Brentwood School - Brentwoodian 2020

12 The Unforseen As stated by Leonard Susskind, “Unforeseen surprises are the rule in science, not the exception. Remember: Stuff happens.” Better words cannot be used to describe the current, unknown, and foremost, unpredictable situation we are currently facing. Within this article, the Headmaster, Mr Bond, will be responding to some questions about his thoughts and views on the impact of the Coronavirus within both the educational system as well as our society as a whole and himself. When I was planning this interview, one quotation, in particular, stood out to me, which was “Unforeseen surprises are the rule in science, not the exception. Remember: Stuff happens.” by Leonard Susskind. How appropriate do you think this science-based quotation is to our current lives? That’s a tough one; I think the last seven to eight months if they've taught us anything, have taught us about the need to be ready for anything. One of the things that we learned pretty early on in the pandemic was there was little point in planning too far ahead. It is really important to plan and to have everything in place that you can, but in the time of the Coronavirus that time frame needs to be quite short. There were many occasions earlier on where we decided something and within a few days it was obvious that it was the wrong thing to have done or to do because things had changed. I think one of the overarching things that I have learned, and we have learned, during the pandemic is to make sure that you are on the front foot and constantly ready to move, but that you don't do things too far in advance; you have to be acting and reacting fairly quickly, so I think it is a very apt quotation. Mr Bond, seeing as this is your first, well now the second year being Headmaster at Brentwood, what were your expectations at the beginning of the year? My hopes were that the decline in the Coronavirus cases nationally and internationally in the summer would continue and that by this time, the beginning of November, although not back to normal we would be back to something resembling normality. Clearly, the data has gone nationally and internationally the other way, and we are where we are. As the virus developed, how did it affect your role and which concerns did it raise for you? That’s a difficult question, how did it affect my role? At the end of the Lent term and the beginning of the Trinity term there was this urgent need to act quickly, and effectively to move the entire operation of the School online. That was a challenge. It has never been done in any school, and I think it was a challenge that Brentwood rose to fantastically well; we did it within a few days and had an online school which was extraordinary really. I still think back to that with a great sense of pride in the students and the staff for the ways in which they solved the problems that it presented. So I think back to the music concerts, and we were doing those well before any school that I'm aware of and other things like the Virtual Sports Day which was such good fun and a hugely well-supported event, not just by students and staff, but families as well. It was a privilege to be a Headmaster of a school community that really came together. Is there anything about the students’ and staff members’ reaction to this transition which surprised you? I think and I hope most people will agree that everyone - teachers and students - have actually been, or were, really delighted to be back in school in September; it is difficult and lacking some of the things that make teaching fun such as the sport fixtures or the concerts or the plays, but overall I think we are in a very good place in the sense of being open and being able to deliver what, on the whole, is a normal education. Were there any challenges which you faced due to this transition? There were lots; I think I have highlighted some of them; there were a good deal of day-to-day challenges, practical challenges such as are we allowed to do this, this or this; the guidance, that we are using doesn’t cover everything so we have to apply it and we have to decide if this is okay and that's not okay. But the other challenge is much less measurable; the other challenge is the students and staff. Clearly there are lots of different opinions in society about how and what's the right thing to do; the right way to handle and react to Coronavirus. Some people think we should carry on as normal, because the cost of locking down is worse than not doing so; others think we should absolutely lock down and stay in our homes until it's all gone away, and in between those opinions are many others. As a school, as a community it is clear and is obvious that our people, our parents, our staff are going to have all these different opinions and it's very difficult