Destination Education
00:19:45 · Ruth Benny, Scott Crawford
[00:19:45] S0: It's a very sensible approach, very sensible answer to a really quite generic question but I just thought I'd ask it because it's still the sense that unlike universities in say The States or most of the universities in The UK are still quite one dimensional in the sense that they are simply select, they don't even interview the students, most of the Unis do they? [00:20:10] S1: No, no. And it is a shame and I think that then means for us we've got a real job to do to try and find the right fit for the candidate and university. So we spend a lot of time with young people individually thinking about what is the right course for you rather than what is the right university you might think you want to go to. And it's that sort of concierge service that we're providing that parents are expecting and we deliver. [00:20:38] S0: Yeah, it's a tricky one. You mentioned there was a course called RSE, was it Religion and Philosophy [00:20:46] S1: Education? Our Religious and Philosophical Education course. [00:20:51] S0: Okay, and I also wanted to ask you, because I think you had something, or you've studied biological sciences and that, DEI, discuss? [00:21:01] S1: Massively important and we obviously take it very seriously, given the nature of our school, I'd say that we're are genuinely an international school at the College. 60% of our students are boarders and of that 60%, one third are international. And of that one third they represent 43 different countries.
00:21:01 · Scott Crawford, Ruth Benny
[00:21:01] S1: Massively important and we obviously take it very seriously, given the nature of our school, I'd say that we're are genuinely an international school at the College. 60% of our students are boarders and of that 60%, one third are international. And of that one third they represent 43 different countries. [00:21:22] S0: But 25% of that one third is Chinese, according to my research done this morning, I think combining Hong Kong and Mainland China, isn't it? [00:21:35] S1: I don't think it's that high. [00:21:36] S0: It's about 90 out of three sixty four,
00:21:36 · Ruth Benny, Scott Crawford
[00:21:36] S0: It's about 90 out of three sixty four, [00:21:39] S1: I if I remember think we work quite hard so that the school doesn't feel like a particular part of the world is dominating and you can do that in the way in which you distribute the young people through houses and you think about where they come from and obviously backgrounds, do they come from UK preps, do they come from international schools and you want to have a mix. But we have 43 different nationalities represented in the College and that means that there is a great cultural texture to the school and the young people, quite without influence from the teachers, are keen to talk about their cultures and where they come from and their backgrounds, often through food. There is a wonderful exchange of cultural identity through their food and celebrating that. Obviously we have a pupil led DEI panel and they're thinking about initiatives and ways in which we can bring children together to talk about some of the more difficult issues that exist in geopolitics. And that works well. But what I see as I move through the school is 43 different nationalities living harmoniously together by dint of good pastoral care, shared interests and a rich programme. So it's great training I think for when they leave school and go off into the workplace, wherever that's going to be. So we do that naturally rather than having a heavy handed approach to delivering on DEI objectives, if that makes sense, as it emerges from the community.
00:23:18 · Ruth Benny, Scott Crawford
[00:23:18] S0: I suppose I also thought of asking that question because I'd also read that Lancing talks about quirky students and I didn't quite know what that meant. [00:23:27] S1: I think there's a long history of Lancing, if you go back in the archives of some of our alumni, of quirkiness and bending the rules and being inventive. We have a good history of satire within the school, you see it in the school magazine, the way in which they perform drama, there's a good history of stand up comedy, not all of it deliberate. Think that quirkiness is in some of the interests that the kids have too, from on their own leading a poetry group or setting up a lecture series on a topic that they're interested in. I think our job as teachers is to help them unlock their interests. It's bit like what I was saying earlier, a kid wants to come to me and set up a society to look at Lego, let's do it, let's have a Lego society, it's one of the most popular. [00:24:23] S0: Is it? [00:24:23] S1: That's why that 150 different clubs and societies has emerged, because of the interests of the pupils. Maybe that's not quirkiness but there's a charm to it. [00:24:38] S0: How [00:24:43] S1: do
00:24:43 · Scott Crawford, Ruth Benny
[00:24:43] S1: do [00:24:43] S0: you differentiate? You've got Brighton College up the road and in that part of the world there's a lot of competition, the market has changed. If I'm talking about Lancing to a family, how do I differentiate Lancing from whether it's Brighton or AN, other boarding school? A lot of these conversations say it's hard, I haven't been to the school and I must make that right. But what's the differentiator?
00:25:13 · Scott Crawford
[00:25:13] S1: I describe Lancing as a scholarly school rather than academic skill. By that I mean of course the children need to do well on their exams, but by golly we're not obsessed by the exams. In our lessons you won't see our pupils working through question after question after question to prepare them to get them to answer exams well. What we focus in on is the subject and trying to ignite a passion for biology and history and everything else that we do. And that's central. And from that exam results follow. And so that scholarly approach to asking questions and being curious learners and teachers feeling free that they can go off topic and leave the syllabus behind for a lesson and just follow a line of inquiry is part of our experience. My heart was singing recently when we had a Cambridge professor come and give a talk, a fantastic lecture at the interface between genetics and computer science and history, it was a really interesting presentation. And at the end our students, all different year groups, clustered around this poor man and asked them question after question for about an hour because they were hungry for ideas and in that group we had some of our top scholars and we had some students who are on that of C grade to B grade to A grade transition, but they're all united by a love for learning and it's what I bang on about in chapel and in assembly all the time and it's central and core to what we do. There's that, that's the curriculum, that's academics and then there is the identity of the College. We have our chapel which you may know is the largest school chapel in the world. We're very proud of our Christian identity, we gather in that place three times a week and regardless of the faith of the individual pupil, that experience of being together in one of the most extraordinary buildings...