Developing our Hinterland and the three sentence challenge are all the talk at school this term à but just what is it all about?
Shaping a new generation of Renaissance man is our ambition at Bolton School. We aim to send young men out into the world who have had inspired in them a love for some aspect of their studies; who are well educated so they can appreciate conversation, contribute to it and generally be interesting people to meet, who have developed and nurtured a range of interests both physical and aesthetic and who, in short, are men you would never be disappointed by if you ended up sat next to them at a dinner for the evening.
And I know that we succeed in this mission since I often do end up sat next to Old Boys at an Alumni dinner for an evening and they never disappoint: they can tell a good anecdote, have had interesting lives, can ask decent questions about whatever other people are interested in and invariably are active and engaged people. It is also striking that when I introduce Old Boys speaking at school the interests they listed on their school report when I dig them out of the archives are invariably closely matched to those on their current resume or entry in WhoÆs Who. No one who works in a school doubts at all that we actively shape the future as we go about our everyday work.
This term in my Great Hall assemblies for the whole school we have been taking a huge overview of all aspects of culture to develop the Hinterlands of the boys. It was Dennis Healey who made this Germanic phrase related to the scrub land at the back of a port into a mark of distinction in an individual, by noting Mrs Thatcher did not have a Hinterland. The remark was unfair perhaps, but the concept is good û interesting people have a wide range of interests and can ask sensible questions about and appreciate areas far removed from their expertise. We had begun to notice that the pressure of external assessment, the specific and content heavy nature of the exam specifications and perhaps also the increased busyness of parents in a hectic world had led to a discernible decrease in the Hinterland of the boys. They simply did not know things we would expect people to know û about architecture, books, art, politics, law, music àin fact about whatever makes an interesting renaissance man. So rather than complain about that gap we will fill it û in tutor time, in assemblies, through activity and some changes in our enrichment lessons.
All projects need success criteria, which brings us to the three sentence rule. The aim is that any boy, any time, can have a sensible three sentence conversation with anyone about anything.
Imagine never having to meet a boring introspective person at a party ever again û surely that is a worthwhile ambition!
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