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Preface
‘Mr Bailey, your predecessor was so well loved, so well loved,’ declared a rather stressed and angry mother in my office, one Thursday morning, after the unsuccessful U11 netball game the previous day.
I had made the fatal error of being too friendly with the parents whilst watching the match. In my too relaxed manner, I had said that perhaps the reason for the score being rather one-sided was because of the ‘gene pool’ of the mothers. It was meant as a frivolous joke and the majority of those watching had laughed as we approached yet another goal being scored. This was the reason for this particularly irate mother, dressed in skinny jeans and with latte in hand, being in my study the following morning. My rule of having an open-door policy was taken to an extreme as she knocked and walked straight in at the same time, circumventing the means of protection usually afforded by my PA.
‘My husband is so angry that he is minded to write to the Chair of Governors,’ Mrs Pipchin threatened. It was interesting that he wasn’t sufficiently angry, however, to be present at the meeting.
‘You lack emotional intelligence,’ she continued.
‘I am sorry, it was a stupid and ill-judged comment,’ I replied, slightly red-faced. ‘It was only meant as a joke. I am sure that all the players’ DNA is fantastic and it was only a small blip on what has been a reasonable season for the U11 team.
’Whilst she berated me, mid slurp of her latte, I kept thinking that Mrs Pipchin was over a term late paying her fees; I decided though that now was not the time to raise that issue. Where was her husband again? She eventually left and I sat back and reflected; my coffee was now cold.
The next morning, I was to be found in my usual spot on the front gate welcoming the parents and pupils. Mrs Pipchin stopped her brand-new Land Rover Discovery by the gate. She refused to get out and I ended up opening the door for her children; it was like being a footman in Downton Abbey. I certainly knew my place. It just highlighted the trials and tribulations of prep-school headship. This whole experience was a reminder that running a small prep school was full of pitfalls and I must remember to be less familiar with the parents in future as it will only get me into trouble.
Being a headmaster of a prep school – that is, an independent school for two-to-13-year-olds – in the 21st century has become a lot more tricky. You are supposed to have a wonderful rapport with the children – being a child yourself helps; teach a great lesson, if you have the time; coach some games and even play in the weekly staff/parent footie team; be strategically astute and have a clear vision; able to read a spreadsheet and run a business; able to lead and manage staff; have a sense of humour; understand employment law; be up to date with health and safety; and deal with an ever more ambitious and truculent parental body. You also have to be prepared to deal with the metaphorical Monty Python’s Foot of Cupid; that is around the corner to upset your day, not forgetting the sound of a short burst of flatulence to add to the pain.
Finally, you must be willing to dress up like Dumbledore but with a Father Christmas beard (my PA couldn’t find the correct one) on World Book Day. As Maximus Decimus Meridius said in the film Gladiator, ‘Are you not entertained?
’‘What more do you want, what more can we do to satiate your ever-increasing needs?’ I plead to the prep-school parent.
I want to make three things clear from the outset. Firstly, in 2020, the cost of privately educating two children for 14 years, assuming the children are at a day school from the ages of four to 13 and then educated at a boarding school, will be around £900,000 – that is an eye-watering figure. Secondly, in every school there are one or two parents who are mad, delusional, crazy, irrational, neurotic, just pure doolally. One can do nothing about them and it is up to the head to look after his or her team and protect the staff from these people; it is part of the job. Finally, we are dealing with the education of children and the increased interest from the modern parent; that is a toxic combination that needs careful navigation for all parties.
In his book The Age of Absurdity, Michael Foley commented on the ‘total confidence that parents instil in their children in the 21st century’. The problem with this kind of ‘high self-esteem’ is that it is sometimes accompanied by ‘low self-awareness’ and such children grow up with no understanding of their own faults. Foley observed: ‘As the hunchback said happily, “On me it looks good.”’ He believed that all children needed to be happy was love, discipline, play and talking.
I agree, but how does one achieve a balanced approach within a school?
I should also emphasise that the modern-day work ethic whereby parents are commuting two hours a day, working 55+ hours per week, not having the time to put their children to bed and then being faced with a crying 10-year-old child who has failed to make the A team, understandably drives them demented. The result: late-night emails fuelled by alcohol being sent to the head or, worse still, to overworked and unsuspecting teachers.
I understand and empathise but enough is enough, I say – get a grip.
This all reminded me of George Orwell’s observation in his book Keep the Aspidistra Flying, ‘what a fearful thing it is, this incubus of “education”! It means that in order to send his son [or daughter] to the right kind of school (that is, a public school or an imitation of one), a middle-class man is obliged to live for years on end in a style that would be scorned by a jobbing plumber…’ Please excuse the gender bias in Orwell’s quote as it is very clear that, in 2020, both parents have to work extremely hard to pay the huge school fees, but you get my point. I am also aware that there are some very successful plumbers who can afford a private education for their children.
The purpose of writing this memoir is to share with you the extraordinary journey that I faced when I was appointed headmaster of a failing country-prep school at the start of the financial crash of 2008.
In reality, it is both a comic and cosmic survival story, or perhaps it is better described by Polonius – a ‘tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral… or a tragical-comical-historical-pastoral’. I am not sure: maybe it is a window into a period of time in my life and the life of one of the oldest prep schools in the country? It may also act as a window on some of the extraordinary experiences that heads and their staff have to face in the world of independent education.
About the author
George Bailey is the pseudonym of a prep-school headmaster who has, for the past 20 years, led an extraordinary life in the world of independent-school education. The obvious allusion to the main character in the film It’s a Wonderful Life hopefully highlights that, in the end, all we are trying to do is do our best. This book is for all those heads who continue to laugh and cry whilst trying to ensure that their pupils, staff and parents experience a fantastic education.
Note:
This book is a memoir. The events described here are based on memories of my experiences as a headmaster. The identifying features of people and places have been changed in order to protect the privacy of individuals and descriptions of certain situations have been merged to further protect identities. Any similarities are purely coincidental.I have used the names of Charles Dickens’ characters, on occasion, to add some flavour to my memoir.
Illustrations and Cover design © 2020 by Tim Bulmer