Playing the long game

I was reminded last week that the late and much respected Stephen Winkley, long time Head of Uppingham, once met some fellow retirees on a walking holiday, and the group introduced each other. He sheepishly said he was a teacher (we’re always a bit sheepish about it) and when pushed, a retired Headmaster, and when pushed even further, that he’d just retired as HM of Uppingham. One of the others in the group said that was a coincidence, as he’d had a child at Uppingham some thirty years earlier. ‘Were you pleased with it?’ asked Stephen. ‘Had it been a good school, had it done a good job?’ ‘Well’, said the parent, ‘thirty years ago ... it’s a bit early to tell yet.’

It’s a good story, and reminds us that as well as the immediate - great results and the next stage of our students’ journey - there are longer games in play. Some U6 parents and students have prompted me to talk more about students’ legacy. How can they leave the place better than they found it, make their mark a positive one, not just on the school but on those they meet? This is big picture, values stuff, and at the very most basic, it’s about giving as well as taking.

Now, the absolute need to give as well as take is around every activity. Listening to an old recording of an early stand-up comedian talking about her art, I was struck by a similar thought: ‘I have something which I think is funny, or touching, or interesting, and I offer it to the audience. And if they accept it, they respond, they laugh, maybe applaud, and we complete a circle.’ I’m not going to tell you who this is - guesses are welcome!

In sport, too, we receive a pass, we build on the play, we pass on. In music, we take the tuition, the gift, the direction, and we give to the audience. Art is meaningless unless shared.

It might quite probably be myth that the white flower Whitgift boys used in the past to wear on Founder’s Day, was in tribute to the ‘White Gift’ of our founder. But in any case they need to remember (and our job is to ensure they do) that they are in receipt day after day of generous gifts, and they need to be givers in return.