St James - a current non-partisan parent replies
Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 4:03 pm
My name is Kevin and I'm father to 3 kids at St James - a boy in the Junior and Senior Schools and a Senior Girl. I am not a member of SES, nor have ever been, but was made aware of this web thread by a letter to parents from David Boddy. Perhaps the forum will allow me to make these points:
1 Times change. The school described here bears no realtion whatever to the schools I have known personally for the past 10 years.
2 Attitudes change. What was permissible in society nearly 30 years ago would be illegal today. The disciplinary approach at my ordinary Northern Grammar School would today count as aggravated assault and battery.
3 The portraits I read here of Mr Debenham are of an entirely different person to the one whom I have known well and respected enormously. When retailed to our eldest, he simply didn't believe that we were talking abuot his old Headmaster.
4 At no point have I or my kids been put under any pressure to join SES. On the contrary, there has been healthy, funny, unsolicited irreverent discussion about the limitations of this group - from existing members.
5 This is not to deny the very laudable aims espoused by SES in the formation of the Junior Schools. What is wrong with wanting to prepare future generations of useful, conscious citizens?
6 That the teaching methods employed in the past may have been eccentric at minimum does not diminish the extraordinary level of care and success achieved by the schools today.
7 As with any organisation, it can take time for the import of a situation to be noted, accepted and acted upon. Seems to me that the criticisms levelled here of a previous regime are taken very seriously, the instigation of a Truth and Reconciliation commission giving weight to this.
8 The concerns of existing parents of culty activity are very simple to address: hang out at the schools! Spend time with your children and their teachers. The spirit of openess and access to practiced by St James's is, in my experience, unprecedented, and everyone is made welcome. And use your eyes! Are the children indoctrinated automatons? Are their emotions sat upon? Are their eyes afraid? Are they heck. Each school - and remember, I visit all 3 in London - is evinced by an atmosphere so happy, so positive and so enabling as to be truly inspirational. Listen to them sing, watch them act, compute their academic results - these kids are HAPPY! (Yes - even our recalcitrant 15 year old!).
Thank you for letting me air these opinions.
Kevin
1 Times change. The school described here bears no realtion whatever to the schools I have known personally for the past 10 years.
2 Attitudes change. What was permissible in society nearly 30 years ago would be illegal today. The disciplinary approach at my ordinary Northern Grammar School would today count as aggravated assault and battery.
3 The portraits I read here of Mr Debenham are of an entirely different person to the one whom I have known well and respected enormously. When retailed to our eldest, he simply didn't believe that we were talking abuot his old Headmaster.
4 At no point have I or my kids been put under any pressure to join SES. On the contrary, there has been healthy, funny, unsolicited irreverent discussion about the limitations of this group - from existing members.
5 This is not to deny the very laudable aims espoused by SES in the formation of the Junior Schools. What is wrong with wanting to prepare future generations of useful, conscious citizens?
6 That the teaching methods employed in the past may have been eccentric at minimum does not diminish the extraordinary level of care and success achieved by the schools today.
7 As with any organisation, it can take time for the import of a situation to be noted, accepted and acted upon. Seems to me that the criticisms levelled here of a previous regime are taken very seriously, the instigation of a Truth and Reconciliation commission giving weight to this.
8 The concerns of existing parents of culty activity are very simple to address: hang out at the schools! Spend time with your children and their teachers. The spirit of openess and access to practiced by St James's is, in my experience, unprecedented, and everyone is made welcome. And use your eyes! Are the children indoctrinated automatons? Are their emotions sat upon? Are their eyes afraid? Are they heck. Each school - and remember, I visit all 3 in London - is evinced by an atmosphere so happy, so positive and so enabling as to be truly inspirational. Listen to them sing, watch them act, compute their academic results - these kids are HAPPY! (Yes - even our recalcitrant 15 year old!).
Thank you for letting me air these opinions.
Kevin