Intellectual freedom and the prep schedule

Winchester around 1850: freedom for whom?

Historical account · School life around 1850, recalled in 1893

The older account is a memory. Writing in 1893 about life in College around 1850, Wickham recalls much of the work being done outside lessons: rapid reading, memorisation, recitation and original composition in quantity. He valued composition as a way to use knowledge, develop imagination and organise thought, but judged that by about 1850 there was too much of it, as other subjects pressed their claims; he describes organised tasks and examinations too.

Then comes a sentence of unusual candour: “Perhaps also a free system such as has been described was better for the few than for the many.” The “perhaps” is a Victorian courtesy; the doubt is a hard one for an admirer of that schooling to admit. He puts no numbers on the few or the many. Which work were pupils expected to do, what help did they have, and who could flourish under those expectations? Those questions make the account worth reading, and the answers belong to that historical education, not to some unchanging Winchester character.

E. C. Wickham · Life in College about 1850, in Winchester College 1393–1893, pp. 110–111

Westminster, 2017: imaginative teaching and practical follow-up

School publication · 2017 farewells describing the teachers’ earlier work

Two Westminster farewells of 2017 describe the help itself. In Abi Farr’s farewell to Sandy Crole, English teaching connects literature with art, architecture and London, and then come prep schedules, deadlines, repeated reminders and strict marking, the reminders being repeated, in schools as elsewhere, for the obvious reason. Michael Davies’s farewell to James Hooper stays closer to the ground, recalling how Hooper encouraged weaker Lower School mathematics groups, and his after-school prep and revision emails. Neither is a manifesto. Both show adults helping pupils do demanding work, which leaves a reader asking whether independence is being developed through support or simply assumed as a starting requirement.

Westminster School · The Elizabethan 2017, pp. 24–25 (PDF page 13)

An opportunity still has to reach a pupil

School publication · 2017 society report

The same issue has the Sports Science Society’s report of a crowded first lecture and then, for the next external speaker, an almost empty room, blamed on ineffective publicity. The organisers’ remedy was admirably direct. They recruited pupils arriving from lunch. One society’s account of two events can’t show how often the same thing happened elsewhere in the school, but it corrects any list of impressive opportunities: the speaker was available, the audience still had to be found, and somebody has to notice what is on offer, make time and turn up.

Westminster School · The Elizabethan 2017, p. 69 (PDF page 35)

The same questions, put to a school today

Editorial interpretation · Questions for present research prompted by the dated accounts above

For the age group you are considering, the telling case is the capable pupil with an interesting idea who cannot plan or finish the work. Who notices the missed work? Who helps turn the idea into manageable steps, and how does that help change as the pupil grows more independent? One concrete example beats an assurance that independence is encouraged.

Beyond lessons, it is worth asking how new pupils are introduced to what is on offer, what happens when activities clash and how less confident pupils are helped to take part; a successful society or a distinguished teacher cannot show how consistently pupils benefit, and the ordinary pupil is worth asking about as well as the exceptional one. Our reading of inspections, like the results and destinations, tells another part of the story; all of it is best read together, with the dates in view, and all of it comes back to what Wickham asked about the many.

Sources and limits

• The Westminster accounts are the school’s own publications, colleagues’ tributes among them; the Winchester account was written in retrospect. Neither is an independent measure of what the teaching achieved.
• Different schools, periods and kinds of source give no basis for a ranking. No historical account enters our examination or admissions calculations.