Ed Griffiths
Deputy Head Pastoral, Wimbledon High School
Schools, fundamentally, are determined and directed by the needs of students. But when we articulate those needs into practical application, what do we mean by “students”? Are we referring to the collective mass of young people in our schools, or to the specific, tailored, nuanced needs of individual students in our care? This question - and indeed, this tension - is at the heart of education: a standing item on any decision-making matrix.
Attend any Open Day in the next few years and most Heads worth their salt will, at some stage, discuss the importance of two fundamental pillars in the success of a school: Relationships and Culture. But dig a little deeper into the practicalities of how these principles are inculcated and engendered, and a challenge emerges: the strategies for developing strong relationships and a positive culture are often in direct competition.
Relationships - horizontal and vertical - are integral to all aspects of a school. From classroom learning to safeguarding disclosures, students feeling known, heard, and understood is not just a “nice to have,” but a critical aim. In his brilliant book on the science of motivating young people, Dr David Yeager emphasises that for the adolescent brain to flourish, young people need consistent signals from the adults around them. Signals of belonging and growth - a mentor mindset - are fundamental. At Wimbledon High, we encourage students to identify at least one trusted adult in school to whom they can turn. As a small school, with our footprint determining no more than 100 students per year group, we can genuinely place the individual at the heart of all we do.
Yet for relationships to flourish, they must be built on solid ground. A strong culture is imperative to the bedrock of a school. It is not optional, it is essential. Culture is also unique. Even schools with similar styles and settings can have vastly different cultures, shaped by a potent mix of internal factors - students, traditions, history - and external ones such as societal and political shifts. Culture is not built through flash-in-the-pan events or the charisma of a visionary Head. It is cultivated over time by the collective force of students, staff, and parents who believe in and buy into the school’s ethos. This is why culture is so difficult to change. To shift it, one must look beyond the individual and consider the impact on the collective.
So how can schools encourage the growth of relationships and culture in tandem? Like Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, it might seem that the more you focus on one, the less you know of the other. But this is a reductive view. Every decision in a school sits somewhere on a continuum, from prioritising the individual to considering the collective: do you insist on school uniform for the benefit of fostering a sense of community or have none, allowing a perception of an individual’s freedom of expression; do the collective benefits of congregational singing outweigh the individual’s right for voice – or non-voice -in the classroom, does ensuring all students have a voice compete with allowing others to engage as enthusiastically as they might wish? All of these are questions being asked all the time in schools.
At Wimbledon High, we balance collective assemblies with the relationship-building power of 1:1 tutor sessions. We also reflect deeply on this paradox in our policies. Our zero-tolerance approach to mobile phones in the Lower and Middle School has been well-received, but at what cost? Might we be curbing individual students’ ability to make independent decisions - including mistakes - within the safe confines of school?
Ultimately, the paradox of the individual versus the collective is not a problem to be solved, but a dynamic to be managed. The most thoughtful schools are those that embrace this tension, recognising that education is not a binary choice but a nuanced position between individual personal growth and communal belonging. The challenge lies not in choosing one over the other, but in curating an environment where both can thrive.