WARDEN ’ S REPORT WHEN I WAS IN THE SCHOOL , IT WAS POSSIBLE TO SKETCH OUT A PLAUSIBLE VERSION OF THE FUTURE WHICH WAS MODERATELY PREDICTABLE AND , THEREFORE , RELATIVELY EASY TO PREPARE FOR . NO LONGER .
The global economy is changing rapidly and unpredictably . So are our societies . And the challenges which this environment creates for our political leaders ( not just in the UK ) are too evident for me to dwell on them . In a nutshell : we are preparing our pupils for an uncertain world , which presents us with an interesting challenge .
The OW Prime Minister has recently said that he wants everybody to study maths up to the age of 18 . This subject is clearly critical for success in many walks of life . Win Coll is doing pretty well by the Prime Minister ’ s metric : 112 boys sat A-level maths in 2022 out of a cohort of 142 . Maths is a very important subject and one which is intellectually rigorous . But that doesn ’ t automatically mean that we should encourage more than 80 % of our pupils ( last year ’ s figure ) to study it . Few ( if any ) want Winchester to become a STEM academy ; or to focus on narrow vocational outcomes ( as governments naturally tend to do ). I am very conscious , however , that William of Wykeham ’ s original Foundations had a strong vocational focus : he was aiming , above all , to prepare young men for the priesthood ( in part to fill the gaps left by the Black Death ). He therefore , for example , limited the number of students at New College allowed to study law , in order to ensure sufficient numbers studied theology .
This is an important reminder that the way the school operates today does not flow ineluctably from our original Charter . Div owes a good deal more to Kenneth Clark than to William of Wykeham . That does not affect Div ’ s value . In a sense , it is today the best way to prepare our pupils for the world they are about to enter , just as studying theology was the route to success in the fourteenth-century Church .
As others have commented , Winchester ’ s focus on developing minds which are inquisitive and challenge orthodoxy is even more important and relevant today than it was 20 or 30 years ago . Returning to maths , studying a world of such order and structure might be helpfully combined with developing an
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