simplicity of the plan had been brilliantly demonstrated by the headmaster. But that’s not what the other teachers’ faces were saying.
He ran a terrific school, though – and it was terrific largely as a result of his labours. He’d been headmaster for over 25 years when I arrived, and his techniques clearly worked – the school’s academic reputation was excellent and, more importantly, it was an institution with high self-esteem.
That’s quite a trick to pull off for a small provincial prep school which was neither big enough nor rich enough to win at games. Somehow the boys at New College School were made to feel clever and significant. The staff seemed to have a swagger about them too which, when I think about it, was remarkable. It’s not a brilliant job, teaching in a small prep school. We do not, sadly, live in a society that values teaching very highly as a profession. We live in a society that pretends to, but gives the big money to footballers and bankers (and more to comedians and actors than they are probably worth, I’m very happy to admit, but personally I’m in it for the disproportionate praise).
But, even where teaching is valued as it should be, teachers from small independent prep schools are probably the least revered. Those little seats of learning have neither the sense of sacrifice of the state sector nor the glamour of the major public schools. But most of the staff at New College School seemed bright, interesting, fun, well-motivated and had been there years. Butch was clearly doing something right, even if it was mainly spotting clever and engaging people who weren’t very ambitious.
Whenever I think about the odd alchemy – the combination of planning, tradition, flexibility, inflexibility and luck – that it takes to make a functional institution, I think of New College School. And I worry that institutions like that are less likely to exist in Britain now. We don’t seem to live in a society where excellence in small but achievable aims is respected – where a man like Alan Butterworth, a very bright and charismatic Oxford graduate, would be willing to devote his entire career to making one small school as good as it could be.
Don’t get me wrong, I know being a prep school headmaster isn’t the same as founding an anti-malaria charity. But that’s sort of the point: it wasn’t saintly, neither was it glory-seeking. It was a modest, realistic goal. He didn’t want to run a bigger school or to make the school that he did run bigger. He just wanted consistency, and from that he derived contentment – or at least I hope he did. He certainly did some good, albeit only to the male children of fee-paying parents.
- 10 -
The Smell of the Crowd
I cross Finchley Road at the Swiss Cottage roundabout (there’s a pub there which looks like a giant Swiss cottage, which is how the area got its name; why such a giant chalet-shaped boozer was built is a mystery to me) and wiggle left into the top of Eton Avenue. There are two theatres here now – Hampstead Theatre, which is newly rebuilt, having existed in a glorified portacabin fifty yards further south until a few years ago, and the Embassy Theatre, which belongs to the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Some students are sitting on the steps outside the theatre and I squint at them jealously. I don’t want to be them – they’re wearing loose, sensible clothing in order to facilitate the sort of balletic moves by which no production in theatrical history has ever been improved, and I’m including ballets; plus they all seem to be agreeing about something, and I’ve got a hunch that they’re all wrong – I’m just remembering what it was like to put on plays as a student, surrounded by friends, all beer and low stakes.
But perhaps it’s not like that if you’re a drama school student. At university, it all just felt like fun. Maybe these students feel like they’ve started work already. I’m not sorry I didn’t go
He ran a terrific school, though – and it was terrific largely as a result of his labours. He’d been headmaster for over 25 years when I arrived, and his techniques clearly worked – the school’s academic reputation was excellent and, more importantly, it was an institution with high self-esteem.
That’s quite a trick to pull off for a small provincial prep school which was neither big enough nor rich enough to win at games. Somehow the boys at New College School were made to feel clever and significant. The staff seemed to have a swagger about them too which, when I think about it, was remarkable. It’s not a brilliant job, teaching in a small prep school. We do not, sadly, live in a society that values teaching very highly as a profession. We live in a society that pretends to, but gives the big money to footballers and bankers (and more to comedians and actors than they are probably worth, I’m very happy to admit, but personally I’m in it for the disproportionate praise).
But, even where teaching is valued as it should be, teachers from small independent prep schools are probably the least revered. Those little seats of learning have neither the sense of sacrifice of the state sector nor the glamour of the major public schools. But most of the staff at New College School seemed bright, interesting, fun, well-motivated and had been there years. Butch was clearly doing something right, even if it was mainly spotting clever and engaging people who weren’t very ambitious.
Whenever I think about the odd alchemy – the combination of planning, tradition, flexibility, inflexibility and luck – that it takes to make a functional institution, I think of New College School. And I worry that institutions like that are less likely to exist in Britain now. We don’t seem to live in a society where excellence in small but achievable aims is respected – where a man like Alan Butterworth, a very bright and charismatic Oxford graduate, would be willing to devote his entire career to making one small school as good as it could be.
Don’t get me wrong, I know being a prep school headmaster isn’t the same as founding an anti-malaria charity. But that’s sort of the point: it wasn’t saintly, neither was it glory-seeking. It was a modest, realistic goal. He didn’t want to run a bigger school or to make the school that he did run bigger. He just wanted consistency, and from that he derived contentment – or at least I hope he did. He certainly did some good, albeit only to the male children of fee-paying parents.
- 10 -
The Smell of the Crowd
I cross Finchley Road at the Swiss Cottage roundabout (there’s a pub there which looks like a giant Swiss cottage, which is how the area got its name; why such a giant chalet-shaped boozer was built is a mystery to me) and wiggle left into the top of Eton Avenue. There are two theatres here now – Hampstead Theatre, which is newly rebuilt, having existed in a glorified portacabin fifty yards further south until a few years ago, and the Embassy Theatre, which belongs to the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Some students are sitting on the steps outside the theatre and I squint at them jealously. I don’t want to be them – they’re wearing loose, sensible clothing in order to facilitate the sort of balletic moves by which no production in theatrical history has ever been improved, and I’m including ballets; plus they all seem to be agreeing about something, and I’ve got a hunch that they’re all wrong – I’m just remembering what it was like to put on plays as a student, surrounded by friends, all beer and low stakes.
But perhaps it’s not like that if you’re a drama school student. At university, it all just felt like fun. Maybe these students feel like they’ve started work already. I’m not sorry I didn’t go
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