By David Tickner, Headmaster, Newcastle School for Boys
“Beyond the classroom learning environment, pupils are well known as individuals – their backgrounds, interests, and aspirations. This makes a tremendous difference particularly, during the adolescent years. To be known and valued as an individual during a time when self-esteem can be fragile is very valuable.”
Reflecting on a career in independent schools that started in the early nineties and a headship at Newcastle School for Boys that has now spanned 12 years, it is noticeable how much more multi-faceted and complex education has become. The burden of regulation and compliance has grown exponentially in recent times.
Headship has always been a broad and stimulating role, but schools must now be highly adept not only in teaching and learning, but in the complex and demanding areas of safeguarding, online safety, attendance, mental and physical health to name but a few. And rightly so. These all support and help children. Part of the challenge for schools is to retain sight of the wood for the trees – to avoid drowning in policy and compliance and ensure that they can focus effectively on teaching and looking after their children, staff and wider communities.
However, at its heart, education hasn’t changed and each of the independent schools that I have worked in has had at its core an approach to maximising individual pupils’ academic progress whilst supporting their wellbeing and social and emotional development.
At Newcastle School for Boys, these are embedded in our school aims, which focus on pupils’ wellbeing, individual academic progress, and character development within an environment that both supports and challenges. I am a firm believer that the pursuit of a school’s aims should be visible and demonstrable in its daily life – in its classrooms, corridors, and activities – and not simply remain as fine words in a magazine article or published on a website.
How do we achieve this at Newcastle School for Boys?
Firstly, our pupils are known and valued as individuals. This is aided is aided by our size and structure. A model of a single class per year group of up to 20 pupils in our Junior School and a two-class per year group model of up to 40 pupils per year group in the Senior School. The benefits are obvious. In simple terms, up to a third more time for our teachers and support staff to spend with individual pupils compared to a class of 30. This allows for individual feedback and guidance, stretch and challenge as well as additional support where necessary. It also means that beyond the classroom learning environment, pupils are really well known as individuals – their backgrounds, interests and aspirations. This makes a tremendous difference particularly, I always feel, during the adolescent years. To be known and valued as an individual during a time when self-esteem can be fragile is very valuable.
Just as, if not more, important than size and structure is the school’s ethos and the commitment of its staff. This is where the focus on individual children and the benefits really makes a difference to the lives and experiences of our pupils.
Like all children and young people, our pupils have experienced increased challenge in ensuring their mental wellbeing since the pandemic. Whilst this has been an unwelcome and perhaps surprising development, our culture and ethos as a school has meant that we have been well placed to respond and work hard to meet all pupils’ needs. This is done through an emphasis on building character, including resilience, from a young age as well as being ready to respond and put in place the right support where it might be needed, whether this is through the School’s pastoral systems and staff, or more specialist, through onsite professional guidance counselling, or signposting and liaising with other services.
The development of character in our pupils has never felt more important than it does post-Covid. Our pupils are able, from a young age, in the Junior School to articulate our core character virtues of community, integrity, resilience, courage, leadership and empathy. Even more importantly, as they move up through the School, they are able to apply and demonstrate them in their lives – both in school and beyond.
All of this supports and runs alongside the School’s core business of teaching and learning, preparing our students for future academic and career paths and their readiness for life beyond school.
We seek to develop pupils who leave Newcastle School for Boys equipped with the qualifications to pursue their future academic and career ambitions supported by the right character and soft skills to be successful. Even more importantly and ambitiously, we want them to be happy and fulfilled in all aspects of their future lives.
The world has undoubtedly become more challenging including for young people and schools in recent years, but the essential challenge of balancing the focus on academic progress and maximising outcomes whilst supporting individual wellbeing remains constant and something that Newcastle School for Boys has delivered successfully since its formation, nearly 20 years ago now.
newcastleschool.co.uk