‘If I can do one thing right, it’s to give them
coping strategies and teach them resilience,
to try and foster a way of opening up a
channel to discuss anything on their mind.’
Jo is fiercely protective of the boys in her
care and often keeps in touch with them after they
have left the school. As the mother of three sons, all
now in their twenties, she instinctively understands
how teenage boys work – the banter, the drama,
the mickey-taking – and has a keen eye for when
a problem is likely to blow over and when it might
indicate something more serious.
Another of her passions is mental health.
In John le Carre’s 1995 novel Our Game – the title
referring both to the espionage world and Win
Co Fo – British spy and OW Larry Pettifer airily
responds to a question about his interrogation and
imprisonment in Cuba by claiming it had been
‘a piece of cake’ after Winchester. It’s a crowd-
pleasing line: the plucky, stoic Brit with the stiff
upper lip. It’s also familiar language to many British
males: never complain, get on with it, stop being
such a wimp. It’s close to a pride in experiencing
suffering, and of course is hardly confined to
public schools; it’s been embedded into culture
for centuries. But there’s no pride in serious
depression or unhappiness.
Jo speaks movingly about the need to remove
the silence and stigma around mental health issues,
which affect one in four adults and one in ten
children in Britain, and she is one of those leading
the vanguard of such thinking at Winchester. She
stresses that serious problems are rare but that they
are becoming more common in society as a whole,
and that when they do happen at Chawker’s she
is determined to be there. ‘I’ve had boys come
with serious depression, with problems around
bereavement and more. If I can do one thing right,
it’s to give them coping strategies and teach them
resilience, to try and foster a way of opening up
a channel to discuss anything on their mind.’
She is determined not to let issues lie buried
where they can fester over the years. As part of
this, she is involved in a new course at Winchester.
This was piloted last year by Karlene Cullen, the
Lead Nurse, but is now part of the regular timetable.
The idea has been adapted from a scheme running
at Westgate School in Winchester, where it has been
successfully run for over a decade. ‘They called it
Group, but as this is Winchester, of course it’s now
known as Grex.’
Over five Grex sessions, boys are encouraged
to discuss their emotions without any judgement
in a group setting. The aim is to provide a safe
place to share their thoughts, and to learn to express
their feelings in a valuable way, to communicate
better, to treat themselves and others with respect.
The sessions are confidential, and there is no
obligation to speak if they do not wish to. Jo says
that the effect is remarkable. ‘Within a week, you
can see boys, some of whom have never boarded,
gain in confidence.’
Jo finds her job ‘immensely rewarding.’ Her
immersion in it has given her a deep insight into
how the school functions, and she is infectiously
passionate about its success. She enthuses about
the curiosity that Winchester instils in its students
and singles out Div as a driving force behind this,
a unique concept that provides a ‘structure on
which everything hangs’, with the Saturday Div task
providing a regular opportunity for boys to stretch
their analytical prowess. The fact that the subject is
not examined, which takes the pressure off but
provides a forum where a mathematician can rub
shoulders with a linguist while discussing the plays
of Tom Stoppard is, she feels, a priceless gift for life.
‘I have been told that Winchester is an elite school,’
she says, ‘but it certainly doesn’t turn out elitists.’
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The Wykeham Journal 2018 25