The Roundup - Edition 55

A message from 
Rich Jones, Head.

This week I was really touched and amused by a parent of a student who left last academic year who sent through a gift to me. The card said ‘we thought this would give you solace with all the rugby on currently’. They had, as proud South Africans, bought me a Springbok jersey to wear as I watch England play and falter. It did make me laugh but I have not quite brought myself to put it on yet.

However, it did put me in mind of my own childhood where South Africa was in a very different position in the world. With Apartheid in full swing and racism rife across the country, the international community had shunned the nation, and the calls for a certain Nelson Mandela to be freed rang in the air louder and louder.

But perhaps, it rang a little less loudly in my little conservative Somerset town. I remember complaining to my mum that kids at school and some teachers were saying that Mandela was simply a terrorist and that the regime was normal and fair. My mum would sigh, sit down next to me at the kitchen table, and explain that some people just had some ‘funny ideas about things they are scared of’.  

Being the difficult and truculent individual that I was, I decided to take things into my own hands and started fundraising at my massive comprehensive school for the Mandela Scholarship Fund which funded placements for young black South Africans at universities across the UK. I have to be honest, the money that I raised from a sponsored silence (remember those), a lunchtime bake sale outside the canteen and a table tennis tournament (with only three participants, including me) raised an epic total of £23.43. A few teachers helped pitch in, my mates did (more out of sympathy than anything else) and my mum donated a fiver. It was pretty galling to be told that I was a terrorist sympathiser by the then head of maths and even my head of year told me to “be careful” and not to make too much noise. Oddly, but perhaps depressingly predictably, a couple of families chose to stop talking to my parents at church, I was viewed with increasing suspicion at school and the school newsletter decided against my plea for an article about my fundraising activities (although that could have been more to do with the paltry sums raised than support for Heunis and FW de Klerk’s policies). 

Not a great or positive reflection on my UK schooling experience or the outlook of a small Somerset community in the 1980s but I do think about it from time to time as Head of St Chris. I am grateful that our school champions human rights, teaches debate, encourages critical thinking and actively, and with gusto, fundraises for a variety of causes and charities. It was such a joy to watch the new Major Officials in the Senior School this week raising both awareness and money for charity. I must say that their Just Dance Clubs, Stupid Cupid and teacher baby photo competitions were slightly more inspired than my rather pathetic sponsored silence. 

There will always be people we encounter who tarnish our world views, there will always be grim contexts and people who have strong beliefs that differ from our own and where we can’t fathom how to reconcile them.  However, I agree with Helen Keller, who said that “the highest result of education is tolerance” and that is part of the potency of St Chris; that commitment to the importance of questioning, championing difference, self-expression and confidence that transforms not only our student’s lives, but the lives of those around them. 

And I may well wear my Springbok top if we don’t manage to beat Scotland next week. Have a wonderful half term everyone.