Has Rap replaced Poetry? - a debate presented by Kacper Kazaniecki (Upper Sixth Former)

If I were to ask you who’s the current Poet laureate, the people’s poet, I don’t presume many of you would know. I for certain didn’t until pretty much yesterday. However, if I were to ask you who won the latest Grammy award for the best hip-hop album, I presume many more would know. 

The MP Emma Dent Coad has pointed this out in the houses of parliament after the Grenfell Tower disaster. She says:
“At times of national disaster, poet laureates are often called upon to commemorate and reflect upon events. In North Kensington we have our own Ben Johnsons and Alfred Lord Tennysons. Our poet laureates are Akala, AJ Tracey, Lowkey, Peaky .. we have Stormzy and Potent Whisper calling out what he calls “Grenfell Britain” in gut-wrenching prose."

Although the two art forms share the same fundamental medium that of rhyme and rhythm, there is a great discrepancy between how the two are perceived within society. If you were to take the average GCSE student, chances are that they wouldn’t have the greatest opinion on poetry. ‘It’s boring’, ‘the language is too confusing, ‘I can’t relate to it’ they might say, views that they wouldn’t necessarily hold of rap music. So, has rap music replaced poetry for (at least) our generation? Or is poetry the eternal art of humanity that is here to stay for millennia to come as it has done in the past. Does one deal with the depths of the human condition, that of: love, eternal truths, and our relation to the world. And does the other cover the superficial and primitive aspects of humanity that of: greed, intoxication and sexual obsession. Or maybe the two aren’t entirely antithetical, as many parallels and influences can be drawn between them.

Before we delve deeper into the analysis of both, here are some sentences either from Shakespeare or from ­popular hip-hop.  Guess which one the line comes from.

• “To destroy the beauty from which one came” – Jay z, You Must Love Me
• “Maybe it’s hatred I spew, maybe it’s food for the spirit” – Eminem, Renegade
o Later in the song Eminem says: “See, I'm a poet to some, a regular modern-day Shakespeare”
• “Men would rather use their broken records than their bare hands” – Orthello
• “I was not born under a rhyming planet” - Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
• “The most benevolent king communicates through your dreams” - Wu-Tang Clan, Impossible
• “Socrates, philosophy and hypotheses can’t define me” – Wu-Tang Clan, Triumph

The reason to play this mini-game, isn’t to cherry pick some obscure, unknown tracks just to be able to say ‘look, hip-hop has clever lines as well’. But more so to show that the boundary between the two, once the context has been removed, can be very blurred. The hip-hop bars were chosen from very well-known artists who are or were at the forefront of hip hop. Wu-Tang-Clan for example, had the first hip hop album to reach no.1 in the UK charts. Perhaps the appeal that the British audience found in the album was the resemblance to the more traditional aspect of English literature.

To read the full essay and other latest writings from Canford pupils, please visit www.canford.com/Academic-Blog

Language learning is thriving - Richard Wilson, Head of German and Other Languages

Despite the national press reporting a decline in pupil interest in learning a foreign language, Languages at Canford are thriving. The school currently offers French, German and Spanish as core subjects at IGCSE and Pre-U, and saw 145 entries at IGCSE last summer and 19 at Pre-U. Results are excellent, with on average 70% of IGCSE graded A*/A and over 70% of Pre-U examinations at D1/M1 level in these languages in 2017. 

Alongside these main languages, last year also saw the biggest ever year for the ‘Other Languages’ department. There were record numbers of native-speakers, bilingual and non-native speaking pupils learning and/or taking exams in a record ten different world languages – Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish and Urdu. Worldwide these languages are spoken by 2 billion people across four continents. A Level saw an A* in A2 Russian and As in AS Arabic, Italian and Polish and at IGCSE all examinations taken were awarded A*/A grades in Chinese, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Urdu. In addition, pupils also take the internationally recognised HSK Chinese and the JLPT Japanese language proficiency exams. On leaving Canford, many pupils also decide to study one of these languages as part of their degree at top universities. Recent languages combinations include Chinese, Spanish with Chinese, Spanish with Arabic, French and Japanese, Arabic and Ancient Greek, Italian with Danish, French with Italian, Italian and Japanese, Japanese with Russian and many more.

As one Canfordian commented:  "I love travelling to different countries and learning about new culture and I think languages will really help me in my career as now Europe is becoming very international. I am now fluent in English, Dutch and Russian, so hopefully they will guide me to many exciting career opportunities.”

It is a real pleasure to manage such a diverse range of languages and to learn about the pupils’ personal and cultural connections to them. My congratulations go to all pupils involved in our Other Languages programme and their excellent efforts.   

The Benefits of Music - Christopher Sparkhall, Director of Music

There are frequent articles in the press talking about the beneficial effects of learning a musical instrument. In recent times, music has variously been credited with developing better synaptic pathways, helping fend off dementia in later life, improving cognitive function; aiding the process of speech and language learning and more besides.

Canford is currently involved in a long-term study with the Psychology department at Goldsmiths, University of London, which is investigating whether learning a musical instrument has an effect on attitudes to academic work in teenagers and, related to that, whether it can then show an improvement in academic outcomes. Last summer, almost all of our Shell pupils sat some standardised and specially designed tests which measured aspects of their musical and academic abilities and their attitudes to work. Although the most interesting and useful conclusions will only come in several years’ time, the information from last summer’s testing provided both some helpful confirmation of things we thought were the case, as well as some useful observations which will inform some lively discussions at Canford.

There was some initial evidence for a positive impact from musical learning on academic attitudes too. As the study develops and the evidence base builds, we will continue our involvement with the project. Looking beyond the study, analysis of our own A Level and GCSE results from last summer showed that those pupils involved in learning a musical instrument and musical ensembles gained significantly better academic GCSE and A Level grades than those who were not.

As Dr Wilkinson, our Director of Studies rightly observes, “Correlation is not causation: there will be many factors behind why an individual pupil achieves the grades they do. However we can be reasonably certain that involvement in musical activity does not distract from academic work and that there may well be some substantial benefits to it beyond the purely musical.”

Inspiration Matters: Life is a balance so be yourself. Dr Patricia Gibbons - PRS department

Have you ever tried standing on one leg?  If you are Rob helping me marshal the House Cross-Country course, or part of my Upper Sixth Philosophy class, you have!  It is a bit of T’ai Chi, or preparation to be a karate kid, or practice to help walk the tight-rope at the Climbing Centre.  Physical balance, so I have found is something that needs practice.

In the outer world, so in the inner world.  What do I mean?  To be totally present in one’s body, focussing fully in order to balance, is a great exercise.  And so too, is finding balance in one’s inner world – in your thoughts and self-understanding.  What does this mean?  Well, I’m reading a lot about Carl Gustav Jung, an early psychologist at the beginning of the twentieth century.  His psychology is all about balance – about getting in touch with the various aspects on oneself, giving them each their due and finding balance.  He was the one who coined the terms ‘introvert’ and ‘extrovert’ to refer to inward looking/quiet aspects of people, and vivacious/outward-looking aspects of people.

We might think of ourselves as one or the other – a bubbly party person being an extrovert and a quiet, reflective person being an introvert.  But what Jung demonstrates is that we each have both aspects in ourselves, and we need to honour both in our lives.  We need to give ourselves times to be quiet – unplugged and solitary, as well as giving ourselves time to be with people, in company, buzzing and energetic.

I saw a book whose title was Silence: In the Age of Noise – by a Norwegian explorer, Erling Kagge who writes of his adventures in the Antarctic and of the richness of solitude – being by himself, in harmony with himself and fully attentive to his surroundings.  The bookseller recommended it, and said he thought we could all do with a bit more silence and solitude.

In my experience it takes practice to be comfortable with silence and solitude and alone-time.  We are mostly out of practice because our lives are always surrounded by people and noise and connection.  I also know, however, that there is much inner freedom to be had in silence and solitude and connection to yourself – especially in walking or hiking.  And it’s also great to connect with others – a real joy to chat with others and share life’s stories.

It's all a matter of balance.  So, happy T’ai Chi balancing on one leg, and happy finding that inner balance.  Learning to be who you are.  And you are great.

This piece was originally written to support our pupils in sport, emphasising character being essential for success, but it applies equally to all young people as they develop along the sometimes difficult road to adulthood.

Government League Tables - a note of caution. Dr Stephen Wilkinson - Director of Studies

Canford is very proud of the exam results that its pupils produce, through very hard work and determination on their part.  Whilst league tables take many forms, and are often very variable in terms of the criteria used in their compilation, we are always placed highly in relation to schools of a similar type and intake in those published in the Times and the Telegraph after the results come out in August.

The Government league tables, comparing all schools across the country, are based on different criteria, which do not take into account the academic curriculum we teach. The new 'Progress 8' measure introduced by the Government to ensure that schools don't just 'top up' their results with non-academic options such as Media Studies or Tourism and Leisure, also precludes the inclusion of IGCSE results. These more academic specifications are available to independent schools, and used by Canford in around half of the GCSEs taken by our pupils.

As a consequence, the results that our pupils gain in Maths (which is double-weighted in Progress 8), French, German, Spanish, History, Chemistry, Business, and Computing are all disregarded from the calculation of how well our pupils have fared at GCSE.   Read with caution!

A Level Results Day - keep a cool head: Michael Doherty, Head of Careers

The third Thursday in August is awaited with a mixture of eager anticipation and apprehensive dread by all Sixth Form students – A Level Results Day.

It is very important to keep a cool head and make rational decisions on a day of such frenetic activity.  Here are a few points to keep in mind:

DO’s

·         1. Have access to the internet and a phone on the day

·         2.Ensure you have your UCAS ID Number and access codes easily accessible

·         3.Check your results as early as possible to enable you to act quickly if necessary

·         4. Constantly check UCAS Track – sometimes, even if you haven’t achieved your offer grades, you can receive a place from your Firm Choice or Insurance Choice

·         5. Ensure you have signed up to the UCAS Clearing contact list so universities can contact you if you are in Clearing

If you have achieved the grades for your CF offer, confirm acceptance via UCAS Track and find out whether any further information is required.   If you are in the fortunate position to exceed your expectations and grades, you can put yourself forward for ‘Adjustment’ and contact other universities to ask about possible places available.  You have 5 days to find an alternative acceptable offer.  You might achieve the grades for your insurance offer, in which case you can either confirm acceptance via UCAS Track or, if you are having second thoughts, consider a Gap Year and reapply or find a similar course at a preferred university through Clearing.  Finally, if you don’t achieve the required grades for either offer but are still keen to go to university, you can apply through Clearing and then await confirmation via UCAS Track.  

DON’Ts 
 1. Delay – Start early and if you have no offers, act quickly to identify alternative options

·         2. Make arrangements or organise to work on the day – you may need time to resolve problems

·         3. Request a marks review of your papers without checking the grade boundaries and with your HoD first

·         4. Rush into hasty decisions and commit yourself to an option that you are not totally sure about

·         5. Ignore the help that is available at school: The Careers Department via phone or email, The Exams Officer via phone or email or Heads of Department via email

Finally, remember that deciding on a university course is a big decision so it is important that you don’t panic if you don’t get the grades you need and think clearly about whether that particular university or course is going to be right for you.

Should education be decided in the corridors of power?

According to the United Nations 57 million children globally receive no formal education. Many millions more receive only a very rough and ready education which leaves them barely able to read, write or add up. Most developed nations have cut their funding to support worldwide educational provision and the UK is now the largest direct donor to basic education but the overall situation is critical.

And yet in this country we are in real danger of losing our sense of what a high quality education should consist of. Pressure of rising pupils numbers, inflationary costs, increased costs to cover regulation and compliance has meant a projected 8% fall in per pupil funding in state schools between 2014/15 and 2019/20. 

Britain is ranked only 109th for the proportion of budget it spends on education – just below Kazakhstan and Cambodia. In 2014, the UK government spent 11.78% of its budget on education, while Zimbabwe, which came top, spent almost three times this amount. (As a benchmark, achievement of the UN’s sustainable development goals for education is calculated to require a 20% spend.). In 2015, the UK government spent 4.7% of the country’s GDP on education, down from 5.8% in 2010.

Leaving the turmoil created by recent GCSE and A Level academic curriculum developments aside, the education white paper, ‘schools that work for everyone’ , suggests yet more change on the educational horizon. But will it deliver high quality educational outcomes which serve all our young people?

One of the major reasons why independent schools are so successful is that they can and do devote significant resources to the development of the whole child both in and beyond the classroom. Independent schools such as Canford will seek to use those resources and their greater freedom of action to ensure that the educational experience we offer is driven by more than just financial expedients. We know that academically – and in a broader sense – the personal development of our young people must be rich and diverse if it is to be truly valuable and effective. Our maintained sector colleagues are just as passionate about these issues, but they are starved of resources: four out of every ten academies were in deficit last year and the number of schools with pension deficits doubled.

A high quality education is such a valuable and life-changing asset in so many ways.  Yet a narrow perspective of education and its aims has been asserting itself ever more actively in the corridors of power.

Why Independent Education matters

The ongoing tirade against independent schools in much of the national press has gathered pace in recent times and seems to be actively nudged and encouraged by politicians and journalists across the spectrum.  Even poor performances by the national football team have been attributed to the ‘over dependence on the 7% of pupils who attend private schools’ in the press. Such criticism is both unreasonable and unfounded.

Exam results open doors for the future for young people and therefore remain a key feature for future selection to higher education and the world of work.  At GCSE/IGCSE the number of A*/A grades awarded to independent school pupils in 2016 was 60%, three times the national average, while at A Level the number of entries awarded A*-A grades was over 50%, twice the national average.

This is not just a focus on the academic high flyers. Extensive and ground breaking research by Durham University published in 2016, which analysed over one million independent and maintained sector pupils’ test scores to GCSE gathered across two decades, found that ‘When student differences such as prior ability, socio economic status and average performance of a pupil’s school are taken into account, attending an independent school adds the equivalent of two additional years of schooling by the age of 16’.  In international terms that would mean that if all UK pupils performed to the level of those in the independent sector then the UK’s educational profile would rise above the highest European performers (such as Finland and the Netherlands) and would be on a par with the highest rated school systems globally.  

The enhanced academic performance extends to the Sixth Form too where DFE figures show that 37% of maintained schools add value compared to 94% of independent schools in Independent School Council (ISC) associations.

The offer rate for university applicants from HMC and GSA schools has increased steadily since 2011 and outpaced the equivalent figures for state schools. For example, Russell Group offers in response to applications from independent school pupils rose from 75% in 2013 to 80% in 2016 and Oxbridge offer rates have remained stable.

And what of the world of work?  According to recent research, 82% of independent school pupils gain a First or 2:1 degree compared to 73% of state school students, and many of the latter are from very selective maintained schools. Research by a number of institutions, including The Sutton Trust, highlights that independently educated young people move on to earn significantly more and secure high level jobs far out of proportion to their numbers.

You may have read also about the Government’s Green Paper entitled ‘Schools that work for everyone’. The ISC has just submitted a powerful and factual response which clearly demonstrates not just the positive economic and financial impact made by independent schools, but also the comprehensive and imaginative engagement of the independent sector with meaningful partnerships between independent and maintained schools. These partnerships make a real and lasting difference to young people across the board. We are very proud of Canford’s community partnership programme which was cited specifically on several occasions within the ISC report.

I am constantly astounded by the depth of talent and creativity our pupils possess, their sensitivity and humility, their confidence and purposefulness.  They say people make places, and this is certainly true at Canford.  The passion and commitment of Canford’s staff, and the strength of the working relationships they have with the pupils, combines powerfully with the spectacular range of high quality opportunities we offer, whether these be academic and intellectual, physical or creative. In turn, this ethos and vibrant learning environment ensures Canfordians develop the aspiration, ambition, curiosity and confidence which, together with crucial ‘soft skills’, constitute the raw ingredients for a fulfilling and successful life.

The Importance of Good Tutoring

Energetic and effective tutoring can change a pupil’s educational experience and life as much as high quality classroom teaching or co-curricular coaching. The needs of each individual pupil will be different, as will the needs of pupils at varying stages during their school career.  The tutor is a critical figure in helping your child to reflect on their educational journey and their learning in a frequent and focused way.  The tutoring system is also fundamental in improving communications in the parent/child/school pastoral triangle.

While it is impossible to be too prescriptive about the role, good tutoring is characterised by excellent individual knowledge of each tutee and a genuine concern for his or her wellbeing and success. Tutors need to get to know their tutees well and be fully aware of what they are doing, how and why, and also what they are not doing and why. Such awareness is essential to facilitate effective tutoring.

In part, the tutor's role is to acknowledge, praise and positively reinforce when pupils achieve both personally and, as so many do at Canford, at a school-wide, regional or national level.  But it is also crucial that pupils are encouraged to seek guidance and support when things seem to have gone off track – as will almost certainly happen on occasion throughout their school careers.  Through building a relationship based on productive and measured communication tutor and pupil can work together to identify the real extent of an issue – whether that be in terms of swiftly resolving a passing anxiety or perhaps identifying something deeper.

Time is pressured in our schools and teachers very often have many different hats to wear.  However I believe the role of the tutor should be a major priority in order to offer pupils that individual support within a broader educational context.  At Canford, it is the glue that binds together all of those key elements that constitute the education we offer.