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The success at any school in the final analysis will depend on the headmaster’s success at selecting and guiding competent staff. As Kingsmead explains, “We believe the whole atmosphere of a school, as well as its academic standards is created by the outlook, enthusiasm and influence of the staff." This is a view that would be shared by most if not all schools. The prep school system and the individual attention only afford an opportunity, it is. the teachers and other staff that determine whether or not a school takes advantage of the opportunity to make a real difference in a child’s life. We have noted some wonderfully devoted individuals working at these schools. Often the commitment in terms of time is far greater than at state schools. Prep school teachers were once called masters at a time when most of the teachers at boys schools were men. The term is still used, but now not so commonly, in part because there are now more women teachers.
As Kingsmead explains, “We believe the whole atmosphere of a school, as well as its academic standards is created by the outlook, enthusiasm and influence of the staff." This is a view that would be shared by most if not all schools. The prep school system and the individual attention only afford an opportunity, it is. the teachers and other staff that determine whether or not a school takes advantage of the opportunity to make a real difference in a child’s life.
We have noted some wonderfully devoted individuals working at these schools. Many prep school old boys can recall such devoted teachers who made such a difference in the effectiveness of their schools. A good example is one master who taught at one Gloucester prep school for a remarkable 45 years.
The retirement of Mr. Chambers this year after 45 years of devoted service to our school has left us with feelings of sadness at his going, mingled with gratitude, admiration and affection towards himself. Now we must suffer the consequences of his departure. He will be greatly missed.
A Alec Chalmers arrived here in 1933. He was engaged by “Big Sir” the cofounder ‘of Beaudesert to teach general subjects in the middle school. His talents were soon recognized and before long he took on that tremendously arduous but . rewarding task of coaching boys for the Common Entrance Exam. He did this for 40 years and his successes were phenomenal, not only with able pupils but backward ones too. Generations of boys knew him and many have reason to be grateful for his teaching. To everything he did he gave his all. And this happened also in his out-of-school activities -winter games with the Colts, summer swimming, and voluntary pastimes especially in drama. Everyone benefited from his wholehearted enthusiasm.
Characteristically, when war came in 1939 he was the first to go and one knows from experience in what esteem he was held by his regiment. In 1944 soon after D-Day he won the Military Cross when commanding a company of the Glosters. In 1945 he returned to Beaudesert to continue and embellish the splendid work he had started here.
For the rest we can only say to him: “Thank you Alec for what you have done. All our heartfelt best wishes go with you, for years of happiness and relaxation in your new home near your family. Fortunately you have chosen to live not far away, and we hope to see you often.
Let us end with a comforting thought. It is simply this: How glad “Big Sir” would have been in the fulfillment of his choice of the young master he engaged in 1933.
Often the commitment in terms of time is far greater than at state schools. While prep school teachers do not have the same level of discipline problems faced by teachers in the state system, in many other ways teaching in the independent system is more demanding than in the state system. Prep school masters are expected to do considerable work outside the classroom. A daunting list of activities are expected of the teachers beyond the normal academic pursuits of preparing lessons, conducting classes, and grading papers. Teachers have to meet with parents, attend social and teas, cheer on their students at matches, supervise clubs and activities, attend chapel, supervise field trips, and serve into the evening on duty days. Masters are expected to devote considerable time to games instruction. We can not begin to count the times that we have seen academically oriented masters out with the boys in all weather for games instruction. All of the schools have regular physical education teachers, but as the entire school generally does games three to six times a week, most of the regular faculty, what ever their athletic capabilities, are expected to participate. Most do with considerable enthusiasm. I recall in particular one very gifted Latin master at a charming school in Staffordshire. He was approaching 70 and nearing a well-earned retirement. On the three occasions we visited it always seem to be drizzling in the afternoon, but each time he was right out in the weather working on cricket skills. For him games was every much a part of his job as the pluperfect. Masters are also expected to participate in clubs and after school activities. Often they are able to use personal skills in activities from photography to railroading to stamp collecting to provide very high standards in the hobbies and activities offered to the children. It is the boarding schools, however, that make the greatest demands on the staff. Given the small size of the schools, the masters have to rotate evening duties which add significant hours to the their work day. Many masters serve as house masters, usually for the older children.
Prep school teachers were once called masters at a time when most of the teachers at boys schools were men. The term is still used, but now not so commonly, in part because there are now more women teachers.
The gender of the teachers is a somewhat touchy subject, in part because modern women do not like to be told that there are somethings that men can do better. While as a general rule we would not take issue with this, we do think that many older boys respond better to the often more asertive men teachers. This is not to say that women teachers can not successfully teach older boys or that all men teachers or better at it than all women teachers. It is to say that men becuse of their size and more asertive personalities have an advantage in working with the older boys. Traditionally masters or teachers at boys' schools have been mostly men and teachers at girls' schools have been mostly women. This has never been absolute and most boys' schools had some women teachers, usually to teach the younger courses or specialty course like art and music. By the same token there were often men teachers at girls' schools, often to teach specialty courses like science and math. These major differences are disappeaing, in part because of coeducation and in part because of legislation on gender descrimination. Another factor is salaries. A man can not support a family on a teacher's salary. Most men teachers are married to women who also work to support the family. Women teachers are often young unmarried women or older women married to a man with a higher sallary. The major shift is that there are many more women involved in teaching at these schools than there were in earlier years. Most head masters when speaking off the record will admit that they prefer to hire men to work with the oder boys. The boys when they finish at the school are just becoming teenagers and often respond better to male teachers. The importance od sport here is another factor.
Many teachers are drawn to the prep schools because the schools ensure that teachers are allowed to actually teach. The prep schools insist on much higher discipline standards compared to the state sector. Prep school teachers rarely encounter serious discipline problems which interrupts classrooms. The serious discipline problems in some state schools simply do not exist in the prep schools. The small more informal administration of the prep schools also reduce the non-academic requirements. State school teachers face a daunting range of non-academic duties, ranging from hall duty, surveys, forms, assignments for disruptive students, conferences and forms required for suspending students, etc. Such requirements can quickly end the enthusiasm that many gifted educators feel for teaching. The key to the success of any school is to ensure that the time and energies of the teaching staff is focused on education. Every hour that the teaching staff is filling out forms, contending with disruptive children, patrolling halls, etc. is time lost to the children and their academic progress.
Few private schools offer significantly higher pay to their teachers. Often teachers at private schools find themselves with more responsibilities and longer working hours. Private school teachers are not unionized and thus working assignments are not subject to collective bargaining and occasional strikes as is the case of the state sector. Prep school teachers simply find it more rewarding to teach in a school where they do not have to contend with a variety of disciplinary problems and can devote their energies to actual teaching.
This is not to say that they do not have discipline problems, but private schools can simply ask parents to withdraw an especially disruptive child. In practice, however, this is rarely necessary. The children mostly come from homes that place great value on education, and this commitment is generally conveyed to their children. The teachers also know that they can usually rely on the parent’s backing in working with the pupil. (See “Parents”.) One master told us “One key to our success is the support we get from parents. They expect the children to work and work hard.” That is not to say that there are not frustrations. On several occasions more than one teacher return to the teachers lounge for a cup of tea after a difficult conference with a parent who find it difficult to believe that their little angel is not at the head of the class. More common though is the cooperative relationship that develops. Teachers leaving the state system often complain that many parents view them in an adversarial manner. One former state school teacher complained to us, “teachers should be respected, not constantly challenged and intimidated.
English teachers may seem extremely assertive to American parents. Teachers, especially the male teachers, are much franker than one would find in an American school. A child not measuring up is likely to be told off right in class in front of his classmates. One master who spent a year at an American private elementary school told us that he rather thought American teachers “meek” in their relations to the children. This perhaps reflects the male-dominated culture found at most English schools until recently. One of the great secrets of teaching is how to learn to respond to the children as individuals with different personalities and needs. Modern teachers take a variety of teacher preparatory courses of questionable value. Many of the essential skills of teaching simply cannot be taught in a classroom. One of the key skills is to how to assess the needed response in a specific instance. Most new teachers assume that a given situation simply requires a a pat response. They soon learn that the perfect response to one child may be precisely the wrong thing to say to another child. As one new master said, “I either say too much or too little, am too kind when the little blighter would benefit from some hard words, or give offense by being too censorious.” Getting that balance right is extraordinarily difficult and it is what separates adequate teachers from the ones that make a real difference in a child’s life.
Prep schools schedule periodic staff meetings. At some schools the meetings are scheduled at random, but many schools have regularly scheduled meetings every 1 or 2 weeks. At most schools are relatively small, this affords the teachers the opportunity to identify and discuss children who are having difficulties and how to deal with those problems. It also affords an opportunity to discuss new methods and approaches to promote a lively approach to teaching.
The children never fail to have interesting things to say about the teachers:
Bramcote: “When I first heard I was going into form III, I was scared stiff because of all the tales I had heard about Mr. Welham, the form master. . . . for the first few maths lessons my stomach felt rather funny, but I soon got over it . “ Jeremy, age 9
Prep schools are not nearly as male dominated as before when few of the schools were coeducational and the faculty at the boys schools were male. Most schools, even boys’ schools, now generally employ women for the younger forms, but still commonly have male masters for the older boys. At Ashfold, for example, the staff in the 1980s consisted of seven masters in the Upper School two mistresses and a master in the Junior School and two mistresses and a master for specialized subjects. The emphasis at many schools on games often requires male teachers with at least minimal game skills, especially with cricket, rugby, or soccer. We found relatively few female teachers teaching the older boys at boarding schools, with the exception of specialty subjects such as art, music, and French. The role of women in day schools was usually much more important and often included classes for the older children. (Patrick: Can we compare this with the state schools.) This probably reflects . the continuing commitment of the prep boarding schools to building character which many schools probably remain convinced can better be accomplished with male masters—even for the younger boys. This tradition continues despite British laws that prohibit discrimination on the part of employers on the basis of sex.
Modern teachers have had to learn to be more tactful than in the past. We suspect that here changing attitudes as well as the fact that girls are now at many previously boys' schools are largely responsible for these changes. There was a time as one headmaster explains when criticism was “accepted in the spirit it was given.” At •one time parents would be told that, “Reginald is an chronic liar.” Perhaps blunt, but certainly to the point and the boy’s parents could not be confused about their offspring’s failings. Modern parents, however, often object to such candor. Criticism now has to be obscured in fashionable jargon. Teachers now instead of saying, “Robert is appallingly untidy, might be covered by “Robert and his possessions are seldom seen together.” “Enthusiam in discussion” or “lively child” means you can’t keep him quiet. “Listens well” means that he makes no contribution to class discussions.
One has to wonder about the prep school teacher. Few English employees have jobs which make such extensive demands on their schedules. These teachers can probably say with some accuracy that they are among some of the poorest paid workers in Britain, especially if hourly pay scales were calculated. Upon retirement they will have a very modest pension and some masters who taught at boarding school may have not even built up equity in a home. Parents ‘paying the considerable school fees may not be aware that without the willingness of such teachers to work at virtual minimum wages, the fees would be considerably higher. The teachers are in effect taking vows of poverty for the opportunity to educate children from well to do and in many cases wealthy families. Most prep school teachers teach at schools where they could not possibly afford the fees, although often their children are accepted by waiving are reducing the fees. Almost all are capable of obtaining much better paid jobs with far fewer responsibilities and demands on their time. For many teachers, especially the women who usually teach the younger children, it may be only a temporary job and not perceived as a long-term career choice. Others make a conscious decision to teach as a career that they know full well will bring a very modest salary and little status in society. The great paradox of a preparatory and public school teacher is that they while they have chosen not to be upwardly mobile themselves, they are teaching at some of the country’s schools most achievement-oriented schools. There they are surrounded by children who have been sent by highly achievement-oriented upper class and upwardly mobile parents. The teacher’s actual motivations vary. Many describe their career choice as a “way of life.” Many enjoy the opportunity to teach without the disruptions and large classes that exist at state schools. Some teachers use prep schools as a refuge from racial and ethnic diversity that increase the difficulty of teaching in
state schools. Most enjoy the opportunity of working with children and the exhilaration of opening young minds to exciting new ideas. Others enjoy the pleasant surroundings and often suburban and rural surroundings.
Preparatory teachers have virtually no job security. No union represents them. Few schools offer tenure. At most schools their relationship with the headmaster can only be termed as feudal. They have few recourses if they are dismissed or fail to receive expected promotions. Despite their low pay, long hours, and tenuous status, almost all are highly dismissive of their state school counterparts who do join unions. Here class attitudes seem to be involved. Many see themselvs as professionals and believe that professionals do not join trade unions.
The success at any school in the final analysis will depend on the headmaster’s success at selecting and guiding competent staff. Headmasters appear to have increasing difficulty finding the committed individuals prepared to make the kind of total commitment that prep school masters have made in the past. Many rural boarding schools had teachers who devoted their entire lives to teaching, making it a commitment far beyond a mere career. More than one head master complained to us over an impressive pile of applications on his desk that most applicants wanted a teaching position, but had few abilities in the myriad of other skills needed. Of course, it is the teachers personal skills that are particularly important for teachers at boarding schools. Such teachers are being called on to play a much more important role in a child’s life than just teaching arithmetic. Fewer prospective teachers today are as interested in the long, poorly remunerated hours of mentoring which is such a key aspect of an effective boarding school. One headmaster told us, “I’m having increasing difficulty finding applicants with the commitment and energy, let alone the ability to be in effect temporary parents as well as good teachers.” Another headmaster confided in us, “Let’s face it. Some parents frankly have done a lousy job and they have turned over their children to us to fix the problem. It’s not an easy job and I’m having a devil of a time finding teachers that are up to the job.” Another headmaster echoed the same sentiments, “Teachers today just are unwilling to make the kind of commitment needed. It’s really a sign of the times. There’s no support out there for them, they certainly don’t get the recognition they deserve--not to mention the salary I’m able to offer.”
Many schools are happy, hard-working communities. Often some accommodations are available to teachers on the school grounds. Many boarding schools have homes for the headmaster and senior married teachers as well as more basic accommodations for junior unmarried teachers. Staff changes in the senior positions tend to be relatively rare events. Many schools will have staffs averaging 10 years or more at the school.
