Learning to Grow Up

One of the ?Big Things? in prep school life ? growing up and doing it right ? takes a knock or two but, as Paddy Watson, Headmaster of Foremarke Hall observes, where better for children to learn than through sport?

The number of parents, actual or prospective, who ask me about the importance of sport at Foremarke Hall is, well, few. And I think there is a good reason for this: essentially they have made up their mind on the matter before they ever make their way up the drive to visit our school. Ask any marketeer and you will hear the same list of priorities in the minds of those countenancing independent education for their boys and girls: small, well ordered classes; teaching staff committed not only to academic education but to developing the whole child; a sound and supportive approach to school discipline; an empowered head supported by wise governors; emphasis on responsibilities not rights; emphasis on community ? and a huge array of extra-curricular opportunity? and in particular, sport.

These are the things, so few of which are made available by a state which spends billions on quangos and bureaucracies which would be better spent on actual schools, lays siege to Heads with red tape and paperwork instead of entrusting them with the task of leadership and most recently bizarrely seems to be seeking to enact into law in some sort of promise to provide that which is absolutely standard in the world of independent schools. The item in the Queen?s Speech would be almost funny if it were not such a tragic admission of the things government has got wrong for generations, such a tale of priorities inverted, of opportunities missed. When we compare academic attainment, independent vs state, the gulf is truly awful ? and it is nothing to do with ?privilege? or ?elitism?: it is everything to do with opportunity, attitude and hard work. And when we move from the classroom to the great outdoors, reflecting on the fitness and health of our young nation, I suggest an entirely non-scientific, common sense approach: how many manifestly obese and unfit children are there in prep schools where the proper, traditional daily sports session is an integral part of the curriculum? Very few ? and just as with academic attainment, this is not because the boys and girls are born that way or their parents are massively wealthy or unrealistically aspirational: it is because those parents know what they believe in and they know where to find it.

So why this huge premium value on sport in prep schools? First of all, it is a recognition of the fact that almost all children are naturally competitive. For sure, not everyone wants to be ? nor should be ? in the first team, or necessarily in any team at all, but take any sports session with any level or range of ability, choose groups fairly (not by that awful alternate calling out of names by ?captains?), tell them what they are going to do and why, play them against each other and almost everyone involved will try to help their side win. Teaching children to deal with this aspect of human nature is one of the most important things we do in school. It will not directly help anyone pass an exam or get to the right university but what it will do is help that person assimilate their performance in any sphere of human activity to themselves, understand it in the context in which they live and use the experience positively for the future. This is something of which I fear many who are now ?responsible? for the endless stream of ?let?s try this now? government ?initiatives? have completely lost sight ? indeed of which they lost sight prior to and during the great and awful sell-off of primary school playing fields which has now finally (almost) drawn to a halt (not because of enlightened policy, of course, but because there are virtually none left to sell).

We need to learn to deal with triumph and disaster (though not necessarily just the same) and we cannot do this by reading about it in a politically correct, ?deferred success?, everyone-ends-up-with-a-prize-and-going-home-happily text book. You?ve got to get out there and try hard, expose yourself to the risk of failure, because without that ? as JFK splendidly put it in one of his memorable speeches about the space race: ??while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last.?

And that leads to the second reason sport is so valuable to the young: camaraderie, joining in, winning or losing, thriving or failing ? but doing it together. Whether they are supporting one another, celebrating team success, or commiserating in defeat, as surely as our boys and girls are competitive, they are also together-creatures. We all are. This works at every level: it works when Year 3 are out playing a hockey or netball session and it works when a particularly high-performing squad is competing in an U13 IAPS national final. It all brings us together and in particular, schools being what they are, it is likely to bring us together under our own colours: I think there are few more splendid sights, sounds and atmospheres than those to be found at prep school tournaments ? little clumps and bases here and there like the pavilions of old; busy groups of players and supporters, people with a purpose, enjoying the tension, the excitement and above all of that, the togetherness. And for the children of course this lasts right through to the end of the bus journey home.

Third, learning to play up and play the game. I do not mind in the least that those very words are old-fashioned because the values which underpin them are timeless. Style never goes out of fashion ? nor do manners ? and nor does good conduct on the sports field. The fact that the hitherto popular Thierry Henry can scathingly be described in the press as standing out from his fellow players ?the way a sheep stands out from? er, well? sheep? for his cheating against Ireland some weeks ago is merely the latest high-profile example of a scourge which has been allowed to run through sport in recent years. Most have this under control; soccer conspicuously does not; there was a very unpleasant episode on the rugby field not long ago; cycling (of all things!) has had terrible problems. Interestingly, you don?t hear anything untoward from the worlds of hockey and netball. Or tennis. Or golf. Playing according to both the letter and the spirit of the rules is a fundamental lesson for life, not so that we can become little rule-bound automatons incapable of taking initiative, but so that we can become people who understand what is appropriate where, when ? and why. I once saw a young man (in Scotland this was) lose his wicket towards the end of a match which his team lost. He clearly thought the umpire was mistaken. An hour or so later I happened to notice the same boy chucking what looked to me like hundreds of pounds worth of cricket kit into the boot of an expensive car. And then I saw dad: it was very clear indeed that there was going to be a discussion on the way home and it was not going to be about umpires and their mistakes, nor was it going to be about how to avoid whatever technical error had led to the dismissal (right or wrong). It was going to be about how to respond and behave appropriately in such a situation ? in short about how to grow up. And that of course is one of the Big Things in prep school life ? growing up and doing it right. Yes it takes a knock or two ? so it must ? and how much better the learning if it can be experienced under the carefully constructed codes and laws of our sports.

Fourth, fitness. Regardless of the activity, the effect of sport on the young developing body is that it will grow stronger, healthier and happier and as it does so it will become a better home for mind, spirit and soul. In the immediate physical moment this is no doubt to do with endorphins and other excitingly scientific things coursing through the system: while this is pleasant, it is not what I mean. What I mean is unashamedly old-fashioned in a world of junk children?s television, junk computer games and junk food: it is recognition of the simple fact that forgoing those easy things in favour of something which actually makes demands ? physical and mental ? and requires willpower is a Good Thing. Without apology, as it happens, Kennedy again: ?we choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard?. Knowing that one has foregone an hour on the games console in order to join the swim squad for a session, or avoided a burger-and-chips meal because you know it won?t help with the training is not only a boon physically, it is also just one more little piece of determination, of self-control ? and the cumulative effect of many such little pieces is what we call strength of character. We?re not all going to be Ellen MacArthurs, but we most certainly can all aspire to at least a part of what makes her so extraordinary.

Fifth, health. Every week the media brings us some new shock horror story about the prognosis for today?s under-eighteens (and I regret to say the last decade or so?s, now in their twenties, too). Obesity, heart disease, tooth and bone decay, diabetes ? the list is long and depressing so I?ll stop there but the simple fact of the matter is that other things being equal, a good daily dose of vigorous sporting activity throughout childhood will serve to reduce the impact of these things in middle life and keep them at bay for longer. Everyone knows it and since we have a nationally funded health service (at the time of writing) everyone in employment pays through their taxes for the consequences of ignoring it. Once again, for the good of each individual and for the good of our national exchequer, the Government needs to be reversing the trend of the last three decades and getting all of our young people healthy again. If they need any guidance (and they most assuredly do) on the beliefs and practices which underpin this and can make it a reality, then Ministers have no further to look than the independent schools.

Sixth, parental involvement. In prep schools we?re still a little short of the point (and doubt we will ever get there either!) where parental involvement sees mums and dads cheering sons and daughters on in a maths lesson. But you can come along any Wednesday or Saturday and watch them play sport. A few of the grown-ups shout and shout and rather forget where they are and that is a pity, but it is rare. A few of the coaches do the same, and that is rarer. For the most part, the parental touchline is a huge reservoir of goodwill, of cheerful, positive, willing support for the children and their school and that is marvellous. The flavour is slightly different if it?s a misty-moisty November afternoon watching rugby, a windy day at the netball or a languid summer on the cricket boundary but the essence is the same ? good company in good schools.

Sport in independent prep schools is not some kind of add-on, some pushy-parent-driven extraneous mum?s taxi after-hours club activity: the value of sport to our communities and the multitude of benefits entailed for our young people is absolutely integral to what we do; it is enshrined in each and every school?s ethos, aims and objectives, integral to the curriculum and best of all when done properly, something which is 100% wholly positive and good. Not many things about which you can say that.

Paddy Watson is the Headmaster of Foremarke Hall, the Repton Preparatory School, Derbyshire.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2010 2011 issue of Attain.