WIDENING OUR PERSPECTIVE
THE PERSPECTIVE OF GIRL PUPILS WOULD BE ENORMOUSLY VALUABLE IN SIXTH BOOK CLASSES.
on the Arts side in Div and not enough Science— one angry argument centred upon whether it was acceptable for a pupil to leave the school without having ever studied Newton’ s Second Law, but knowing a lot about Arthur Miller or the Epic of Gilgamesh.
His own conclusion from sitting in on a number of div hours in the last few years has been that in some areas, such as the discussion of‘ the meaning of life’, the perspective of girl pupils would be enormously valuable in Sixth Book classes.‘ There are different perceptions of upbringing from mothers and fathers and so on, which would come into a discussion like that’, he goes on, and points to his own experience from kitchen table chats as the father of two sons and a daughter about the value of gender diversity in education.
Let’ s wind back a little to hear how the overall plan came into being. Ferguson argues the decision to admit girls in the sixth form was rooted in a much wider discussion.
‘ We believe the school should be slightly bigger. We are the smallest of the major public schools and being slightly larger helps in all sorts of areas from sports, to drama and to the full use of our facilities— which have been greatly improved with the new Sports Centre. Obviously there will be additional revenues from having more pupils, but there will be additional costs too. And we want to make sure we have the best possible bursary scheme to broaden our intake.’
These headline changes are rooted in a wider expansion of the College’ s bursary scheme, to allow it to raise the number and value of bursaries, including a close connection with pupils coming from local schools. The money for bursaries comes from returns on the College’ s own investments, and also from increased philanthropic giving. So what encourages people to want to give?
‘ I find that the concept of people who benefited from Winchester giving so that others can go there, who couldn’ t otherwise afford it, is a very persuasive one, and I’ ve never found people saying that’ s a silly idea,’ he says.
So far so healthy— the College’ s own investments, including some divestments of land, are in good health and making
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