WYKEHAM JOURNAL 2024
Woe betide a free-thinking boy or girl who unexpectedly challenges the premise of the question, or introduces an unanticipated layer of complexity to their answer!
Div, therefore, has never been more important, partly because of its freeflowing and cross-disciplinary nature, and especially because it is unexamined. Many schools attempt to introduce some kind of general‐knowledge-cum-inter-disciplinary short course into their curriculum, but our tradition of Div and its centrality to a Winchester education are unique. Again and again, OWs tell me that Div was one of the most important formative experiences of their schooling, fostering flexible habits of mind, unleashing inspirational( and often most unorthodox) dons, and developing first-class written and oral communication skills. It is a bulwark against the only vision of education that governments today are confident or willing to support: narrow, utilitarian and, frankly, boring.
Winchester has always afforded a great deal of freedom to both pupils and dons: intellectually, physically and personally. Curious and probing minds are encouraged to explore ideas far beyond the boundaries of prescribed curricula, and to do so in a way that defies the expectations of conventional thinking. The full boarding experience and long day secure swathes of time in which pupils can pursue their interests in any direction, and they are trusted to spend their free time without an adult directing the action. But this is counter-cultural.
Somewhere along the line, our society became hyper-focused on risk – bringing children indoors, imposing supervision and reducing free play and interaction, over‐reacting to remove emotional stresses instantly and inadvertently pathologising the knocks and bumps of normal life. The schools’ inspection regimes, and then the teaching profession as a whole, have responded accordingly and become highly risk-averse; and whilst a focus on the fundamentals of pupil safety and educational standards is welcome, we are now over-regulated – to a degree that was particularly striking to me as I returned to the UK a year or so ago.
Div, therefore, has never been more important, partly because of its free-flowing and cross-disciplinary nature, and especially because it is unexamined.
The cultural pendulum is starting to swing back, led by researchers such as Jonathan Haidt, but not yet far enough. In the meantime, however, we continue to back our own vision of what is best for children and adolescents, and we are drawing on high‐quality research as we do so.
Our longstanding approach of trusting in the competence and resilience of our pupils and inhibiting their freedom only where necessary is thoroughly aligned to contemporary, evidence-based practice – as you will read in these pages.
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