Being part of something bigger

Good to talk, this week, to a Fifth Form student who has found a clever bit of technology to help with organising academic materials; this will I hope be one of the pupil-inspired initiatives the Grant Awarding Body will consider when it next meets. The School Vice-Captain leads the student part of this committee, where staff and boys look at pupil projects which can be supported by funding for the benefit of students and others. I mention this particular idea because it seems to me to summarise well that tension between the individual (the student’s idea) and the collective (its use for others).

So too, Max Ronte’s talk to PRISM on Friday will have benefited him, but also the junior scholars who heard and discussed it.

That balance between individual and collective applies too, obviously, in Music. And Sport. And Drama. In Music, the Fairfield Halls concert before half term showcased John Lui, yes, but equally the choirs and orchestras supporting. Any sporting star is part of a team. The individual monologues (OK, I know, tautology, all monologues are by definition individual) the Fifth Form Drama students did before half term were impressive: now many of them will be on stage as part of a big ensemble in Hairspray. Drama critics sometimes talk of a play as being ‘an ensemble piece’ but in that no individual can ever really do something entirely alone, all pieces are ensemble pieces.

And that is the point: the obvious point that we are always part of something bigger. This coming week we will say our formal farewell to Geoff Wright OW, Court Governor and Whitgift’s Chairman: his own man, fiercely independent, but proudly part of a community (Whitgift) which he respected and loved, and a family he cherished. It will be our privilege to say our formal farewell in music, words and thoughts.