to selecting the people we will make up this morning. Consideration has covered the entirety of your time at School, not just the past few weeks. That is encouragement for those of you in the Fourth and Fifth Forms to realise that your conduct today can have an influence on your future. That said, nobody is perfect, and mistakes made in the past don’t automatically preclude selection in the future, as long as you learn from them.

When we sought your input into the selection process last week, I encouraged you not to think of Monitorship as a reward. If that were the criteria, most in this room would be appointed. Prizes for being excellent are for prizegiving.

I also stressed that although being a Monitor required a certain skill set of leadership abilities, there were many more suitable applicants than there were positions, so selections had to be made. Just because the top two dozen were chosen, doesn’t mean that there aren’t many others who have the potential to lead.

Naturally, some may be disappointed today, but in that disappointment is a chance to show character and resilience. There are a number of other significant leadership decisions yet to made, especially in the Houses, and I encourage those who desire to lead in this way to prove themselves worthy over the coming days.
Like any job, being a School Monitor has a Job Description. It includes upholding the traditions and ethos of the School and that is a heavy burden. The people we make up this morning have now become stewards of the School’s 500 year history. They are charged with maintaining standards. Upholding Bromsgrove’s reputation.

We will have tasks for them to do, on top of the normal pressures of the Sixth Form, but they are not slaves.

They will require things of you, in the House, the Chapel, Dining Hall, this Arena, throughout the School. But neither are they slave drivers.

The people who are about to come forward and publicly sign their pledge, are servants.
Servants to you, servants to me and servants to the School. The difference between slaves and servants is the choice to serve.

These people have accepted a request to serve their School and for that we owe them our respect. I think it says a lot about our School that the highest honour that we can bestow upon a pupil is the chance to serve others.

In a moment, I will hand over to Mr McClure to conduct the ceremony. As he announces each name, there is no clapping; each will walk up in silence. Witnessed by us all, our new Monitors will then sign their names in the book that has been used since 1950. Once that is completed, each will receive their badge of office, shake my hand, and then, only at that stage, we will applaud them. [Mr McClure.]

Monitors 2022/23
Thando Best WG
Eleanor Boardman OH
Harrison Brown Ws
Max Büchel HH
David Corcoran WG
Liv Edwards HH
Joshua Graesser Ly
Sungyoon Joseph Hong E
John Kim HH
Jayla Kwok HH
Sophia Meadows TC
Cameron Owen L
Tamika Rai O
Chloe Reijmer MW
Isabella Rusling Hz
Anya Sanikop TC
Hamish Schulze E
Paris Siviter TC
Sophie Spittle Hz
Olivia Whitfield OH
Jessica Whitlock TC
Callum Wilkinson WG
Jake Wingfield S
Ibrahim Zaazou HH

Examination Encouragement
This is the final Assembly for the 5th Form and the rest of the Upper Sixth before you go on exam leave. By the time you re-join us, just before Commem, all the examinations for which you are currently striving hard, will be behind you.

Let me say it one last time then, before you depart. I do not wish you luck. If you are relying on luck at this stage of proceedings, either we have failed you, or you have let yourselves down. If examination success were a matter of luck, why bother putting in long hours of disciplined revision? Why bother wrestling with concepts that you find challenging? Why lock yourself inside in sunny weather?

Luck is for the lazy, the unmotivated, the ill-prepared. You are none of those.

Instead, to all who are sitting public examinations, I wish you what you deserve. Which, for just about every person in this Arena, is academic success. The same goes for the Lower 6th and the Fourth Forms when you face your Mocks in the coming weeks.

I wish you all what you deserve, what you have worked for, what you have earned. Reward for a year of dedication and commitment. All that remains is for you to stay calm and focussed and have faith in yourselves and that success will be yours. Step up and embrace it.

Let us end our gathering with the Grace – please stand.