Destination Education
00:00:00 · Ruth Benny, Scott Crawford
[00:00:00] S0: Doctor Scott Crawford. [00:00:01] S1: When I was applying for the job I had a tour from a prefect who said to me Lancing identified something in me which I didn't know myself. But it speaks to that idea of helping young people to work out who they are and where they're going to go. I describe Lancing as a scholarly school. What we focus in is trying to ignite a passion. If you're a naturally curious child who enjoys getting stuck in, you'll have a great time. [00:00:27] S0: Good afternoon, thanks for coming in. Doctor Scott Crawford, Headmaster of Lancing College, welcome. [00:00:33] S1: Hi, it's good to be here. [00:00:34] S0: When did you arrive in Hong Kong? [00:00:35] S1: Two days ago, it was my first time. [00:00:38] S0: And you said it's your first time ever? [00:00:39] S1: First time in Hong Kong, yeah. [00:00:40] S0: What's your first impression? [00:00:42] S1: Oh, love it. I want to come back because I've only got a week here and I don't think that's quite enough time to scratch the surface. No. So I'll have to come back. [00:00:49] S0: I've told this, if people watch this podcast they'll be bored to death but I came in 1995 for twelve months. It got me, yeah, it's a great place. And also you've not been at Lancing College all that long so we'll get into that. But I always like, the podcast is called Destination Education, we can cover as much ground as we possibly can in the time that we have. But I always like to find out a little bit about your background. You went to a comprehensive school. You tell us about your own education.
00:00:49 · Ruth Benny, Scott Crawford
[00:00:49] S0: I've told this, if people watch this podcast they'll be bored to death but I came in 1995 for twelve months. It got me, yeah, it's a great place. And also you've not been at Lancing College all that long so we'll get into that. But I always like, the podcast is called Destination Education, we can cover as much ground as we possibly can in the time that we have. But I always like to find out a little bit about your background. You went to a comprehensive school. You tell us about your own education. [00:01:18] S1: Sure, I went to my local village comprehensive school in rural Scotland. [00:01:24] S0: Whereabouts? [00:01:24] S1: In Ayrshire, which is very beautiful but it was a tiny school and I had a great time, I loved it. It was idyllic, settled in the countryside. I had very inspirational teachers and one of them was my biology teacher and rather unthinkingly because I liked him I went off to university to study biology, which turned out to be the right thing for me but at the time was a bit of a gamble. Went from rural Ayrshire to Oxford, which was a bit of a transition. [00:02:06] S0: Must have been. I can hear the accent now but you've done well to lose a lot of it. [00:02:10] S1: Yeah, it comes and goes. When I go back to Scotland it comes flooding back. [00:02:13] S0: Must have Scottish. And I presume, and I know that it's still the case, that most of the students in Scotland will stay in Scotland for university. Did you get a scholarship?
00:02:13 · Ruth Benny, Scott Crawford
[00:02:13] S0: Must have Scottish. And I presume, and I know that it's still the case, that most of the students in Scotland will stay in Scotland for university. Did you get a scholarship? [00:02:22] S1: No I didn't, but I remember at the time there was certainly a sense in school that you would go to Edinburgh or Dundee or St Andrews and I fought against that a little I think I had watched Brideshead Revisited or something on television and so Oxford is an attractive place to go. So I applied and got an interview [00:02:46] S0: and I ended up [00:02:49] S1: was the first kid in forty years to go from my school to Oxford, but not because I was particularly clever, it's because I just really wanted to do it and didn't want to take that tried and tested path to the very good universities that are in Scotland. But I went down south and stayed. [00:03:04] S0: And then how did you go from biology degree, was it biology degree? [00:03:10] S1: Yes, I did biological sciences at Oxford, was a three year degree and towards the end I didn't know quite what to do. All my chums were going off into the city, they were corporate lawyers, going off to some investment banking and I thought that wasn't quite right for me. But I really enjoyed the biology so I was lucky enough to get a funded PhD scholarship to study genetics. But that meant moving from Oxford to York, so I went up to York University and spent four happy years there researching an aspect of plant developmental genetics. Again, I enjoyed, but quickly I realised that I was better at teaching than doing experiments.
00:03:10 · Scott Crawford, Ruth Benny
[00:03:10] S1: Yes, I did biological sciences at Oxford, was a three year degree and towards the end I didn't know quite what to do. All my chums were going off into the city, they were corporate lawyers, going off to some investment banking and I thought that wasn't quite right for me. But I really enjoyed the biology so I was lucky enough to get a funded PhD scholarship to study genetics. But that meant moving from Oxford to York, so I went up to York University and spent four happy years there researching an aspect of plant developmental genetics. Again, I enjoyed, but quickly I realised that I was better at teaching than doing experiments. [00:03:54] S0: Because as part of your PhD you have to do some teaching? [00:03:57] S1: That's right, I did some undergraduate teaching and discovered that I was better at that than being in the lab. So at the end of it I thought gosh, maybe I should become a teacher. So I saw an advert for a biology teacher job at a school in London and again applied, got an interview and became a biology teacher. [00:04:19] S0: So you started as a biology teacher, was that at Highgate? [00:04:21] S1: That was at Highgate, yes. [00:04:22] S0: That's a good school to start off with.
00:04:22 · Ruth Benny, Scott Crawford
[00:04:22] S0: That's a good school to start off with. [00:04:24] S1: It was a great school, I had a whale of a time, so I spent nearly a decade there and had fantastic mentors and at that point at Highgate I was able to try lots of different things within schools. Obviously I taught for a few years, became a qualified teacher and then I was a housemaster for a couple of years, I had a pastoral role. Then I moved into academic management, so I took over running the biology department and then towards the end I was the head of science. So there was a lot of opportunity at Highgate at that time to get those positions of responsibility and move forward. I worked with great people and the kids were fantastic and I loved living in London, it was a great time. [00:05:04] S0: It was a nice part of London. And then you went back to Oxford for a little bit and then you've come to Lancing, but I want to ask you, so all of your teaching career up until last year had been in day schools. There must be a huge difference between heading up a day school and a boarding school. What's the key difference that you found?
00:05:04 · Ruth Benny, Scott Crawford
[00:05:04] S0: It was a nice part of London. And then you went back to Oxford for a little bit and then you've come to Lancing, but I want to ask you, so all of your teaching career up until last year had been in day schools. There must be a huge difference between heading up a day school and a boarding school. What's the key difference that you found? [00:05:26] S1: I think it's a combination of that sense of living alongside people day by day and the depth of relationships that form I think is a result of that. I worked in very successful day skills, there were very busy high octane places, the days were relatively short compared to a boarding school day, which meant that everything was very intense and there was a great energy to the school and I think that's fantastic and I really enjoyed that. But in boarding you get expansiveness, you get spaciousness, not just in terms of the acreage that we've got at Lancing but that time in the day to really develop those relationships and that's the single biggest difference that jumps out. I I was an interesting candidate for the Governors when they appointed me because I hadn't worked in a day school so it was a bit of a gamble I think that they took on. [00:06:26] S0: Has it paid off? [00:06:27] S1: I hope so, I'm still there and enjoying it. [00:06:30] S0: My son went to Undal who received your predecessor and I think he left. So he left at the same time. [00:06:39] S1: That's right, we passed over. Interesting, [00:06:43] S0: as you say it must have been a leap of faith for them or they must have seen something.