The Wykehamist
HM: Look, the honest answer is that I don’ t know. I don’ t personally manage the sports calendar and the allocation of fixtures. I’ m still trying to get my head around the 58 different names for our pitches, and the fact that they change names depending on what sport you’ re playing in what term is the final confounding Wykehamical barrier. [ laughs ] But if the question is really a Trojan horse to try to explore what I think of Winkies, I can perhaps address that more convincingly.
It’ s our game. It’ s at the heart of who we are. It’ s so rare, right? Schools all over the place had their own games— they’ re almost all gone. The vast majority of people don’ t have this experience of having a sport that is only played within their walls. But anyone who comes to XVs understands that this is one of the pillars of the identity of the Wykehamist. So that’ s not going to go down on my watch. I’ ll put it that way. [ laughs ] I’ m not a fool.
TD: Where do you see the greatest opportunities to improve in the coming years?
HM: I talked earlier about thinking of Winchester as a community, very close-knit and interlaced— much, much more than most schools. I think that it’ s hard for Wykehamists to realise how atypical their time is here. Most people don’ t have the richness in their school lives that Wykehamists do. Most of them don’ t feel as bonded or belonging in their school as we do. When you think about it from that point of view, the sort of change that I prefer and think is wisest is incremental change. Doing really big structural changes is fraught, because there are so many knock-on effects, so many ripples through the community, that it can be very hard to predict how things are going to be affected. And it affects people’ s whole lives. Occasionally, you have to do something really big, but I would always prefer incremental improvement, just ratcheting it up year by year and doing a little bit more, a little bit more, rather than some big sea change. That tends to be, on the whole, less successful. Wykehamists lead busy lives. There are areas where we don’ t make compromises that other schools do. We hold you up to a higher standard. We do the same with our dons and our staff, and the extent of what we ask of them is extraordinary. So I’ m not really a fan of introducing any stress that I don’ t have to. Think about what we’ ve got on our plate already. We have got to see through this introduction of girls into VIBk. We’ ve done it in small numbers with girls as day pupils, and we’ re about to open first one boarding house, then another boarding house. That’ s a significant expansion of VIBk, and that’ s got to be done very thoughtfully. You want to create the opportunity for that sixth form to mix and integrate successfully. But every
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